Eleena
The Eleena [e'le:na] are the native people of the Tannaean province of Arithia, and have been ruled by the Areth for almost two thousand years, broken only by the fall of the Lazeian Empire, in the aftermath of which it was conquered by the Andu Empire, and by the Devolution Act of 1979 CIE, which federalised Arithia and effectively accorded the Eleena self-government for the first time in their recorded history.
The Eleena speak Tannaean, which they call Eleena kuuvo or "Eleena language".
Names
The appellation Eleena (spelt in Arithide as "Elēna") is the Eleena autonym, and was adopted only in recent years as part of a general trend towards political correctness, which deemed the traditional Arithide name for the race, Tann or Tanno, too tainted by racist and other prejudicial overtones. While the ethnonym was successfully changed to Eleena, attempts to remask Tannaīde, the name of the language, as Elēnīde have been underwhelming, and the toponyms Tannaea and Tannea have also proved surprisingly resistant to change.
The etymology of the name is unclear, although theories have been floated that the name is related variously to ileenäätä "to long for home", löynö northern dialectal for "people, folk", and Alailä the Tannaean name for Mount Rorchit, among others.
