Talnanian

Talnanian
ᠯᠢᠨᠸᠠ ᠲᠠᠯᠨᠠᠨᠶᠠᠨᠠ linva talnanyana
Flag of Talnania
Pronunciation	[ˈlinva talnaˈɲana]
Created by	Nehster9
Date	2026
Setting	Alt-history Mongolia
Ethnicity	Talnanians
Native speakers	33.8 million (2025)
Language family	Indo-European Italic Eastern Romance Talnanian
Early forms	Old Latin Vulgar Latin Proto-Romance
Standard form	Standard Capitalian Talnanian
Dialects	Valese Inner Talnanian
Writing systems	Mongolian Latin Braille
Official status
Official language in	Talnania
Regulated by	Talnanian Academy

Talnanian (endonym: ᠯᠢᠨᠸᠠ ᠲᠠᠯᠨᠠᠨᠶᠠᠨᠠ, linva talnanyana [ˈlinva talnaˈɲana]​) is a Romance language spoken by the Talnanians. Compared to other Romance languages, Talnanian has derived a substantial portion of its vocabulary from Mongolian and Persian, owing to the language's primary presence in Talnania. There are approximately 13.8 million speakers worldwide.

Talnanian is partially inspired aesthetically by Romanian, which is its closest relative. Uniquely, it features heavier palatalization relative to Romanian (and indeed most other Romance languages). Furthermore, the language has lost noun declension. In spite of this, vowels are relatively conservative, and the neuter is preserved. It aims to showcase what would happen if Balkan Romance speakers had migrated to real-world Mongolia along the Silk Road.

Phonology

Consonants

Consonant phonemes

		Labial	Dental/ Alveolar	Alveolo-palatal/ Palatal	Velar
Nasal		m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Plosive	voiceless	p	t		k
	voiced	b	d		g
Fricative	voiceless	f	s		x
	voiced	v	z
Affricate	voiceless		t͡s
	voiced			d͡ʑ
Approximant			l	ʎ
Rhotic			r

Phonetic notes:

• The phoneme [j] is an allophonic variant of /ʎ/ occurring at the end of a syllable. In the Valese dialect, it is instead realized as [l].
• The Talnanian rhotic can be realized in a variety of ways. They are as follows:
  • alveolar trill [r], found in most areas except for Vallia and Inner Talnania.
  • alveolar tap [ɾ], found in north Inner Talnania.
  • alveolar approximant [ɹ], which is the default realization in Vallia and south Inner Talnania, and the most common across all dialects after a consonant.
• The phonemes /m, b, x/ are only found in loanwords such as masina /maˈsina/ 'car' (Russian mašína), bilet /biˈlet/ 'ticket' (Russian bilét), or qaran /xaˈran/ 'east' (Middle Persian xvarōfrān).

Vowels

Vowel phonemes

	Front	Back
Close	i (ɪ)	u
Mid	e (ε)	ɔ (o)
Open	a

Phonetic notes:

• Like Spanish, Standard Capitalian Talnanian dropped the Latin distinction between close-mid and open-mid vowels. /ε, o/ became /e, ɔ/. Compare čera /ˈt͡sera/ 'land' and sole /ˈsɔle/ 'sun' with the Spanish cognates tierra /ˈtjera/ and sol /sol/, and the Italian cognates terra /ˈtɛr.ra/ and sole /ˈso.le/, having the same meanings.
  • Vallese Talnanian instead merged /ɔ/ into /o/, yielding /ˈsole/.
  • Older speakers of Inner Talnanian have preserved the close-mid and open-mid vowel distinction completely, yielding /ˈt͡sεra/ and /ˈsole/. Among younger speakers of Inner Talnanian, the close-mid and open-mid pairs are in free variation.
• Likewise, historical /ɪ/ merged into /i/, i.e. in /in/.
  • Inner Talnanian preserves this distinction with no free variance, i.e. /ɪn/.

Orthography

Talnanian can be written in one of two scripts, Mongolian and Latin scripts.

Letter	Name	IPA	Notes
ᠠ Aa	ᠠ a [ˈa]	/a/
ᠪ Bb	ᠪᠡ be [ˈbe]	/b/	exclusively found in borrowings
ᠺ Cc	ᠺᠡ ce [ˈke]	/k/
ᠴ Čč	ᠴᠡ če [ˈt͡se]	/t͡s/
ᠳ Dd	ᠳᠡ de [ˈde]	/d/
ᠡ Ee	ᠡ e [ˈe]	/e/
ᠹ Ff	ᠡᠹ ef [ˈef]	/f/
ᠭ Gg	ᠭᠡ ge [ˈge]	/g/
ᠢ Ii	ᠢ i [ˈi]	/i/
ᠯ Ll	ᠡᠯ el [ˈel]	/l/
ᠨ Nn	ᠡᠨ en [ˈen]	/n/
ᠮ Mm	ᠡᠮ em [ˈem]	/m/	exclusively found in borrowings
ᠨᠶ ny	ᠨᠶᠡ nye [ˈɲe]	/ɲ/	digraph
ᠣ Oo	ᠣ o [ˈɔ]	/ɔ/
ᠣ Uu	ᠣ u [ˈu]	/u/
ᠫ Pp	ᠫᠡ pe [ˈpe]	/p/
ᠬ Qq	ᠬᠤ qu [ˈxu]	/x/	exclusively found in borrowings
ᠷ Rr	ᠡᠷ er [ˈer]	/r/
ᠰ Ss	ᠡᠰ es [ˈes]	/s/
ᠲ Tt	ᠲᠡ te [ˈte]	/t/
ᠸ Vv	ᠸᠡ ve [ˈve]	/v/
ᠶ Yy	ᠢ ᠭᠷᠡᠺᠠ i greca [i ˈgreka]	/ʎ/, [j~l]
ᠵ Zz	ᠵᠡᠲᠠ zeta [ˈd͡ʑeta]	/d͡ʑ/
ᠽ sz	ᠽᠡᠲᠠ szeta [ˈzeta]	/z/	exclusively found in borrowings; in the Latin script it is a digraph

Grammar

Nouns

Every Talnanian noun belongs to one of three genders: masculine, feminine, or neuter. When a noun regards the living, the grammatical gender usually corresponds to the referent. Such words are said to be natural gender. For example, a male teacher is il ziascalo, while a female teacher is la ziascalo. The plural is usually formed by adding -s to the end of the word. However, if the word ends in a consonant cluster like that would produce an illegal collision with /s/, -es is used. For example, the plural of apa is apas, while the plural of poist is poistes.

Verbs

Verbs in Talnanian are the only part of speech that exhibit extensive morphology retained from Latin. They conjugate for person, number, mood, and tense. Talnanian is a fusional language.

Indicative mood

The indicative mood is used to denote a factual statement. Four tenses are used in the indicative: present, imperfect, past, and future. For example:

• Suy veclu (I am old)
• Vizinus la masina (We saw the car)

Indicative forms of the regular -ere verb vizere ('to speak')

	Singular			Plural
	1st	2nd	3rd	1st	2nd	3rd
	yo	tu	il/ila/lu	nos	vos	ilos/ilas
Present	vizo	vizes	vizet	vizenus	vizečis	vizen
Imperfect	vizan	vizas	vizat	vizanus	vizačis	vizan
Past	vizi	vizisti	vizit	vizinus	vizistis	vizerun
Future	vizerio	vizeres	vizeret	vizerenus	vizerečis	vizeren

Indicative forms of the regular -are verb donare ('to give')

	Singular			Plural
	1st	2nd	3rd	1st	2nd	3rd
	yo	tu	il/ila/lu	nos	vos	ilos/ilas
Present	dono	donas	donat	donanus	donačis	donan
Imperfect	donan	donas	donat	donanus	donačis	donan
Past	donai	donaisti	donait	donainus	donaistis	donerun
Future	donario	donares	donaret	donarenus	donarečis	donaren

Indicative forms of the regular -ire verb ozire ('to hear')

	Singular			Plural
	1st	2nd	3rd	1st	2nd	3rd
	yo	tu	il/ila/lu	nos	vos	ilos/ilas
Present	ozo	ozis	ozit	ozinus	ozičis	oziun
Imperfect	ozian	ozias	oziat	ozianus	oziačis	ozian
Past	ozi	ozisti	ozit	ozinus	ozistis	ozierun
Future	ozirio	ozires	oziret	ozirenus	ozirečis	oziren