The Drowned World

[rotting bones]

The Drowned World is a conworld I'm currently failing to write a novel in. Sea levels have risen so high that most of the world is now under the ocean. The two major ethnic groups are the technologically advanced Laven (Lhawën) and the (not deliberately) primitive People of the Canopy (Mīni Tʼuŋnɔŋ). Mīni Tʼuŋnɔŋ is a political alliance. Their language is called ǁamə. Every ǁamə-speaking clan is a different ethnicity.

The Laven salvage bronze from the luctutecs, vast underwater ruins, and construct tutecs, each a pile of pillars, rigs and palaces. Their mythology says their lords flew down from heaven as birds to perch on bronze poles sticking up above the water. The virtue of these lords cause their tutecs to be held above the chaotic waves from on high.

Most of the land above water consists of sandbars. What tiny forested islands there are are inhabited by The People of the Canopy. Their social organization varies by archipelago, especially when their canoes are out of reach. Most of the islands are ruled by matrilineal clans, with the occasional toxic male cannibal horde.

The Laven routinely raid the islands for resources and slaves. They don't settle permanently because they see no particular reason to. With their technological superiority, they can raid any time they want. To them, the islands are like fruit trees you harvest at the right season. Most of the money is to be made out at sea anyway. They also don't like the mosquitos.

As a result of the slave raids, the Laven tutecs feature a Woowëm (drifter) underclass. These drifters no longer speak ǁamə. They speak a low register of Lhawën.

In the tutec of Goldhaven (Q’wastin), the lords of the perch declare that the drifters are responsible for declining living standards. As a result, the drifters take a bunch of boats and sail away. Their goal is to cross the Seven Seas and reach the Woowëm homeland that legends say exists beyond the Sea of Stars (Lëtllhaq).

The languages are basically notes at this point. Everything is up for change. Question: Is the consonant inventory for ǁamə imbalanced? https://snapshotsofthelabyrinth.photo.b ... he-canopy/

[Ares Land]

That all sounds interesting and do tell us more!

The languages are basically notes at this point. Everything is up for change. Question: Is the consonant inventory for ǁamə imbalanced? https://snapshotsofthelabyrinth.photo.b ... he-canopy/

Myself, I don't think so.

[Torco]

vowels seem fine to me... there's weirder stuff around in reality, that's for sure (he said in english).

i'm curious about these lavens... you say they're technologically advanced nomads that raid and enslave the sedentary guys? how's that work? not the enslaving and raiding, that's extremely well attested, but more the technologically advanced nomads... are we talking industrial civilization living and working on huge boats or sth?

[rotting bones]

That all sounds interesting and do tell us more!

The languages are basically notes at this point. Everything is up for change. Question: Is the consonant inventory for ǁamə imbalanced? https://snapshotsofthelabyrinth.photo.b ... he-canopy/

Myself, I don't think so.

Thanks.

vowels seem fine to me... there's weirder stuff around in reality, that's for sure (he said in english).

None of my conlangs, finished or not, seriously explore the weirdness of vowels yet.

i'm curious about these lavens... you say they're technologically advanced nomads that raid and enslave the sedentary guys? how's that work? not the enslaving and raiding, that's extremely well attested, but more the technologically advanced nomads... are we talking industrial civilization living and working on huge boats or sth?

No one in the Drowned World is fully sedentary. The islands are very small. They used to be the peaks of mountains before the deluge. As a result, the land doesn't produce enough resources to live on. The People of the Canopy are like the Inuit who follow herds of sea mammals. Here, they also follow schools of fish. They might stay on one island for a while as long as there is enough to live on. They are also concerned about being raided if they stay in one place for too long.

The Laven live in floating cities called tutecs. They salvage metal from underwater ruins and erect pillars that rise above the ocean. On top of the pillars, they construct rigs, wharves, factories, markets, hovels and palaces. This is the closest thing to sedentary life anywhere in the world.

The Laven live on fish, kelp, crabs and whatever they raid from the islands. They grow some fruits on gardens on top of the tutecs, but this practice makes the structure dangerously top-heavy and is discouraged. They also grow some gardens on islands, but their population is too small to defend the islands from the People of the Canopy. The People of the Canopy have fleets of canoes they can use to raid lightly defended islands.

The Laven run ocean-spanning trade networks. The most developed region is the Saltwashed Archipelago (Lhaxwëmtaq). They get a lot of machined tools from the Sea of Brass (Kup’lhaq). They use these tools to build metal raiding vessels that are more advanced than anything The People of the Canopy have. The bottleneck suffered by The People of the Canopy is that they don't have large quantities of metal. The Laven salvage metal from the luctutec ruins on the ocean floor.

The Laven also use the metals and tools to build weaponry they sell in the Sea of Blood (Qa’mlhaq). Conflicts started in the Sea of Blood have a tendency to spill out across the Seven Seas. This is a major reason that production is hurt.

Which is to say: This is supposed to be a pirate conworld.

[Torco]

feels more like waterworld, that old movie with kevin costner, or maybe how it might have felt for a polynesian to come in contact with the euros, so yeah, piratical. i get your vibe.

im interested in this landless industry, so if you ever want to develop it i'm super game. do they dive to the bottom themselves? do they have scrappy post-apoc submarines? go down in modified church bells? does everyone eat a lot of fish and shellfish?

on this latter note, i think we modern people, who live on a world dominated by vast industrial trawlers and other forms of extremely destructive fishing, can easily fail to imagine what a more normal biosphere can look like. my mother, who is old but not thaaat old, distinctly remembers the beaches of quintero being some days covered in edible machas (razorclams), like just lying on the ground, and apparently this is borne out by data: preindustrial levels of ocean biomass were apparently twice as much as today, and that was with a much larger human population that this world would seem to have

[Arzena]

The languages are basically notes at this point. Everything is up for change. Question: Is the consonant inventory for ǁamə imbalanced?

Wanted to add my 2 cents in that the inventory looks balanced to me.

[rotting bones]

Wanted to add my 2 cents in that the inventory looks balanced to me.

Thanks.

feels more like waterworld, that old movie with kevin costner, or maybe how it might have felt for a polynesian to come in contact with the euros, so yeah, piratical. i get your vibe.

I had no idea this exists.

im interested in this landless industry, so if you ever want to develop it i'm super game. do they dive to the bottom themselves? do they have scrappy post-apoc submarines? go down in modified church bells?

They force slaves to take dangerously deep dives. The divers secure the scrap with hooks. They have a winch on the rig they use to pull it up.

does everyone eat a lot of fish and shellfish?

Yes. I mentioned fish and crabs.

People who live on the floating cities have a dramatically short lifespan from chronic copper poisoning. They don't know the reason. They tend to think of the primitives as if they are elves, with inhumanly long lifespans.

on this latter note, i think we modern people, who live on a world dominated by vast industrial trawlers and other forms of extremely destructive fishing, can easily fail to imagine what a more normal biosphere can look like. my mother, who is old but not thaaat old, distinctly remembers the beaches of quintero being some days covered in edible machas (razorclams), like just lying on the ground, and apparently this is borne out by data: preindustrial levels of ocean biomass were apparently twice as much as today, and that was with a much larger human population that this world would seem to have

Darwin's The Voyage of the Beagle describes a preindustrial world in a lot of detail.

[rotting bones]

maybe how it might have felt for a polynesian to come in contact with the euros

Some Austronesian-speaking groups are called Sea Nomads. Wikipedia says they are biologically adapted for free-diving: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sama-Bajau (They are also Muslim. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Islam is the favorite religion of nomadic peoples in Eurasia who have been in extensive contact with civilization.)

There are several groups called Sea Gypsies, including a low caste in Bengal. Here's the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Gypsies It looks like most are Austronesian-speaking, one Chinese and one East Indian.

Some tribes in Africa created villages in the middle of lakes. This one was created to escape from Fon slave raiders: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganvie This is not unlike the motivation to create Venice.

[rotting bones]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sama-Bajau (They are also Muslim. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Islam is the favorite religion of nomadic peoples in Eurasia who have been in extensive contact with civilization.)

Although in this case, it might have been because of their association with the Sulu Sultanate, a main source of inspiration for The Drowned World. The Sulu Sultanate was controlled by an Austronesian-speaking ethnicity who called themselves "the people of the current": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taus%C5%ABg_people The grammar of Laven is similar to Tau Sug. According to Wikipedia, the population was 50% slaves consisting of other Austronesian-speaking groups: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultanate_of_Sulu Back then, they were mainly enslaving Filipinos. But there are still pirates in the Sulu Archipelago trying to kidnap Sea Nomads.

[Torco]

i gather they aren't, and me thinking so might betray an excessive exposure to american media but... sea gypsies sounds very much like a slur

[rotting bones]

i gather they aren't, and me thinking so might betray an excessive exposure to american media but... sea gypsies sounds very much like a slur

Indians use English as a non-native language. They don't have a good idea of what is currently considered a slur. Victorian styles of speech were still current in the English we were taught when I was in school. When not using English, Indians use the name of the caste directly.

[rotting bones]

Currently, Laven has a polite speech with a dearth of voiced consonants: https://snapshotsofthelabyrinth.photo.b ... te-speech/

The spoken language does have them in some cases. E.g. The oblique crew pronoun in polite form is xakitul. The spoken form is hagidul.

Disclaimer: This page needs serious editing.

[Travis B.]

i gather they aren't, and me thinking so might betray an excessive exposure to american media but... sea gypsies sounds very much like a slur

Indians use English as a non-native language. They don't have a good idea of what is currently considered a slur. Victorian styles of speech were still current in the English we were taught when I was in school. When not using English, Indians use the name of the caste directly.

In contemporary English "Gypsy" isn't a slur in the way that the N-word is, even if "Roma" is more, well, 'politically correct'.

Note, though, that Roma are an ethnic group, not a caste.

[bradrn]

i gather they aren't, and me thinking so might betray an excessive exposure to american media but... sea gypsies sounds very much like a slur

Indians use English as a non-native language. They don't have a good idea of what is currently considered a slur. Victorian styles of speech were still current in the English we were taught when I was in school. When not using English, Indians use the name of the caste directly.

In contemporary English "Gypsy" isn't a slur in the way that the N-word is, even if "Roma" is more, well, 'politically correct'.

It may not be treated as a slur, but it’s certainly considered very offensive by many Roma. One of my online friends with considerable Romani experience refers to it only as ‘the G-word’, probably fairly.

[Travis B.]

Indians use English as a non-native language. They don't have a good idea of what is currently considered a slur. Victorian styles of speech were still current in the English we were taught when I was in school. When not using English, Indians use the name of the caste directly.

In contemporary English "Gypsy" isn't a slur in the way that the N-word is, even if "Roma" is more, well, 'politically correct'.

It may not be treated as a slur, but it’s certainly considered very offensive by many Roma. One of my online friends with considerable Romani experience refers to it only as ‘the G-word’, probably fairly.

I am primarily familiar with derived words like "to gyp" being offensive. But "Gypsy" itself does not 'feel' offensive to me but may be used offensively with the right tone of voice, just like "Jew". Of course, I have little contact with actual Roma.

[malloc]

The languages are basically notes at this point. Everything is up for change. Question: Is the consonant inventory for ǁamə imbalanced?

It doesn't seem unreasonable. The voiceless sonorants are an interesting choice and I quite like seeing clicks in conlangs. One idea for making the consonant inventory more balanced and the clicks more interesting is contrasting voicing, aspiration, and glottalization on clicks to match the non-click stops. Granted the language may have good historical reasons for not doing so.

[Travis B.]

The languages are basically notes at this point. Everything is up for change. Question: Is the consonant inventory for ǁamə imbalanced?

It doesn't seem unreasonable. The voiceless sonorants are an interesting choice and I quite like seeing clicks in conlangs. One idea for making the consonant inventory more balanced and the clicks more interesting is contrasting voicing, aspiration, and glottalization on clicks to match the non-click stops. Granted the language may have good historical reasons for not doing so.

Thing is, I would not presume that there is any need for clicks to match non-click obstruents with regard to things like voicing, aspiration, or glottalization.