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made the iconic trio with my yotavus base that i will not be using for literally every yotavus oc that i have

ft. siblings with slightly odd genetics, summer clothes for when you live right beneath the northern polar circle, and some character notes. more below the cut as usual :)

#worldbuilding #speculative biology #spec bio #yotavus #that there art #twacin #conlang

neography in-world... its more likely than you think

i meant to share this a while ago but lets get into it!

currently unnamed, this writing system—within the setting its a part of—is not one that evolved naturally. It was a pair of graduate students living in the modern day country of Ruahāene.

Located in central Șotuŧahtěnu, this country is one of many whose indigenous population speak a Saƞoƞ language, which also gives the name to several modern day things attached to the region. In Chà Lo(the most prominently spoken language in much of central and western Șotuŧahtěnu) Sāng Hòn is the name given to the macrodialect spoken east of The Big Fuckoff Inland Sea(Hānring), along with a portion of the desert just south of it.

In Twac̊in̊, San̊ Hun refers to a nomadic ethnic group that once populated the region, and are the direct ancestors of the modern Saƞoƞ peoples. San̊ Hun is also the name of a Twac̊in̊-speaking country east of the area that's known as Sāng Hòn. The transformation of Saƞoƞ /t͡sa.ɴoːɴ/ into San̊ Hun /ʃaŋ hun/ and later Sāng Hòn /sa˩ŋ ho˥˩n/ is due to Multiple errors in translation.

Prior to Chà Lo conlonization, the In̊seh̊i ethnic group often had interactions with the nomadic groups of Ruahāene, Soy, Ràka, Seodù, Shéosae, and Yaejíefèn on their yearly travels following the river systems. These interactions happened most often up north, near a large lake, where nomads would stop before following The Big Fuckass River upstream to head back south. When asking where these strangers hailed from, the answer was often "saƞoƞ", which means "between deserts" in the most spoken(in modern times) saƞoƞ-family language. this was misinterpreted as being the general region around The Big Fuckass River, much of which is where the modern country of San̊ Hun is now.

When Chà Lo travelers eventually did come to this area, the Twac̊in̊-speaking who were now living in the eastern parts of the jungle along the river were asked who "the people west of you" are, since there had been some struggle with getting to know the Dhedydaaiśha people Actually in the desert just south of the inland sea. Twac̊in̊ people didn't know shit from fuck about the existence of western Dhedydaaiśha people, having only interacted with the ones just south of them, and assumed they were being asked about the Saƞoƞ, and answered accordingly.

Being an extremely insular culture known to mind Their Own Damn Business, Saƞoƞ people didn't adopt any (standardized or modified) evolutionary variation of the Lautěo-ee writing system the way other people across the continent did, and instead was first written down in the Chà Lo alphabet much closer to the modern day. This worked alright, but wasn't quite enough for native speakers, especially those keeping an eye on the work being put in to protect and revitalize other indigenous language families to the west(Bheνowń) and on the other side of the world (Jutal, Tapysiw).

The original draft of this writing system was made by two speakers of Saƞoƞ, also called Colloquial Modern Saƞoƞ(CMS) to differentiate it from the name of the language family. In comparison to the proto-language that the language family is born from, Saƞoƞ has minimal diphthongs, nasals that have strengthened and split into voiced and unvoiced stops, allophonic geminate consonants, and vowel length based stress due to sound changes. The two creators—Sepkagi /t͡sai̯p.çaːɟiː/ Sūszua and Ṗohan /qo.wːaɳ/ Keonghao—settled on creating an alphabet, with influences from Twac̊in̊, Bheνowń, and Dhedydaaiśha(to draw from surrounding native cultures), along with Jěyotuy and English(the former because, as a planetary language of majority, the shapes can be easily recognized, and the latter for reasons of aesthetic, heritage, and sounds missing from the other languages).

This system uses several initial, medial, and final forms, used within the bounds of a word. The bicameral variants of most letters are used at the beginning and end of sentences, as well as marking out word boundaries within compound words. CMS employs a few punctuation symbols, but not all Saƞoƞ languages using this system choose to have them. The interpunct separates words, and is necessary in CMS. The comma can provide breaks in sentences, and the arrow can mark the start of sentences or new ideas in more formal texts.

This system is an abugida, so the primary symbols are consonants, and vowels are required to attach to these. This gets modified for some Saƞoƞ languages, but in CMS it works pretty simply, since the only valid syllables are CV and CVC. Here's the verb phrase rugïhiṗa /ʀu.ɟɨːhʷi.qaː/, "will tell, will say" in the alphabet created by Sūszua and Keonghao, assuming that it appears in the middle of a sentence and thus does not require any capital letters:

this post is alr hella long, so i will talk about the way the writing system gets modified by its creators for the proto-lang, as well as two other Saƞoƞ language, in another post.

stay silly always :)

#conlang #neography #long post #that there art #twacin #cha lo #sanon #worldbuilding #good gravy this took a while #<- time to write the other post lmao

IPA and gloss under the cut, as well as explanation of the writing system for those not in the know.

In the modern day of the Starflight setting, the widespread culture commonly known by the dominant language of the region (twac̊in̊), or the name tewenic is considered to be shared across many hundreds of miles of land, and by various major ethnic groups on the continent of Șotuŧahtěnu. However, the coastal regions before the arrival of H̊lanueli people from the north is considered the birthplace of much of this culture; the general religious template, languages, staple foods, and much more all stem from this ancient scrubland. There, stories of the gods were revered, but not often recorded in verse. Exploration of art via wordcraft was often left to their western neighbors, or the southern desert nomads that eventually were assimilated into the sedentary settlements of the Tewenic. Their writing system is one of the few things that was adapted from outside cultures, coming from the exploring sailors that first brought H̊lanueli traders(along with their own of course) to the central coasts. Thus, not much can be found in terms of poet being a scholarly position until we get much closer to a time where connection across the world is readily available. Poems such as these, poems of a more personal nature are often all that can be found, with few exceptions for written versions of older prayers, which tended to be standardized for memorization.

The native religion is polytheistic, with a pantheon of 17(so far) gods that have to do with various forms of water. Sometimes this is as simple as gods for bodies of water that can be encountered across the continent, and gods that bring said waters down from the sky or mountains, and sometimes they are the embodiment of the fear of being at sea during a storm, or a god that protects children swimming in the shallows. While seen as having mythical, awesome powers, these gods are also regarded as beings closer to as nonchalant bystanders to the affairs of mortals, rather than active participants in the shaping of their world. The gods act because it is in their nature, not because they are inherently good or evil. Sanadec brings freshwater down from the rivers because that is what she does, and she is flighty and thoughtless because the rivers themselves wander and twist aimlessly through the forests. Han̊ brings earthquakes and tsunamis because she knows nothing else. Some gods are more popular(Le, Yin, Dalse in particular, representatives of fishing/fertility, storms/change, and dreams respectively in particular) and are prayed to more often, but overall, these prayers translate better as forceful commands. Prayer should be strong enough to turn the god’s head and convince them that your voice is not just another crash of the waves.

The sea itself is one of the most important objects in this religion, though reverence of it varies in interpretation. Focusing on the central coasts, where this poem originates, the sea is seen as a binding force. You are born from its waters, and when you die, you are returned to them. Basically, everything culturally significant happens centered around some type of water, but as a region very dependent on the ocean for primary trade routes, a source of seawater can be found communally in many residential areas. The sea is neither good nor bad, not a blessing or a place to be feared. It’s all of those things, but it also just Is. It’s a fact of existence, and one that everyone there owes their lives to, in a sense.

The poem, written by an unknown author in the northwestern peninsula of modern day Ac̊ah̊i, was found on a fragment of parchment in the storage section of a long-ruined temple, presumably because whoever had received it called those walls home. The most popular consensus is that the poem is a request to see each other, as lovers, which would tie in closely with the theory of the recipient being a temple dweller. Its possible that the author was originally from one of the more extant nomadic tribes from the desert that is central to the continent and wishes to view the ocean with their lover as a sort of religious pilgrimage. On the whole, most scholars agree that it has a very positive interpretation, a textual reminiscence of their marriage, and a promise of lighter days to come.

However, there are some that have a…less joyful interpretation of the text. For centuries, traditional burials along the coast have involved sea burials, where the body is brought out a distance from the shore, and practiced divers take turns excavating a pit for it to be buried beneath the waves. It’s an arduous process, and one not always afforded to everyone. To be taken to the sea after death was, at some points in history, a rare privilege. These opposing scholars are of the belief that the poem was written on the author’s deathbed, and delivered after their passing, as a sort of last will and testament for their lover. This interpretation doesn’t hold up nearly as well as the former, but it is interesting to think about. The naming of the god Yin is the main cause of controversy among scholars of either school, due to the contradicting nature of the god itself. Where those who see the poem as a happier one, Yin is just used as a fanciful way of mentioning the windstorms known to that coastline, and perhaps as a tie-in to the recipient’s temple residence. Others believe that Yin was mentioned more for his association with change, with the writer’s death being the largest change the recipient must deal with, and anger as well, perhaps at an unjust death come too soon.

The grammar of this poem is of interest as well. Starting from the beginning, the pronouns caen̊ and ni (1S and 2S respectively) are both formal pronouns, specifically those used between individuals of similar perceived social class. In this case, it can be interpreted as two adults. Having the formality included with the future tense verb—indicated by the particle c-y—solidifies that this first line should be interpreted as a request, rather than a demand. In the third line, the pronoun acyi(3PL and formal) is an exclusive one, and rather than being directed at someone of similar rank, it is for someone perceived to be above the speaker, in this case deifying the waves and, of course, the god Yin. Technically, this pronoun clusivity distinction is not grammatically necessary, and instead is an artifact of the time. A taboo on associating oneself or mortal others with the being of the divine, even from a standpoint of simple words. To use a regular third person plural, even one that is still directed upwards socially—in this case cael—would be akin to bringing that which is divine down to the level of mortality, or worse still, uplifting the mundane to the status of godhood. In line four, we see the verb for ‘to do’ used as an indication that something was completed, further secured by the noun phrase nende nuyude, ‘long time’, where the word ‘ago’ is implied by nature of the sentence. Finally, the last line switches from the formal 1S caen̊, to the informal pronoun ca, indicating a more intimate closeness between writer and reader in the moments described.