Language

The Ilinijan Language

A constructed language rooted in Serbo-Slavonic and Church Slavonic.

Ilinijan is the official language of the Empire. It draws its grammar and vocabulary from Serbo-Slavonic and Church Slavonic, but follows its own alphabet and orthographic rules. Familiarity with a Slavic language helps, but the writing rule is intentionally simple: write as you say it, in your own accent.

"Write as you say it — in your own accent."

The Alphabet

The Ilinijan alphabet maps each Latin/Cyrillic letter to its own glyph. The reference chart below was drawn by hand by Emperor Ilija.

The Ilinijan alphabet.
Reference: the Ilinijan alphabet — original hand-drawn chart.

Accents & Special Characters

A small set of diacritics and marks extend the alphabet to capture stress, length, doubling and iotisation.

ѱ̀
Strong accent A loud, primary accent on the vowel.
ѱ̇
Soft accent A softer, secondary accent. If a word already contains a strong accent, this mark may keep it.
ѱ̈
Doubled letter Indicates a doubled letter — for example, "aa".
ѱ̑
Long letter A long/lengthened vowel — for example, "a͡a".
j͡e
Letter merge The merge mark binds two letters together, usually involving "j" — for example, "j͡e".
ѡ҃
Iotization mark Placed on the last consonant of a word to make it quieter or iotised (similar in role to the Russian soft sign "ь").

Iotization examples

The iotization mark ҃ on the final consonant of a word softens or iotises that consonant — equivalent in role to the Russian soft sign ь.

ѡ҃   𑇞҃   𐐸҃   ᥈҃   զ҃

šь · mь · čь · lь · bь