Conlang relay [relocated] (aka "The Cursed Relay")

[tron cat]

That is fine, however, there is a condition: I design the sound changes up to -500 Y.P. - but you are free to design grammar etc., and, the Peninsular language that comes to dominate the island pre-Huyfárah is from a branch adjacent to Lotoka, rather than from the same branch.

That's fine. By the way, has anything on Proto-Peninsular/Lotoka been made available online or is it still in progress?

Now, as for the name... *ŋutax-n-ptalu (forest-ATTR.GEN-island) perhaps? After sound changes it should be something like /mutA:nA~:tOju/.

Not too sure about this.. mostly because that island is massive, and explorers would probably not recognise it as an island until much later, depending on their technological ability.

[Zhen Lin]

Wait, which island are you talking about? The one in the middle of the bay? It's not that big. Maybe, a more modern construction like /wAnEnu~tEjE~/ (bay-PART.GEN-middle) < *fmana-hŋ talam?

Anyway, no, there's nothing published of Proto-Peninsular yet, let alone Lotoka. Still working on it.

[tron cat]

That name sounds good. I've added it to the Kneequickie page.

As for the size, well, it was hard to tell without a scale. I figured it was about the size of Ireland.

edit: Okay, yeah, what I said was stupid regardless. Obviously they're going to figure out it's an island pretty quick.
edit2: a mapfriend has informed me that, judging by the degrees on the original Ranradius map, it's about the size of Sardinia.

[Legion]

I found this and that back.

[Zhen Lin]

edit2: a mapfriend has informed me that, judging by the degrees on the original Ranradius map, it's about the size of Sardinia.

Hmm, Sardinia? But then, what size does this make Athalē? The maximum north-south extent of the empire is about 15°, about the size of Italy... Could we have an estimate of the land area (in km²) and population (broken down by city if possible) please?

Also, not to delve into altconhistory, but what if Huyfárah and Athalē had merged instead? Then we'd have something more comparable to the pre-breakup Roman Empire, with Rome proper and Byzantium... (what is the etymology of Byzantium anyway?)

[Legion]

edit2: a mapfriend has informed me that, judging by the degrees on the original Ranradius map, it's about the size of Sardinia.

Hmm, Sardinia? But then, what size does this make Athalē? The maximum north-south extent of the empire is about 15°, about the size of Italy... Could we have an estimate of the land area (in km²) and population (broken down by city if possible) please?

Hm, Radius told me for reference that the Dageam islands were approximatly the size of Corsica...

[Salmoneus]

At a rough estimate, I'd say Athale was 600-650 thousand square miles - around the level of Ukraine, Somalia, Botswana, CAR or Afghanistan.

[Zhen Lin]

Hmm, that makes it somewhere between 100 BC and 50 BC Rome...

[zompist]

I added a number of new Faraghin words (so I could borrow them into Fáralo):

http://www.almeopedia.com/index.php/Faraghin

Aaaand here are the new words in Fáralo (in red in the lexicon):

http://www.zompist.com/faralo2.htm

[dunomapuka]

Looks awesome. And obviously is a little added texture to the language, for when I'm constructing its daughter.

Meanwhile, I am busy formulating some history of the [Second] Huyfarahan Golden Age, and its subsequent downfall.

[Radius Solis]

Awesome indeed. With 1012 words, you move into first place for biggest lexicon, Zomp. But by a slim margin: Pencek has exactly 1000 in its dictionary.

[Zhen Lin]

Actually, Ayāsthi has 1081 words, but some of those are toponyms/ethnonyms/particles/conjunctions.

[kodé]

Jeez, sorry it's been so long, guys. I was netless over (American) Thanksgiving. I did, however, do some sound changes on Proto-Western...

If no one else has claimed it, then I will request the challenge of deriving Gezoro (and Tjakori, too?) and then working on conhistory for those speakers.

It's all yours. The only conditions attached to the challenge are:

a) you take Gezoro *and* Tjakori (it's not impossible that Tjakori is actually descended *from* Gezoro- i.e. those speakers who were never Edakised. If you want to do this, feel free to offer up Tjakori for someone else to derive)

Sweet. I can do that.

b) that the phoneme inventory of Gezoro you end up with is /p t k ph th kh b d g s ts x z w j n m N l r a a: e e: i i: o o: u u:/

Ah, well I guess that means the sound changes I've been working on will have to be for Tjakori, not Gezoro.

c) that you include the current Gezoro words/morphemes from the Adata lexicon (or Gezoro words which can give the Adata reflexes by means of established regular soundchanges.

d) that you stay within established perameters for Gezoro culture. i.e. don't make them matriarchal, neolithic, hunting-gathering monotheists when it's already known that they were iron-using, patriarchal, horse-riding polytheists.

Can do.

[Radius Solis]

In the interest of helping orient newer participants, I hereby present my account of the External History of Akana. Suggestions/edits welcome.

[Cedh]

I have a few questions that popped up during sketching out my Hitatc language. They are mostly about the historical setting:

- Could the Hitatc peoples originate from the Etewg Peidaem forest, and adopt a nomadic steppe lifestyle just a few hundred years before Tsinakan? How likely is it they'd be able to replace nomadic groups present in the Milīr valley already if they do not practice agriculture themselves? (If they could, I'd have to redraw my -4000 map once again, but it would allow me to place proto-Hitatc fairly late while still creating the opportunity for a separate coastal branch that could interact with Naidda, Puoni, and the peninsular languages. Which would be good because Imperial Adāta will kill off most Hitatc languages in the Milīr region.)

- How long do you think the dialects of several related but distinct nomadic tribes in an area of about the size of England could/would remain mutually comprehensible?

@ Radius: Are inflected prepositions (present in both Naidda and Pencek) supposed to be there due to a Miwan substrate, or is it a coincidence, or something else entirely? Might this be an areal feature shared by Hitatc?

[Radius Solis]

@ Radius: Are inflected prepositions (present in both Naidda and Pencek) supposed to be there due to a Miwan substrate, or is it a coincidence, or something else entirely? Might this be an areal feature shared by Hitatc?

I'd certainly envisioned the region having some shared areal features. It would be nifty if inflected prepositions were among them. But that would require Miwan languages use them (Naidda and Pencek are unlikely to borrow much from each other directly), and I hesitate to define anything else about Miw until Corumayas gets done providing a historical basis for them. Other traits common in the linguistic area:

* having both voiced and voiceless stops and fricatives, and no other distinction factor for main obstruent series (Naidda, Faralo, Miwan, Puoni)
* relatively vocalic phonology that does not permit obstruents at the ends of words, with limited cluster tolerance (Naidda, Miwan, Puoni)
* clauses often or always begin with an auxiliary that can or must show polypersonal agreement (Naidda, Faralo, Puoni, not sure about Miwan)

Naidda doesn't really have any major substrate influences that aren't shared by the whole Edastean family; the Ndak have dominated Kasca for over 2000 years by that point.

[Cedh]

I'd certainly envisioned the region having some shared areal features. It would be nifty if inflected prepositions were among them. But that would require Miwan languages use them (Naidda and Pencek are unlikely to borrow much from each other directly), and I hesitate to define anything else about Miw until Corumayas gets done providing a historical basis for them.

I'd definitely support this, and I'm sure nothing we know about the Eige-Isthmus languages so far actually prohibits it.

Other traits common in the linguistic area:

* having both voiced and voiceless stops and fricatives, and no other distinction factor for main obstruent series (Naidda, Faralo, Miwan, Puoni)
* relatively vocalic phonology that does not permit obstruents at the ends of words, with limited cluster tolerance (Naidda, Miwan, Puoni)
* clauses often or always begin with an auxiliary that can or must show polypersonal agreement (Naidda, Faralo, Puoni, not sure about Miwan)

In its current state, Proto-Wan-Mlir has:

* voiced and voiceless stops, but only one fricative series (unvoiced by default). Voiced stops show some affinity to nasals.
* mostly (C)CV with frequent clusters and few restrictions on their formation
* no personal agreement on the verb at all, but an elaborate pronoun system. And SVO word order.

It's located along the southwestern edge of the forest, so the Wan-Mlir branch (western Hitatc) won't be in direct contact with either of Naidda, Fáralo and Puoni. It's of different genetic origin anyway, and two millennia earlier, so it doesn't have to share all the areal features. But I'll be happy to provide some possible links...

[Corumayas]

There's a lot I wanted to reply to from the past several days of posts, so this will be kind of long and rambling. Sorry.

Etou III's heir (name?) did not share his father's hatred of the Epuonim.

Gadein II or Etou IV, maybe?

The absorption of Kasca and Buruja as client states (328) prompted some to emigrate those areas as well.

*Changes "ca 330" to "328" on timeline.*

Also, I have little idea what the specifics of Etuge are. I'm not sure that has ever been gone into.

Etuge is the Huyfarah version of the Ntua religion created by Rory. There is a long description of its philosophical principles in the grammar of the Mûtsipa' language: http://www.r0ry.co.uk/mutsipsa%27.html

Ayup. Once you get to Mûsaso you can stop reading. The Fáralo were converted by followers of Sútupaj and didn't follow later developments.

But maybe the later developments could influence other groups, or reach Huyfarah much later? It might be interesting if some of the barbarian groups that invade later on followed a different form of Ntû'a, for instance.

I found this and that back.

Oh, awesome. I've been curious about that. And its opening notes contain some info that we can add to our history! If I'm correlating the dates correctly, it gives the following:

ca -1600: Proto-Isles speakers begin migrating from mainland to islands
ca -1000: civilization emerges in islands (perhaps through contact with mainland civs?)
ca -100: rise of classical island cultures

This may have implications for when the Peninsular-speakers spread across the bay, since they're supposed to have been there before the Thoktunèhotà speakers arrived...

An unanswered question is where the Proto-Isles speakers originated from. My best guess is the continent to the southeast, where brandrinn's Zele is marked...?

At a rough estimate, I'd say Athale was 600-650 thousand square miles - around the level of Ukraine, Somalia, Botswana, CAR or Afghanistan.

Hmm, that makes it somewhere between 100 BC and 50 BC Rome...

I wonder if we should make it somewhat larger at its peak. It should probably overlap some of Huyfarah's territory before or after that empire peaks; and maybe it could expand further into Tjakori and/or Hitatc territory...

I added a number of new Faraghin words (so I could borrow them into Fáralo):

http://www.almeopedia.com/index.php/Faraghin

Neat! I've made a list of potential partially-reconstructed Proto-Isthmus roots back-derived from this, which I'll post if anyone wants to see it. (It's full of variables for sounds that are the outcome of multiple possibilities, so it's not exactly pretty to look at).

I'd certainly envisioned the region having some shared areal features. It would be nifty if inflected prepositions were among them. But that would require Miwan languages use them (Naidda and Pencek are unlikely to borrow much from each other directly), and I hesitate to define anything else about Miw until Corumayas gets done providing a historical basis for them.

I haven't got far enough yet that there's any risk of contradicting something I've already done. And I'm certainly open to suggestions. Are you thinking that some of these areal traits go way back, to the point of possibly being found in Ngauro too? (None of them are things I was-- so far-- thinking of including in Ngauro...)

My basic assumptions at this point are as follows:
-The Miwan dialects that Puoni and Pencek borrowed from are spoken during the first millenium YP.
-They're descendents of the language that Naidda borrowed from, which I've been calling "Old Miwan", and which is probably roughly contemporary with Faraghin and Ferajin as described by zompist and Radius (so ca. -1500-1000), or maybe a little later.
-The common ancestor of all Miwan languages, Proto-Miwan, is probably roughly contemporary with Proto-Isthmus, if we assume that the Miwan tribes expanded up the Eige before the Ndak moved into Latsomo (so ca. -3000).
-Proto-Miwan is very closely related to Old Ngauro (also ca. -3000); perhaps they're rural and urban, or southern and northern, or upriver and delta varieties of a single dialect continuum.
-Proto-Eige valley is thus not too much before -3000. Perhaps -4000 at the earliest. Proto-Eige-Isthmus is maybe -5000 or -6000 then.

I'm debating whether it'd be worthwhile to comb the old Naidda lexicon for non-Ndak Ta derived words to try to find the borrowings from "Old Miwan". It seems like more trouble than it's probably worth, given that that version of Naidda is being scrapped anyway; on the other hand, it would be awfully nice to have more information on the Miwan family.

[Radius Solis]

I'd certainly envisioned the region having some shared areal features. It would be nifty if inflected prepositions were among them. But that would require Miwan languages use them (Naidda and Pencek are unlikely to borrow much from each other directly), and I hesitate to define anything else about Miw until Corumayas gets done providing a historical basis for them.

I haven't got far enough yet that there's any risk of contradicting something I've already done. And I'm certainly open to suggestions. Are you thinking that some of these areal traits go way back, to the point of possibly being found in Ngauro too? (None of them are things I was-- so far-- thinking of including in Ngauro...)

My basic assumptions at this point are as follows:
-The Miwan dialects that Puoni and Pencek borrowed from are spoken during the first millenium YP.
-They're descendents of the language that Naidda borrowed from, which I've been calling "Old Miwan", and which is probably roughly contemporary with Faraghin and Ferajin as described by zompist and Radius (so ca. -1500-1000), or maybe a little later.
-The common ancestor of all Miwan languages, Proto-Miwan, is probably roughly contemporary with Proto-Isthmus, if we assume that the Miwan tribes expanded up the Eige before the Ndak moved into Latsomo (so ca. -3000).
-Proto-Miwan is very closely related to Old Ngauro (also ca. -3000); perhaps they're rural and urban, or southern and northern, or upriver and delta varieties of a single dialect continuum.
-Proto-Eige valley is thus not too much before -3000. Perhaps -4000 at the earliest. Proto-Eige-Isthmus is maybe -5000 or -6000 then.

I'm debating whether it'd be worthwhile to comb the old Naidda lexicon for non-Ndak Ta derived words to try to find the borrowings from "Old Miwan". It seems like more trouble than it's probably worth, given that that version of Naidda is being scrapped anyway; on the other hand, it would be awfully nice to have more information on the Miwan family.

Hmm, well. Several things to respond to:

- I would assume that the Miwan dialect Puoni borrowed from is indeed a direct descendent of the one Naidda borrowed from, due to their geographical location... basically, the dialect Naidda borrowed from would have had to have been spoken in the very same area that Puoni now occupies (Kuaguatia, the region along the SW fringe of Kasca that transitions into the forest zone). However I'm not sure the dialect Pencek borrowed from is likely to also be a direct descendent... Tah Ici is on the other side of the forest, it's western instead of eastern fringe. And the forest is supposed to be the main dialect-continuum zone, so my guess is that the Pencek-source dialect was already distinct in Naidda's era.

- I don't know how far the areal traits go back or where they originated (which is typically the case in the real world as well) and I'm content to leave it a mystery unless someone wants to sketch it out. If you weren't envisioning including any of them in Ngauro, then don't! The Ngauro ball is in your court...

- The Miwan borrowings into Naidda were never actually listed on the old grammar page... I did them later and never updated the site. I'm sorry for not making that clearer sooner; I hope you didn't waste any labor looking for these loans.

- At this point you really do have all the available information on everything ever described for the whole E-I family, to the best of my ability to tell. Is it your intention to reconstruct only what you can from this, or are you going to close the gaps with retroconstructiove conlanging? I hope the latter, but if not, it can be left for another day. Or if you like, we could team up - it'd be fun to help.

[Radius Solis]

Oh, also:

At a rough estimate, I'd say Athale was 600-650 thousand square miles - around the level of Ukraine, Somalia, Botswana, CAR or Afghanistan.

Hmm, that makes it somewhere between 100 BC and 50 BC Rome...

I wonder if we should make it somewhat larger at its peak. It should probably overlap some of Huyfarah's territory before or after that empire peaks; and maybe it could expand further into Tjakori and/or Hitatc territory...

Considering that all distance / size estimates have been based on the latitude lines drawn on the worldmap... I'd say there's plenty of room for fudging the planet's actual size.

Another thing that's fudgable is the location of the latitude lines themselves. There's no reason the map can't be edited to make them a bit further north, such that the landmasses would cover more square mileage due to being closer to the equator. This may have desireable climactic effects too - it would certainly help the NE subcontinent to be warm enough for some of the stuff that's supposed to be there (rice, elephants).

[Corumayas]

I would assume that the Miwan dialect Puoni borrowed from is indeed a direct descendent of the one Naidda borrowed from, due to their geographical location... basically, the dialect Naidda borrowed from would have had to have been spoken in the very same area that Puoni now occupies (Kuaguatia, the region along the SW fringe of Kasca that transitions into the forest zone). However I'm not sure the dialect Pencek borrowed from is likely to also be a direct descendent... Tah Ici is on the other side of the forest, it's western instead of eastern fringe. And the forest is supposed to be the main dialect-continuum zone, so my guess is that the Pencek-source dialect was already distinct in Naidda's era.

Fair enough. It was a simplifying assumption; and not a particularly important one, since so little is known of "Old Miwan" anyway. I guess the issue is whether its phonology (with several phonemes that seem to be lost or merged later) was typical of earlier Miwan dialects. It seems simplest to assume that it was.

I don't know how far the areal traits go back or where they originated (which is typically the case in the real world as well) and I'm content to leave it a mystery unless someone wants to sketch it out. If you weren't envisioning including any of them in Ngauro, then don't! The Ngauro ball is in your court...

Ok then. I expect it'll have aspirates, lots of consonant clusters, and possibly OV order.

The Miwan borrowings into Naidda were never actually listed on the old grammar page... I did them later and never updated the site. I'm sorry for not making that clearer sooner; I hope you didn't waste any labor looking for these loans.

Aha. I did spend a few minutes comparing the Ndak Ta and Naidda lexicons, and realized how hard it would be to identify the source of every Naidda word. I'm glad I said something before trying again!

At this point you really do have all the available information on everything ever described for the whole E-I family, to the best of my ability to tell. Is it your intention to reconstruct only what you can from this, or are you going to close the gaps with retroconstructiove conlanging? I hope the latter, but if not, it can be left for another day. Or if you like, we could team up - it'd be fun to help.

No, that reconstruction is meant to be just the starting point; I do plan to do more, especially with Ngauro. The whole family is probably a bigger task than I can realistically take on by myself, though, so teaming up would be very welcome-- as well as fun.

I'll post my reconstructed Proto-Isthmus wordlist later; it's barely readable in its current form. Here's a sample entry:

f*e(dz,j,d`)ogz* Ferogh (tribal name)

[Zhen Lin]

This may have implications for when the Peninsular-speakers spread across the bay, since they're supposed to have been there before the Thoktunèhotà speakers arrived...

Hm? How so? It could simply be that the Peninsular people never spread to those islands.

Another thing that's fudgable is the location of the latitude lines themselves. There's no reason the map can't be edited to make them a bit further north, such that the landmasses would cover more square mileage due to being closer to the equator. This may have desireable climactic effects too - it would certainly help the NE subcontinent to be warm enough for some of the stuff that's supposed to be there (rice, elephants).

Yes, we could... but then wouldn't that make the rest of the continent tropical or warmer? Hmm.

[dunomapuka]

Etou III's heir (name?) did not share his father's hatred of the Epuonim.

Gadein II or Etou IV, maybe?

I went with "Gadein II" for his name. After him begins a new dynasty which ushers the Empire into its Second Golden Age. Stay tuned...

[Cedh]

Etou III's heir (name?) did not share his father's hatred of the Epuonim.

Gadein II or Etou IV, maybe?

I went with "Gadein II" for his name. After him begins a new dynasty which ushers the Empire into its Second Golden Age. Stay tuned...

This reminds me to notify y'all that I fixed some minor chronology issues in the history of Athalē an the wiki (e.g. the first fall of Akeladada was included twice) at the weekend, and I took the opportunity to detail the standardization of Adāta as being ordered by emperor Khepōnon I. in 414 YP.

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Making the planet a bit bigger is fine with me, but only so much that Huyfárah/Lotoka/Siixtaguna stay in the temperate zone...

I can try to show some historical border-shifting for the two classical empires on the next map iteration...

------------------------------

An unanswered question is where the Proto-Isles speakers originated from. My best guess is the continent to the southeast, where brandrinn's Zele is marked...?

Seems likely.

[Radius Solis]

The Miwan borrowings into Naidda were never actually listed on the old grammar page... I did them later and never updated the site. I'm sorry for not making that clearer sooner; I hope you didn't waste any labor looking for these loans.

Aha. I did spend a few minutes comparing the Ndak Ta and Naidda lexicons, and realized how hard it would be to identify the source of every Naidda word.

Very hard. The etymologies for the Naidda words on the old grammar page are lost - not just in exile on my other hard drive, as is the case with most of my other Akana stuff, but lost forever. Save for what can be reconstructed. The problem with reconstructing it is I remember doing quite a lot of semantic change in a number of cases. Combine that with sound changes that produced some very different outcomes from small initial differences........ Even knowing the full list of source words wasn't enough to identify etymologies for more than maybe 3/4 of the old lexicon when I tried it once last year. That's one of the reasons I'm re-doing the lexicon from the ground up.