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

[Corumayas]

Very cool!

I've just added my notes on verbal morphology to the PEV page, along with some other edits largely inspired by duke's comments here.

[the duke of nuke]

These are looking great! Sorry I haven't been around much - real life is pretty busy at the moment - but I'll be back sooner or later to put more development into Meshi.

[Zju]

To those contributing in Tuysáfa: I need your help to fill the gaps in this map

More: show

It is a map of languages spoken in Tuysáfa at approximately YP0. Currently missing are:
Hamoluan
Endayin
Ree Rɛɛ Kıbyaa
Əktoś Duəmeuk
Rof Tiŋe Wak
Mbingmik languages
Isles languages
Some Team 1 and Team 2 languages

There might also be some more missing (such as various proto-languages and descendants) and inaccuracies in placement.
It is meant to be only an approximate map of language location, or at least in its first version.

[Pole, the]

Hamoluan (and Numəsūr, for that matter) are currently discontinued and I don't know if it will be ever reactivated. Hamoluan was meant, however, to be spoken somewhere close to Proto-Numəsūr (they share several morphological similarities; the former was actually an attempt to create an updated and a posteriori version of the latter).

Endayin was meant to be an updated and revised verion of Arósen, but, because of legacy reasons, I will keep these two as separate languages, spoken in two neighbouring areas (Endayin in the place of Arósen; Arósen slightly to the north).

Quoting Cedh, “RRK is located somewhere between RTJ and MT. Don't know about RTW.”

Mbingmik languages are spoken on the coast along the mountain range west to Kopoıves.

Isles languages are spoken even more to the west, e.g. Ttiruku and Zeluzh from this map were predominantly Isles areas.

[Cedh]

Dumic languages:
- Tetlo is spoken between Tetey and Potɑnsʉti. Tetey could move slightly towards the west (but only so much that it's still spoken in the mountains).
- Swopsoch is spoken on the first island east of the peninsula occupied by Jouki Stəy.

T1 languages:
- Arāni has been discontinued, and should probably be removed.
- Cäzadeğozīn has been replaced by a new language called Iščethē.
- The spelling of Tejétáti has changed to Teyetáti.
- Tumetıęk is spoken west-north-west of Omari.
- Tari is spoken northeast of Omari (but not in contact with Iščethē).
- The various Yalan dialects could be treated as different languages (at least East and West Yalan are important enough for that).
- Hkətl’ohnim could move slightly towards the east (it was designed to be phonologically influenced by Tetey).

Other languages of East and Central Tuysáfa:
- There's a (yet undescribed) language called Rūyatkuti spoken between Hkətl’ohnim, Tetey, and Potɑnsʉti.
- Tsemehkiooni is spoken on the southern coast, to the west of Cednìtıt.

Ronquian languages:
- A-Rox Ŋʷoskʷuɣmʲa should be spoken slighly further east (centered around the area currently covered by the letters skʷ).
- Both Ronc Tyu and Mhakh Thandim should go slightly further south.
- Rof Tiŋe Wak is spoken northwest of Ronc Tyu (at the coast near the area currently covered by the word Ronc).
- Ree Rɛɛ Kıbyaa is spoken just north of Pyvyy and Aleic (but not at the coast).
- Əktoś Duəmeuk is spoken at the southwestern shore of the large estuary (approximately in the area currently covered by the word Mhakh, or possibly slightly further to the northwest).
- Ray Tyuwey Išup is also spoken at the southwestern shore of the large estuary (the name means "language of the people of the river delta"), but I'm not sure whether it should be east or west of Əktoś Duəmeuk. In any case, these two languages should form a triangle with Ree Rɛɛ Kıbyaa, with the latter in the southernmost position.

Leic languages:
- All of Pyvyy, Aleic, Wihəs, Arósen tayīgan, and Endayin should probably go slightly further south so that there's enough space for the Ronquian languages north of them.

[Zju]

After applying your suggestions the map looks like this. It has become even more apparent that western and southeastern Tuysáfa is filled up, while its central part is kind of blank.

[CatDoom]

Very nice! On a related note, I've been thinking off and on for a while about the history of agriculture in Tuysáfa, and I'd love to know what you folks think of my conclusions.

First of all, the following crops seem to have originated on or around Tuysáfa, based on the vocabularies published on the Akana Wiki:

Fruits:

-Cherry (probably present in Proto-Leic, and in Puoni some 3,000 years later)

-Lemon (attested in Wihəs and Vijiš)

-Orange (attested in Cednìtıt, appears in Edastean languages about 1,000 years later)

-Pear (attested in several Ronquian and Leic languages)

-Strawberry (attested in Ree Rɛɛ Kıbyaa and Ray Tyuwey Išup)

-"Tuysáfan Apple" (terms for "apple" of roughly equal antiquity appear in Ronquian, Dumic, and Peninsular; it is likely that these refer to different species of edible pomes indigenous to Tuysáfa and Peilaš, respectively)

-"Tuysáfan Grape" (as in our world, varieties of grape seem to be widely attested throughout the northern hemisphere of Akana)


Grains

-"Tuysáfan Rice" (Proto-Dumic had a term for "rice," but another term appears roughly 2,000 years later in Lotoka, and none of the intervening languages have any corresponding word. Both terms seem to refer to cultivated wet rice, but it seems like these would have to be separate species)


Legumes

-"Bean" (attested in Proto-Dumic and several Ronquain languages; probably refers to the broad bean, which is related to the bitter vetch)

-Bitter Vetch (attested in Proto-Isles and several Ronquian languages)

-Chickpea (attested in Proto-Isles and Proto-Mbingmik)

-Lentil (attested in Proto-Isles and Ree Rɛɛ Kıbyaa)

-Pea (attested in Proto-Isles, Ɫɑccekkɔmɔ lùk, and several Ronquian languages)


Nuts

-Chestnut (attested in Proto-Isles, Ɫɑccekkɔmɔ lùk, and Ree Rɛɛ Kıbya)

-Hazelnut (attested only in Ɫɑccekkɔmɔ lùk)

-Walnut (attested only in Ɫɑccekkɔmɔ lùk)


Root Vegetables

-Radish (attested in Proto-Dumic)

-Turnip (attested in several Ronquian languages)


Other

-Gourds (terms for "gourd" and "pumpkin" appear in Proto-Isles and Proto-Dumic; they turn up around 2,000 year later in Edastean and Miwan, who were probably introduced to the crop via people from the Ttiruku Arc)


--

Based on the available evidence, here's a hypothetical timeline I've worked up regarding the history of agriculture on the continent:


c. -7,000 YP:

At around the same time that agriculture is developing in the Aiwa valley and Xšalad, small-scale gardening appears in Western Tuysáfa. The local agricultural system takes advantage of the diverse variety of legumes available in the region, as well as gourds ancestral to later varieties found across the continent. The latter are likely originally grown to provide seeds and vessels for carrying liquids, but varieties with thick, edible rinds are later developed as well.

Early Tuysáfan farmers are hindered, however, by a poor selection of grains. Although they almost certainly cultivate some form of cereal or pseudocereal (the name(s) of which may later furnish the Dumic, Leic, and Ronquian families with their terms for "wheat" and other introduced grains), these crops are apparently inferior to later staples like wheat and rice, and are abandoned entirely by 1 YP at the latest.

Despite its limitations, this system of cultivation is instrumental in allowing the Mediundic peoples to expand beyond their initial coastal settlements and ultimately replace most of the existing cultures on the continent. The hypothetical macro family of Mediundic languages encompassing the Dumic, Leic, Mbingmik, Ronquian, and Wendoth language stocks may represent the remnants of the original culture of horticulturalists in Tuysáfa.


c. -7000 – -3500 YP:

Some time during this period, Tuysáfan species of goats, pigs, and possibly sheep are domesticated, and local grapes are cultivated in order to make wine. Other local fruits and vegetables are cultivated across the continent as the early Tuysáfan agricultural complex begins to diversify into a variety of regional forms.


c. -3500 – -3000 YP:

The Ultimundic descendants of the Canoe Culture arrive in Tuysáfa, bringing with them a set of very important domesticated species from Peilaš: barley, flax, wheat, and possibly sheep. They might also introduce chestnuts, which may be native to the islands of the Ttiruku Arc.

While the Ultimundic languages never expand beyond the westernmost fringes of Tuysáfa, these new crops spread rapidly (but unevenly) across the continent. The subsequent development of superior crop rotation systems incorporating both indigenous and introduced species may be the driving force behind the rapid expansion of the major west Tuysáfan families (Isles, Leic, Mbingmik, Rompian, and Wendoth), which begins around -2000 YP.


c. -2000 YP:

While the introduction of crops from Peilaš reshapes the cutural landscape of western Tuysáfa, new indigenous developments do the same in the east. The speakers of Proto-T1 are among the first on the continent to domesticate local cattle and (possibly) the famous Tuysáfan horse, which allows them to rapidly expand over a fairly large area. Nearby, intensive cultivation of wet rice (possibly a different species of the grain than the one attested in the Peninsular languages of Peilaš) is beginning on the Hazāka coastal plain, which supports the growth of the Dumic language family.

[Pole, the]

It has been one year too long, but finally I managed to compile the lexicon of Arósen tayīgan:
http://akana.conlang.org/wiki/Ar%C3%B3s ... an/Lexicon

And — because some time ago I thought about completely rewriting that language, but in the end I decided to *fork* it — here is one language extra:
http://akana.conlang.org/wiki/Endayin/Lexicon

[Zju]

Speaking of agriculture, is there consensus of what flora and fauna is present on Tuysáfa and limited to which regions thereof? I'd like to create some vocabulary in this area without shooting in the dark.

[Cedh]

@Zju:
The distribution of flora and fauna in Akana has never been worked out systematically via conworlding, only etymologically via analysing the existing conlang vocabularies like CatDoom has done above. There have been a few earlier attempts though; one or two might be buried somewhere in this thread or in the original Cursed Relay thread, and others are on the AkanaForum (here [ported over from the ZBB, actually], here [with an intensive but not fully conclusive discussion], here [a useful summary I think], and here [earlier thoughts by CatDoom]). As always, the guideline should be: If you're both aiming for realism and consistent with existing material, you're probably fine deciding for yourself. For the Leic languages in particular, you can basically use at least all those animals and plants which appear in the available Proto-Isles, Wendoth, Leic, and Ronquian lexicon data (as long as they would thrive in a roughly mediterranean climate), and some of those which appear in the Anatolionesian, Dumic, and T1 languages (as long as they would not only thrive in the right climate but can also plausibly spread to the west of the continent).

@CatDoom:
That looks about right, and it's a good idea to finally summarize what we know about the development of agriculture! Eventually, all of this should go in one or several wiki articles. A few remarks concerning your list:

- The Peninsular etymology for "Peilaš rice" goes back to the proto-language; also, rice has been one of the staple crops of Xšali agriculture from very early on. That doesn't change the general picture though: There are almost certainly two different species of rice in Akana, one native to the Xšali-Peninsular region on Peilaš, and the other one native to eastern Tuysáfa and first cultivated by Dumic peoples.

- Beans are known on Peilaš too (there are root words in Ndak Ta, Lukpanic, Tulameya, and Proto-Western), but again these are probably related but distinct species.

- A word for "hazelnut" appears only in Ɫɑccekkɔmɔ lùk, but a more general word for "nut" is attested in many other Tuysáfa languages (Leic, Ronquian, Dumic, Proto-Isles, Proto-Mbingmik). I would assume most of these prototypically refer to hazelnuts too. None of the language families on Peilaš seem to have a word that unambiguously refers to nuts though.

- I'm not sure that gourds and pumpkins originally existed only on Tuysáfa (all the Edastean words so far are borrowed from Miwan, but if gourds were really introduced via the Ttiruku Arc, Miwan must itself have gotten to know them from speakers of Edastean languages - so it seems more likely there are native gourd species in the Ici forest too). Again, a two-species scenario.

While the Ultimundic languages never expand beyond the westernmost fringes of Tuysáfa, these new crops spread rapidly (but unevenly) across the continent. The subsequent development of superior crop rotation systems incorporating both indigenous and introduced species may be the driving force behind the rapid expansion of the major west Tuysáfan families (Isles, Leic, Mbingmik, Rompian, and Wendoth), which begins around -2000 YP.

A slightly more accurate description would be that this is the driving force behind the expansion of Leic, Ronquian, and Wendoth only. The Isles and Mbingmik language families do not really "expand" due to agricultural advances, but their proto-languages' speakers are driven out of their original homelands by the Wendoth, and split into different groups while escaping (for Isles, by sailing to different islands; for Mbingmik, by crossing the mountains via different passes).
[Actually, I think there should be several remaining pre-Mbingmik languages on the southern side of the mountains; some of them might be Ultimundic {i.e. related to Isles}, others might be Mediundic or even Primundic isolates.]

[CatDoom]

The Peninsular etymology for "Peilaš rice" goes back to the proto-language; also, rice has been one of the staple crops of Xšali agriculture from very early on.

The first time I tried to write something about the agriculture of Tuysáfa I actually took that into account, but for some reason when I tried to search for "rice" on the wiki more recently, I only turned up later vocabulary. I must have overlooked something.

Beans are known on Peilaš too (there are root words in Ndak Ta, Lukpanic, Tulameya, and Proto-Western), but again these are probably related but distinct species.

Yeah; I figure that the beans of Peilaš are more similar to the common bean (and possibly other new-world species) or the soy bean. Tuysáfa seems to have the classic west-Asian/Mediterranean collection of legumes, so it seems appropriate that the local beans would be more similar to broad or fava beans, which are technically vetches.

A word for "hazelnut" appears only in Ɫɑccekkɔmɔ lùk, but a more general word for "nut" is attested in many other Tuysáfa languages (Leic, Ronquian, Dumic, Proto-Isles, Proto-Mbingmik). I would assume most of these prototypically refer to hazelnuts too.

I agree that's probably the case, though varieties of walnut could probably do well in many parts of the continent as well. Beech nuts are also edible, though smaller and less tasty than the other types of nut available in Tuysáfa, and there are also pine nuts, though those might be different enough to merit an unrelated vocabulary term.

I'm not sure that gourds and pumpkins originally existed only on Tuysáfa (all the Edastean words so far are borrowed from Miwan, but if gourds were really introduced via the Ttiruku Arc, Miwan must itself have gotten to know them from speakers of Edastean languages - so it seems more likely there are native gourd species in the Ici forest too). Again, a two-species scenario.

Makes sense; gourds in the real world seem to have been independently domesticated in west Africa, southeast Asia, Peru, the eastern United States, and possibly also Mesoamerica, so it's hardly implausible.

[Corumayas]

Catdoom, I think that’s a great synthesis. I really like your idea that the original crops of Tuysáfa were legumes, and that wheat, barley, and flax were later arrivals from Peilaš; it helps resolve a long-standing question and also gives the Ultimundic migration a convincing purpose. (I decided a while ago that I wasn’t particularly convinced by the “canoe culture” idea, so I’d be happy to see it replaced by an expansion based on grain agriculture.)

The first time I tried to write something about the agriculture of Tuysáfa I actually took that into account, but for some reason when I tried to search for "rice" on the wiki more recently, I only turned up later vocabulary. I must have overlooked something.

Neither the Proto-Peninsular lexicon nor the description of Xšali cuisine is on the wiki, as it happens. (The latter is buried in the Cursed Relay thread; I could copy-paste it into a “Culture of Xšalad” article or something if that’s wanted.)

Yeah; I figure that the beans of Peilaš are more similar to the common bean (and possibly other new-world species) or the soy bean. Tuysáfa seems to have the classic west-Asian/Mediterranean collection of legumes, so it seems appropriate that the local beans would be more similar to broad or fava beans, which are technically vetches.

“Fava beans” actually appear in the Proto-Western culture article; but I think we could still declare this to be a different species than the “broad bean” of western Tuysáfa. (Eastern Tuysáfa probably has different beans too: at least, the Jouki reflex of Proto-Dumic muɣan is glossed “mung bean”.)

-Lemon (attested in Wihəs and Vijiš)

-Orange (attested in Cednìtıt, appears in Edastean languages about 1,000 years later)

Both lemons and oranges have been mentioned as grown in Peilaš—the former in Xšalad, and the latter in classical-era Kasca (they’re another thing said to be borrowed from the Miw). I’m not sure a multiple-species explanation would be very satisfactory here; apparently on earth all citruses are very closely related and all originated from the same region (SE Asia/New Guinea/Australia). Could they perhaps reach the Miw and Xšali via seafaring Peninsular peoples, rather than the Edasteans? Or, maybe better, could they spread from Peilaš to western Tuysáfa by a similar route?

The Isles and Mbingmik language families do not really "expand" due to agricultural advances, but their proto-languages' speakers are driven out of their original homelands by the Wendoth, and split into different groups while escaping (for Isles, by sailing to different islands; for Mbingmik, by crossing the mountains via different passes).

Cedh, I’m not sure I agree with you here: it seems to me the Isles and Mbingmik speakers do expand... they’re both spoken over areas that are much larger than what I think a single language could occupy (before the rise of large states). I think an innovative agricultural system could help a lot to explain why Isles speakers in particular were able to spread over the whole Ttiruku–Sumarušuxi island chain, even though it was already occupied by Ultimundic people with fairly similar cultures.

(It might be good to think about what other implications Catdoom’s scenario might have: for example, if the Ultimundic people are grain farmers, they might have a higher population density and be less confined to the coasts than we previously thought...)

[Cedh]

The first time I tried to write something about the agriculture of Tuysáfa I actually took that into account, but for some reason when I tried to search for "rice" on the wiki more recently, I only turned up later vocabulary. I must have overlooked something.

Neither the Proto-Peninsular lexicon nor the description of Xšali cuisine is on the wiki, as it happens. (The latter is buried in the Cursed Relay thread; I could copy-paste it into a “Culture of Xšalad” article or something if that’s wanted.)

Sounds like a good idea.

The Isles and Mbingmik language families do not really "expand" due to agricultural advances, but their proto-languages' speakers are driven out of their original homelands by the Wendoth, and split into different groups while escaping (for Isles, by sailing to different islands; for Mbingmik, by crossing the mountains via different passes).

Cedh, I’m not sure I agree with you here: it seems to me the Isles and Mbingmik speakers do expand... they’re both spoken over areas that are much larger than what I think a single language could occupy (before the rise of large states). I think an innovative agricultural system could help a lot to explain why Isles speakers in particular were able to spread over the whole Ttiruku–Sumarušuxi island chain, even though it was already occupied by Ultimundic people with fairly similar cultures.

(It might be good to think about what other implications Catdoom’s scenario might have: for example, if the Ultimundic people are grain farmers, they might have a higher population density and be less confined to the coasts than we previously thought...)

Well, you're probably right at least with regards to Isles. I mainly wanted to mention my original plan for the Mbingmik family to be evolved from the dialects of several different isolated refugee groups within a linguistically diverse coastal mountain area.

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

On another note, I've just posted a lexicon for Early Gezoro, standing at 633 words currently. It contains all but five of the posited Gezoro loanwords into other languages (i.e. those words that I could either find a valid PW etymology for [e.g. khiara 'council, assembly' ← kʰiñeɔr < *kʰiña-ʔaya-ła 'result of being together'], or for which I could make up an etymology using new PW roots sent through the sound changes [e.g. hānedia 'village' ← saːnedeɜ̃ < *sãk-nedu-γẽ 'place to dwell in', from a new root *nedu meaning something like 'dwell, stay, sit' or similar], or where it's likely that the words represent loans from an unknown language of the Tjakori plateau [lɔːjɔe 'god' and sakits 'garlic'] -- the remaining five words will need some more thought...)

A nice detail: The pervasive Adāta adjectivizing suffix -ran (which we've even been using in English) can now be traced back to the Proto-Western root *łãγa 'spirit, soul'.

[CatDoom]

Catdoom, I think that’s a great synthesis. I really like your idea that the original crops of Tuysáfa were legumes, and that wheat, barley, and flax were later arrivals from Peilaš; it helps resolve a long-standing question and also gives the Ultimundic migration a convincing purpose. (I decided a while ago that I wasn’t particularly convinced by the “canoe culture” idea, so I’d be happy to see it replaced by an expansion based on grain agriculture.)

I don't think the two ideas are necessarily mutually exclusive; as far as I can tell, the Canoe culture have previously been described as the ones who introduced (Peilaš-style agriculture) to Tuysáfa, and they could certainly have introduced both new agricultural species and superior boat-building technology. Part of my reason for positing pre-Ultimundic agriculture in Tuysáfa was actually to justify the distinction between the Premundic and Mediundic peoples, and how the latter came to mostly displace the former. The possibility that the Mediundic peoples developed some form of small-scale agriculture was hinted at in the Wiki article on the theory of three waves, and I built on that to try and create what I think is a fairly plausible scenario.

“Fava beans” actually appear in the Proto-Western culture article; but I think we could still declare this to be a different species than the “broad bean” of western Tuysáfa. (Eastern Tuysáfa probably has different beans too: at least, the Jouki reflex of Proto-Dumic muɣan is glossed “mung bean”.)

I did actually notice the "fava beans" thing... probably should have brought it up in my big post. Here's the citation in context:

"As such, notably virile men would have their livers removed, cooked in a ritual stew (which appears to have mainly consisted of wild fava beans, blood and grapes) and eaten by their patrilineage after they died, or if they were killed in battle their liver would be eaten by their enemies."

So, it could be just me, but it appears that this is a bit of referential humor, specifically referring to a line in The Silence of the Lambs where Hannibal Lecter refers to devouring a man's liver "with some fava beans and a nice Chianti." Now, there's certainly nothing wrong with little in-jokes like that (the people reconstructing Ronquian may find a few as they work out the lexicon of the proto-language), but I'm not sure that we should place a species of vetch so far away from where its relatives are attested in order to preserve the reference.

Good catch on the mung bean thing, by the way; I managed to miss that one.

Both lemons and oranges have been mentioned as grown in Peilaš—the former in Xšalad, and the latter in classical-era Kasca (they’re another thing said to be borrowed from the Miw). I’m not sure a multiple-species explanation would be very satisfactory here; apparently on earth all citruses are very closely related and all originated from the same region (SE Asia/New Guinea/Australia). Could they perhaps reach the Miw and Xšali via seafaring Peninsular peoples, rather than the Edasteans? Or, maybe better, could they spread from Peilaš to western Tuysáfa by a similar route?

Funnily enough, this is another thing I remember noticing a while back, but which I had trouble tracking down again when I was revising my writeup. It is a bit of a conundrum, but I think that having citrus originate in the southern parts of Xšalad would make the most sense, since it has roughly the right climate. Since the Ultimundic peoples seem to have had a fairly maritime-focused society, it seems plausible that they could have picked up lemons and oranges through trade with the Peninsula or Kasca some time after c. -4,000 YP, and that at least some of the varieties could have spread across southern Tuysáfa before -2,000.

If lemons and oranges were being traded around the Bay of Kasca that early, it opens up the possibility that they were cultivated in the southern parts of the Ndak empire long before the Kascans borrowed a word for orange from Miwan. It's possible that the borrowed term originally referred to some specific variety of orange originally cultivated south of Kasca, which eventually replaced whatever word (probably something ultimately of Ngauro origin) was originally used for the fruit.

(It might be good to think about what other implications Catdoom’s scenario might have: for example, if the Ultimundic people are grain farmers, they might have a higher population density and be less confined to the coasts than we previously thought.

I tend to imagine that the Ultimundic peoples had a mixed substance economy, like a lot of coastal societies. They farmed grain where they could, but many of the places they inhabited were relatively rugged and they often lacked access to major rivers that would allow for the large-scale irrigation that led to the rise of cities in Peilaš. They probably supplemented their farming with fishing, hunting, and gathering, engaged in short- and long-distance trade by boat, and likely also had cultural reasons for wanting to live on the coast. This isn't to say that they couldn't move inland, and some probably did, but they probably preferred to settle in littoral areas.

I imagine that a lot of the small language families and isolates found in the Ttiruku arc are Ultimundic in origin, and possibly related to the Isles languages. The highlands and interior regions of the larger islands are presumably also home to cultures of Primundic and Mediundic descent, who may be particularly reliant on the chestnut, which in our world was actually a major staple in some areas of Europe where it was difficult to grow wheat. Over time they probably also adopted sheep herding, and possibly formed mixed communities with Ultimundic herders who moved inland, which could lead to all kinds of interesting language contact phenomena.

[Cedh]

I did actually notice the "fava beans" thing... probably should have brought it up in my big post. Here's the citation in context:

"As such, notably virile men would have their livers removed, cooked in a ritual stew (which appears to have mainly consisted of wild fava beans, blood and grapes) and eaten by their patrilineage after they died, or if they were killed in battle their liver would be eaten by their enemies."

So, it could be just me, but it appears that this is a bit of referential humor, specifically referring to a line in The Silence of the Lambs where Hannibal Lecter refers to devouring a man's liver "with some fava beans and a nice Chianti." Now, there's certainly nothing wrong with little in-jokes like that (the people reconstructing Ronquian may find a few as they work out the lexicon of the proto-language), but I'm not sure that we should place a species of vetch so far away from where its relatives are attested in order to preserve the reference.

Yes, this is indeed a reference to that movie scene; Dewrad explicitly said so when he first posted Proto-Western. I believe it would be okay though to change "fava beans" to just "beans" there if that's what our agricultural scenario requires.

Also, this reminds me that Proto-Western ought to have a term for "grape", which I could then use to derive "wine" (one of the yet-to-do Gezoro words...)

[CatDoom]

Well, we could run with the joke and make the Proto-Western word for grape kyãti.

Man, revisiting the Proto-Western culture page has reminded me just how awful these guys are. Not unrealistically so, sadly, but they do kind of stand out among the cultures of Akana in terms of how starkly their culture deviates from most modern concepts of morality.

[Arzena]

Well I'm taking *kyãti and putting it into Empotle7á as kení and tsení

[Cedh]

I like the shape of *kyãti too, but it doesn't help me with the Gezoro word for "wine", because that word needs to get loaned into Ndak Ta as jain and the regular reflex of *kyãti would be keɜ̃t. Also, Proto-Western doesn't usually have the sequence /ti/, which would get palatalized to /tʃi/ under a productive morphophonological alternation.

[Dewrad]

Well, we could run with the joke and make the Proto-Western word for grape kyãti.

This has my seal of approval, although it would have to be kyãči.

Man, revisiting the Proto-Western culture page has reminded me just how awful these guys are. Not unrealistically so, sadly, but they do kind of stand out among the cultures of Akana in terms of how starkly their culture deviates from most modern concepts of morality.

That was the idea. I have something of a fondness for creating really dystopian cultures: my own Telmona has a missionary religion à la Buddhism which grows out of a highly dystheistic dualist belief system (one god is evil, the other is mad), and another culture whose rise and fall is essentially based upon the ready availability of victims for human sacrifice. It's nice to take a fucked up idea and then run it to its horrifying logical conclusion.

[CatDoom]

I like the shape of *kyãti too, but it doesn't help me with the Gezoro word for "wine", because that word needs to get loaned into Ndak Ta as jain and the regular reflex of *kyãti would be keɜ̃t. Also, Proto-Western doesn't usually have the sequence /ti/, which would get palatalized to /tʃi/ under a productive morphophonological alternation.

Well, jain could come from your unattested Tjakori substrate, a neigboring Western language, or even (directly or indirectly) from Xšali. In Eurasia, terms for wine are often wanderwörter; the Hungarian bor has been traced to Middle Persian via Turkic, while most current Turkic languages use terms derived from Arabic, and even the ancient Indo-European and Semitic terms for wine look like they might have a single origin. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch, then, for jain to have passed through more than one language before entering Ndak Ta.

That was the idea. I have something of a fondness for creating really dystopian cultures: my own Telmona has a missionary religion à la Buddhism which grows out of a highly dystheistic dualist belief system (one god is evil, the other is mad), and another culture whose rise and fall is essentially based upon the ready availability of victims for human sacrifice. It's nice to take a fucked up idea and then run it to its horrifying logical conclusion.

I figured it wasn't an accident; you don't exactly see the term "gang-rape" thrown around casually in conworlding. >_>

Man, it must be really depressing adhering to a dystheistic religion; even Gnosticism generally posits some kind of true, good divinity that exists outside of the imperfect world of the Demiurge.

[Zju]

I'm going to assume that parrots, giraffes, some kind of beans and carrots, strawberries and other kinds of berries all exist in West Tuysáfa. Some Tuysáfan language had a word for donkey, so there's also that. Given there are pears, it's not a stretch for apples also to be present. What about potatos though?

[CatDoom]

There are definitely apples (or something similar; see my big post above), beans (probably broad beans, in my opinion), and berries, and that's a good point about donkeys (not sure why I didn't mention that), but carrots seem to be a western Peilaš thing - there are words for them in Lukpanic and Coastal Western, as well as Gezoro, and the latter term was later borrowed into Buruya Nzaysa. Tuysáfa does, however, have some edible root vegetables, of which turnips and radishes have been explicitly mentioned.

As for potatoes, I think I'd hold off on assigning any distinctively American (as in the continents, not the USA) crops to Tuysáfa. It doesn't have any yet (as far as I can tell), and the relationship between Peilaš and Tuysáfa seems more similar to the relationship between Europe and east Asia than to the relationship between Europe and North America, at least in terms of ecology.

I'm not sure why you would assume that there are parrots and giraffes in west Tuysáfa, since neither species appears in the lexicons of the continent, and they'd seem a bit out of place with the temperate-to-Mediterranean flora and fauna that do. That said, there certainly could be parrots in the region, since there are parrot species that live in similar climate zones in the southern hemisphere of Earth. Giraffes, on the other hand, don't really seem appropriate, since their distribution in Africa is clustered in arid and semiarid regions of a type that doesn't really exist in Tuysáfa. They'd be more at home in southern Peilaš or parts of Zeluzhia, I think.

It does seem to be established that there are some kind of elephants in west Tuysáfa, since words for "elephant" appear in several Ronquian languages, but that's a little easier to justify since, in our world, they seem to do well in a wider variety of environments than Giraffes do. Still, if you really want giraffes in Tuysáfa, nobody's really stopping you; Akana is a different world, and there's an implied "species similar to a..." in front of the name of every species on it.

[Corumayas]

Pardon me, but... why are there elephants in Tuysáfa? Before, the only languages with a word for elephant were Peninsular, and one Isles language (Thokyunèhòta) which borrowed a word from Lotoka. Elephants were meant to be native to tropical and subtropical Peilaš (along with the other "Asian" animals in the same Lotoka loanwords list: panda, tiger, water buffalo, zebu...).

Other than that, I agree with CatDoom's advice; and I'd add that if you really want tropical savanna animals, you can always design a language for tropical Peilaš or Zeluzhia, where there are vast expanses of tropical savanna just waiting to be described.

(I'd like to respond to some earlier posts too, but don't have time right now. I'll try to get back to it later.)

[CatDoom]

Pardon me, but... why are there elephants in Tuysáfa? Before, the only languages with a word for elephant were Peninsular, and one Isles language (Thokyunèhòta) which borrowed a word from Lotoka. Elephants were meant to be native to tropical and subtropical Peilaš (along with the other "Asian" animals in the same Lotoka loanwords list: panda, tiger, water buffalo, zebu...).

I'm sure it can be changed if necessary, but elephants are found in two discontinuous regions on Earth, so it doesn't seem like an absolute impossibility. In fact, the range of elephant species on Earth (excluding mammoths and mastodons) at one time extended from Essex to Sundaland, not to mention across Africa. As recently as China's Shang dynasty, there were apparently elephants living as far north as Anyang.

It's been pretty much established by this point that there was at one time a land connection that allowed species from Peilaš to cross over to Tuysáfa, and vice versa. Such a connection could even have formed multiple times, since a significant part of the ocean between the two continents may well be submerged continental crust, much like the Bering Sea.

The most recent exchange of species happened relatively recently, in an evolutionary sense, and as a result there are roughly similar species of horses and cattle on both continents. It doesn't seem too far beyond the pale that their might be some elephants in Tuysáfa, though they may very well be on the verge of extinction (or even relatively recently extinct) by 1 YP, when the Ronquian languages with words for "elephant" were spoken.

[Cedh]

FWIW, the Tuysáfan elephant species which several Ronquian languages have a word for is meant to be a rather small forest-dwelling elephant, comparable in size to a wild boar or a tapir.