toksien

Toksien is a constructed language created for a fictional world. In the setting, it is spoken by the Toks people of the Toksia archipelago and nearby coastlands. The term also refers to the culture surrounding the language.

Within the world’s linguistics, Toksien is placed in the hypothetical Tokarian language family. It is an agglutinative, subject–object–verb language with postpositions and a rich case system. The phonology comprises about 18 consonants and six vowels, with vowel harmony and no phonemic tone. Syllables are typically CV, with occasional CVC forms; stress is usually penultimate.

Grammatical features include evidential mood, tense-aspect markers on the verb, and noun incorporation in some dialects. Nouns show case endings for definite/indefinite and grammatical functions; adjectives generally follow nouns. The writing system uses a featural syllabary known as Toks Script, though many speakers also use Latin script for practical writing.

Historical notes: Proto-Toksien is dated to around the first millennium, with expansion through trade routes across the archipelago. The modern standard form emerged from early 19th-century reforms by scholars and poets who codified orthography and grammar. In current use, Toksien exists in formal education, literature, and media within the story world, while regional dialects exhibit phonological and lexical variation.

Dialects: Northern, Southern, and Island dialects; bilingualism with neighboring Lirin language is common. The language encodes ritual speech and oral epics, and storytelling remains an important cultural practice.