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

[CatDoom]

Indeed; it seems likely that the Tuysáfan elephant is descended from a species that was at one time isolated in some part of the Ttiruku arc and was affected by insular dwarfism, and then subsequently expanded onto the continent during a period of lower sea levels. Presumably it subsequently adapted to a niche appropriate to its size. This presents the possibility of a larger, related species in Tuysáfa, which would have arrived as part of the same migration that brought the ancestors of the dwarf species into the isles, but which subsequently went extinct.

Considering their northerly habitat and the fact that they probably arrived on the continent during a glacial period, it's also possible that Tuysáfan elephants are furry, making them more accurately a species of dwarf mammoth.

[Corumayas]

Huh. Well, I do agree that elephants could live in Tuysáfa; I just always believed they didn't, because Isles speakers didn't have a word for elephant until they borrowed one from Lotoka. The same goes for tigers, which I notice several Ronquian languages also have a word for. This bugs me because it seems to be erasing the differences between the continents; it feels like the picture is getting muddied.

If Tuysáfan elephants are small and furry that does seem to lessen the problem a bit... at least one could argue that the Peilaš elephant was different enough from the Tuysáfan one to warrant borrowing a new word.

[Cedh]

Maybe it's time we finally start writing up wiki articles about the different agricultural areas of Akana, similar to those on Zomp's Almeopedia (1 2 3 4 5)?

Also, although we should be guided by existing words in various languages, conlang vocabulary is not everything. We have discovered a few instances already where the distribution of words seems to clash with most coherent conworld scenarios, and there are similar issues with technology too (for instance, some Leic languages have a word for "wheel"). My position regarding things like this would be that wherever a contradiction crops up which cannot easily be reconciled with major biological, cultural and/or technological patterns and which has not yet spawned intricate etymology networks, it's probably best to change the definition of the word(s) to something that fits in with the world.

[CatDoom]

It's also possible that tigers and elephants simply weren't present in the part of Tuysáfa where the Proto-Isles speakers lived. Currently, the leading theory identifies the speakers of Proto-Isles as relatively late arrivals on the continent, and they lived in a region with a Mediterranean climate which was probably dominated by grassland, scrub, and oak savanna. The Ronquian languages, on the other hand, are largely spoken in a cooler, oceanic region that's probably relatively heavily forested, similar to northwestern Europe in the early Bronze Age.

The range of Tuysáfan tigers and elephants may be quite limited, at least in the western part of the continent, and it's entirely possible that they will be driven to extinction not long (relatively speaking) after the existing Ronquian languages were spoken. In other words, they could be the Akanan equivalent of European lions and Caspian tigers, with a presence in the local culture out of proportion with their limited distribution.

EDIT: I think Cedh's right; I've given a fair amount of thought to staple crops and agricultural systems in the developed areas of Akana. I'll try to put together a coherent proposal tomorrow, as a baseline for people to modify and build on.

[CatDoom]

So here's my vision of the various agricultural systems in mainland Peilaš, based on what's already on the wiki. It's pretty rough, and I hope that people who have been with the project longer than I can help hammer out the detail

Aiwa Valley System

One of the earliest and most successful forms of agriculture in Peilaš, the Aiwa Valley system originated with the Ngauro and neighboring peoples in the general vicinity of the Aiwa delta. The system ultimately spread north into Huyfárah, southern Siixtaguna, and the valleys of the Šišin mountains, south into Hitatc and Miwan speaking regions, and west as far as Rathedān and Xōron Eiel. The relatively narrow range of cultivated species somewhat limits the areas where the system can be successfully employed, but it has proven very successful in the river valleys of eastern Peilaš, where it long supported the growth of towns and cities. The introduction of new legume crops from Tuysáfa by Isles-speakers would in later years significantly enrich the Aiwa valley system and allow for improved forms of crop rotation.

The primary staple crops of the Aiwa Valley were wheat and barley. By the rise of the Ndok Empire, alluvial land was mostly reserved for irrigated fields of grain, but oxen were kept as beasts of burden and some cattle and sheep were raised. Goats were introduced from the Isthmus region, and horses from the west. Cultivated foods were supplemented with fishing where possible, and with hunting in the hinterlands away from the coast and the river.

(Note: Ndak Ta has no word for "beer," but I have to believe that the earliest grain agriculturalists in Peilaš must have used part of their crop to make alcohol. Somewhat later, their selection of intoxicants expanded to include wine and rice alcohol, and probably cider and millet beer as well.)


Lukpanic Coast System

The Lukpanic city-states (and likely peoples farther to the northwest) relied on buckwheat as their primary staple, supplemented with figs, Peilaš beans (useful for their nitrogen-fixing ability), and root vegetables like carrots and onions. They also raised cattle (mainly for milk), goats (probably introduced from the east), and bees, whose honey they used as a sweetener and to make mead. Grapes were cultivated for making wine, which was likely an important trade good in the region, and herbs like parsely and hibiscus were grown for their flavor. In addition to cultivated foods, they ate a great deal of fish and gathered insects and other wild foods.

The conquest of the Lukpanic coast by Western speakers didn’t drastically change the agricultural system of the region, though it did introduce several important new domestic species, including horses, millet, pigs, and sheep. It’s possible that eastern grains might eventually be introduced to the region, possibly partly displacing the cultivation of buckwheat and millet.


Northeast Coast Subsistence Strategies

The northern coasts of Siixtaguna and the Isthmus are difficult places for agricultural societies to survive, but the expansion of the Kennan demonstrates that this harsh land can support complex societies. This was likely one of the first centers of goat domestication, and herding goats and sheep is probably a major subsistence strategy in the more temperate reaches of the northeast coast. Fishing and hunting marine mammals is probably another important component, particularly in the Kennan homeland, which consists mostly of relatively barren tundra. It’s possible that the Kennan are able to keep some variety of goat or sheep adapted to these northerly climes, or that they’ve taken to herding another species better suited to the environment, like reindeer.


Peilaš Steppe Pastoralism

Generally similar forms of nomadic pastoralism are practiced in the great western steppe and much of Xōron Eiel. These lifestyles emerged out of the earlier Aiwa Valley and western mixed agricultural systems, specializing in order to adapt to marginal regions not well suited to crop cultivation. Steppe pastoralists rely heavily on meat and dairy products, and keep mixed herds consisting mostly of cattle, goats, horses, and sheep. Mobility is essential to the success of the system, as forage is sparse in the semi-arid regions where it is practiced.


Western Mixed Agriculture

Although the expansion of the Western-speaking peoples was driven in large part by their domestication of the horse and, to a lesser extent, the pig, within much of their range they practice a form of mixed agriculture which places roughly equal emphasis on farming and husbandry. Versions of this system remain the dominant form of agriculture in parts of the Coastal Corridor, Kipceʔ Desert, Wañelín, and the Tjakori and Western plateaus many thousands of years later, although new crops from the east did eventually enter the region. The western system also had a significant influence on the forms of agriculture practiced in the neighboring steppe regions and the Lukpanic coast.

The primary staple crop in the western system is millet, supplemented with Peilaš beans. By -2,000 YP at the latest, some Western-speaking peoples were cultivating grapes for wine, and it appears to have been the Gezoro who introduced winemaking to the Edastean cultural sphere. As far as livestock, the western system incorporated horses, pigs, and sheep, and later adopted cattle and goats as well. Where possible, agriculture was supplemented with hunting, fishing and, at times, widespread cannibalism.


Xšali Wet Rice Agriculture

Originating in tropical southern Xšalad, this system spread throughout the well-watered lands of the Xšali Empire and eastward along the coast as far as Mrisaŋfa. In the peninsula, rice cultivation was supplemented with fruit orchards, including both citrus fruits and apple, and in Xšalad spices were cultivated for cooking and trade. The Peninsular peoples would later carry this system to the islands of Famana-Hŋ-Talam and the Lotoka region of the Isthmus. Rice cultivation had also spread at least as far as Buruya by 400 YP, and it’s likely that in later years it thrived on the lower Aiwa and in the Mlir valley, and co-existed with the Aiwa valley system throughout much of the Edastean cultural sphere.

[Cedh]

Looks good so far!

FWIW, the Gezoro article now has a syntax section. This leaves only dialectology on my to-do-list there.

[Zju]

So it'd be very nice if we could come up with an easy way of determining what is present where. Right now it's shooting in the dark and there are disagreements over some choices. Something like region-to-region correlation, along the lines of 'the flora and fauna of Southern Peilaš are about the same as the ones of late Pleistocene central Africa' would help a lot. Otherwise I prefer to just not come up with flora and fauna vocabulary rather than guessing what's ok and what's not.

[CatDoom]

Yeah... unfortunately I think we're dealing with a lot of unspoken assumptions, many of which go back to the earliest days of the Akana project. If I had to compare regions of Akana to regions of our world, then based on a combination of climate and vocabulary, I would probably go with something like this (in very rough terms, of course):

Most of southern Peilaš: More or less like the tropical parts of sub-Saharan Africa (I'm presuming this based mostly on the fact that humans on Akana probably evolved here)

Xšalad: The southernmost regions are climatically part of southern Peilaš, while the more northern parts are pobably most similar to the Sahel. This is where I would expect to find lots of giraffes.

The Tjakori Plateau: The semi-arid parts of Iran

The Steppe (including the Western Steppe and Xōron Eiel): Parts of central Asia, including the middle latitudes of Kazakhstan and Mongolia

The "Core" western sphere, south of the Steppe: Mediterranean Europe and North Africa

Peilaš Northwest Coast: Western Europe in the south, Scandinavia in the north

Eastern Akana south of the šišin mountains: eastern China and Korea

Siixtaguna: Siberia

The Ttiruku arc: Taiwan, southern Japan


It's tempting to compare western Tuysáfa to the west coast of the United States and eastern Tuysáfa to the eastern US and part of Canada, but Tuysáfa seems to be closer to Peilaš in terms of flora and fauna than North America is to Europe. Those are probably still the closest comparisons though.

[Corumayas]

There probably are some unspoken assumptions, especially on my part. Sorry if I seemed disproportionately bothered by the Tuysáfan elephants and tigers, I just really wasn't expecting to find them there. It's not the choice I would have made, but this is a collaborative project... anyway I accept them as a fait accompli.


For what it's worth, my approach to conworlding in Akana has mostly been based on three principles:

1. Use similar environments on Earth as models.

2. Take already-existing Akanaran material into account.

3. Run things by the other contributors before making them official (especially with big-picture kinds of stuff).


To help me with the first point, I have a number of maps comparing Peilaš and Tuysáfa with Earth continents; I've just uploaded several to the wiki (1 2 3 4 5 6) in case others find them helpful too. Rather than modeling each region of Akana on a single region of Earth, we've often mixed the models somewhat, to create environments that aren't copies of any one place on Earth; for example, though the Edastean sphere looks mostly Eurasian, Dewrad put llamas in the Rathedān and Radius has tomatoes in Kasca. I try to have two or three models in mind for a given place: so maybe the Tjakori Plateau resembles both Iran and the American Southwest (and maybe also Sichuan, though that's a much wetter environment—because of the Asian monsoon, I believe).

The second point is becoming more and more difficult to stick to as the volume of work on Akana accumulates. (It also doesn't help that several proto-languages are still secret!) It would no doubt be useful to have a comprehensive list of what plants and animals are known to exist in each region of Akana, at various periods of history; but the amount of time involved in doing that may be more than any one person can give. However, if you all think there's a serious need for that, I'll volunteer to at least make a start.

As for the third point, that simply requires discussion. I'm not always good at this; I tend to make notes for myself but not share them, and sometimes I'll draft a long post (or a wiki article) but never finish it. As a result I have ideas about all sorts of subjects that I haven't shared (moreover, I may not remember that I haven't shared them). I'll try to be more communicative when I'm thinking about Akana stuff, at least when it has big-picture ramifications.

[CatDoom]

I like your overlay maps for Peilaš, but I think your Tuysáfa ones are a little off if you intend for the climates to match up.

I think it's highly counterproductive to simply accept what's already been written as fait accompli. If we want Akana to make sense as a plausible, Earth-like world, we may have to go back and make some changes to earlier material. Heck, there's already a disclaimer telling people that their work may be mercilessly edited by other users. I don't think we should change things willy-nilly to match our own personal vision of the setting, but if a plurality of people agree to change, say, the singular mention of "fava beans" in the article on Proto-Western culture so that it refers to some other kind of bean, I think we should do it. Same with elephants in Tuysáfa, if that bugs people. Heck, there are words for "monkey" in a bunch of Tuysáfan languages, which frankly makes way less sense to me than the tigers and elephants (though I suppose there could be monkeys in the Isles, or something).

Anyway, Zju was looking for an easy way to determine what's already present in a region of Akana, and I think comparing each to a single specific region of Earth is more useful as a quick reference then trying to make multiple comparisons. We might say "eastern Peilash is like eastern China," and people will know roughly what to imagine and what kinds of species to include in their lexicons. You might then say "but it has llamas and tomatoes and three-toed sloths," and that's fine too, but having a concrete baseline for comparison really helps with visualization and vocabulary building.

[Corumayas]

I like your overlay maps for Peilaš, but I think your Tuysáfa ones are a little off if you intend for the climates to match up.

Hmm. They don't match up perfectly since the continents are different shapes; that's an issue for Peilaš too, but I suppose the shape of Tuysáfa is less like anywhere on Earth. The Tuysáfa–Asia comparison is probably the least useful of those maps. I think the European overlay is a fairly good comparison for Western Tuysáfa though, and the North American one is okay too (as long as you take the totally different coastlines into account; the central mountains are roughly lined up with the Rockies, which should give some idea of how grasslands and forests might be distributed to the east of them).

I think it's highly counterproductive to simply accept what's already been written as fait accompli. If we want Akana to make sense as a plausible, Earth-like world, we may have to go back and make some changes to earlier material.

I don't entirely agree. In general I feel like the earlier material is Akana, and new ideas should fit with it, not vice versa. (I suppose this is partly out of a nostalgic affection for the early documents of Akana, but also partly because I think respect for past contributors—and their copyright rights—entails not messing with their work.) We had a sort of informal policy of quod scripsi scripsi in the past (Radius described it here), and for the most part I think it worked well.

Rather than retconning the awkward bits out of existence, I'd prefer to come up with additions to the world that explain why things are that way. That's why I really like your idea of grain-growing Ultimundic speakers: they explain why both continents have the same grain crops, which is something that bugged me for years. I'd be in favor of explaining some of the livestock similarities in the same way; certainly this would work for sheep, and possibly for cattle as well. (Maybe goats could go in the opposite direction: they seem to reach the Aiwa valley from the Isthmus region, which could be consistent with an origin further east, perhaps even in western Tuysáfa.)

The Tuysáfan elephants and tigers weirded me out because they didn't fit my long-held assumptions (based on some of the earliest documents about Akana) about where those animals lived—assumptions which it hadn't occurred to me might not be shared by other Akana oldbies, like Cedh. However, they're already embedded in a number of language descriptions written by several people, and nobody but me seems to have been bothered by them; moreover, the fact that other people didn't share my assumptions is mostly my fault for not making them known before. It seems to me I've now voiced my opinion, and if nobody else agrees with me I'm okay with that. (If I've misunderstood your and Cedh's positions, please tell me!)

(BTW, I hadn't noticed the monkeys either; I agree they're unexpected there too, but also interesting: this is, to my knowledge, the first time non-human primates have been mentioned in Akana. I'd been wondering whether they existed at all, in fact.)

Heck, there's already a disclaimer telling people that their work may be mercilessly edited by other users.

I believe that's a default message from the MediaWiki template. We've never really done that in practice... maybe we should remove it, actually?

Anyway, Zju was looking for an easy way to determine what's already present in a region of Akana, and I think comparing each to a single specific region of Earth is more useful as a quick reference then trying to make multiple comparisons.

Fair enough. I do think "Eastern Peilaš = East Asia" is a good general guide, with some caveats about specific places (like, the inland parts of Xšalad are probably significantly drier than southern China, even though the coastlines in that area match up quite nicely). "Western Tuysáfa = Western Europe and the Mediterranean" should work pretty well too, I think; the only issue is that it doesn't give you an easy way to make western Tuysáfa and western Peilaš distinct from one another, if they're both supposed to resemble Western Europe and the Mediterranean.

Here's a really big picture question: if, as you said a couple posts ago, the flora and fauna of Peilaš and Tuysáfa seem more similar than those of Europe and North America, how do we explain that? Shouldn't they have been connected more recently? What if we made the last ice age more recent than Earth's, instead of longer ago? What else would have to change for that to make sense?

[Cedh]

I think it's highly counterproductive to simply accept what's already been written as fait accompli. If we want Akana to make sense as a plausible, Earth-like world, we may have to go back and make some changes to earlier material.

I don't entirely agree. In general I feel like the earlier material is Akana, and new ideas should fit with it, not vice versa. (I suppose this is partly out of a nostalgic affection for the early documents of Akana, but also partly because I think respect for past contributors—and their copyright rights—entails not messing with their work.) We had a sort of informal policy of quod scripsi scripsi in the past (Radius described it here), and for the most part I think it worked well.

Rather than retconning the awkward bits out of existence, I'd prefer to come up with additions to the world that explain why things are that way. That's why I really like your idea of grain-growing Ultimundic speakers: they explain why both continents have the same grain crops, which is something that bugged me for years. I'd be in favor of explaining some of the livestock similarities in the same way; certainly this would work for sheep, and possibly for cattle as well. (Maybe goats could go in the opposite direction: they seem to reach the Aiwa valley from the Isthmus region, which could be consistent with an origin further east, perhaps even in western Tuysáfa.)

The Tuysáfan elephants and tigers weirded me out because they didn't fit my long-held assumptions (based on some of the earliest documents about Akana) about where those animals lived—assumptions which it hadn't occurred to me might not be shared by other Akana oldbies, like Cedh. However, they're already embedded in a number of language descriptions written by several people, and nobody but me seems to have been bothered by them; moreover, the fact that other people didn't share my assumptions is mostly my fault for not making them known before. It seems to me I've now voiced my opinion, and if nobody else agrees with me I'm okay with that. (If I've misunderstood your and Cedh's positions, please tell me!)

My personal opinion is intermediate between yours. I agree with Corumayas that most of the existing material should not be changed, but I also agree with CatDoom that for some of the larger inconsistencies it's easier to go back and change a few details. Also, "the existing material" is not a homogenous category: There's material which has always been established as canon and which has served as a productive basis for further work (e.g. Ndak Ta), material which has been accepted but not much expanded upon (e.g. those well-described languages which do not have descendants yet), material which has been quietly ignored most of the time because it doesn't feel all that realistic (e.g. Qedik), and actually also material which has been revised in order to make it fit in better (e.g. Ndok Aisô, Zele, Thokyunèhòta). So, while I'm in favor of generally following the QSS rule, I'm also in favor of well-motivated revisions of existing material as long as they (a) make things fit together much better, (b) do not alter Akana too much, and (c) have been discussed and approved of by several important contributors.

Heck, there's already a disclaimer telling people that their work may be mercilessly edited by other users.

I believe that's a default message from the MediaWiki template. We've never really done that in practice... maybe we should remove it, actually?

Right, that's a default message. I'd be in favor of not removing it completely, but maybe changing it to something more appropriate.

Anyway, Zju was looking for an easy way to determine what's already present in a region of Akana, and I think comparing each to a single specific region of Earth is more useful as a quick reference then trying to make multiple comparisons.

Fair enough. I do think "Eastern Peilaš = East Asia" is a good general guide, with some caveats about specific places (like, the inland parts of Xšalad are probably significantly drier than southern China, even though the coastlines in that area match up quite nicely). "Western Tuysáfa = Western Europe and the Mediterranean" should work pretty well too, I think; the only issue is that it doesn't give you an easy way to make western Tuysáfa and western Peilaš distinct from one another, if they're both supposed to resemble Western Europe and the Mediterranean.

I've personally always been wary of these one-to-one correspondences, partly because they might lead people to extend the analogy to other domains like culture or language, and partly because even within the domain of geography and climate alone there are many places on Akana which don't have an analogue on Earth, and this necessarily influence their flora and fauna in ways that have no full parallel *here*. To me, a multi-model approach works better - although Zju is right that that's more difficult terrain for newcomers.

Also, while western Tuysáfa should indeed be similar to Europe in terms of climate, flora, and fauna, northwestern Peilaš can't be all that similar because (a) there's no continent to the west of it, so no Gulf Stream analogue, (b) the large Western bay is not nearly as closed as the Mediterranean, hence the climate on both coasts is much less influenced by the continent on the other side than Europe/Africa or Tuysáfa/Zeluzhia, and (c) the NW Peilaš subcontinent has a central steppe, which we agreed long ago would only be possible with a medium-sized mountain range parallel to the west coast (only that mountain range has not yet appeared on any map because we don't have access to Mr. Pocketful's source files), and if you take this into account then this subcontinent is quite unlike any place on Earth climatically, except maybe southern Chile and Patagonia.

(One further comment: The longer I've been working on Akana, the more I tend to sympathize with a Zompistian approach to biology, with many things very similar to Earth but nothing completely alike, only analogous...)

Here's a really big picture question: if, as you said a couple posts ago, the flora and fauna of Peilaš and Tuysáfa seem more similar than those of Europe and North America, how do we explain that? Shouldn't they have been connected more recently? What if we made the last ice age more recent than Earth's, instead of longer ago? What else would have to change for that to make sense?

Many of the differences in fauna and flora between Europe and North America go back to long before the ice ages; the Bering land bridge was open around 20 mya too. Only a few species (very closely related between the continents) crossed during the ice ages, 20.000 - 15.000 years ago. As for Tuysáfa, note that our proposed land bridge has an intermediate time depth, which can easily explain the greater overall similarity - if we're able to introduce all of the most similar species via the Ttiruku Arc later, that is. So IMO there's no need for a later ice age than *here*, but of course we can adjust the time depth of the not-quite-so-recent ice age as necessary, within a range of, say, eight to one million years ago.

[CatDoom]

That's why I really like your idea of grain-growing Ultimundic speakers: they explain why both continents have the same grain crops, which is something that bugged me for years. I'd be in favor of explaining some of the livestock similarities in the same way; certainly this would work for sheep, and possibly for cattle as well. (Maybe goats could go in the opposite direction: they seem to reach the Aiwa valley from the Isthmus region, which could be consistent with an origin further east, perhaps even in western Tuysáfa.)

Ultimundic speakers could have brought sheep with them, but the timeline is such that they almost definitely didn't have cattle. Actually, there's already been some discussion about Tuysáfan cattle being a local development that in part drove the expansion of the T1 languages. The wiki also explicitly states that goats were first domesticated in the Isthmus region. I wouldn't worry too much about the same species being domesticated separately in Peilaš and Tuysáfa; genetic studies suggest that, in the real world, cattle were domesticated independently in the vicinity of modern Turkey and on the Indian subcontinent, while archaeological evidence suggests that pigs were independently domesticated in both the fertile crescent (possibly in Cyprus and the adjacent mainland) and in China.

As for the independent domestication of rice in Xšalad and eastern Tuysáfa, that's actually quite plausible given that there are two different species of domestic rice grown on Earth. Cultivation of Oryza sativa first seems to have begun in the area around the Pearl River in southern China, which has a subtropical climate roughly similar to that of southeastern Tuysáfa. Meanwhile, Oryza glaberrima originated around the inland delta of the Niger river, located in the semiarid Sahel, a region roughly similar to the inland parts of Xšalad.

Heck, there's already a disclaimer telling people that their work may be mercilessly edited by other users.

I believe that's a default message from the MediaWiki template. We've never really done that in practice... maybe we should remove it, actually?

Fair enough; I didn't know that. Akana is pretty much the only wiki I'm active on.

My personal opinion is intermediate between yours. I agree with Corumayas that most of the existing material should not be changed, but I also agree with CatDoom that for some of the larger inconsistencies it's easier to go back and change a few details. Also, "the existing material" is not a homogenous category: There's material which has always been established as canon and which has served as a productive basis for further work (e.g. Ndak Ta), material which has been accepted but not much expanded upon (e.g. those well-described languages which do not have descendants yet), material which has been quietly ignored most of the time because it doesn't feel all that realistic (e.g. Qedik), and actually also material which has been revised in order to make it fit in better (e.g. Ndok Aisô, Zele, Thokyunèhòta). So, while I'm in favor of generally following the QSS rule, I'm also in favor of well-motivated revisions of existing material as long as they (a) make things fit together much better, (b) do not alter Akana too much, and (c) have been discussed and approved of by several important contributors.

I think I may have stated my case a bit too aggressively; I of course have a great deal of respect for everyone who has put work into building Akana, and for the time and energy that they put into it, and I absolutely agree that most of what's on there should be preserved. My position is pretty much the same as yours, Cedh, though I would add that I think it would be good to open up well-established parts of the setting that have been abandoned by their original creators (Qedik being a prime example) for interested people to make something out of them. Ideally, somebody doing that kind of editing would ask for permission first, where possible.

I've personally always been wary of these one-to-one correspondences, partly because they might lead people to extend the analogy to other domains like culture or language, and partly because even within the domain of geography and climate alone there are many places on Akana which don't have an analogue on Earth, and this necessarily influence their flora and fauna in ways that have no full parallel *here*. To me, a multi-model approach works better - although Zju is right that that's more difficult terrain for newcomers.

That's fair, and I agree multiple models would probably lead to more interesting and plausible results. At the same time, though, I'm concerned that freely mixing old and new world species would make different parts of Akana with similar climates less distinct from one another. If one Mediterranean zone is sort of like southern Europe, sort of like California, and sort of like Chile, it begs the question of what's left to put in a the other Mediterranean zones elsewhere on the planet. The best solution would, of course, be to work up specific descriptions of the ecosystems in the different regions of Akana, but that would be a truly monumental undertaking.

Also, while western Tuysáfa should indeed be similar to Europe in terms of climate, flora, and fauna, northwestern Peilaš can't be all that similar because (a) there's no continent to the west of it, so no Gulf Stream analogue, (b) the large Western bay is not nearly as closed as the Mediterranean, hence the climate on both coasts is much less influenced by the continent on the other side than Europe/Africa or Tuysáfa/Zeluzhia, and (c) the NW Peilaš subcontinent has a central steppe, which we agreed long ago would only be possible with a medium-sized mountain range parallel to the west coast (only that mountain range has not yet appeared on any map because we don't have access to Mr. Pocketful's source files), and if you take this into account then this subcontinent is quite unlike any place on Earth climatically, except maybe southern Chile and Patagonia.

The Geographical setting you're describing actually doesn't sound that dissimilar from the western United States. The west coast is quite rugged in most places, with several parallel ranges of mountains separated by narrow valleys of varying sizes. The highest are the Sierra Nevada and Cascade ranges, which create a big rain shadow that makes the climates of Idaho, Nevada, Utah, and the eastern parts of Washington and Oregon not all that dissimilar from that of central Asia. There's also a lot of steppe-type climate to the east of the Rockies, sort of like the steppes around the upper Aiwa, west of the big central mountain range in Peilaš. Assuming that Corumayas' overlay maps are at the right scale, the sizes of the areas involved aren't too far off, either.

(One further comment: The longer I've been working on Akana, the more I tend to sympathize with a Zompistian approach to biology, with many things very similar to Earth but nothing completely alike, only analogous...)

I've had the impression for some time that this was an unspoken aspect of the setting; for instance, when we talk about horses in Akana, we're talking about a domestic animal that can do the same things that a horse can do and probably originates in the same kind of geographic region. They could have six legs, horns, and a bluish coat of symbiotic lichen for all we know, but for the purpose of understanding how they fit into the society, culture, and ecology of Akana, they're horses. I'm not sure where, specifically, I got this impression, but it seems like a reasonable assumption given that this is a different planet and all.

[Fixsme]

Hi.
I'm following what's happening on Akana (and with Conlang Relay 2014), I have one remark(I'm a newbie at conworlding so I could be wrong):

Regarding the climate of northwest Tuysafa. I have doubts that the Akanan gulf stream can reach as far as Ronquian territories. The Ttiruku Arc should block most of it. We are talking about a 800 meters deep current and the sea should be 100 meters deep (if in glaciation species can cross it). The stream should slow down or be redirect to Southern Tuysafa. Am I wrong?

I will have another remark regarding the moon of Akana, when I have the time to write it down correctly.

[CatDoom]

The ocean current map on the wiki does show a current from the vicinity of southern Peilaš carrying warm water as far as the northeastern most tip of Tuysáfa, passing through the gap between Sumarušuxi and the Ttiruku arc. However, as far as I know this map was composed before the idea of a land bridge between Peilaš and Tuysáfa was proposed.

Looking a bit at the information available online regarding ocean currents, the closest comparison might be the Tsushima Current, which flows between Korea and Japan, bringing warm water to the west coast of Japan and the east coast of Korea and helping support some coral reefs in the southern Sea of Japan. The Korea Strait is quite shallow, and was probably above water during recent glacial periods, much like the Akanan gap we're looking at. The branches of the Tsushima Current meet up with cold currents in the northern Sea of Japan, so it's effects don't extend very far, but I can't say that the same would necessarily be true in the region of Akana we're talking about, since the strait is somewhat wider and the geography on the other side doesn't resemble the sea of Japan at all.

Long story short, oceanography is hard. You're right that the current from southern Peilaš probably couldn't carry nearly as much warm water to northern Tuysáfa as the North Atlantic Current does to northern Europe, but it probably does carry some at least as far as the west coast of the continent. I don't know enough about the subject to say more than that.

It may, however, be worth noting that Tuysáfa is actually somewhat farther south than Europe, according to Corumayas' recent overlay maps. For instance, the northernmost Ronquian languages are spoken at a latitude roughly similar to that of Calais, so the area may not need a strong warm current to have the climate that the map on the wiki indicates it has.

Speaking of which, Corumayas, my earlier criticism of your Tuysáfa overlays was based on the ill-informed notion that you were more or less just eyeballing the latitudes. I didn't realize that the original Akanan map actually had latitudes for you to line up with; good job on that, I was just being dumb.

[Fixsme]

Thank you CatDoom.

About the Akana's moon, let's call it Thaalo (because it's no moon! ), I've read Corumayas's post on it (on annular eclipses). You could actually have a Mars sized moon that fits the Ndak Ta calendar requirements and the rompian vocabulary list about ecclipses (Though I haven't simulated such a system). I explain: the moon formed probably after the collision of proto-Earth and Theia, massive amounts of mantle were ejected in space. So if Theia did not collide with Earth, you could have the formation of a double planet system. Of course the presence of a "moon" would lead to stronger tides, stronger variation of luminosity than on Earth since the distance between Akana and its sun, let's call it Zama would have a monthly cycle, maybe Thaalo would have a magnetic field that would interact with Akana's. But I get it, life conditions would stray away from Earth's. :'(

[CatDoom]

As I recall, the current consensus is that Akana's moon is somewhat larger but somewhat farther away than Earth's, though I'm not sure if there's been any discussion of where, exactly, it came from.

As for what you're talking about, I remember reading a thought experiment that might interest you, about how many earth-sized planets you could fit into the habitable zone of a star. The solution ended up involving (among other things) lots of (apparently stable) double planet systems. I don't have a link, unfortunately, but if you're interested you may be able to find it by googling around a bit.

[KathTheDragon]

As I recall, the current consensus is that Akana's moon is somewhat larger but somewhat farther away than Earth's, though I'm not sure if there's been any discussion of where, exactly, it came from.

As for what you're talking about, I remember reading a thought experiment that might interest you, about how many earth-sized planets you could fit into the habitable zone of a star. The solution ended up involving (among other things) lots of (apparently stable) double planet systems. I don't have a link, unfortunately, but if you're interested you may be able to find it by googling around a bit.

Found it

[the duke of nuke]

My calculations on a system that fits all the established requirements are here: http://akana.conlang.org/wiki/User:Thed ... /Astronomy

Hope that helps!

[WeepingElf]

Any thoughts on the other planets of the system?

[Neon Fox]

Is there anything much about north eastern Tuysafa in terms of flora and fauna? I was thinking (for the bit I'm interested in) something along the lines of New England forest, possibly managed in much the same way for tree nuts to be a major crop.

[CatDoom]

As far as I know nothing has actually been written about northeast Tuysafa outside of your own article on Proto-Northeastern, but based on the climate New England and eastern Canada would probably be a decent enough analogue.

[Neon Fox]

As far as I know nothing has actually been written about northeast Tuysafa outside of your own article on Proto-Northeastern, but based on the climate New England and eastern Canada would probably be a decent enough analogue.

That's what I was thinking when I picked the area--I specifically wanted cold and snowy winters.

I think I bit off more than I could chew with PNE, though, sadly. For some reason I have a very hard time motivating myself to get back to it, as evidenced by the long, long lag. :(

[Fixsme]

My calculations on a system that fits all the established requirements are here: http://akana.conlang.org/wiki/User:Thed ... /Astronomy

Hope that helps!

Thank you for the link. I think your moon is a bit light for a rocky moon. If this moon has the same composition as our moon, meaning a silicate mantle and an iron core of 20% of the radius. I am getting a mean density a bit less than 3.4 g/cm³ (I am also overestimating a little the density of our moon, so maybe this number should a bit lower) which means a moon that is twice as massive as our moon (something like 2.05 times Luna). To get these numbers I have played with a paper of Sara Seager in which she uses equations of hydrostatics to link the mass, the composition and the expected radius of an exoplanet. Here is the link: http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1086/521346/pdf

As far as I know, having a mean density of 3.02 g/cm³ means that either you have a hundred kilometer ice sheet (see Europe: 3.01 g/cm³), which is unlikely for a moon of its size that close to its star, either the moon is carbon rich which means a carbon rich stellar system, which is unlikely since the mean density of Akana is about the same as Earth which means about the same composition, so the stellar system should be silicate rich.

[WeepingElf]

As far as I know, having a mean density of 3.02 g/cm³ means that either you have a hundred kilometer ice sheet (see Europe: 3.01 g/cm³), which is unlikely for a moon of its size that close to its star, either the moon is carbon rich which means a carbon rich stellar system, which is unlikely since the mean density of Akana is about the same as Earth which means about the same composition, so the stellar system should be silicate rich.

An ice sheet can be ruled out; Akana's moon would simply not be cold enough. A carbon-rich system can also be ruled out, because then Akana would be mostly diamond and silicon carbide, wouldn't have water oceans but oceans of hydrocarbons, and no life, at least not as we know it.