tienila

Tienila is a constructed language (conlang) designed for linguistic study and speculative fiction. It was developed by a loose community of language enthusiasts starting in 2010, and by 2020 had a published grammar and dictionary. The language is intended to be regular, expressive, and approachable for learners.

Phonology and writing: Tienila has five vowels and a set of consonants that avoid complex consonant clusters. The phoneme inventory includes p, t, k, m, n, s, l, r, f, h and the vowels a e i o u. Stress typically falls on the penultimate syllable. The standard writing system uses the Latin alphabet with optional diacritics for vowel quality. Syllables are usually CV or CVN.

Grammar: Tienila is largely agglutinative. Nouns have no grammatical case; plurality is indicated by a suffix -en, and definiteness by a separate determiner preceding the noun. Adjectives follow the noun and agree in number. Verbs are not conjugated for person or number; tense and aspect are expressed with particles before the verb, such as ta for past and se for future. The basic word order is subject–object–verb (SOV). Pre-nominal modifiers precede the noun.

Usage and resources: The language has an online grammar, a learner's dictionary, and community forums. It is used in a range of hobbyist contexts, including language games, short fiction, and hobbyist linguistics projects. Tienila is often studied as an example of regular morphology and learnable syntax in conlang communities.

Etymology: The name Tienila blends elements from the language's internal lexicon and is not tied to any real-world language.