The Syana Project

a worldbuilding and conlang project set on a fictional group of large pacific islands.

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New website!

Bringing back this tumblr to announce that we have a new website. It's still under contruction, and some pages from the original will take a while to bring over. But as it stands, most of the content for the project has been transfered over the past few months.

(P.S: this account will also be a lot more active from now on)

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Geographic map of Syana

Here is a map of Syana showing geographic features such as mountains, rivers and forests.

find out more about Syana by visiting our website:

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Raa-dyan Di-akara-so theology chart

This is a chart made to show all the branching theological ideas found in Raa-dyan Di-akara-so (the modern, organised form of the native Syan religion Raa-dyanism). Square bubbles show an argument put forward in a religious text, with round bubbles being formalised theories/ideas created by Syan theologians. Diamond bubbles show some o'daali (sects of modern Raa-dyanism), which were included to demonstrate how they grew from the ideas and theological theories made by previous religious scholars. The name of the religious scholar who put forward an argument/idea/daali is stated below its bubble. The chart is coloured for ease of reading, with each colour section representing a different area of Raa-dyanist theology/philosophy. Bubbles that are surrounded by a golden ring are the beliefs held by the most popular sect of Raa-dyanism in the 21st century: Post-modernist Raa-dyanism.

To discover more about Raa-dyan Di-akara-so, visit our website!

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Progress update: Syan Semantics Study

Slightly different post than usual, but I wanted to talk about one of the extended projects relating to The Syana Project. The study I began conducting in June finished around the end of July, with the write up and data analysis gradually taking place over the summer. I aimed (foolishly) to have this paper finished by September, however life got in the way and due to the scope of not only this paper but The Syana Project as a whole, long-form writing projects take a while to get completed. I'm around 50% done with the study design section of the paper, which is what will take the most time to write. This means that, if other large projects don't get in the way, the paper should hopefully be complete within the year. No promises though, I have small amounts of time to devote to this paper between university, other Syana-related material, personal projects outside of Syana, etc etc. I'm gonna start making these progress updates on a number of Syana projects, so look out for those in the future.

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Some maps of Syana

1: Anthropological regions This map shows the various "anthropological regions" of Syana. These differ from the geographic divisions of Syana, named "cultural regions" due to their use as the standard cultural way of dividing up Syana. Anthropological regions define areas of the nation that have unique cultures, due to their urbanisation, religion, language/slang or various other factors.

2: The Ydaama Rail Network This is the network of high-speed rail that runs across Syana. The network is funded by the government and run by the Ydaama company, who are owned in their entirety by the national board of transport. High-speed rail connects all 12 cities in Syana as well as 26 significant large towns that serve as population hubs within their local area.

3: Temperature map This map shows tha average yearly temperature across Syana, with the average temperatures of 3 differing latitudes given for reference.

To discover more about Syan geography visit our website! https://syan-encyclopedia.neocities.org/

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Raa-dyanism explained

Raa-dyanism (or raa-dyan as it's known in Syan), is the native religion of Syana. The faith gets its name from the words "raa" (on) and "dyan" (stone tablet), due to the fact that up until the invention of the Syan script, the stories and knowledge of the religion were passed down orally or through symbolic pictures carved onto a large stone known as a Dyan.

The traditional form of Raa-dyanism, called raa-dyan di-roa, is comprised only of worshipping the gods and the telling of the ancient religious tales. The more modern but also more common form of Raa-dyanism, called raa-dyan di-akara-so, also includes the scripture and aspects of the religion introduced during and after the period of rapid modernisation that Syana underwent during its first years as a nation, known as the "modern rebirth" (oda-jaras di-minil).

To read more about the practice of Raa-dyanism in the modern day visit our website:

https://syan-encyclopedia.neocities.org/raa-dyanism/raa-dyan-di-akara-so

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Projects/books I'm working on right now:

The Syan Language: advanced edition.

This is the second textbook about Syan as a language, intended as a learning resource for people who want to learn Syan at a level beyond conversational.

2. Akaraso's Divine History

An in-universe English translation of an influential Raa-dyanist scripture written in the 80s, translated to retain the core themes and emotion central to the original Syan text.

3. Academic paper

A few months ago I conducted a study into whether the close phonological-semantic relationship that exists in a constructed language (Syan in specific) is recognisable subconsciously to participants who have never encountered said conlang. I'm working on writing up an academic paper about the study and my analysis of the results.

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Syamaado music example

This is an example of a famous song from the syamaado subgenre of Syan club music. With influences including classic synthpop, cybergoth and eurotrance, this subculture hit its peak in the late 1990's/early 2000's specifically in the Syan club scene. However it was seen as "trashy" by many Syan people until the visual aesthetic and music style became mainstream in the early 2010's.

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2024 so far

Here's a small collection of work done for the project this year:

For more detailed/long-form written content, see the pinned post for the official Syan Ecylcopedia website

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Updated KD travel map

Here's an updated (and much better imo) version of the Kaan-daal metro map including the metro lines, light rail and trams.

Heres a key since I couldn't fit one on the actual image: Red = kara sisa (red route) Yellow = dokaara sisa (yellow route) Green = maani sisa (green route) Blue = kaa sisa (blue route) Pink = doro-kara sisa (pink route) Orange = sisa di-doaro-sinaa (orange route) Turquoise = babi sisa (turquoise route) Grey = o'daram di-'maar (central trams) Purple = kikokiko di-olasa (airport link / light rail)

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I started a youtube channel !!! It's an entire channel dedicated to covering everything in the Syana Project in as much detail as I can, so prepare for some long asf videos I'm also reviving this since I totally didn't forget I had a tumblr account whoopsies

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average letter distribution of Syan

here's a graph showing the average frequency that each letter appears as a percentage of all letters in a text.

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Kaan-daal Light rail Network

here is a diagram for the light rail services in the capital of Syana, as well as a list of the names of every stop on the network. (as well as a geographical map of the network)

the network is run by KDSB, who are the governmental agency in charge of all punlic transport in Kaan-daal.

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king in yellow translation

i translated a random paragraph from the book The King In Yellow. Below is what it would look like written down in syan as well as the paragraph i translated.

here are two glosses of the text, the first is a full morpheme breakdown, the second is a slightly easier to understand/read version.

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Syan currency

this is the syan curency, the isa. 200 o'isa is equivalent to round £1.00

below is a link to website page which contains more detail:

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Syan map timelapse

This is the process of me remaking the map of Syana, since the original was nearly 2 years old and needed updating.

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Syan highway map

this map shows all of the o'biaa-baana (highways, shown in yellow) and the o'biaa-baana-isala (sub-highways, shown in orange). Both types of road have a speed limit of 80 km/h as well as 4 lanes in each direction. The pink lines show under-sea road tunnels that connect the islands' highway systems.