Verse:Hmøøh/Talma

Talma (Eevo and most other Talman languages: Talma, Nurian: Tāmai /ˈtˠaːmˠai/) is a (culturally-defined) continent of the conplanet Tricin - it is actually the northern portion of a landmass, the southern part of which is Etalocin.

Todo

A system of pseudo-monastaries, easily accessible, for those who would otherwise become hikikomori

History

Grouidian Revolution and aftermath

A major war broke out about 80 years after the publication of Grouid's manifesto.

Geography and climate

File:Talma.png

Sketch of Talma

Talma is located 30°N - 65°N and has a temperate climate. A natural barrier separates it from Etalocin.

Isolated areas:

• Bhadhagha Island
• Nūrē
• The Tumacas
• Qaaroshter
• Sgewla (to an extent)

Languages

The following language families are represented in Etalocin:

Linguistic areas:

• Talma (head-initial, more analytic)
  • Nurian area
    • Aspiration and gemination
    • Small vowel system with palatalization
    • More synthetic
  • Continental Talman Linguistic Area
    • Split-ergativity
    • Initial consonant clusters
    • Large vowel system (not Amphirese)
    • l vocalizes
    • VSO order
    • Head-marking in possessive NPs, with construct state or 3rd person possessive marking
    • Grammatical mutation

Modern Talman languages

These are the modern Talman languages:

• Talmic
  • Eevo
  • Bhadhagha
  • Amphirese
  • Yekhanese
  • Qazhrian
  • Nurian
  • Mategian
  • Roshterian
• Tergetic
  • Windermere
  • Tergetian
• Naquic
  • Sfətsiv
• Clofabic
  • Phormatolidin
  • Chthryxolidin
  • Palkhan
  • C'mere

Of these, Amphirese and Eevo are the most spoken languages. Many modern Talmans, especially Talmic speakers, speak Eevo as a second language. Sfətsiv is spoken by some people in the minority Sfəchwə ethnicity.

Society

Talma boasts a robust tradition of intellectual activity in the sciences, philosophy, and music. However, Talman society is a highly stratified meritocracy, which historically caused considerable friction between social classes.

Historically the social cost of nonconformity was quite severe. Crimes were punished harshly. Legally, the most common punishments were exile, imprisonment and forced labor but often the criminals were tortured, castrated, or executed, in addition to public shaming.

Impact of birth control

Hmlai (Eevo) is a contraceptive plant native to Talma that's easy to farm, thus providing premodern Talmans with cheap birth control. (We'll call it silphium in English.)

Some possible consequences of Talman silphium:

• Polygamy was legally recognized in Talman cultures, though many people are monogamous.
• Premodern Talman culture doesn't have a traditionalist sexual morality (neither does modern Talman culture).
• Equal rights for women has always been an ideal, if not reality, in Talman culture in recorded history. (This is not because of some innate moral superiority of Talmans but largely due to external factors.)
• Women are less likely to die young in childbirth and thus more likely to participate in public society.

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.

Contemporary social issues include:

• how much welfare?
• size of standing army?
• national parks etc.
• basic income and its effects
• automation
• effective altruism
• gender stuff
• etc.

The election system used is usually approval voting. Some countries use ranked-choice voting.

Agile legislation is considered a design ideal to strive for in Etalocian democracies.

There is no legal concept of marriage in modern Etalocian societies; marriage is essentially a "religious" concept to be negotiated by individuals.

Education

Traditional education

Elite education

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.

Modern education

The following applies broadly to Talma as well as societies founded by Talman settlers, such as Fyxám.

Primary and secondary education

Teaching basic literacy, arithmetic and finance, and inculcation of liberal values (which is a part of how Ngronaism is interpreted today), are considered the most important function of public education.

Since education in higher levels is much more fragmented and stratified, primary school curriculum is standardized and efforts are made to cultivate a sense of empathy towards people of other backgrounds in primary school. (A child may test out of the literacy and math requirements.) The civic religion is taught with lessons about history, literature, and philosophy.

Secondary school is less determined. There are topics such as sex education and more Ngronaism lessons which are mandatory (in time for adolescence), but secondary schools are otherwise free to develop their own curricula.

Some public secondary schools offer more specialized curricula in the sciences, arts or the humanities, geared towards students who wish to enter universities (see below). For illustration, this is a typical modern Etalocian science school math curriculum:

• Geometry, equations and functions
• Calculus (one-variable and multivariable)
• Ordinary differential equations
• Probability and statistics; combinatorics
• Linear algebra.

Lastly, traditional-style private boarding schools still exist.

Higher education

Apprenticeships and trade schools

Apprenticeship, which is highly decentralized, attempts to teach skills directly relevant to a career path that a person wishes to enter; most of the time it leads directly to internships or jobs. Trade schools attempt to scale up this apprenticeship process, and have historical origins in apprenticeships.

Apprenticeships include:

• training for most jobs in the sciences (in Tricin, this notion includes psychology and economics) such as coding, lab technician, ...
• training for musicians
• training for pink collar jobs such as nursing/social work/therapy/sex work.
• teacher schools, for primary and secondary school teachers

Professional schools

Medical, law, dentistry, pharmacy, psychiatry, engineering schools.

Universities

Universities are considered appropriate only for those who aim to eventually enter research or teaching in higher education, or those who simply wish to undertake a particularly intense study of a subject. Only 5% (fT 2453) of Anøvrians and 5.3% (fT 2456) of Fyxámians are university students or graduates. Enrollment requires an entrance exam.

For illustration, this is what a curriculum for a modern (~fT 2460) undergraduate pure math student might look like (roughly corresponds to upper undergraduate and early graduate courses at our universities):

1st year

• Writing proofs
• Combinatorics
• Elementary number theory
• Probability
• Formal linear algebra

2nd year

• Abstract algebra (Groups, rings, modules, fields, Galois theory)
• Real analysis (Axiomatic calculus)
• Point-set topology
• PDEs
• Complex analysis

3rd year

• Real analysis (Lebesgue measure and integration)
• Differential geometry
• Algebraic topology

4th year

• Advanced number theory
• Category theory/Mathematical logic
• A capstone course, involving independent study of a topic (if the student wishes to graduate in their 4th year, instead of continuing into graduate studies)

Art

Music

Main article: Verse:Tricin/Talma/Music

Architecture

Gardens

Japanese-style gardens?

Fashion

Vegetarian fashion

how insulate with no leather

• wool
• down feathers
  • heavy seabird nesting sites that provide down, fertilizer, later gunpowder ingredients
• ymnahd oil
• basically a lot of "hacks"

Technology

Modern Trician technology is more advanced than ours.

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.

Religion and civic religion

Note that religion is largely a translation convention. Folk religion, or people making up religions, is common.

Mainstream

Main article: Verse:Tricin/Talma/Religion and philosophy

Sfətsiv

The Sfətsiv have their own distinctive religious tradition.

Emergence of a "Reform Sfətsivism" soon after arrival on Talma

Notable figures

List needs more Amphirese, Qazhrians, Phormatians, Chthryxians, ...

• pseudo-[???] - group of ancient Tergetian mathematicians, authors of the Brøøhad Manuscript which is the first text to mention negative numbers, complex numbers and algebra
• [???] - Tergetian astronomer, developed the heliocentric model of planetary motion
• Jissarāφom = Windermere geometer, described Euclidean geometry in 2- and 3-dimensional Euclidean space; his work appears in Thensarian translation
• Snoeδiret Aecsarbē - Thensarian mathematician, who first approximated π to 96 base-12 places (~ 104 decimal places
• Yăchahf rith-Ătsa - Windermere physician who verified germ theory of disease
• Toφaomerom - ancient Clofabic orator

A series of natural disasters strikes Talma and sets off the "Warring States Period".

• Tsăhong Tămdi - composer, physicist and mathematician who wrote Elements of Harmony, which has the first known mention of harmonic series; the just ratios generated by a given set of primes
• Rith-Mărotł - Windermere statesman, philosopher, and political theorist
• Hădech fa-Angcem - Windermere naturalist who deduced the theory of biological evolution from Nurian wildlife which was similar but different than wildlife of continental Talma.
  • This sets off a theological crisis.
• Fosean fat-Tsarir - Windermere chemist, physicist
• Ăchmu far-Rothap - Windermere geometer, physicist and engineer
• Răngeay Bănof - Windermere physicist and mathematician who invented calculus
• Early Windermere composers (responsible for staff directions in Windermere)

[The Grouid "revolution"...]

• Emisom Grouid - Amphirese poet
• Tăbich Vaseng - Windermere mathematician who worked on complex analysis, discovered Riemann zeta function
• Aodhàn Càdlàg - Bhlaoighne mathematician (worked on real and functional analysis)
• (Amphirese poets and writers)
• Stuthil Alcphe - Amphirese writer
• Astęras Sawmeter - Amphirese inventor
• Jakkiūrą Uffanasseh - Nurian economist
• Axtxo Byjah - Sfətsiv-Fyxámian writer
• Ilsá Josive - Sgewlan geometer
• Sduþel Bolltind - Sgewlan linguist, discovered Roshterian
• Cintvę Wichaza - Sfətsiv-Amphirese linguist, discovered Sjowaazheñ
• Rewhd Gneevon - writer
• Çela Jaivon - Sgewlan fantasy writer and conlanger, Tricin's Tolkien figure