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Orimu is believed to have lived somewhere between about 400 to 600 years ago. The Oru calendar reached its 400th year in February 1998 in the Terrestrial Western calendar and some believe the starting point of the Oru calendar to be the date of Orimu's birth although there is some evidence to suggest that the currently used calendar had its starting point long after Orimu's death. | Orimu is believed to have lived somewhere between about 400 to 600 years ago. The Oru calendar reached its 400th year in February 1998 in the Terrestrial Western calendar and some believe the starting point of the Oru calendar to be the date of Orimu's birth although there is some evidence to suggest that the currently used calendar had its starting point long after Orimu's death. | ||
== | ==Informants and speakers== | ||
Knowledge of Oru and Guaru on Earth comes only from the hundred or so Oruans who have been dropped on Earth since about the 1970s. It was only in the early 90s that these mysterious undocumented people who were unable to speak any known language were recognised as one singular phenomenon. Many of them had unfortunately wound up in mental health institutions in various countries. | |||
In 1993, linguist Laura Schäfer from the University of Potsdam in Germany compared two cases, a young girl who had appeared in Germany and a man who had appeared in Poland, and discovered that they spoke the same language. Upon uniting them, she was able to record fluent conversations between the two and began to learn the language from them and begin a description. What information is available about Oru and Guaru comes from interviews with Oruans since those days. The consistency of their reports from interviews conducted in many countries has validated their claims, even some of the more outlandish ones. | |||
Oru apparently consists of a series of enormous rotating tubes, the inner surfaces of which are largely hilly and covered in tropical rainforest. Light comes from a sun-like source called the '''ukana''', a long spoke running through in the centre of the tubes which seems to emit parallel beams light that change in angle throughout the day, giving the appearance of an impossibly distant sun. The ''ukana'' also emits other lights which seem to simulate the Earth's moon, complete with a monthly cycle, although a crescent shape is not discernable. By climbing the mountainous walls at the ends of the tubes it is possible to access a cave-like linking system in which there is no gravity. These caves are dimly lit and home to thousands upon thousands of bats and swiftlets. Many branches of these cave systems have dead ends, but some lead to other tubes and there are seven or eight inhabited tubes with relatively easy access between them. There are also other tubes which are visible but have no way to climb down into and many Oruans believe there are many more inaccessible tubes, possibly with people in them too, and that this system is potentially infinite. '''Oru''' thus refers only to the accessible regions of this world to the Oruans. | |||
A precise estimate of the population of Oru is not available but most estimates are between about 300,000 to 1,000,000. Of these, virtually 100% are fluent in Oru. The only other language known to the Oru people is a sign language and basic knowledge of this is fairly widespread among Oruans, although some informants say there is more than one sign language. Within Oru, there is apparently no knowledge of Earth, although one informant has reported that she has heard of one or two mysterious people who appeared in Oru, initially unable to speak, and who apparently came from a place where people live on the outside of a ball rather than inside tubes. This may mean that people from Earth have been transported to Oru in recent times, although they may also be from elsewhere. | |||
==Phonology== | ==Phonology== | ||
===Consonants=== | ===Consonants=== | ||