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

Post by **zompist** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 11:03 am

In a premodern world, there's no contest between land and sea trade. Sea wins, hands down. To transport the same amount of goods as a ship, you need a small army. The Silk Road transported only luxuries-- goods desirable enough that small quantities were profitable.

My intention was that classical Huyfarah (before 200) was a sea power; indeed, it supplied navigational terms to Team One and explored as far east as Siixtaguna. There's no reason it wouldn't have traded with Xsalad by sea.

To make sense of the Athalean history, there are several possibilities:

* Perhaps the most profitable Xsali goods are found in the mountains adjoining Athale, which means they couldn't easily get to the Xsali coast anyway.

* Perhaps Athale's trade not primarily directed at Huyfarah, but at points west and north.

* Sea powers do decline, especially if they're on the mainland-- the ancient Phoenecians, for example. If the Faralo are divided or the Oltu is conquered, its shipping and trade routes could be set back.

* Perhaps the hangup is on the Xsali end-- e.g. their heartland is inland and they lose control over their own coast for a time to rebels and pirates, making sea trade difficult. If the Xsali recover their coastal region, that could shake up Athale quite a bit.

Salmoneus · Post by **Salmoneus** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 1:37 pm

I vote for pirates. It just seems right.

I'll also point out that the Rathedan can also be a trading route to the West. I suggest that changing political situations to the north (in the Xoron and the mountains to its west) can also be a factor - peaceful mountain kingdoms offer a viable northern trading route, while chaos in the mountains make the Rathedan the only route possible.

More generally, I'd like to contribute more here, but I realise that I've got virtually no idea of anything that's going on now.

Last year, I did write up the beginnings of a culture sketch for my people in the mountains to the north of the aiwa valley (who will at some point, possibly around the time of the huyfarah collapse, overpopulate their mountains and stream down into the lowlands like montane vikings). I might post that, if I can find where I put it.

Corumayas · Post by **Corumayas** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 4:11 pm

Radius Solis wrote:Corumayas and Cedh: thank you for the corrections. I reverted "judgment" back to "judgement" because that one's not an error (both spellings are standard) and the former spelling makes me feel all yuerkky inside when I see it.

Fair enough. I just looked up "counsellor" and, spellcheck notwithstanding, it too is a valid spelling; so I changed it back also.

Your timeline seems plausible, especially if, as in zompist's silk road example, a lot of the goods coming through the Rathedān are luxuries. (I think spices are among them, anyway.) Pirates would be cool too; in the Aiwa region, Momuva'e seems a likely base for them.

It's also worth remembering (which I had forgotten) that the Rathedān is also a producer of high-quality metal goods, so they're not totally dependent on trading goods from elsewhere.

I think pretty much all of the Dāiadak expansions can be seen as attempts to control trade routes: Lasomo and the Tjakori are the main avenues to the coast and the south+west respectively; the Milīr valley looks like a possible alternate route to the south, and the Xōron Eiel is an alternate route to the west. Maybe each of these expansions was undertaken to cut off competition. Then I'd expect Athalē to try to expand to the coast as sea trade takes off; that could be what ignites their wars with Huyfárah starting in the fifth century...

Another thing I wanted to mention a while ago but forgot about is the history of disease: there are a lot of epidemics in our classical/imperial period, which is exactly as it should be if new trade routes are bringing distant peoples into contact for the first time. The earliest outbreaks would be the most severe (think the Black Death, or even smallpox in the Americas); over time they'll gradually become more frequent but less severe, until the diseases become endemic (like chicken pox today). It could even be that Zārakātias' religious revival was in part a response to the horror of the first massive epidemics in the Rathedān, and something similar could be true for the spread of Etúgə in Huyfárah. (Such claims have been made for the adoption of Christianity in the Roman world and Buddhism in China.)

Radius Solis · Post by **Radius Solis** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 6:06 pm

Yyeah, the problem could have been on Xsalad's end too, or in between. It's true their heartland is inland somewhat, but I really can't see them losing control of their coast during this period - it's in the middle of one of their strong and expansionist episodes, on the Xsali-stuff timeline. Their goods might be inland, though - especially metals.

Pirates, we can definitely do that. What about Peninsular-area pirates? If the only easy route to Xsalad requires passing close enough to land in the Peninsula region to be seen from it or from nearby islands, which is perfectly possible given the unfinalized state of our maps, a little predation-based industry might just arise around picking off foreign trading ships. Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum! This could also be what drives Huyfarah to colonize parts of the Peninsula coast: trying to get rid of those damn pirates. Meanwhile the Faralo ships are going to be fighting opposing ocean currents the whole way down, there might be treacherous rock-lined or coral-riddled passages, and given that it's basically Hurricane Alley down there, we can expect ships to founder in storms on a semi-regular basis. These are the factors I was considering when I said sea trade might be expensive: the possibility that a saddening proportion of ships don't come back.

Maybe land routes still couldn't be competitive, I don't know. But the Faralo and Daiadak will be trading anyway - Daiadak metalworking in this era is still the best in the Aiwa sphere, as Corumayas brought up - and I can't see this happening without some of the goods from Xsalad finding their way through as well. But perhaps they just don't matter so much, as you suggested.

Corumayas · Post by **Corumayas** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 8:01 pm

Wasn't the majority of sailing prior to about 1400 coast-hugging anyway? In any case, the Peninsular Pirates Plan sounds good to me.

Also, I neglected to mention earlier that, despite my irrepressible proofreading urges, I really enjoyed reading the completed House of Mir story. Nice work.

Radius Solis · Post by **Radius Solis** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 6:09 am

I had another look at the new Mir material and noticed something on the family tree (which looks nicer now, thanks to cedh). Aloze's lineage was chosen deliberately to be as strong as they could make it, but I just realized it's insanely so: she's descended from Tem II by three lines of descent - great-grandaughter (via Tex I) and great-great-grandaughter (via both Tem III and Uremas II). Calculating this I get a figure of 25% of her "blood" from Tem II, four times what you'd expect of a great-great-grandchild. Additionally she's descended from every single Mir emperor save Tex II and of course Mikha. How good can it get? No wonder the new Rikhus emperor marries her!

I added a couple more lines about this. But... is it realistic?

Also, who wants to write the House of Rikhus story? I'd love to see that get fleshed out too, at least somewhat, but I've already done so much I feel I've usurped a bit on what's supposed to be group territory.

Zhen Lin · Post by **Zhen Lin** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 7:16 am

Radius Solis wrote:I added a couple more lines about this. But... is it realistic?

Why not? Behold! The ancestry of King Charles II of Spain. Admittedly he was defective in several ways, including not being able to chew his food properly...

Radius Solis · Post by **Radius Solis** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 7:19 am

That's... that's... frightening, is what it is. Blue-blooded indeed.

Cedh · Post by **Cedh** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 11:05 am

Zhen Lin wrote:Behold! The ancestry of King Charles II of Spain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_II_of_Spain wrote:His great-great-great grandmother, Joanna the Mad, mother of the Spanish King Charles I who was also Holy Roman Emperor Charles V — became completely insane early in life; the fear of a taint of insanity ran through the Habsburgs. Charles descended from Joanna a total of 14 times — twice as a great-great-great grandson, and 12 times further.

These Habsburgs were madmen indeed...

Radius Solis wrote:Also, who wants to write the House of Rikhus story? I'd love to see that get fleshed out too, at least somewhat, but I've already done so much I feel I've usurped a bit on what's supposed to be group territory.

This is something I might be interested in, but I don't know if I can tell such a story as well as you... Do you have some ideas already which we could build upon? And is there anything important happening in Xšalad/Tjakori during the 5th and 6th centuries, which might have an impact on Athalē?

Radius Solis · Post by **Radius Solis** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 10:47 am

cedh audmanh wrote:
Radius Solis wrote:Also, who wants to write the House of Rikhus story? I'd love to see that get fleshed out too, at least somewhat, but I've already done so much I feel I've usurped a bit on what's supposed to be group territory.
This is something I might be interested in, but I don't know if I can tell such a story as well as you... Do you have some ideas already which we could build upon? And is there anything important happening in Xšalad/Tjakori during the 5th and 6th centuries, which might have an impact on Athalē?

I didn't really have anything particular in mind, no. As for Xsalad/Tjakori, I have not sketched their timeline beyond the third century YP, and I don't really want to, to give room for others in the future to shape that sphere as they like. But we did just have a discussion of possible trade issues between Athale and Xsalad during the centuries in question - perhaps you could build on that? Here's what I can say about third-century Xsalad: they're at their greatest heights of power and imperial splendor yet (and that's saying something!), but this cannot be sustained for long... it started with economic successes, but these have slowed and the administration has turned to squeezing the poor (they don't yet have much of a system for managing a public debt). The middle class is being lost (again). The emperor is a puppet; the government is effectively a shogunate throughout this dynastic period.

Post by **zompist** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 12:15 pm

Corumayas wrote:Wasn't the majority of sailing prior to about 1400 coast-hugging anyway?

No, the classical Faralo could sail the open seas-- thus their conquest of the Dagaem islands.

Radius Solis · Post by **Radius Solis** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 5:33 am

Hmm. How do they navigate the open seas? Latitude needs only a cross-staff, which the Faralo have; but calculating longitude accurately requires good clocks, or at least it did on Earth, which is why we didn't have much open-sea travel until the 1700s. Columbus and Magellan figured longitude with only dead reckoning and prayer. The Polynesians didn't even have dead reckoning, and just used trial-and-error and knowledge of the environment. But the risk of dying lost at sea was so large that no culture on Earth used open-sea travel truly regularly, even for lucrative trade, until the 1600s.

See also: History of Longitude

So I do not imagine that the Faralo could have used the open sea for regular trade with far distant lands. Occasional one-shot voyages here and there, sure - and for a few closer-in places like the Dagaem islands, they could have used the method of sailing due east from a known landmark on the coast, and comparable things. But trade with Xsalad without hugging the coast... that's pretty iffy.

Zhen Lin · Post by **Zhen Lin** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 12:24 pm

Hmmm. Longitude certainly is a problem.

What if there was an ocean current which brought the Fáralo to Xšali, or vice-versa? First contact could be established by a ship getting blown off-course or somehow straying into the current. The return trip, though... hmm.

Post by **zompist** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 12:35 pm

My intent was that they should simply be as good navigators as the Romans or Phoenecians. They're not crossing oceans; they just have to get out far enough to discover nearly islands such as Dagaem and Thumapahithi.

Cedh · Post by **Cedh** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 4:00 am

Radius Solis wrote:Also, who wants to write the House of Rikhus story?

I've started the article. Only biographical and genealogical data so far, but the story is set out in my mind already. There's only one thing here that I expect to change eventually: Mēthes I is supposed to marry a Fáralo princess, and Ōias' wife might also be of foreign origin. Accordingly, the names of these two queens will probably end up different.

Radius Solis · Post by **Radius Solis** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 8:12 am

cedh audmanh wrote:Only biographical and genealogical data so far, but the story is set out in my mind already.

Ooh. Can't wait to read it!

Meanwhile I've sorta begun tinkering with Tlaliolz. Not really sure I'm up for another full-fledged conlang right now, but I at least want to give this thing some more flesh than it's currently got. The known words have, despite ejectives and uvulars, a nice open airy feel to them - which I'm now attempting to reproduce by sound changes from the hideous proto-Talo-Edastean. I just can't think of any good English words to describe the... glungbb... feeling I get from pTE. Yuck.

dunomapuka · Post by **dunomapuka** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 9:22 am

Radius Solis wrote:Meanwhile I've sorta begun tinkering with Tlaliolz. Not really sure I'm up for another full-fledged conlang right now, but I at least want to give this thing some more flesh than it's currently got. The known words have, despite ejectives and uvulars, a nice open airy feel to them - which I'm now attempting to reproduce by sound changes from the hideous proto-Talo-Edastean.

Question: Why did you merge the voiced and voiceless stops? I thought the voiced ones were supposed to turn into approximants, accounting for the presence of /z/ and /j/.

Radius Solis wrote:I just can't think of any good English words to describe the... glungbb... feeling I get from pTE. Yuck.

It makes you want to ngkwaimpaugng, perhaps?

Cedh · Post by **Cedh** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 3:35 pm

boy #12 wrote:
Radius Solis wrote:Meanwhile I've sorta begun tinkering with Tlaliolz. Not really sure I'm up for another full-fledged conlang right now, but I at least want to give this thing some more flesh than it's currently got. The known words have, despite ejectives and uvulars, a nice open airy feel to them - which I'm now attempting to reproduce by sound changes from the hideous proto-Talo-Edastean.
Question: Why did you merge the voiced and voiceless stops? I thought the voiced ones were supposed to turn into approximants, accounting for the presence of /z/ and /j/.

I'm guessing at something like *r *x *xʷ > /z j w/ here.

You're absolutely right with that "airy feel"; I'm getting the same impression. Tlaliolz phonology reminds me nicely of some Native American languages, although it's hard to say which one(s). Iroquoian? Northern Athapaskan? Anyway, I'm curious to see more...

boy #12 wrote:
Radius Solis wrote:I just can't think of any good English words to describe the... glungbb... feeling I get from pTE. Yuck.
It makes you want to ngkwaimpaugng, perhaps?

Maybe the changes for Ndak Ta could use some additional vowel syncope, in order to make pTE a bit nicer? You could also have some medial clusters derive from compounding, which is not common in NT itself but may have been so in pTE. Then, taking that particular word as an example, you could have something like ngkwaimpaugng < *aŋkʷái napáugan, which doesn't look too hideous anymore. (Not much worse would be *aŋkʷái ampáugan, which is possible with the current changes already.)

Radius Solis · Post by **Radius Solis** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 5:24 pm

Well, there's not really any need for pTE to have been pretty, is there? I mean, PIE's rather ugly too, but Italian turned out fine! I think I just need sound changes, that's all. There's no question ngkwaimpaugng is a compound in NT, but I think the first element might be related to ingkwi, "liver".

I wanted the voicing merger to provide enough regular stops. If its stop inventory were limited to coming from pTE's voiceless stops that weren't in clusters, as Naidda's is, there would not be enough for the frequency we see in the Tl. wordlist. /z/ comes from *r; /j/ from *N and *N\; and there's little Tl. /w/ in the wordlist and I don't really want to add more but instead get rid of most original *w. I am going to add (retain) /p/ and /kw_> qw_>/, but none of the dorsal nasals. I'm thinking *x and *xw should turn into /k kw/ initially and xw > p\, x > 0 elsewhere (after triggering some vowel coloring, as does eng).

Radius Solis · Post by **Radius Solis** » Tue Sep 16, 2008 9:25 am

Tlaliolz words needed!

I've got a basic phonology up here; I don't want to go to all the trouble of describing lots of little details so I've looked at the language from an external, reconstructive perspective as if I were a linguist investigating a dead language. Now I'm working on the lexicon... I've got 200 or so native Talo-Edastean words I will add, but since these people were just about completely off the Aiwa-sphere radar for two thousand years, it would be realistic for a major chunk of the modern lexicon to have untraceable etymology. I'm thinking like Germanic here, where we just don't know what happened to the Germanic speakers or who they were in contact with for thousands of years, and by the time they finally started showing up on the record, a third of their roots had no identifiable origin.

Most of the previously invented Tlaliolz words will have come from this source, since only one of them is traceable back to an already-established pTE word (which happened by accident). And I need more obscure-origin words... in short, it's time to make some up! I've done a fair few already, but I'll gladly take dozens more, or even as much as a hundred, but not much more than that as I don't want to exceed 400 for the whole-lexicon count.

So, anyone who would like to, please invent some Tlaliolz words! Feel free to provide definitions. Muchly appreciated.

Cedh · Post by **Cedh** » Tue Sep 16, 2008 1:48 pm

Radius Solis wrote:Tlaliolz words needed!

Okay, here ya go:

kieq’o - legendary
tsateonna - to recommend
tetsēle - to confirm
lūk’im - agile; competent
featli - unique
mēnaya - purposefully
mēnu - reason
qōfena - creek, small river
tlemezu - tribe; nation
nilīk’ - honest
meonzi - spear
kʷēkā - game (hunted animals)
k’aefī - stag (a male deer)
selantla - wild cat
liamaqa - to reveal, to give away a secret
milūyo - serene, composed, calm
milūyoya - reassuring
tāmepa - to imitate
zaomōya - passionate, enthusiastic
yaltlēk - kettle, pot
wekʷ’aza - aroma

EDIT: changed two words so the list can be a reference, see Radius' post below.

Radius Solis · Post by **Radius Solis** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 7:46 am

Yummm. I like. I changed two little things though... meonzip, I dropped the final p just because I thought it made a nicer word, and in zaomōya I lengthened the second o because that way it can have zaol-mōtl as the etymology of its stem ("love-heart", NT cognates raula-maunde), quite semantically appropriate.

Did you have an etymology in mind for the suffix -ya?

Cedh · Post by **Cedh** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 8:19 am

Radius Solis wrote:Yummm. I like. I changed two little things though... meonzip, I dropped the final p just because I thought it made a nicer word, and in zaomōya I lengthened the second o because that way it can have zaol-mōtl as the etymology of its stem ("love-heart", NT cognates raula-maunde), quite semantically appropriate.

What a great coincidence!

Regarding /p/, I'd have left it out of the phoneme inventory completely... I liked your original idea very much that all *p eroded to ɸ at one point. But with distinct intermediate /p pʰ xʷ/ it might be more realistic to keep at least two of them apart...

Radius Solis wrote:Did you have an etymology in mind for the suffix -ya?

No, except that it forms causative adjectives/adverbs. If that is possible with the sound changes, it might be related to the NT dynamic particle ta.

Radius Solis · Post by **Radius Solis** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 9:54 am

I also liked leaving out /p/, but I kept picturing Mother Nature standing in the vacant lot where /p/ used to live, watching that labiovelar family across the street and waving goodies to lure them over for a visit. So instead, I just opted to keep /p/ uncommon by hand-picking which native roots to keep.

Alas, the changes preserve all original /t/, and still left me scraping for more, so I don't think that's likely to be the source. I'm sure we can come up with something else, though.

Corumayas · Post by **Corumayas** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 8:08 pm

I see you've got teak 'chief', which looks cognate to NT diàka. I've been working with the assumption that diàka is a loan from Ngauro, cognate with Faraghin čark; but I think the same root shows up in Proto-Xoronic too. Should I drop that correspondence, or is it still possible that this word was borrowed (either into Proto-Macro-Edastean or separately into all three langs) during the Ngauro's heyday?