Verse:Hmøøh/Talma

Etalocin (/ˈeɪtəloʊsɪn/ or /ˈeɪtəloʊkɪn/; Clofabosin: ẹtalocin /e(ː)talokin/, from Netagin ʔÉthá + Clofabosin locin 'land'; Tíogall Éatha /ˈeːθə/) is a continent of the conworld Clotricin.

Demographics

Languages

The following language families are represented in Etalocin:

• Clofabic languages
• Quihum languages
  • Talmic languages
  • Naquic languages
• Netagin
• Ladippic languages
• Camalic languages
• Dodellian
• Belen
• Wakanic languages
• Tsrovesh
• Gulyás
• Witcanese

Society

Etalocin was, and still to a large extent is, a Crapsaccharine World. Etalocin boasts a robust tradition of intellectual activity, especially in mathematics and music. However, Etalocian society is a highly stratified meritocracy, which historically caused considerable friction between social classes.

The social cost of nonconformity (especially for men) was quite severe. Crimes were punished harshly (often by forced labor, torture, castration, or death, in addition to public shaming).

Polygamy was and still is legally recognized in Etalocin cultures, though many people are monogamous.

Traditional elite culture

Elite boys were first educated in either a "boarding school" which taught a curriculum of rhetoric, poetry, classical language, math, fine arts, and science, or a military academy. By age 15 they were expected to enter into university study (or military service) in order to specialize into one or more roles in elite society. To enter specialization one was required to pass the entrance exam administered by a university. If one could not enter specialist training he was effectively banished from elite society. Those who passed the "boarding school" curriculum but failed to specialize usually worked as "managers", low-level officials or schoolteachers. One or more requirements could be waived for a child of exceptional ability in one area.

Elite girls also had access to a full boarding school education (though not to a military education), enough for them to be independent. Unlike males, however, they were not expected to undergo male specialization. Women who wished to become schoolteachers or musicians received appropriate additional training. Some women, mostly courtesans-in-training or those who aspired to marry the most powerful aristocrats, underwent education meant for male specialists; in fact, the word in Tíogall for 'courtesan', mortaħóife, was historically the female form of the word for 'specialist' in Netagin.

Pre-modern vulgar culture

The plebs were largely semi-literate but otherwise uneducated and were forced to do menial labor and/or live in unsanitary places. Non-elite military-age men were often drafted into wars.

The common people had plays, and later novels, as forms of entertainment.

Modern

The rise of the merchant class and the free-market economy marks the beginning of Etalocian modernity.

Music

Scientific unit for intervals: 1/1728 of an octave

Eastern Etalocin

"Sophisticated" popular musicians borrow heavily from "classical" idioms such as: long, quasi-operatic song forms; use of traditional classical tunings and harmony (sometimes getting very harmonically complex chords); complex rhythms and time signatures inspired by non-Etalocian music.

Instruments

• penicillin (Tíogall: painicar) = a wind instrument
• ditoren (Tíogall: ditor) = a string instrument

(a lot of overlap with Talmic music)

• organs played with an isomorphic keyboard

Tuning systems

Some "modern" classical composers experiment with tuning systems such as high-limit (primes 17 or higher) JI, various EDOs and linear temperaments, especially higher-limit meantone.

Talma

Instruments

• spúith (pl. spúithear) = plucked string instrument with sympathetic strings
• ŋamas (pl. ŋamsa) = "Talman violin": a 5-stringed bowed string instrument used for the treble and alto register
  • Tuning: 2:3:5:7:9, lowest string = ~120Hz
• ŋamsám (pl. ŋamsáma) = a ŋamas that's a 2/1 lower
  • Tuning: 2:3:4:5:7:9
• tsábhíoch (txâbhikh) steel guitar tuned to a hexany
• mifgól (pl. mifgóla) = a slide flute
• jóghám (pl. jógháma) = a zither
• tuaim (pl. tuaimear) = a reed instrument
• fuís (pl. fuísí) = a drum
• seomhoidhre (pl. seomhoidhrí) = some multi-row autoharp thing controlled by an isomorphic keyboard (pieces are often written for two or more seomhoidhrí keyboards that are separated by a tuning offset so that the player has access to different octaves)
• solo voice or choir

Tuning to temperaments is done with reference instruments or monochords

Some seomhoidhre and jóghám tunings:

• 1/1 21/20 8/7 6/5 5/4 21/16 10/7 3/2
• 1/1 21/20 11/10 8/7 6/5 5/4 21/16 11/8 10/7 3/2 (441/440 tempered out)
• hexanic: 1/1 21/20 35/32 8/7 6/5 5/4 21/16 48/35 10/7 3/2
• major: 1/1 25/24 7/6 6/5 5/4 7/5 35/24 3/2
• minor: 1/1 25/24 15/14 6/5 5/4 9/7 75/56 3/2
• augmented: 1/1 15/14 7/6 5/4 9/7 35/24 3/2

Various chamber ensembles:

• "string trio": 2 ŋ + 1 Ŋ;
• "string quartet": 3 ŋ + 1 Ŋ

Tuning systems

Base pitch: 120 Hz or 125 Hz

Classical music:

• Older music uses 5, 7 limit JI scales (a variety of them; or free JI?)
• Culminates in 11 limit JI and temperaments (mostly as approximations to JI; perhaps also a temperament-temperament like say 22edo).
• Scúdhainn defined the concept of linear temperaments and used some rank-2 temperaments for the first time in her musical œuvre. (Matrices were known by then! Also linear temperaments arise naturally from equating similar intervals in constant structures)
• Dekanies, eikosanies and other scales that maximize the number of consonant chords per note

Folk and popular music prefers "simpler" just scales:

• 6:7:8:9:10:11:12
• 5-/7-odd limit diamonds
• 1 3 5 7 hexany

Musical forms

• Art song (foscúghál) settings of poems, with spúith, seobhoidhre, or chamber accompaniment (Tíogall: éanril). Poems may deal with:
  • Nature, idyllic settings
  • Love
  • Mystical themes
  • A short dialogue
• Opera
• Cantatas
  • Winter solstice cantatas - there was a period where many composers wrote winter solstice cantatas.

Notation

Scale-neutral JI notation:

1. Notes are written on a staff similar to our staff but the scale is 8:9:10:11:12:13:14:15:16, not the diatonic scale
2. Accidentals indicate various small intervals
3. Shift of fundamental: Let (x,t) be a tuple of the form (level on staff, time). When you draw a point (x1, t1) and another point (x2, t2) after that, and connect them with a curved line, then x1 and x2 are "identified" and the fundamental shifts accordingly (from time t2 on).

Calendar

• Stánsa/Stannsin = 6 months after Easter
• Winter solstice: A solstice festival where, among other things, they sing songs hoping for a *brighter* future.

Cuisine

Vegetarian cuisine has been backed by various ethical philosophies that prohibit either killing or inflicting suffering on animals. Some form of vegetarianism is common among Etalocians; however, vegetarians are less common among lower classes.

Using umami ingredients such as seaweeds and mushrooms, and herbs and spices is common to make up for the lack of meat.