Icemannish Thread: Sails and Skins

[Pedant]

Another con-culture, this time in the far north of the world. This is for you, Frislander; you ask for more about the Icemannic peoples, and I provide!

Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Regions of the Icemannic World
3. Proto-Icemannic: Phonology and Basic Morphology
4. Skins and Sails: Naval Technology and Appearance

INTRODUCTION

The Icemannic World

Those who spoke the language known as Töhysyttäh ("our collective, cyclical recitation") spread no earlier than a twelve hundred years ago across the frozen north of Ajjamah. These are the Icemannic peoples.
The above description is broadly incorrect for three very important reasons.
The first is that the north is really not that frozen...the southern shores are temperate, even relatively mild, although the winter winds blowing down from the Far North are a bit of a pain sometimes. The lands that gave the Icemannic peoples their names are those that border the great ice sheet covering most of the continent of Borealia, where winters are hard and summer is a brief respite--but there are also communities living on nearby islands, or who travel in great longships across the Northern Passage (Hüsüvänü "The Nearby Sea"), or who've settled in lands that they once raided on the southern shores, or even tried their luck in Tailtiinu, the Land of Wine, far to the east. The entire area is about 14 million square kilometres--the size of Antarctica--and that doesn't even begin to count the new expeditions into Tailtiinu.
The second is that there is no single universally-accepted Icemannic language out there. Technically speaking there are seventeen major dialects, spread out across the north, but none lay claim to total control. The two languages largely discussed here are Proto-Icemannic, spoken some fifteen hundred years ago, and Icemannic Dialect 17, spoken by the inhabitants of Tailtiinu. The former is polysynthetic VOS (when it needs to be), and head-first. The latter is agglutinative (with vowel harmony), SOV, and, well, head-first. Compare the two sentences below, the first in Proto-Icemannic and the second in Icemannic Dialect 17: [1]

*puiquuliłuiʁivik qinaatal?
HAB-fish-eat-3pfGEN 3inanPASS-reason-Q
Puulimit hinaatal pölörihäym?
Fish-ACC-PL why HAB-eat-3plACT
Why do they eat fish?

The third and final reason the description of the Icemannic peoples is technically wrong is that, if they were to refer to themselves in that manner at all, they would call themselves the Ice Women. They refer to themselves generally as Ohopaluttah "our people living in the frost" or just "Okaalitah "our people"; the term "Iceman" is a calque of the Irthironian word Stirwana, which is actually gender-neutral as "man" was in older English texts. Icemannic society, however, is matriarchal, matrilineal, and natalocal. They are also perhaps the most brutal raiders in the world, with people from the Sealander Coast to the Telepath Empire living in fear of their longships and their thrall-spells, for the Trancers as a people and the Icemannic tribes as a whole have a particularly frightening type of magic, the blood-runes (huunahyarat "oath-makers"), where one is bound by one's own blood to serve as one's mistress commands until one dies.
I hope here to discuss the history, culture, and language of the Icemannic peoples in greater detail, as well as how they interact with the surrounding peoples, including the Statues, the Botanists, the Cannibals, and the Irthironian Normal People (who live on a completely different map).

[1] Note that occasionally, for purposes of comparison, I may briefly talk about Icemannic Dialect 3, spoken on the peninsula of Irungiutan on the northwest side of the map. It preserves more of the sounds and grammar from Proto-Icemannic, and is a more common lingua franca among the hunting parties on Borealia proper.
[2] The Proto-Icemannic particle *-taq, which resolves in Icemannic Dialect 17 to -tah/-täh, is feminine-primary; if a group is mixed, it's assumed the women take priority.

[Pabappa]

Thank you! I'm a fan. Is the resemblance of the proto-language to Inuit on purpose? The Dialect 17 sample looks like it could be Uralic ... is this meant to evoke the sounds of the Arctic in general? I like the idea of a cold climate culture whose languages sound in one place like Inuktitut, in another like Finnish, and perhaps in other areas like Old Norse.

Also, I like the idea of a polysynthetic language evolving towards an IE/European type grammar, if that's what's happening here.

And I like the feministic culture and grammar as well, .... sounds similar to some ideas of my own. Oh, and I love the tribe names. The Statues, the Botanists, the Cannibals, and, oh yeah, the Irthironian Normal People.

I enjoyed reading the post, ... I hope to see more.

[Pedant]

Thank you! I'm a fan. Is the resemblance of the proto-language to Inuit on purpose? The Dialect 17 sample looks like it could be Uralic ... is this meant to evoke the sounds of the Arctic in general? I like the idea of a cold climate culture whose languages sound in one place like Inuktitut, in another like Finnish, and perhaps in other areas like Old Norse.

Also, I like the idea of a polysynthetic language evolving towards an IE/European type grammar, if that's what's happening here.

And I like the feministic culture and grammar as well, .... sounds similar to some ideas of my own. Oh, and I love the tribe names. The Statues, the Botanists, the Cannibals, and, oh yeah, the Irthironian Normal People.

I enjoyed reading the post, ... I hope to see more.

Many thanks indeed, Pabappa! In answer to all of your points:

1. The resemblance to Proto-Inuit is indeed intentional; that's actually how the whole thing started, with a quasi-Inuit culture in the far future advancing to the point that they could take over Scandinavia. I've tweaked it a bit from its original design, fitting it nicely into Ajjamah. (For the record, there is actually a Norselike dialect--but it's a little closer to Icelandic than Old Norse specifically, at least if I got it right.)
2. I should very much like to learn more about these ideas of yours...are they on-site? If not, might they be in the future?
3. Might clarify that quickly--the names aren't per se of tribes, but of races, each with an inherent magical power. The Statues turn to stone under dire circumstances, becoming part of the landscape in order to survive. The Botanists, from the southwest, can channel energy and minerals from plants into themselves directly, and their magic is linked into controlling those plants. The Cannibals keep alive by rejuvenating from their own gnawed bones. And the Normal People from Irthiron...well, they're frustratingly (and frustratedly) normal, and can't quite understand why.
4. Happy to oblige! Is there anything in particular you'd like to see first?

[mèþru]

Looks cool!

[Pedant]

Looks cool!

Thanks!
Anything you might like to know more about? I’m eager to write, but I’d prefer to write things that people want to read...

[Frislander]

I'm liking what I see so far, glad you're sharing this with us.

[Pabappa]

I should very much like to learn more about these ideas of yours...are they on-site? If not, might they be in the future?

Not as much as I thought there was.
http://www.frathwiki.com/Proto-Moonshin ... _territory
http://www.frathwiki.com/Moonshine_Ethn ... stionnaire
http://www.frathwiki.com/Repilian_languages#Gender covers three different hyper-feministic societies (the first two are the same empire but 4500 years apart; the third is unrelated). There's a lot of information on the first two pages, but not much of it is specifically about feminism. The third page is the one that has ideas for how the language might be changed, but I may not end up making use of those ideas.

It's a coincidence that these societies live in very cold climates, like yours .... I've always liked cold weather so I've designed my planet such that humans' food supply is largely from the ocean, and with better yields in colder climates, so a large fraction of humans live near the northern extreme of their continent despite lacking modern heating technology.

Oh, perhaps I should mention that the hyper-feministic societies on Teppala are stable because women are taller than men. There is no magic involved, although they share a religion with female angels and other beings that have supernatural powers.

Happy to oblige! Is there anything in particular you'd like to see first?

I'm curious about the map. How much of the planet does that map cover? Is the southern border of the map the equator? What's the population density like? Is most food taken from the sea? How much contact is there between the northern peoples and the others? You mention that there are people living outside the area covered by this map which suggests they have long-distance sea travel.

Thanks,
Pabappa

[Pedant]

Not as much as I thought there was.
http://www.frathwiki.com/Proto-Moonshin ... _territory
http://www.frathwiki.com/Moonshine_Ethn ... stionnaire
http://www.frathwiki.com/Repilian_languages#Gender covers three different hyper-feministic societies (the first two are the same empire but 4500 years apart; the third is unrelated). There's a lot of information on the first two pages, but not much of it is specifically about feminism. The third page is the one that has ideas for how the language might be changed, but I may not end up making use of those ideas.

Seems fair! Only had time for a cursory glance yet, but consider me thoroughly impressed by the depth you’ve worked out this world to...

It's a coincidence that these societies live in very cold climates, like yours .... I've always liked cold weather so I've designed my planet such that humans' food supply is largely from the ocean, and with better yields in colder climates, so a large fraction of humans live near the northern extreme of their continent despite lacking modern heating technology.

It honestly is a coincidence; I’m really more of a tropical civilizations guy myself. Still, I’m feeling rather good about this lot; they seemed like a nice change from my usual fare (which at the moment is two jungle civilizations, one culture built on tropical grasslands, an island culture on the edge of a post-apocalyptic Australia-like continent, another island culture in tropical waters, and a hyper-religious society in a temperate European climate). I assume very much that they largely live on fishing myself, with a fair bit of hunting. Still, it’s made a little easier by the axial tilt...I pushed it up to 26º for this world and combined it with a shorter year, so although there’s still a lot of ice ironically the weather’s actually warmer than it would be on Earth below the glaciers. Better yet? That large peninsula on the western side of the map, where Tailtiinu is based, is actually the last bastion for the creatures of the last ice age, from mammoths to unicorns...oh, this world is going to be fun.

Oh, perhaps I should mention that the hyper-feministic societies on Teppala are stable because women are taller than men. There is no magic involved, although they share a religion with female angels and other beings that have supernatural powers.

This is actually not a bad way to get around it. (Plus men lactate as well, right? So that helps mix things up a bit.) I tried to stick to old-fashioned methods a bit more, trying to base as much as I could on Viking and Inuit society. I can explain more later, but basically the clan-women are the leaders (because they actually have stable professions, usually agriculture or trading, and also because they’re the ones responsible for memorizing the landscape as they travel). They’ve kept up this practice by two means, the first being a contraceptive root in plentiful supply up in the arctic, and the second being some rather stringent community rules about what men can and cannot do with women (since they’re the ones who own property). The men (along with some women) go reaving to capture thralls, male and female, to serve them all. The blood-runes are used to bind slaves to their mistresses’/masters’ bidding, and the treatment of thralls varies from community to community but it’s generally not nice having someone else’s voice in your head. Still, the system’s worked for a while.
Another point of note: the blood-runes are merely the “local” magic for the Icemannic peoples, the one that’s learned. A decent number of the population have a different, instinctual type of magic, their Gift as it were: under extreme temperature conditions (or even just life-threatening ones) they can create a magical cocoon around their bodies, letting the physical self heal and allowing the spirit (usually a combination of the Talking and Thinking Souls) to wander out across the astral plane and speak with the gods. This is largely where the Icemannic shamanism comes from, although it’s a fair bit more egalitarian thanks to the relatively high percentage of the population (a full third) who can perform this feat.

I'm curious about the map. How much of the planet does that map cover? Is the southern border of the map the equator? What's the population density like? Is most food taken from the sea? How much contact is there between the northern peoples and the others? You mention that there are people living outside the area covered by this map which suggests they have long-distance sea travel.

Thanks,
Pabappa

I deliberately left off the grid-lines for this one, but the actual map only goes down to about 30º N, and up to about 75º N, and stretches from about 170ºW to the Meridian Point. So...the entire area, ocean included, is about 6.7 million kmˆ2, taking into account the slightly smaller size of Ajjamah (it’s about 95% the size of Earth). About 1.46% of the planet’s surface, I think. That was actually a surprise to me (guess I didn’t really take latitude into account), but it’s still a substantial size, and there’s more than enough land to rival Scandinavia or Nunavut.
Hunting, fishing, and farming take up a fair bit of the day, but that largely changes depending on a) the location of the settlement, b) how long it’s been settled for, and c) how much technology the newcomers preserved. On one end of the spectrum the communities down near the Sealanders have a population density of about 72 per square km, not at all bad for a pre-industrial people. This lot use Pelian temperate agriculture, everything from maize to llamas to hippocamels, but rely a lot on fish and the occasional whale. On the other end, those living on Borealia proper have far lower numbers, usually something like 0.5 per square km. They too live on fish, but with additional heaping helpings of seal, arctic camel, arctic sloth, and the occasional mammoth. (Sabretooth meat is a little stringy.) On average it’s about 20 per square km, which is still more than enough to mount raiding parties to the south...
Below the Northern Passage, to the west there’s an archipelago of Mediterranean-like islands bordering an immense mountain range and then a desert, to the east there’s the Telepath Empire stretching across the semi-arid grasslands, and in between the two there’s a massive steppe, not unlike the one in North America (but a fair bit bigger). I’ll go into more detail fully on a different post.

Thanks so much for the time and effort you put into your response!

[Pabappa]

Oh, perhaps I should mention that the hyper-feministic societies on Teppala are stable because women are taller than men. There is no magic involved, although they share a religion with female angels and other beings that have supernatural powers.

This is actually not a bad way to get around it. (Plus men lactate as well, right? So that helps mix things up a bit.)

Thanks, yeah, I like male lactation but I wont do it if I cant come up with a biological means to turn it off when there are no babies to nurse ... so i'll think about it. A lot of my writing on FrathWiki is out of date.

I can explain more later, but basically the clan-women are the leaders (because they actually have stable professions, usually agriculture or trading, and also because they’re the ones responsible for memorizing the landscape as they travel). They’ve kept up this practice by two means, the first being a contraceptive root in plentiful supply up in the arctic, and the second being some rather stringent community rules about what men can and cannot do with women (since they’re the ones who own property). The men (along with some women) go reaving to capture thralls, male and female, to serve them all. The blood-runes are used to bind slaves to their mistresses’/masters’ bidding, and the treatment of thralls varies from community to community but it’s generally not nice having someone else’s voice in your head. Still, the system’s worked for a while.

Okay I like the explanation ... this contraceptive is traded with other nations? did you get that idea from the island (Minoa?) in ancient Greece that did much the same thing?

And I see men can be slave-owners too. The sentence ending with "to serve them all" confuses me though.

A decent number of the population have a different, instinctual type of magic, their Gift as it were: under extreme temperature conditions (or even just life-threatening ones) they can create a magical cocoon around their bodies, letting the physical self heal and allowing the spirit (usually a combination of the Talking and Thinking Souls) to wander out across the astral plane and speak with the gods.

Just curious if this applies to extreme heat as well as extreme cold.

I'm curious about the map.

I deliberately left off the grid-lines for this one, but the actual map only goes down to about 30º N, and up to about 75º N, and stretches from about 170ºW to the Meridian Point. So...the entire area, ocean included, is about 6.7 million kmˆ2, taking into account the slightly smaller size of Ajjamah (it’s about 95% the size of Earth). About 1.46% of the planet’s surface, I think. That was actually a surprise to me (guess I didn’t really take latitude into account), but it’s still a substantial size, and there’s more than enough land to rival Scandinavia or Nunavut.

i think you have a math error .... it should be 11%. 30N to 75N is slightly less than one quarter of the planet's area by latitude, and 170W to 0W is slightly less than one half by longitude. So, a bit less than an eighth of the planet.

The population densities are much higher than I expected, but I assume those are local maximums and not the average of the entire territory?

[Pedant]

Okay I like the explanation ... this contraceptive is traded with other nations? did you get that idea from the island (Minoa?) in ancient Greece that did much the same thing?

And I see men can be slave-owners too. The sentence ending with "to serve them all" confuses me though.

Indeed they do! It’s quite popular in the Telepath Empire and along the Sealander Coast. Not so much among the Swoopers or on the Dry Plains, though; the folks there are a little less inclined to find it useful, for entirely different reasons. The Irthironians have become somewhat obsessed with it, and it risks causing something of a suffragette movement back home...
As to the slaves...basically a thrall (Dialect 17 surahako, from the Proto-Icemannic *ðiuʁaqəkuj ‘assumed obedience’) isn’t owned by a single person, they’re owned by the clan. Women have more control over them than men do--for example a woman can override a man’s orders--but beyond that they’re largely used indiscriminately. Occasionally they’re chosen to act as a “particular” for a specific person, which depending on the situation is either really helpful (because they’re valued for their mind) or really degrading (because they’re valued for their body); both situations are common for male and female slaves, serving master or mistress. It should be noted, however, that male slaves are always castrated.
(By the by, I had no idea that the Minoans had a contraceptive...)

Just curious if this applies to extreme heat as well as extreme cold.

Indeed it does! There have been reports of people surviving volcanic eruptions, even. But it has a limited lifetime, normally something like fifty days at the most extreme. After that, well, you’re either a popsicle or buried alive. And it’s not any use for conventional burns or frosts; if you set yourself on fire you’re not going to go into hibernation.

I think you have a math error .... it should be 11%. 30N to 75N is slightly less than one quarter of the planet's area by latitude, and 170W to 0W is slightly less than one half by longitude. So, a bit less than an eighth of the planet.

The population densities are much higher than I expected, but I assume those are local maximums and not the average of the entire territory?

I think I have a math error, too...sorry about that, wasn’t thinking very clearly. About 11-12% of the planet, yes, much better. Also you are absolutely correct, the population density in Tailiinu is on average about 5 per square kilometre once you take farms into account. It’s higher in the cities, though, especially ones that have been in contact with the Irthironians. The hunter-gatherers of most of the Icemannic domains average lower still.

[Pedant]

Next update!

THE REGIONS OF THE ICEMANNIC WORLD

There are, broadly speaking, five major regions inhabited by the Icemannic peoples.

The Three Tundras are the northernmost part of the Icemannic world, covering the second-, third-, and fourth-largest peninsulas on the continent of Borealia that actually stretch down past the icecaps of the centre. The climate ranges from taiga forest (in about half of Harukkun) to tundra to fully-covered ice caps, which cover most of the continent. Creatures such as seals, penguin-whales, “normal” penguins, polar bears, mammoths, and arctic camels are common. In the spring and summer one can even find fruit and berries.
Harukkun (local Egallukkun “farthest west”)is the largest of the Three Tundras, and the one most written about by foreign peoples. This is in large part because the foreign peoples in question are the Irthironians, who established a colony there about a hundred years ago and are still trying to get settled in. (Legitimate) concerns that the Normal People are making magic less effective from the shamans are often overlooked in favour of using the new technology they bring, but the Icemannic matriarchal system and the Irthironian patriarchal system have clashed in the past and continue to do so today. Regional government lies in the hands of the Harucunian Development Committee, chaired by an Irthironian and calling on a mix of the finest the colony has to offer, with a generous allotment (two seats) to represent the dozens of bands scattered across the peninsula.
Maanitsoki and Laukihiina (local Maanitivakivat “among mammoth bones” and Laukiqiina “pebble shore”) are the two remaining Three Tundras of the Icemannic world, and the places where the “traditional” Icemannic lifestyle is supposed to take place. And it’s a real doozy: a diet of fish, seal liver, penguin-whale meat, seaweed, and occasionally some berries for sweetness; the occasional trek inland across the tundra just for the sheer madness of it all; throat-singing; travelling in kayaks instead of longboats; matriarchal communities with husband-swapping every now and again; going into magical trances when the weather gets too bad and dancing across the Aurora Borealis with the spirits of one’s ancestors; and hunting Vampires (the pesky devils need iron weapons to disrupt their life-eating auras). Folks around these parts tend to trade most with the Archipelago and Tailtiinu, which is perfectly reasonable considering their general location. There is no regional government per se, merely a lot of tribes who don’t particularly like each other but are willing to tolerate the presence of more humans in an increasingly unforgiving environment (the ice has been getting thicker in recent years as the planet’s internal cycles throw a spanner into the collective works of humankind).

The Southern Coast is the most populous of the Icemannic domains, and the one with the most dialect diversity. To the west, the people have to deal with the Sealanders, a subgroup of the Botanists (plant powers) who live in the temperate rainforest. In the centre of the continent people mainly trade with (and raid) the Swooper settlements in the Great Desert. And to the far east, where the climate shifts to humid continental, the Trancers have to put up with occasional attacks by the Cannibals (who just can’t get the hang of the idea that eating foreigners and gnawing on their bones does not bring them back to life in better health than before and with a willingness to do business, nor do the relatives of those foreigners ever appreciate the gesture) and in turn have some excellent trading/raiding spots of their own in the Telepath Empire to the far south. All across the landmass territory is divided into clan lands, where folks eke out a living in the forests and on the seas (avoiding sea bears, those are annoying) and trade with their neighbours to the north, south, east, and west. Government is largely theocratic, with shamans becoming more specialized and forming a “class” of society. Because of the near-constant contact with foreigners and slaves with rather different cultural mores, in order to keep order men-folk tend to be less well-treated than in other places. Blood-runes and thrall-holding are more common in these lands than anywhere else in the Icemannic world, and the Queendoms of the Southern Coast have the most eunuchs per head of anywhere along the North Passage. There are six dialects spoken along the Coast.

Aihal (local Égi “large island”) is thought to have been the ancestral homeland of the Icemannic peoples, with ruins dating back 8,000 years covering the island. The people who live on the island, the Avégid, speak a dialect that’s diverged quite far from the other languages of the North Passage, in part because of two different syncope processes over the past 600 years. The dialect (known as Dialect 18 in Irthironian accounting) is shared with the nearby island of Ainaratöhi (local Énartøg “bamboo island”), which is responsible for most of the paper the North Passage consumes (they learned the art from the Telepaths to the south). Local government is mainly queendoms, of which in the year 16 White Chupacabra there are (only) five across the two islands (Ainarahöti hasn’t been whole or independent for centuries, poor thing).

The Archipelago comprises every island associated with the North Passage that’s not Aihal or Ainaratöhi. Needless to say, this is a lot of islands, and there are almost as many dialects here as there are on the Southern Coast (five). The locals have a special connection with the Leviathan colony here in the north, and often form close bonds with the big friendly flying whales that last a lifetime.
Each individual island has its own council, wherein each family that owns a boat may send a woman to represent the clan. There have been various inter-island unions over the centuries, but these eventually fall apart due to distance.

Tailtiinu is the farthest east of the regions, and the last one to be settled, a mere 300 years ago (around 187.5 Terran years). The colonists for the most part came from [Large Island], sharing the rather unique features of that dialect branch. A heavily forested land, similar in climate to Norway or the Northwest Coast of North America, Tailtiinu (literally the ‘land of trees’ in Dialect 17) has a myriad waterways and small islands, bordered to the east by the [Statue] Mountains and to the north by the frozen icecaps of Borealia.
There were no human settlements on Tailtiinu before the Icemannic peoples showed up. Instead, the land holds some of the best-kept ecological secrets in the northern hemisphere. The last remnants of creatures from the previous glacial maximum have made their home on this subcontinent, from woolly mammoths to ground sloths to sabre-toothed wolves. There are also strangely magical creatures here, spirits who have learned from the minds of mammoths instead of humans, and reflecting their attitudes.
Aaharanatan, the northernmost “nation” of Tailtiinu, is inhabited by the appropriately named Auharanatanat, the “people protected by God” (in this case a general deity figure). Aaharanatan is best known for its excellent shaman schools; even people from the Southern Coast send their offspring to Aaharanatan to learn more about the Spirit World, as it is believed that the deities of the Icemannic peoples (the ones they all agree on, anyway) are most prominent in this land. (This is in spite of, or perhaps related to, the fact that the mammoth-spirits have such a presence in local belief systems.) Government is democratic, for an Icemannic value of “democracy”; one child-bearing woman, one vote. (Men hunt and fish, and sometimes accompany younger/older women on trading expeditions, so it’s expected that they advise their wives on the international socioeconomic situation, but voting in council sessions is still a long way off.) Nevertheless, this applies regardless of race, and although life is tough it’s not impossible to live--a motto that works well for the Icemannic peoples as a whole.
Avijässyhär (local Aviisedykär “we are definitely protected by the goose”) is a bit further down the coast, with less taiga and more broadleaf. Some of the tallest and oldest trees in the world outside the Sealander Coast are found in this country. Supreme power is vested in a Reverend Speaker (aidyteraala “she has been confirmed to speak to spirits”) who translates the will of the local gods to the colony; the position is held for life, and is generally called on only on special occasions or in emergencies--for the most part, the clans have their own set of complex social balances.
Aihopalai (local Ahjopelai “place with a marked absence of frost”) has a climate approaching southern British Columbia: warm and wet, with relatively little snow and a stout sea breeze. The Angopelait trade the most with the Telepath Empire of anyone in Tailtiinu, and by extension with Salvi, land of the Sorcerers, further to the east. They consider themselves the most knowledgeable about the interior of the continent as well, despite it being very definitely ayuvarai (“here be no clans at all”). Perhaps they hitched a ride on the back of the giant sloths to visit the great inland lakes as large as a small sea, or persuaded the local leviathans to give them a ride through the thousand islands formed by the breaking up of the kettle lakes by excess rainfall. Maybe they even used their trance state to visit the desert that covers most of the interior of the western half of the peninsula. It’s probably just fantasizing anyway, at least according to their more enlightened cousins in Aaharanatan. Government is vested in the Grand Council of the Fleet, in traditional Icemannic fashion.

[Pabappa]

Harukkun (local Egallukkun “farthest west”)is the largest of the Three Tundras, and the one most written about by foreign peoples. This is in large part because the foreign peoples in question are the Irthironians, who established a colony there about a hundred years ago and are still trying to get settled in. (Legitimate) concerns that the Normal People are making magic less effective from the shamans are often overlooked in favour of using the new technology they bring, but the Icemannic matriarchal system and the Irthironian patriarchal system have clashed in the past and continue to do so today. Regional government lies in the hands of the Harucunian Development Committee, chaired by an Irthironian and calling on a mix of the finest the colony has to offer, with a generous allotment (two seats) to represent the dozens of bands scattered across the peninsula.

I like these ideas.

The Archipelago comprises every island associated with the North Passage that’s not Aihal or Ainaratöhi. Needless to say, this is a lot of islands, and there are almost as many dialects here as there are on the Southern Coast (five). The locals have a special connection with the Leviathan colony here in the north, and often form close bonds with the big friendly flying whales

I would like to hear more about these I was actually going to ask about the penguin-whales too.

Aaharanatan, the northernmost “nation” of Tailtiinu, is inhabited by the appropriately named Auharanatanat, the “people protected by God” (in this case a general deity figure). Aaharanatan is best known for its excellent shaman schools; even people from the Southern Coast send their offspring to Aaharanatan to learn more about the Spirit World, as it is believed that the deities of the Icemannic peoples (the ones they all agree on, anyway) are most prominent in this land. (This is in spite of, or perhaps related to, the fact that the mammoth-spirits have such a presence in local belief systems.) Government is democratic, for an Icemannic value of “democracy”; one child-bearing woman, one vote. (Men hunt and fish, and sometimes accompany younger/older women on trading expeditions, so it’s expected that they advise their wives on the international socioeconomic situation, but voting in council sessions is still a long way off.) Nevertheless, this applies regardless of race, and although life is tough it’s not impossible to live--a motto that works well for the Icemannic peoples as a whole.

So only women can vote, and only once they've had kids? Do they get one vote per child or is just a one-time step up from none to one? Or by child-bearing do you just mean grown up?

Avijässyhär (local Aviisedykär “we are definitely protected by the goose”)

lol

[Pedant]

Harukkun (local Egallukkun “farthest west”)is the largest of the Three Tundras, and the one most written about by foreign peoples. This is in large part because the foreign peoples in question are the Irthironians, who established a colony there about a hundred years ago and are still trying to get settled in. (Legitimate) concerns that the Normal People are making magic less effective from the shamans are often overlooked in favour of using the new technology they bring, but the Icemannic matriarchal system and the Irthironian patriarchal system have clashed in the past and continue to do so today. Regional government lies in the hands of the Harucunian Development Committee, chaired by an Irthironian and calling on a mix of the finest the colony has to offer, with a generous allotment (two seats) to represent the dozens of bands scattered across the peninsula.

I like these ideas.

Thanks!

The Archipelago comprises every island associated with the North Passage that’s not Aihal or Ainaratöhi. Needless to say, this is a lot of islands, and there are almost as many dialects here as there are on the Southern Coast (five). The locals have a special connection with the Leviathan colony here in the north, and often form close bonds with the big friendly flying whales

I would like to hear more about these I was actually going to ask about the penguin-whales too.

Of course! The leviathans are one of four sapient (and therefore magically-inclined) species currently occupying the globe, alongside humans, phoenixes, and behemoths, the last of which is just a general term for a particularly wide-spread species of pachyderm. (Dragons are clever, and use magic, but they’re also the ghosts of dinosaur gods possessing and transforming the bodies of innocent modern-day animals and are bound to a hive mind, so they’re not presumed to count.) Where the default non-Gift magical outlet for a human is tool-making, for leviathans it’s through song; specific combinations of notes, resonating across the oceans, produce particular effects, even for those who can’t quite hear them.
Leviathans are close to modern-day humpback whales in size and shape, but they’re among the last of their genus; their closest relative, the kelpie (in Wenglau) resembles the pakicetus (a predecessor to modern whales that went extinct in our world about 48 million years ago). In the modern ocean, they’ve been largely replaced by a group of birds from the orders alloharpsidi and ornithophallaenidae, ovoviviparous avians with a common ancestor resembling the penguin. Frighteningly intelligent (some are about the same as a modern-day dolphin), they’re ubiquitous across the world, and are often found to coexist alongside the leviathans, taking on a role halfway between a dog and a slightly dim child.

Aaharanatan, the northernmost “nation” of Tailtiinu, is inhabited by the appropriately named Auharanatanat, the “people protected by God” (in this case a general deity figure). Aaharanatan is best known for its excellent shaman schools; even people from the Southern Coast send their offspring to Aaharanatan to learn more about the Spirit World, as it is believed that the deities of the Icemannic peoples (the ones they all agree on, anyway) are most prominent in this land. (This is in spite of, or perhaps related to, the fact that the mammoth-spirits have such a presence in local belief systems.) Government is democratic, for an Icemannic value of “democracy”; one child-bearing woman, one vote. (Men hunt and fish, and sometimes accompany younger/older women on trading expeditions, so it’s expected that they advise their wives on the international socioeconomic situation, but voting in council sessions is still a long way off.) Nevertheless, this applies regardless of race, and although life is tough it’s not impossible to live--a motto that works well for the Icemannic peoples as a whole.

So only women can vote, and only once they've had kids? Do they get one vote per child or is just a one-time step up from none to one? Or by child-bearing do you just mean grown up?

Once a woman has borne one child, male or female, she’s officially eligible to become a matriarch. Matriarchs own land, and are thus given a say in how that land (and its resources) may be used by others. Males cannot own land, although they do require a groom-price (physical labour is very useful). Other than that, imagine something equivalent to the Scandinavian thing; property owners from all across the land come to meet, and are presided over by specialized individuals who recite the laws and regulations of the colony.

Avijässyhär (local Aviisedykär “we are definitely protected by the goose”)

lol

(Grin) Hey, don’t laugh too much! The goose is a psychopomp for the Icemannic peoples; they’re basically saying here “We have Death on our side. Beware.”

[mèþru]

You can't call it a kelpie if it doesn't take the form of an entrancing horse or a beautiful human!
[/Outraged fan of Celtic mythologies]

[Pedant]

You can't call it a kelpie if it doesn't take the form of an entrancing horse or a beautiful human!
[/Outraged fan of Celtic mythologies]

...ah. Yeah, I thought I might run into that problem. I hoped the distinction of “aquatic carnivorous equine-esque pack animal” would cover all the basics, but the problem lies in the fact that it doesn’t really look that entrancing (and doesn’t have a human form). Oh, well. Is there another word I could use, though? Something that still says “aquatic carnivorous equine-esque pack animal”?

[mèþru]

horse-seal?
sea hippogriff?

[Pedant]

horse-seal?
sea hippogriff?

Swamp Lions? Aggravated Tapirs? Naked Crocodiles?

[Pabappa]

The locals have a special connection with the Leviathan colony here in the north, and often form close bonds with the big friendly flying whales

So, is Leviathan a term for a flying whale? If not, Im confused. When I asked the first question I didnt even connect those two clauses, I just wanted to know about the flying whales.

Once a woman has borne one child, male or female, she’s officially eligible to become a matriarch. Matriarchs own land, and are thus given a say in how that land (and its resources) may be used by others. Males cannot own land, although they do require a groom-price (physical labour is very useful).

Okay. Now youve got me thinking about childhood mortality ... does this transition happen as soon as the child is born, or does the child need to survive past a certain threshold? If a woman is prematurely giving birth, does it matter? If a woman who is late in her term suddenly undergoes miscarriage, can she still claim her title because the child was stillborn?

If a guy slips his pregnant wife a potion and she miscarries the baby, does she fail to get matriarch status? What if another woman poisons her instead?

Regarding the mythological terms .... I've been using terms like that all along, so I didnt even notice "kelpie" or think to look up what it was, just like I guess I didnt notice Leviathan either. If you cant come up with a term you like, you could either borrow the name of an ordinary animal or use an in-language term untranslated.

[Pedant]

So, is Leviathan a term for a flying whale? If not, Im confused. When I asked the first question I didnt even connect those two clauses, I just wanted to know about the flying whales.

That’s exactly right! The word “leviathan” is used for flying whales, in the same way “behemoth” is used for singing elephants and “phoenix” is used for the colonies of exploding parrots around the equator. (These are the three other sapient magic-using species around, by the way.)

Okay. Now youve got me thinking about childhood mortality ... does this transition happen as soon as the child is born, or does the child need to survive past a certain threshold? If a woman is prematurely giving birth, does it matter? If a woman who is late in her term suddenly undergoes miscarriage, can she still claim her title because the child was stillborn?
If a guy slips his pregnant wife a potion and she miscarries the baby, does she fail to get matriarch status? What if another woman poisons her instead?
Regarding the mythological terms .... I've been using terms like that all along, so I didnt even notice "kelpie" or think to look up what it was, just like I guess I didnt notice Leviathan either. If you can’t come up with a term you like, you could either borrow the name of an ordinary animal or use an in-language term untranslated.

In answer to all of those: it really depends on the Colony in question. For the most part, if a baby gets past weaning, it’s considered to have lasted long enough to count as a child. Doesn’t matter if the birth is premature, it only matters that the kid lasts long enough to eat something that isn’t milk. (It’s ill-advised not to make sure they last a little longer than that, though.) In earlier days, because of necessary population growth one was expected to keep trying for kids if they didn’t make it, and that the child last until old enough to start reproducing themselves (not that they would, Icemannic society in general has a far higher age of allowance for sex than most premodern societies); now that the colonies have been around a fair bit longer (and especially after a rogue batch of vampires made it down and, well, helped themselves), it’s gone down a little bit.
Well, in short, he’d be an idiot to do so. A voice in the colony for the woman is also an elevation of prestige for the man; men, of course, can’t vote, but having Standing in society is often the ticket to moving up in one’s chosen profession, as it’s understood that his wife can’t work for herself as much now. Even if he were psychopathic enough to administer such a thing, it would lose him as much face as it would her. More, in fact; far too often unsuccessful pregnancies are blamed on the husband instead of the wife (folk tradition states that the woman creates and gestates the child all on her own, and the man merely “stimulates” the process). If another woman poisons her, it’s still likely to be blamed on the husband, unless one can find sufficient evidence that it actually came from somewhere else.

...reckon I should change the names, then? Only I did really want it to be more accessible to the general public, and they’re broad enough names to allow for some similarity...

[Pedant]

And now, for something new.
PROTO-ICEMANNIC: PHONOLOGY AND BASIC MORPHOLOGY
The Proto-Icemannic Peoples
NOTE: all terms within this section are given in Proto-Icemannic unless stated otherwise.
Proto-Icemannic is the name given by Irthironian scholars to the language spoken some 1,500 years ago on Aihal by the original Trancers. There is no known original name for the language; the closest derivation we have is Icemannic Dialect 17's povundulasuttah 'we used to speak it'. There are also very scant phonological records of the language, not least because at the time the preference in the north was to use pictograms, and the dialects only gained their own writing systems after centuries of contact with the Botanists and Telepaths respectively. However, through a full comparison of the dialects attained over years of analysis with the comparative method (borrowed from the Irthironians), and with much emphasis on some of the more conservative dialects to the west, skalds have come up with a basic idea of what the language may have sounded like.
The speakers of Proto-Icemannic left us quite a few things from which to piece together what their lives were like. From archaeological records and common words, we know that the Proto-Icemannic people were actually quite advanced. Communities came together in longhouses (*iałi) during the summer months, usually situated by the sea so they could fish and hunt birds and sealbirds (*piuq 'harpoon', *ʁuuna 'net', *ɣial 'sealbird', *ɣapi 'penguin'). They would also use this time to gather seeds, fruits, and roots, and hunt giant sloths (*t^jaaka), mammoths (*maani--note that mammoths are not behemoths, although they are from the same family as the third intelligent species on the planet), deer (*iaq), and smaller animals. During the winter months they trekked inland and stayed in small family groups (*uati) of about 20-30; in later centuries these would become not individual portions of a larger clan (*uuva), but foundational bodies for new clans. The clans had councils (*tuamualəpil “cyclical instance of unity”) at which larger issues, from trade to conflict between clans or family groups to religious rites.
They were illiterate, but had a rich oral tradition (*qiu 'recite'), wherein the deeds of one's ancestors from both sides--mother's and father's--were memorized and passed down; assuming a continued tradition from then until the present day, the sagas (*uði) would contain not only genealogical information, but also descriptions of different parts of the world, and even some unique cultural features (for example, we apparently have an eyewitness account from the saga of Vaavusuuka of the Telepath kingdom of Kelat's social structure, including the beginnings of the Holy Assassins). These were contrasted with myths (*tiika), which dealt (and deal) with more mythological and/or etiological matters.
The trance state (*kuatu) appears to have been fully developed as a gift around 2,000 years ago, having split from the Banshees' Gift (now defunct) of a magical exoskeleton active only at night some time previously.
It is uncertain at what point precisely the matriarchal attitude of the Icemannic peoples came into play. Attitudes towards women were always a little better than might have been expected; while men still hunted, women took part in fishing and gathering, kept the homes running, and (perhaps most importantly) kept the genealogies of the different families. Both men and women were expected to be competent with weapons. Matrilineality has always been present in Icemannic culture, although how much credit the father receives has varied over the years. They also seem to have been the primary keepers of household faith; while shamans (*ðiuʁaʔiik “spirit-borne eye”) could be male or female, priestesses (*iałinəkauli “voice of the longhouse”) were exclusively female. It is entirely possible that, once it could be reasonably demonstrated that the gods (*ðiu) were not only absolutely present, but also powerful, that the estimation of the woman at home, battling psychic forces that few men could (or were allowed to) brave, went further up from even its pre-matriarchal state. It might have also been thanks to the eventual practice of blood-runes (*quunas^jal “oath-former”), which bind those marked by them to the service of the clan of the one marking--a feature that freed up Icemannic women from potential threats of violence from their husbands (although this appears to have always been punishable under the law), and gave them an easy supply of lovers themselves. Finally, it might have been the discovery of *tualauqutakvun, a root with contraceptive properties that could be easily ingested by women (giving them some measure of control over pregnancy); the Tale of the Cautious Root explains the mythology behind this much better than could be summarized here. Whatever the case, most of these features had at least an approximation of their modern form by 1,200 years ago, when the Expansion began.

Proto-Icemannic Phonology
Consonants: p t t^j k q ts s^j b/v d/ð g/ɣ ɢ/ʁ m n (n^j) ŋ ɴ l ł [ɬ] j ʔ
Vowels: a aa ai au i ii ia iu u uu ua ui ə
Syllable Structure: (C)V(V)(C)(V)–VC VVC VVCV CV CVC CVV CVVC CVVCV

Proto-Icemannic Morphology
Proto-Icemannic, like many of its daughter languages, was polysynthetic, tail-first, and prone to confusing nouns and verbs. The basic format of a word was:

Concept-Agency(Passive)-Occasion-Tense-Size-[RO]Agency(Verbal)[OT]-Likelihood-State-Mood-Agency(Active)-Case-Possession

Interrogatives were marked with an *-l after the active agency suffix.
A list of some features (please note that the list is not complete as of yet):
Concepts: *ai-: associated location, *au-: associated person, *ia-: supernatural entity, *iu-: lack/absence, *ua-: similar object
*ui-: collective
Passive Person: *tsə-: 1st fem.pass., *na-: 1st masc.pass., *ku-: 2nd fem.pass., *mi-: 2nd masc.pass.
*va-: 3rd fem.pass., *nu-: 3rd masc.pass., *qi-: 3rd inan.pass.
Occasion: *pui-: habitual, *tua-: cyclical, *s^jaa-: continuous, *ʁai-: aorist (story)
Tense: *mba-: far past, *ndu-: near past, *ŋgi-: near future
Size: *ki-: diminutive, *ga-: augmentative
Agency: *-t(i)-: causative to indirect object, *-ʁə-: agent to patient (NOTE: not often used)
*-q(a)-: experiencer only, *-ts(u)-: patient only
Likelihood: *-tia/tiN-: already confirmed, *-ðiu/ðiv-: generally assumed, *-na(N)-: not
*-ɣai/ɣaj-: inferred possibility, *-vau/vav-: conjecture, *-tsui/tsuj-: hearsay
State: *-kun-: state, *-luk-: habitance, *-pil-: instance, *-tsut-: continuation, *-tak-: loss, *-s^jal-: creation, *-łaj-: absence
*-kaʁ-: ability
Mood: *-iɣ(a): imperative, *-ul(u): volitive
Active Person: *-va/ua: 1st sing.act., *-(ʁ)ai: 2nd sing.act.
*-(N)a: 3rd sing. fem. act., *-(N)i: 3rd sing.masc. act., *-(N)ə: 3rd sing. neut. act.
*-ju/iu: 1st pl. act., *-vi/ui: 2nd pl. act., *-(ʁ)au: 3rd pl.act.
Case: *-ja: subject/topic, *-mi: direct object, *-nə: genitive, *-ŋiu: locative, *-vuN: causative
*-jua: interpersonal, *-lu: durative, *-ʁi: ablative
Possession: *-juk: 1st person singular feminine, *-tia: 1st person singular masculine
*-s^ji: 2nd person singular masculine
*-nuł: 3rd person singular masculine *-tut: 3rd person singular inanimate
*-taq: 1st person plural feminine
*-vik: 3rd person plural feminine

NOTE: there are indeed three types of negative, one conceptual, one from the likelihood affixes, and one from states. Each of these has a particular morphological context. The first is used for addenda to already completed concepts (“This thing that is described in great detail? It’s not happening.”), the second for negation generally (“This thing is not happening.”), and the third for demonstrating an absence of some action or endeavour (“This is a thing that is not happening”). So, for example, if one were to say *natsaaliju it would mean “we do not raid,” but *tsaaliłajiu would mean “we are in a state of not raiding,” and *iutsaaliju would mean “we aren’t raiding right now.” Each of these went their own way in the daughter dialects, making things a little trickier to decipher at times.

Let us take, for example, the word *s^jukuqatiatsut “there is definitely meat here” and parse it:
s^juku-qa-tia-tsut
Meat.EXP-CONFIRM-CONTIN.
Or, as a more fun example, the word *titsupəłajias^ji “your inability to be found, boy” from the root *tip "find":
titsup-ə-łai-ja-s^ji
find.PASS-ABCENSE-NOM-2smPOSS

NOTE: *ə is usually inserted between consonants, *ʔ between vowels.