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Enterprise, Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager are registered trademarks of Paramount Pictures Corporation. The Baen Books' Ringworld novels by Larry Niven and The Man-Kzin Wars novels by Larry Niven, Poul Anderson, Jerry Pournelle, S.M. Stirling, Dean Ing, Greg Bear, Donald Kingsbury, Thomas T. Thomas, Mark O. Martin, Gregory Benford, Hal Colebatch, and Paul Chafe are copyrighted by Larry Niven, Poul Anderson, Jerry Pournelle, S.M. Stirling, and Dean Ing. No infringement upon these or any other copyrights or trademarks is intended.
Larry Niven is the creator of the feline aliens known as Kzinti. Over the decades he, and others, have been writing about them, little of their language has come to light. These webpages try to remedy that.
The Kzinti Language
The Kzinti Heroes Tongue is a constructed language (also known as an artificial or planned language) of a fictional alien species of intelligent tiger-like felines. The Kzinti are bound by honor, refuse to lie, are carnivorous predators, tend to scream and leap to the attack before thinking things out.
The Heroes' Tongue
The Kzinti language is known as the "Heroes Tongue" by all Kzinti. To human ears it sounds like a series of growlings and furious spitting. Word form and intonation are crucial to determining meaning.
Script
Most humans consider the characters representing the Kzinti language to be nothing more than dots
and commas. They do somewhat resemble dots and commas, but they are not quite the same, and are formed into
simple geometric patterns. An example of the first type of script, created by Daniel U. Thibault, (as well as information about their
society, government, history, etc.) can be found on the new Kzin Home Page
Peculiarities
Few Kzinti have names like other races. Rather, they are referred to by their occupation (Fixer-of-Engines (an engineer), Speaker-to-Animals (an ambassador), or Finder-of-the-way (a navigator)). Kzinti that have earned some status and honor are allowed to take on a partial name (like Chuft-Captain), usually by placing the deed for which they are honored as a sort of prefix to their occupation, and (in English at least) capitalizing it. Kzinti royalty and nobility have a second, or lineage name, and are generally given their prefix name by their sire, or other responsible male. Dukes, Counts, Marquis, and Barons are important leaders within the Kzinti government, but it is from the lineage of the Patriarch that rulers of the Kzinti Hegemony arise. The lineage name for those born in the Patriarch's family is "-Rrit".
Kzinti verbs have several moods: factual, inferior-superior, intransitive, royal, submissive, superior-inferior, supposition, and transitive. Information about Kzinti society and history in the Star Trek Universe of Star Fleet Battles can be found at the Kzinti History link below.
Kzinti History
Return to Kzinti Language Index
Other Kzinti Links
The Old Kzin Home Page
The New Kzin Home Page
Galactic Center: Kzinti Hegemony
My SFB Races and Rules and SSD's
Star Fleet Battles Nexus (some Kzinti material, especially on ships, can be found here)
