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

Substantial postings about constructed languages and constructed worlds in general. Good place to mention your own or evaluate someone else's. Put quick questions in C&C Quickies instead.
User avatar
Radius Solis
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1248
Joined: Tue Mar 30, 2004 5:40 pm
Location: Si'ahl
Contact:

Post by Radius Solis »

4pq1injbok wrote:If you're inventing a word out of whole cloth, it certainly makes sense to do so by projecting it back to the source lang, to get something with the general phonological feel of an evolved word, and to pick up whatever morphological alternations your sound changes bring about, and whatever. But positing this word to have been part of the source language all along? That feels, well, somewhat violating. Certainly I've already made a number of conscious decisions about the AhH lexis: semantic space will split this way, so that these semantic distinctions will be made but not those; these other concepts I don't want lexicalized at all -- it's not always just a matter of non-provision. And I wouldn't especially like having that ridden over roughshod.
What's to stop you, in turn, from positing that such extra words were lost from your language's line of descent? It harms you not in the slightest that someone may do this, unless you're worried about people making similar additions to your own langauge down the road (in which case, simply decline to allow it). Since all of our conlangs' lexicons are presumably only partial at best in the first place, with the assumption being necessary every step of the way that each langauge has far more vocabulary than is explicitly specified, surely no integrity is lost by using some of the previously non-specified words.
And (on a theme I've touched on before) don't forget that there are plenty of ways aside from complete invention to get a word for X that don't necessitate your source language having had a word for X. Semantic shifts especially; but also borrowings, and fossilization of compounds or derived forms, &c. These have the further benefit (beyond parsimony) of being much more interesting than plain invention, from the etymological perspective.
Certainly. And for the 170-ish words I'm adding to Pencek, perhaps 155 are coming from just such methods. The other fifteen are the ones I just couldn't stomach doing that with, for reasons of plausibility. There is absolutely no way a technologically and culturally superior language can plausibly borrow more than a tiny handful of super-basic daily verbs from a backwards tribal language. Verbs are notoriously less borrowable than other open-class words to start with, and then add in the linguistic and cultural dominance question... *shrug*. Compoundings are out for similar reasons: how many languages need compound for "move" or "kick" or "decide"? And I've already applied semantic shift to fill as many holes as I think I reasonably can. As for old derivations, Adata is woefully lacking in derivational morphology. Does it actually have any at all? I'm not seeing any in the grammar, save for the plural/singulative thing on nouns. Which doesn't help the basic verbs issue.

4pq1injbok
Sanci
Sanci
Posts: 36
Joined: Tue Nov 28, 2006 8:37 pm

Post by 4pq1injbok »

Radius Solis wrote:What's to stop you, in turn, from positing that such extra words were lost from your language's line of descent? It harms you not in the slightest that someone may do this, unless you're worried about people making similar additions to your own langauge down the road (in which case, simply decline to allow it). Since all of our conlangs' lexicons are presumably only partial at best in the first place, with the assumption being necessary every step of the way that each langauge has far more vocabulary than is explicitly specified, surely no integrity is lost by using some of the previously non-specified words.
My worries were about the possibility that this would happen to my own lang, yes. And I realize that to the extent that gaps are a matter of leaving things unspecified, which I concede they mostly will be, filling them is pretty harmless (though even so I'd prefer to be consulted). And it's in the nature of the project that creative control of even the immediate future of my lang is due to whoever's using it as a source; so it doesn't perturb me to have words introduced to what's become of my language then.

I do most certainly intend to make use of any new Adāta words we get, believe you me.
Certainly. And for the 170-ish words I'm adding to Pencek, perhaps 155 are coming from just such methods. The other fifteen are the ones I just couldn't stomach doing that with, for reasons of plausibility. There is absolutely no way a technologically and culturally superior language can plausibly borrow more than a tiny handful of super-basic daily verbs from a backwards tribal language. Verbs are notoriously less borrowable than other open-class words to start with, and then add in the linguistic and cultural dominance question... *shrug*. Compoundings are out for similar reasons: how many languages need compound for "move" or "kick" or "decide"? And I've already applied semantic shift to fill as many holes as I think I reasonably can. As for old derivations, Adata is woefully lacking in derivational morphology. Does it actually have any at all? I'm not seeing any in the grammar, save for the plural/singulative thing on nouns. Which doesn't help the basic verbs issue.
Well, I didn't figure you'd find my suggestion especially novel. Of course there are sociolinguistic constraints, and one can overtax the pool of words one has, ..., and in the end holes are simply holes.

And it indeed doesn't help that Adāta lacks derivational morphology, commiserate, commiserate. The verbal situation in AhH is helped somewhat by the armful of light verb constructions I've introduced, but I still haven't really gotten around to verbs in a big way yet, and I foresee some trouble.

User avatar
TzirTzi
Lebom
Lebom
Posts: 153
Joined: Tue Jun 21, 2005 10:26 am
Location: Oxford
Contact:

Post by TzirTzi »

Are the new Adata words being sound-changed for Æðadě and its other daughters? I'd like to start on a new daughterlang, but I'd like to wait until I can do so with an enlarged lexicon and the link to Adata itself is dead..

Plus I'm still looking forward to enlarging Aríe and Yēt's lexicons ^^ Does ebilein still have the adata>Æðadě sound changes so that the downward chain can start?
Salmoneus wrote:The existence of science has not been homosexually proven.

Cedh
Sanno
Sanno
Posts: 938
Joined: Tue Nov 14, 2006 10:30 am
Location: Tübingen, Germany
Contact:

Post by Cedh »

TzirTzi wrote:...the link to Adata itself is dead...
At the moment, Google has it cached here. I don't know for how long though, so you should quickly save a backup copy for yourself.

User avatar
Zhen Lin
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 304
Joined: Mon Sep 27, 2004 9:59 am

Post by Zhen Lin »

Indeed. I have the three main pages open in my browser window, but I've already lost the etymological lexicon.
書不盡言、言不盡意

Cedh
Sanno
Sanno
Posts: 938
Joined: Tue Nov 14, 2006 10:30 am
Location: Tübingen, Germany
Contact:

Post by Cedh »

Corumayas wrote:I think it would be fun to have more borrowing among the branches. The problem is that it's hard to tell which languages should be contemporaneous with each other. For example, I suspect that the languages I originally borrowed from, Yhát and Zhaj, should actually be significantly earlier than Ghaf. Would it be possible to work out a rough chronology? There's already some dates and time spans mentioned here and there, but they're scattered and sometimes inconsistent; it'd be nice to be able to say for sure that Öhat, Old Erhadzy, Aríe, and Yïåf are all spoken at about the same period, or whatever. Maybe a little conworlding could go along with this too; we could assign geographical locations to the langs that don't have that now, and piece together an outline history if we want. Anybody up for that?
I'm currently working on the history of Orrótx, and ran into the same problem. I originally borrowed words from Xa' and ran them through all my sound changes (meaning they'd been borrowed at the time of Erhadzy), but looking closely at the information we have so far Xa' should actually be contemporary to my own language, if not younger. So based on what others have said, I'll suggest a rough timeframe, with a calendar referring to the birth of the prophet Zārakātias. Dates in bold are explicitly given by the author of the language(s).

---
Ndak Ta: ca. -1800 to -1500 (this is also the time of Sinakan, the hero from our sample text. Timeframe taken from the Fáralo grammar)

Adāta, Fáralo, Naidda, Ndok Aisô, Qedik: ca. +200

Æðadě, Aθáta, Mavakhalan, Kozado: ca. +800

Pencek, Puoni: ca. +1100

Ayāsth, Yād, E'át, Ājat he-Heloun: ca. +1600 to +1800

Zhaj, Yēt, Yhát, Agɑf: ca. +2500

Öhát, Middle Erhadzy, Yïåf: ca. +3200 to +3500 (timeframe taken from the Ghaf grammar)

Aríe, Erhadzy: ca. +3700

Ghaf: ca. +3800 to +4000

Arie, Xa', Orrótx: ca. +4400 to +4600

?Aghïyï: ca. +5200
---

Opinions?

User avatar
Radius Solis
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1248
Joined: Tue Mar 30, 2004 5:40 pm
Location: Si'ahl
Contact:

Post by Radius Solis »

TzirTzi wrote:...the link to Adata itself is dead...
Apparently dewrad has switched to a new domain name and it's currently in the process of propagating through the DNS system. I don't remember the new domain name, but I'll post it as soon as I know what it is. So don't worry about Adata being lost. And if something unfortunate were to happen anyway, I have backup copies of the grammar and the etymological lexicon. And I think the culture page too.




Cedh:

Puoni should be about +1000. Ndak Ta should be -1800, because at the time of the first relay game, all NT's daughters were supposed to be shooting for a time depth of two millennia.

User avatar
Legion
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 522
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2005 9:56 pm

Post by Legion »

cedh audmanh wrote: ---
Ndak Ta: ca. -1800 to -1500 (this is also the time of Sinakan, the hero from our sample text. Timeframe taken from the Fáralo grammar)

Adāta, Fáralo, Naidda, Ndok Aisô, Qedik: ca. +200

Æðadě, Aθáta, Mavakhalan, Kozado: ca. +800

Pencek, Puoni: ca. +1100

Ayāsth, Yād, E'át, Ājat he-Heloun: ca. +1600 to +1800

Zhaj, Yēt, Yhát, Agɑf: ca. +2500

Öhát, Middle Erhadzy, Yïåf: ca. +3200 to +3500 (timeframe taken from the Ghaf grammar)

Aríe, Erhadzy: ca. +3700

Ghaf: ca. +3800 to +4000

Arie, Xa', Orrótx: ca. +4400 to +4600

?Aghïyï: ca. +5200
---

Opinions?

Kozado should be further away in time (contemporary to Pencek and Puoni, or even a bit younger, like +1300).

And at circa +500, you can put Old Kozado, and Koyek (my upcoming next project for this relay).

User avatar
Radius Solis
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1248
Joined: Tue Mar 30, 2004 5:40 pm
Location: Si'ahl
Contact:

Post by Radius Solis »

Corumayas wrote:I think it would be fun to have more borrowing among the branches. The problem is that it's hard to tell which languages should be contemporaneous with each other. For example, I suspect that the languages I originally borrowed from, Yhát and Zhaj, should actually be significantly earlier than Ghaf. Would it be possible to work out a rough chronology? There's already some dates and time spans mentioned here and there, but they're scattered and sometimes inconsistent; it'd be nice to be able to say for sure that Öhat, Old Erhadzy, Aríe, and Yïåf are all spoken at about the same period, or whatever. Maybe a little conworlding could go along with this too; we could assign geographical locations to the langs that don't have that now, and piece together an outline history if we want. Anybody up for that?
I've been thinking lately that it would be nice to add some conworlding to this too. Here's one situation I've recently considered: where is there room for all of Adata's main daughters? For the same time period, Zhen Lin posits a Common Vulgar Adata spoken throughout Rathedan, and an Empire of Athale; Rhaden says his Aθáta is spoken in the Rathedan highlands (no more precise location given); and Mavakhalan is spoken in the city-state of Khalan. The location of Aedhade was not specified.

IMO, these languages bear too little resemblance to each other for a Common Vulgar Adata to sound very plausible. Especially considering the size of the area involved... Rathedan as described in the original Adata pages, was not a particularly large area to begin with. Just a prosperous one. So realistically we should be trying to place future languages (and probably some of the existing ones) near to Rathedan, because I think at this point Rathedan itself is pretty full.

So what were the adjacent areas to the Rathedan highlands? Well, there's basically four.

1. To the north is a large semiarid plain, the uppermost segment of the Eige river basin, called the Eiwel Gouron in Faralo. At one time Dazi was to have made a language for the area, but that never happened and it's pretty much up for grabs. Plenty of agriculture would be possible provided it's done by irrigation from the rivers, so civilizing this place would be very feasible.

2. To the northeast, there's the well-populated land of Lasomo, around the confluence of the Eige and Boieba rivers. This was home to Ndok Aiso, ghur's language that was contemporary with Adata. The language didn't come to much, unfortunately... if we can get ghur's permission to say the region later fell under Rathedan's sway, it might be a good place for one of Adata's descendant branches. It's probably the richest pickings of these four areas, well-populated and very agricultural with at least several major cities.

3. To the immediate east and southeast lies another semiarid region, with no known name. It has never been spoken for, save that I made brief mention of it in the Pencek history notes. It's the area between Rathedan and the Ici Forest (aka Etewg Paidaem) where Pencek developed. In the original Eige Valley map at the time of Ndak Ta, two tribe names were placed here: Hitatc Mlir and Hitatc Wan (the latter of which is mentioned in a presumably later, sound-changed form as Ktatcwa in the Pencek history... someday I'd like to do some borrowings from it, should that language ever be described). Still, it's a dry region with poor prospects for much agriculture (there are no major rivers there either). So it's probably doomed to never be the site of a major civilization of its own... but may nevertheless be interesting to anyone who doesn't care about having a kingdom to go along with their language.

4. The mysterious lands to the SW of Rathedan on the other side of the mountain range. Everything that's ever been said about this region was said by Dewrad in the Adata culture pages, unless one of our relay participants has already set a daughter there that I missed.

User avatar
Nuntar
Lebom
Lebom
Posts: 128
Joined: Sat Oct 25, 2003 7:07 am
Location: [16.50.72.0]
Contact:

Post by Nuntar »

Where can I see the geographical and historical data that's already been worked out?
[quote="Amaya"]Every now and then, the world tries to say something. I'm never quite sure whether or not to listen to it at times like that.[/quote]

User avatar
Radius Solis
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1248
Joined: Tue Mar 30, 2004 5:40 pm
Location: Si'ahl
Contact:

Post by Radius Solis »

Well, at this point there is no central repository of information, alas. Aside from this thread. There are details in various people's grammars' background sections, for those that have one. And if it helps, there are some maps that were drawn for the Ndak Ta era and the era of its daughter languages.

The Eige Valley, from a Huyfarahan perspective, circa +200:
http://www.almeopedia.com/index.php/Image:Huyfarah.gif


The whole continent, for the same time period, with the domains of the old relay's participants mapped out:
http://www.almeopedia.com/index.php/Image:Ranradius.png


Finally, there's a map of the Eige Valley from Ndak times, showing the boundaries of the ancient empire. Quaintly, all the features are labelled in Ndak Ta. Some brief descriptions of some of the other tribes can be found on the Almeopedia. For reference, Rathedan is the mountainous region where the Gezoro live:
http://www.u.arizona.edu/~bpawlows/temp ... re_map.png


Various other information is on the Almeopedia, none of it for any time period later than +200.

User avatar
Nuntar
Lebom
Lebom
Posts: 128
Joined: Sat Oct 25, 2003 7:07 am
Location: [16.50.72.0]
Contact:

Post by Nuntar »

Last edited by Nuntar on Tue Oct 16, 2007 7:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
[quote="Amaya"]Every now and then, the world tries to say something. I'm never quite sure whether or not to listen to it at times like that.[/quote]

User avatar
Zhen Lin
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 304
Joined: Mon Sep 27, 2004 9:59 am

Post by Zhen Lin »

cedh audmanh wrote:So based on what others have said, I'll suggest a rough timeframe, with a calendar referring to the birth of the prophet Zārakātias. Dates in bold are explicitly given by the author of the language(s).
This is the periodisation I made up for Ayāsthi:

Spoken
Common Vulgar Adāta +300
Pre-Ayāsthi +600
Old Ayāsthi +900
Middle Ayāsthi +1200
Late/new Ayāsthi +1400

Written
Classical Adāta +300
Imperial Adāta +500
Post-imperial Adāta +1100
Neoclassical Adāta +1400
New Ayāsthi +1600

Regarding geography though - I get no sense of scale from the Rathedān map given by Dewrad. I have so far interpreted it as being the size of an average European country (which would mean that this region has incredible linguistic diversity)...
書不盡言、言不盡意

User avatar
Radius Solis
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1248
Joined: Tue Mar 30, 2004 5:40 pm
Location: Si'ahl
Contact:

Post by Radius Solis »

NEW ADATA URL

http://www.deinioljones.net/conlangs/adata/adata.htm


Dewrad re-coded the webpage in addition to moving it to a new web host. So it looks different now. And a few errors were fixed as well, such as the former omission of /h/ from the consonants table.

NOTE: The new lexicon page merges the recent vocabulary extension into the original lexicon. But Dew hasn't re-done the things like irregular stress marking yet. He says he'll get around to it another time.

User avatar
Zhen Lin
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 304
Joined: Mon Sep 27, 2004 9:59 am

Post by Zhen Lin »

Bleh, how did I miss this whole page of replies...
Radius Solis wrote:Here's one situation I've recently considered: where is there room for all of Adata's main daughters? For the same time period, Zhen Lin posits a Common Vulgar Adata spoken throughout Rathedan, and an Empire of Athale; Rhaden says his Aθáta is spoken in the Rathedan highlands (no more precise location given); and Mavakhalan is spoken in the city-state of Khalan. The location of Aedhade was not specified.
Yes, exactly. This is the reason why I had Erhadzy extracted from the continent entirely and moved to the opposite side of the globe (or thereabouts).
IMO, these languages bear too little resemblance to each other for a Common Vulgar Adata to sound very plausible.
Indeed. My retcon is that the local dialect of Khalanu diverged more rapidly due to its isolationist culture. A brief examination of Aθáta suggests that it is not all that different from Adāta - it could be contemporaneous with old Ayāsthi (Adhāsth). Compare:
Afsian sif Síncan, θíscesor, θíscān Câθlas, méxθāx Sáma 'n Θálo: Ílnu ápin of-pacátiān mésein, ése θísclas rúlas ir écon ilín. Áffax sif θísclasax rúlsax cássax: "Θísca prâ mésān. Irofífan ófa θísclas cáran. On táfan iu naca. Θal ân ápienān of-pacátiān mésān sási iu θéfi."
şèınaċan, àtşeıen-aċċ ḋèızaċċ ġèzoar, ən-àtşeıen-aċċ ḋèızaċċ-aħ làh-aħ cáġat, ən-àtşeıen-aċċ méċat-aħ zàmm ən ṫáll, ər-àḃiḃḃ şìp:

“éılanu àfeıen-aıj əḃ-ōfáċāṡeıə-aħ mèşş-aıj, èşş rólah ər-ír ġéċon ēıll-ìn. rólah cazẁh ər-àḃiḃḃ şìp: “mèşş-aċċ ər-à ḋèızaċċ pèrā. ə-ər-ésṫ-ā ġòpfeıāņeıen-aħ āḋèızaċalah-aħ āàċāran. ən-şìp ə-ər-tàn ju-nàċċ. ḋàl à àfeıen-aċċ əḃ-ōfáċāṡeıə-aħ mèşş-aċċ ə-ər-àfeʒy ju-ḋèpfy.”
The main grammatical differences are Aθáta's development of concord and Adhāsth's use of plural for deference. Shared innovations include suffixed/enclitic possessive markers and fusing of prepositions + pronouns. There are some similarities in the sound changes - lenition of aspirated stops in all positions, frication of voiced stops in all positions, voicing of intervocalic fricatives, palatalisation, and final devoicing.

Æðadĕ, on the other hand, seems more divergent. However, it also shares the frication of voiced stops in all positions. One may draw the conclusion that common vulgar Adāta disintegrated at different rates in different places.

That said, I present the working draft of Ayāsthi.
書不盡言、言不盡意

Corumayas
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 357
Joined: Sat Jul 30, 2005 3:45 pm
Location: San Francisco

Post by Corumayas »

Hey, it's great to see discussion here again! There's a lot to respond to. For now, I think I should make explicit a couple of assumptions I made in working on Ghaf:

One is a fairly minor detail of chronology-- I took the Years of the Prophet to date from the death of Zarakatias (based on the Adata materials where his birth is said to be about 200 years ago but the map-- which unfortunately is no longer online-- was dated 130). Dating from his birth, Yiaf should be ~3000-3400, and Ghaf should be ~3600-3900-- as long as that seems plausible given the amount of change; I'm not sure how to judge that kind of thing.

The other is about geography-- I decided that post-Imperial Tharas/Fadah/Ferah was bigger than the original city-state, including at least one other Daiadak city-- Nitaze-- and probably also some of the adjacent region(s) beyond the Rathedan (such as, maybe, whatever of the arid region to the east and southeast could be irrigated or used as pasture).

If Aedhade and Athata share some innovations with Ayasthi, should they originate from adjacent territories?
Hüwryaasûr, priestess of the four hegemons, wrote:Ryunshurshuroshan, the floating lizard

Akana Wiki | Akana Forum

Cedh
Sanno
Sanno
Posts: 938
Joined: Tue Nov 14, 2006 10:30 am
Location: Tübingen, Germany
Contact:

Post by Cedh »

Zhen Lin wrote:A brief examination of Aθáta suggests that it is not all that different from Adāta - it could be contemporaneous with old Ayāsthi (Adhāsth).

[Examples omitted]

The main grammatical differences are Aθáta's development of concord and Adhāsth's use of plural for deference. Shared innovations include suffixed/enclitic possessive markers and fusing of prepositions + pronouns. There are some similarities in the sound changes - lenition of aspirated stops in all positions, frication of voiced stops in all positions, voicing of intervocalic fricatives, palatalisation, and final devoicing.

Æðadĕ, on the other hand, seems more divergent. However, it also shares the frication of voiced stops in all positions.
Corumayas wrote:If Aedhade and Athata share some innovations with Ayasthi, should they originate from adjacent territories?
I would suggest the following historical scenario, starting from the situation for ~200 as described by Dewrad:
Since Zarākātias the Dāiadak city-states have united in a league of sorts and taken on a more expansionist outlook, which has resulted in the Rathedān and Huyfarah eyeing each other comfortably across the Eige Valley.
and taking into account these notes by Zhen Lin:
The existence of Thāras (Ayāsthi: ṫárah) as an independent city-state ended with its defeat by the then-burgeoning empire of Athalē (sèriṅ ah-àtsalē) in 183rd year of the prophet. The unification of Rathedān (ratşejāṅ) brought increased mobility to the Dāiadak (ḋáıjaḋak) population, which in turn "smeared out" the dialectal characteristics of the spoken and written languages. In particular, the Athalē empire imposed an standard written language upon its bureaucracy in the 6th century: Imperial Adāta (àjāsṫı ah-sèriṅ).
From the late 5th century onwards, the empire had started to extend its sway into the Eige Valley, permanently absorbing the lower Eiwəl Gourun around 550 and expanding unto the borders of Lasomo by 620. After a century of wary peace, emperor Tēmekas II. finally dared to launch an attack, incorporating the southern half of Lasomo into his realm and conquering Enčélade in 744.

Due to the centralistic cultural policy of the empire, Imperial Adāta became the official language of southern Lasomo, and vernacular Adatan dialects became the everyday language of the middle Eige. Nevertheless, the sheer size of the empire and the incorporation of different peoples with a number of different languages made linguistic unity unattainable...

The Lasomo cities along the Boíəba were never conquered by the Dāiadak. Throughout the 9th and 10th centuries they repeatedly attempted to liberate their former capital, finally achieving their goal in 971. This highly symbolic event instigated rebellions in all corners of the empire, and within a few years Athalē was reduced to its immediate surroundings. The emperor was displaced by a group of nobles, and the empire disbanded. The Dāiadak sphere was now organized on a local or regional level once again, with numerous city states and a few minor kingdoms. Cultural unity was lost, and the heirs of the Dāiadak diverged into a number of separate peoples.


This historical sketch results in a situation where we have an area at least three times the size of Rathedān proper for the daughters of Adāta, with enough outside influence to explain widely divergent developments. It is clear that Mavakhalan is spoken in the northern part of the highlands, and that Kozado is a local language in the northwestern area of Rathedān. The Old Ayāsthi area is centered on Thāras, probably extending towards the Eige valley to the northeast, but remaining connected to the original Dāiadak homeland. I would suggest to place Aθáta south of this, covering the southern third of Rathedān and the southeastern slopes of the highlands toward the Hitatc and Pencek areas. Æðadě could then originate from a lowland dialect, spoken in the Eige Valley about halfway between Rathedān and Lasomo.

This would also leave options for a downriver daughter language heavily influenced by Ndok Aisô, and of course the upper Eiwəl Gouron might also have been part of the Empire so we could start another new branch there if we want to.

User avatar
Radius Solis
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1248
Joined: Tue Mar 30, 2004 5:40 pm
Location: Si'ahl
Contact:

Post by Radius Solis »

Corumayas wrote:One is a fairly minor detail of chronology-- I took the Years of the Prophet to date from the death of Zarakatias (based on the Adata materials where his birth is said to be about 200 years ago but the map-- which unfortunately is no longer online-- was dated 130).
I just asked dewrad and he confirms that his intention was for YP to date from the death, not birth, of Zarakatias.



Cedh - I hope others like your scenario proposal as much as I do. The only thing I might change would be to make the dates of Athale imperialist expansion a little earlier. Empires tends to grow quickly once they start - three centuries later they're usually well into the stagnation phase.

Corumayas
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 357
Joined: Sat Jul 30, 2005 3:45 pm
Location: San Francisco

Post by Corumayas »

Radius Solis wrote:I just asked dewrad and he confirms that his intention was for YP to date from the death, not birth, of Zarakatias.
Should we recalibrate our chronology, then? (OTOH, maybe the Zarakatian religion doesn't last forever, and a different dating system becomes standard later on.)
Cedh - I hope others like your scenario proposal as much as I do. The only thing I might change would be to make the dates of Athale imperialist expansion a little earlier. Empires tends to grow quickly once they start - three centuries later they're usually well into the stagnation phase.
Alternatively, maybe move the start of the empire a little later? Right now it seems to be starting before the date of the Adata grammar. But I agree, it's a good proposal. There could be more events too-- expansion in other directions (the southwest?), conflicts with Huyfarah and the Xsali-- it might even help explain why it takes so long to expand into Lasomo.
Hüwryaasûr, priestess of the four hegemons, wrote:Ryunshurshuroshan, the floating lizard

Akana Wiki | Akana Forum

User avatar
Zhen Lin
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 304
Joined: Mon Sep 27, 2004 9:59 am

Post by Zhen Lin »

Yes, that provides an excellent historical framework up to the second generation of daughters. (I guess Ayāsthi is second-generation.)

The area of Ayāsthi influence should at least extend towards Khalanu, since AhH has Ayāsthi loans. As for the incorporation of Nitazē - it seems plausible enough. Perhaps the empire has provinces, with Thāras and Nitazē in one province?
書不盡言、言不盡意

User avatar
Radius Solis
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1248
Joined: Tue Mar 30, 2004 5:40 pm
Location: Si'ahl
Contact:

Post by Radius Solis »

Earlier this year, when I needed a historical framework for Puoni, I wrote a piece about the events in Huyfarah for the next couple centuries after the Faralo grammar. I ran it by Zompist, who approved.

Perhaps the expansion of Athale and its interaction with Lasomo can be tailored to fit into this scenario. In particular, I'm envisioning Athaleans being the people to cut Etou II's supply lines in Lasomo. The affair probably left the Lasomo people weakened for a while, so that might be a good time for Athale to schmooze on in.

I wrote:
A century after the account presented at http://www.zompist.com/faralo2.htm, the emperor of Huyfarah - last of the Balanin dynasty - died without issue at an early age. He had had no close relatives beyond his wife, so a search was conducted to determine his most closely related cousin who could then assume the throne of Huyfarah. The search produced multiple candidates who were all equally closely related; two of these proclaimed themselves emperor, and the resulting conflict boiled over into civil war: bloody, but mercifully short. When it was over, no living Balanins remained.

The former emperor's wife, while not a legal candidate for the throne, was power-hungry and politically skilled. She succeeded in manipulating the nobility and Senate into accepting her lover - a powerful noble in his own right - as the new emperor of Huyfarah, and he was crowned with little more drama than the muffled muttering of the discontent.

Unlike the Balanins, the new emperor Etou was not a devout Etugeist. He made lip service to the religion, but did not personally uphold its tenets. Overall he was not a bad ruler, however, and under his reign the Empire healed from the civil war and began to expand its borders once again - this time succeeding in bringing the entire western forest region and its inhabitants, the Tlaliolz, fully into the Empire.

However, his son Etou II was nowhere near the competent leader his father and the Balanins were: instead of inspiring his people, he manipulated the institutions and machinery of Etuge for personal gain. Using Etuge as a banner to inflame his armies with fervor to conquer the infidels, Etou II blundered into Lashumu, tried to assimilate the entire region at once, and watched the invasion blow up in his face when his insufficiently defended supply lines were cut. Hiding this disaster from the citizens at home, he took his armies north to harass the Tlaliolz - a people he already nominally controlled - because they remained non-Etugeist and thus out of his full control.

This was the action that finally went too far. When word reached Ussor, those citizens who had already had enough of the corruption of Etuge took matters into their own hands, rioting and burning the Imperial Palace and its associated temple of Etuge. The temple, after all, was only stone and mortar; the truth of Etuge was eternal with or without a building. The uprising was not to last, however. Etou II and his armies returned home angry as a wasp and put the nascent rebellion down like a rabid dog. His regime remained entrenched for another four decades while discontent simmered and the machinery of Etuge was exploited to keep his citizens in check.

During this time, nominal membership in Etuge rose while devout belief became rare. Many people were bitter: the older generation for the perversion of what to them had been the one, true, and serious religion, and the younger generation in resentment for being ruled by fear. It was in these fertile grounds that the seeds of further revolt were planted. A number of young thinkers rose to covert influence by preaching against Etuge's use as an instrument of control. Many of these were discovered and arrested, while the smarter ones kept meetings quiet. But their actions over the last decade of Etou II's rule brought about a segment of the population in the central cities that had renounced Etuge and wanted a change. The most faithful of these prepared and waited for the day action could finally be taken.

In his nineties, still iron-fisted and authoritarian as ever, Etou II finally died by tripping one morning over his own robes and cracking his head by sheer accident. It did not take long for word of the emperor's demise to spread; one of his own grandsons was secretly among those who preached against Etuge. Within 24 hours Ussor was in riot. Within the week, so were all the other cities of the central Empire.

Both of Etou II's sons had already passed on by the time he did; he left only grandchildren. Two of these became important: Gadein, the heir apparent, ascended to the throne early the next morning while his city was aflame, and Daodas, the aforementioned anti-Etugeist, rose to ascendancy among the rebel forces over the next several days.

Gadein proved quickly to be a true heir, being just as corrupt as his grandfather. But it took him a little too long to gather and reorganize the army to his side, time in which the growing rebellion continued to organize out of the early chaos and gather steam. In the end, however, Gadein did prevail. It took months, but he succeeded in driving the rebel forces out, first from Ussor, and finally from the other nearby cities. What was left, a rather ragtag army of perhaps a hundred thousand, saw how the wind was blowing, and Daodas convinced them to flee west to the hinterland province of Tal.

Calling themselves the Epuonim (modern term Puoni), "infidels", Daodas' people took up residence with the Tlaliolz (modern term Talo) - who still had yet to embrace Etuge. There can be no doubt that this was not a coincidence.

A generation passed. The two groups - Talo and Puoni - intermarried and became as one people. Gadein died, leaving the throne to his son Etou III. This fourth emperor of the Etou Dynasty was finally a ruler competent enough to lead Huyfarah well. He made peace with many of his father's enemies, and concentrated a much larger portion of the imperial funds on improving agriculture and rebuilding the navy. He also restored the long-burned temple of Etuge and encouraged the remaining true believers of the faith - the now rare breed descended in spirit from the original sincere Etugeist population - to come forth and proselytize. In time, the religion healed and gained converts once again by merit instead of by threat. But nobody is perfect. Etou III also inherited his father's few passionate hatreds largely intact, first and foremost his hatred of the Puoni and Talo for their continued stubborn disinclination to be good citizens. After a decade of careful nurture of the Empire, Etou III once again roused the Imperial regiments to go west and do something about the infidels in their lands once and for all.

Very much a Balanin in spirit if not in name, Etou III proved to be as capable a general as he was a ruler. To make a long story short, he made quick work of many of the inhabitants of the west, routed many of the survivors out of the forests, and made quick work of them too. Nearly half a million were marched back to Ussor in chains, and later distributed throughout the Empire as intentured servants or sold in foreign lands as slaves.

Only a remnant of the westerners were left - perhaps two hundred thousand. Since the forests along the border had finally proved insufficient to secure them from too much Imperial control, and with the other 2/3 of their population deported, the remainder fled south. The army pursued them and exacted heavy casualties from them, but the majority made it to safety across the Eige river. Wanting to put more distance between them and Ussor, they continued south into the forests below the Eige delta, to the inland southern fringes of Kasca. Now calling themselves only Puoni, they settled in those lands and have been there ever since. Daodas is said to have lived just long enough to see his people firmly settled in their new lands in his dotage, finally dying that same year, after having guided them well for three decades.
What is the year we're assuming the grammars of Adata and Faralo to date from? YP 200? If so, then the approximate dates of Huyfarahan events would be as follows:

late 290s: Balanin civil war
ca. 300: ascension of Etou I
ca. 320: ascension of Etou II
ca. 325: failed invasion of Lasomo
ca. 365: ascension of Gadein I
ca. 380: ascension of Etou III
ca. 390: exodus of the Puoni

User avatar
Zhen Lin
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 304
Joined: Mon Sep 27, 2004 9:59 am

Post by Zhen Lin »

I assumed it dated to 130 Y.P., like the map.
書不盡言、言不盡意

4pq1injbok
Sanci
Sanci
Posts: 36
Joined: Tue Nov 28, 2006 8:37 pm

Post by 4pq1injbok »

Much to respond to, as ever.

Zhen Lin: will the sound changes to revised Ayāsthi be available anytime soon? Also, when do you imagine the epenthesis of <ı> happened?

There is one more map I know of, the one of Rathedān opening the old Adāta grammar.

It's an excellent idea to put some conworlding behind this project. I'm singularly uninspired when it comes to conhistorization, though; I've just been assuming by default so far that AhH sits there in the city-state of Khalanu and doesn't do anything worthy of notice (thus he-Heloun, and not ha-elsewhere).

Given that not a lot has been done tying the immediate daughters of Adāta together, I wonder whether we might impose some restrictions on new daughters. In particular it'd be nice if new daughters weren't totally independent of all those that had gone before, without good reason. Instead they should have a well-defined place within some dialect continuum into which Late Adāta degenerated, or at the very least show enough relationship to some other daughter that we can posit some early subgrouping and diffusion of innovations within Late Adāta and not just total fragmentation.

(If I were to make a first-level descendant of Adāta, it'd be an attempt to interpolate between old Ayāsthi and Aθáta, perhaps with hints of Æðadĕ, to fill holes in what's attested of Vulgar Adāta. I'd probably want it not to survive far past the +800YP timeframe.)

That said, Radius's and cedh's suggestions seem solid, as to how we can get more room.

User avatar
Zhen Lin
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 304
Joined: Mon Sep 27, 2004 9:59 am

Post by Zhen Lin »

4pq1injbok wrote:Much to respond to, as ever.

Zhen Lin: will the sound changes to revised Ayāsthi be available anytime soon? Also, when do you imagine the epenthesis of <305> happened?
The sound changes, as described mechanically, are completed and fixed. <305> is a late/new Ayāsthi feature, so that's ~1400 Y.P. But, the shift from /B D G/ to /w j h\/ is also relatively near that time - ~1250 Y.P. perhaps.

Tracking the word /ada:ta/...

c. 400: [ADA:tA]
c. 600: [ADA:TA] (all caps, how amusing)
c. 700: [ADA:T@]
c. 800: [ADA:T:]
c. 1000: [ADA:sT]
c. 1250: [AjA:sT]
c. 1400: [AjA:sT1_X]

But to complicate matters, you could also have àḋāṫa /AzA:TA/ (affected pronunciation: /ADA:TA/) if the word was reimported from classical... which is where ḋáıjaḋac /zæ:jAzAk/ (or /Dæ:jADAk/) comes from. After all, /jæ:jAjAk/ sounds ridiculous.
書不盡言、言不盡意

Corumayas
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 357
Joined: Sat Jul 30, 2005 3:45 pm
Location: San Francisco

Post by Corumayas »

Zhen Lin wrote:I assumed it dated to 130 Y.P., like the map.
So there's no need to recalibrate the dates in the Ayasthi grammar then? Excellent.

Recalibrating the dates Radius just gave, and then combining them with dates I've gleaned from other grammars and with cedh's proposal, we get:

0 --- death of Zarākātias
c 100? --- Dāiadak missionaries in Ici Forest [Pencek grammar]
c 130 --- Classical Adāta, Faralo, Naidda, Ndok Aisô, etc.
183 --- fall of city-state of Thāras; rise of Empire of Athalē begins [Ayāsthi grammar]
late 220s --- Balanin civil war [Radius]
c 230 --- ascension of Etou I [Radius]
244 --- plague in Ici forest, maybe elsewhere too [Pencek grammar]
c 250 --- ascension of Etou II [Radius]
c 255 --- failed Faralo invasion of Lasomo [Radius]
c 295 --- ascension of Gadein I [Radius]
c 310 --- ascension of Etou III [Radius]
c 320 --- exodus of the Puoni [Radius]
400s --- Imperial Adāta standardized [Ayāsthi grammar]
late 400s --- Empire of Athalē begins expanding into Eige valley [cedh's proposal]
c 500 --- Old Kozado, Koyek
c 550 --- Empire absorbs Eiwel Gourun [cedh]
c 620 --- Empire reaches borders of Lasomo [cedh]
c 700-1000 --- Aθáta
744 --- first fall of Encelade: Empire absorbs southern Lasomo [cedh]
c 800 --- Mavakhalan: Empire on verge of collapse
c 800-1100 --- Old Ayāsthi
971 --- second fall of Encelade: Empire loses southern Lasomo, then rapidly collapses [cedh, Ayāsthi grammar]
c 1000 --- Puoni
c 1100-1300 --- Pencek, Kozado, Middle Ayāsthi
1289 --- printing press invented [Ayāsthi grammar]

I only changed the dates from Radius's most recent post. Maybe some of the others should be adjusted too, I'm not sure.


Some random thoughts here:

The Empire of Athale is preceded by "a league of sorts" that united the Rathedan city-states by 130 (according to Dewrad's culture notes). I'd say that Athale, already the most prestigious city (and one of the wealthiest too), began to treat the league like its own empire during the next 50 years, leading to Tharas and others trying to leave the league (or throw Athale out of it); Athale then imposed its rule by force.

It looks like the Empire doesn't move into the Eige valley for 300 years after this though; if we don't change this, we'll need a good explanation. Having the valley under Faralo control during that time might work; maybe Athale starts expanding in that direction when Huyfarah declines.

Alternatively, we could move the dates in cedh's proposal earlier. For example, they might edge into the Eige valley after Etou II's failed invasion of Lasomo in the third century, 200 years earlier than cedh's dates.
Hüwryaasûr, priestess of the four hegemons, wrote:Ryunshurshuroshan, the floating lizard

Akana Wiki | Akana Forum

Post Reply