Verse:Hmøøh/Txapoalli

Txapoalli (English: /tʃɑːpoʊˈɑːli/ chah-poh-AH-lee, Naquian: Txapoalli /tʃapoˈalːi/; Eevo: Nyçís) is a large continent in Tricin. It contains (at least) two cultural regions, which are quite different:

• Naquosphere
• Sjowaazhosphere
• !Zoom Islands

Names

The Eevo name Nycís probably derives from a form of Naquiz, borrowed through Windermere.

Languages

TODO: more languages.

Language families, to the extent they can be reconstructed:

• Naquic
  • Naquian
    • Tizian
  • Hetomic
• Quihum
  • Sjowaazhic
    • Sjowaazheñ
  • Apple PIE
  • Zoom-Foo
    • Primitive Zoom
      • !Zoom (not part of Mainland Txapoalli)
    • Dẹkha (Pseudo-Sanskrit)
      • Pseudo-Sanskrito-Thai
• Tzaloxic
  • Trây
  • Tzaloxian
  • Pradjuul

Idea for Sjowaazhosphere: "Sinosphere languages recast as Native American languages", steal from Semitic languages too

• Mandarin: Sjowaazh (Quihum)
• Cantonese: Something related to Sjowaazh (Quihum)
• Vietnamese: Trây
• Korean: Old "Geulic Tamil" idea (Naquic)
• Khmer: Tzaloxian
• Tibetan: Initial Salishy clusters (Naquic)
• Burmese: Register tones, glottalized resonants (Naquic?)
• Japanese: CV-heavy language (Nizutsam, thus Clofabic?)
• Thai: Sanskrito-Thai gib (~ Quihum)
• Mongolian: Weird asymmetrical inventory (Quihum)

Common grammatical features:

• Rich politeness/honorific system (especially Quihum)
• Bantu-style noun classes (especially Tsimulh-Naquic)
• Active-stative-ish tendencies (Tzaloxic)
• Relational nouns
• Head-marking tendency

Music

TODO: some non-MOS scales

Naquosphere

Naquian music uses 7-tone scales rich in neutral thirds. Scales are abstractly viewed as subsets of 27 equal divisions of the octave. The 3L 4s MOS scale (5 3 3 5 3 5 3) may be used, but they use other, non-MOS 7-note scales too. The quasi-equal 6L 1s MOS scale (4 4 4 4 4 4 3) in 27edo is mainly used as a reference point rather than actual music, in that notation is based on the 6L 1s scale in the same way that Western notation is based on the diatonic scale.

Movement by one step of 27edo is usually avoided, since it is difficult to sing.

Historically other micro-divisions have been used or proposed - especially 27-well temperaments, 17-well temperaments or 17-equal.

To clean up

early naquians could have started out with JI
the difference between naquian music and etalocian music would be that the former cared more about "expressiveness" (kind of like the romantics) than harmony (making their approach to tuning more 'fluid')
hence, peppermint tuning!
that expressiveness could have come from theater
whereas the etalocians value precision/purity of harmony more
which is why the art song tradition emerged much later
(like even the way the instruments are built in etalocin reflect a more structurally microtonal approach)
that might have weird consequences for naquian "mathemusic"
like, naquians may think of the scale in terms of rough 'pitch classes' (formalized by CS)

some things that might arise in the actual music:
1) heavy ornamentation (trills, yodeling, falsetto, vibrato ...)
2) neutral third scales (Bruno Nettl found that infants experimenting with singing tend to use neutral thirds quite a bit)
but no throat singing
choral "polyphony" of a different kind (less focused on pure harmonies and more on "gestures")
and Partch-style corporeality!
folk music of course might use just intonation with instruments that use the overtone series (like the jaw harp and overtone flutes)
the weird side effect is Etalocin doesn't have a "Partch figure"
(because Partchian music is an ancient tradition)
the Xaetjeon people collectively import it to Etalocin
some instruments can start out as simple devices used to imitate natural phenomena (animal calls, wind, thunder ...) in theater
then some clever modern Naquian would find a way to capture those effects on the ngjeomsam 😀
let's say the emphasis on neutral thirds leads to a rough division of the octave into 7 parts
and a 27 tone octave (that's another neutral third MOS)
though the closest i can get to 7edo in 27edo is 4 4 4 3 4 4 4
or 4 4 4 4 3 4 4 for a mode with a perfect fifth
that gives me an idea for terminology
each step in 7edo can be likened to a lunar cycle (divided into 4 parts, full moon, waning, new moon and waxing)
there will be overlap between the "full moon" of the first step and the "waxing" part of the last step (since there are 27 and not 28 steps in the naquian octave)
or the step that's subdivided into 3 can be considered "defective"
this "micro"-subdivision is used in two places
1) with instruments of fixed pitch
2) in pedagogic methods so students can get a rough idea as to where the intervals lie
(for students of voice and flexible pitch instruments)
[RT theorist] could give the name '["Naquian tuning"]' to tetracot temperament 😀
or '["Naquian temperament"]' (a misnomer on many levels!)
in fact a 7 step octave would make it possible for a notation a lot like our staff notation to be adopted in the naquosphere! (leaving etalocians with something symbolic like daseian?)

a possible naquian notation
the 27 tone "scale"
(dots signify raising and lowering by discrete quantities, fancier shapes next to the notes are used for other ornaments)
sounds like C Db Ed Fd(trilled with G) G->F#->G kind of
often played as 1/1 21/20 5/4 9/7 3/2->10/7->3/2 on the sewvore

Sjowaazhosphere

Tuning-wise, Sjowaazheñ music is based on the meantone diatonic scale like Western music, but uses modal rather than tonal harmony; modes other than major and minor are common.

Historical figures

• Quēhtłoyoz - Naquian grammarian
• Huichaltzah - Naquian explorer, conlanger and playwright
• Mauaz nah Païxa - Tzaloxian explorer
• Wañjeyi - Sjowaazheñ poet

Religion

Sjowaazheñ

Jotting down ideas

Sjowaazheñ religion is Basically Buddhism but more proselytizing. They apply the concept of karma and reincarnation to the world collectively in addition to individual humans. That's how the world itself began and ended many times; if humanity collectively behaves badly enough, an apocalypse will come due to the accrued karmic debt and a new universe will arise from the ashes. [I'm not going to use exactly these terms - it's not exactly a "relex" of Buddhism.]

Karma/sin and payoffs - The genius of Christianity is to subvert this (in a really twisted way, perhaps)

Places

• Tui-Faäni/Uānithazza - ancient capital of Naquian Empire
• Shjhedaad = capital of Sjowaazh