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Wistanian: Difference between revisions
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===Setting=== | ===Setting=== | ||
The language is spoken on the fictional planet Vale, on a large yet isolated island called Wistania. The language belongs to the Talivian sub-family, which evolved steadily throughout the Taliv's existence. After having been settled on by the Taliv for several hundred years, the island became the new home for the Bwolotil people, who had fled to the island to hide a large collection of magical and extremely dangerous ajmastones. The Bwolitil were originally apathetic toward the Taliv until they discovered that the Taliv held one such ajmastone as a central symbol of their culture. The Bwolotil, therefore, engaged in war with the Taliv to apprehend their ajmastone. Three separate people groups also inhabited the island during this war, one of which was the Nati people who allied with the Taliv to win the war. This alliance led to the formation of the Taliv-Nati [[w: Pidgin|pidgin]], which was later named ''anigalilaun'', meaning "the language of peace". During the events of the novel series (about 300 years after the end of the war) Wistanian is the majority language of the island. The language also has a number of influences from the Katapu (sister peoples to the Nati and known for their religious traditionalism), the Uzin (a people distantly related to the Bwolotil who settled the island shortly after the beginning of the war), and the Bwolotil. | |||
The | The people of Wistania are highly diverse, with a number of unique customs, traditions, and holidays among them, however, they do share a common government, law, and citizenship. The nation has ten capital cities spread across the island run by government officials called '''alaudd''' (plural, '''alauddan'''. Literally "high ones".). These ''alauddan'' meet together periodically every nine days to discuss and make national decisions. The main trade of Wistania is flowers, which are used as food, medicine, and decoration. Their diets are composed mainly of fruits and vegetables, which they normally turn into salads or soups, as well as fish, seeds, nuts, and some red meats. A majority of Wistanians are tan-skinned, Bwolotil people being slightly darker. Although brown is a common eye color, blue and green eyes are also very typical. Wistania is a very colorful and musical nation, with a diverse collection of music genres based on pan flutes, dulcimers, voice, drums, and other percussion instruments. Their most common sports include competitive archery, acrobatics, track, rainball (like basketball with four goals) during the rainy season, and a soccer-like sport during the dry season. The largest religion in Wistania is Valism, which was spread by the Katapu. The belief pertains to ajma spirits and the worship of Vale, an ajma that created their planet and enclose all the other ajma into ajmastones to keep them from harming life. | ||
As a result, Wistanian is mostly regular, with a moderately small phonological inventory and vast dialectal variation. It is the most spoken and embraced by the Taliv and Nati people groups, and the least spoken by the Bwolotil people group, who often protest the language's difficulty. The other five languages are still spoken, especially the Bwolotil language which still has a number of monolingual non-Wistanian speakers. Both the Uzin and Katapu have important texts written in their languages, while Taliv and Nati have shifted into archaism, although they are still taught in school. | The five different people groups of Wistania remained isolated from each other for part of the post-war era. However, trade and intermarriage became more commonplace, requiring a competent ''lingua franca''. This is followed by religious evangelism by the Katapu, engineering from the Uzin, and entertainment from the Nati, all of which Wistanian was the primary language for distribution and promotion. Eventually, the language became taught as a mandatory subject in school. After only a couple of centuries, Wistanian advanced from a government-only auxiliary language into the national language of the island, natively and fluently spoken by most of its citizens. | ||
As a result, Wistanian is mostly regular, with a moderately small phonological inventory and vast dialectal variation. It is the most spoken and embraced by the Taliv and Nati people groups, and the least spoken by the Bwolotil people group, who often protest the language's difficulty. The other five languages are still spoken, especially the Bwolotil language which still has a number of monolingual non-Wistanian speakers. Both the Uzin and Katapu have important texts written in their languages, while Taliv and Nati have shifted into archaism, although they are still taught in school. | |||
===Goals=== | ===Goals=== | ||