Conworld random thread

[Raphael]

By "subject", I didn't mean a single course - I meant more like something you can get a degree in.

[Ares Land]

By "subject", I didn't mean a single course - I meant more like something you can get a degree in.

Ah, yes, definitely then!
(I'd add languages and some notions of field linguistics to it.)

[Raphael]

Human biochemistry question: would it be plausible to have a culture of human beings - or some conspecies biologically identical to human beings - who habitually drink large amounts of pure undiluted lemon juice? Would the acidity mess with their metabolism? Or would the taste and mouthfeel be the only problems?

[Richard W]

Human biochemistry question: would it be plausible to have a culture of human beings - or some conspecies biologically identical to human beings - who habitually drink large amounts of pure undiluted lemon juice? Would the acidity mess with their metabolism? Or would the taste and mouthfeel be the only problems?

From what I can dig out about Royal Navy rations, half a pint a day should be fine. If you need more details, I suggest you do your own research.

[Zju]

Human biochemistry question: would it be plausible to have a culture of human beings - or some conspecies biologically identical to human beings - who habitually drink large amounts of pure undiluted lemon juice? Would the acidity mess with their metabolism? Or would the taste and mouthfeel be the only problems?

If acidity isn't, vitamin C overdose will be a problem after a while - for human beings anyway. You could probably use handwavium for some conspecies.

[Ares Land]

Human biochemistry question: would it be plausible to have a culture of human beings - or some conspecies biologically identical to human beings - who habitually drink large amounts of pure undiluted lemon juice? Would the acidity mess with their metabolism? Or would the taste and mouthfeel be the only problems?

Lemon juice is not that much worse than Coke or really cheap wine, acidity-wise. I can't find any hint of citric acid causing metabolic problems. (And some people have drunk real nasty stuff, historically. The Roman army ran on vinegar.)

On the topic of vitamin C overdose, after some back of the envelope calculations, it seems you could maybe get some mild diarrhea after 1.6 liters a day or so.

So, yeah, I think that works. (Leaving matters of lemon production and taste aside, of course.)

[Nortaneous]

Human biochemistry question: would it be plausible to have a culture of human beings - or some conspecies biologically identical to human beings - who habitually drink large amounts of pure undiluted lemon juice? Would the acidity mess with their metabolism? Or would the taste and mouthfeel be the only problems?

Can't overly acidic diets cause acid reflux?

[Pabappa]

there's probably more to it than just the chemicals .... digestibility might play a factor. i drink enormous amounts of diet soda and Ive never had any issues whatsoever with heartburn or with it upsetting my stomach. I think my body may just treat it as water flavored with syrup, which is really all it is, right? I dont drink sugared soda often, however.

Still, with some humble foods I get heartburn even when i consume them in small quantities, .... i cant name too many offhand because i avoid them but i know it includes icecream and certain flavors of cottage cheese. yet other things, like hot chili peppers, dont bother me at all. last night i had a whole bag of chips and a decent sized bowl of salsa right before bed, and didnt get heartburn. as with the soda, i get the feeling that hot salsa just goes right through me and is digested immediately whereas a more complex food might take hours to break down into its constituents. i dont think i have any dairy allergies because plain cottage cheese rarely if ever causes heartburn for me ... only the flavored ones do, and only certain flavors.

I cant be too sure about wine .... I sometimes get heartburn after drinking wine, but it could easily be coming from the slowing down of the digestion of the other foods i eat, since, as Im told, liquids including alcohol push ahead of everything else and are digested first.

that could be totally wrong .... i dont know and i didnt look anything up before typing this. i'd think, though, that if i started drinking lemon juice i would not suffer significant heartburn from it.

how large are you thinking? glasses? bottles? tubs? do some people dilute it or flavor it with other things? is there social pressure on people who dislike the lemon juice not to admit it publicly?

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Acid reflux can also be psychosomatic. I tend to get it when my anxiety is high (which is frequently); acidic foods can make it worse, but I imagine this is more because they're adding to an already-acidic stomach or an already-irritated throat, rather than directly causing it. I'm also not a doctor, but I have been through quite a lot of testing (I got to know gastroenterology and cardiology — acid reflux and panic together can resemble cardiac problems, which I mercifully turned out not to have). Oddly, my acid is apparently not particularly strong — the doctor said I probably have some sort of increased nervous sensitivity.

[Raphael]

Thank you, everyone!

[quinterbeck]

I came across the interesting concept of 'bijective decimals' today. They're a positional number notation that doesn't use zero; instead, the digits have the values one to ten. Thus, if we use 'A' for the digit 'ten', and write the most significant digit on the left, twenty would be written '1A' and 'one hundred would be 9A, 'one hundred and one' would be 'A1', one hundred and ten would be 'AA', and one hundred and eleven would be '111'. Has anyone here tried using such a system for a conlang or conscript?

I came up with something similar for a conscript called Nesheku, which uses numerals I'll represent as 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 X C, where X stands for ten and C for a hundred. It's not quite as clean as bijective decimal, but I like it that way.

With N from 2 to 9 (but not 1), XN means 'ten + N' while NX means 'N × ten'. Likewise for CN, NC, CX and XC: [large.small] is the sum, and [small.large] is the product. So CX = 110, but XC = 1,000; X2 = 12, but 2X = 200.

Multiplication of C scopes over two preceding digits, so for any A and B, ABC represents 'value(AB) × hundred'. E.g. X3C = 1300. As the highest numeral, C can also multiply itself: CC = 10,000.

Alone, 1 cannot be a multiplier, but it can as the 'units' of a two-digit multiplier of C, e.g. 71C2 = 7102. 1 can also occupy the true units position.

The apposition of numerals 1 to 9 behaves much like a decimal place value system. Underlyingly, NN indicates NXN, and NNN indicates NCNXN. In a number of the form NCNX, for example, C can be omitted, but X cannot. E.g. 83X = 830 (8×C + 3×X).

The form for higher numbers follows a nested pattern: NCNXNCNXN = ((N)C + NX + N)C + NX + N. Since there's no zero, non-omitted X and C indicate empty places.

There are rules for grouping digits in higher numbers but the details aren't all hammered out.

More examples:

More: show

1 to 9 as in decimal
X = 10
X1 to X9 = eleven to nineteen
2X, 3X, 4X, ..., 9X = twenty, thirty, forty, ..., ninety
21, 22 etc to 99 as in decimal
C = a hundred
C1 = 101
CX = 110
CX1 = 111
C2X = 120
C22 = 122
2C = 200
2C1 = 201
2CX = 210 (or 21X, non-standard but cogent)
2X1 = 211
22X = 220
221 = 221
XC = 1000
XC1 = 1001
XCX = 1010
XCX1 = 1011
XC2X = 1020
XC22 = 1022
X1C = 1100 (i.e. eleven hundred)
X1C22 or X1 22 = 1122

For numbers of four digits or more, they can be written in spaced blocks of two digits each (the leading block might be one or three digits), representing decreasing powers of a hundred (sort of), in a kind of centimal place value system(??). Where C would appear between blocks it can be omitted, and C and X start to look even more like zero.

2476 > 24 76
13704 > C37C4 or C37 C4
503410 > 5XC34CX or 5X 34 CX
50340 > 5C34X or 5C3 4X
50040 > 5CC4X or 5C 4X
5040 > 5XC4X or 5X 4X

100 > C
1,000 > XC
10,000 > CC
100,000 > XCC
1,000,000 > CCC
10,000,000 > XCCC

Edit: here's a picture of the actual numerals:

More: show

[Ahzoh]

I know the instances of earth vs sky pairings as being very common (usually female earth and male sky but male earth deity and female celestial deity pairings exist (like Geb and Nut)), but can I have it where the earth is male and is paired with the sun as the main female deity? And the sky is something of a derivation from the deity, like a shroud or clothing or something.

Frankly I now feel like I am forced to adhere to certain mythological tendencies or "genres" of cosmogonies as I call them (e.g. world parent, earth diver, ex nihilo, etc.) because I tried to explain my mythology to my mother in order to help flesh out the entities and beyond it and she's like "you know why all the earth deities are female right?" and I try to explain to her that it doesn't matter, but she's like, "yea but people aren't going to be interested if the premise makes no sense". I don't know but now I feel like If I want an male earth deity and a female celestial deity pairing it has to be earth and sky and not earth and sun and have to have the sun be some stupid chariot riding god in the sky or eye or something.

It's funny how how arbitrary the anthropomorphization of aspects of nature seem yet there is always some kind of internal logic to it as it relates to human experience..

[linguistcat]

Well, at the risk of insulting your mother, she's wrong. She's both wrong that all earth deities are female (as you stated yourself) and she's wrong that no one would be interested or that it wouldn't make sense. It might not make sense to her, but it sounds like her issue. People will either find the change interesting or they won't.

I will say that I know of at least one mythology that has a female sun deity (Amaterasu of Shintoism), but she is not paired off as she is in a trinity of sorts with her siblings, Susano'o (who is a god of oceans, storms and forests) and Tsukuyomi (the moon god). But I wouldn't bat an eye at a conreligion that saw the sun as feminine and the earth as masculine in a pairing together.

[KathTheDragon]

Interesting tidbit: in (late-)PIE, "sun" was feminine and "moon" was masculine.

[WeepingElf]

Interesting tidbit: in (late-)PIE, "sun" was feminine and "moon" was masculine.

They still are in German. (Also in my conlang Old Albic.)

[Ares Land]

Frankly I now feel like I am forced to adhere to certain mythological tendencies or "genres" of cosmogonies as I call them (e.g. world parent, earth diver, ex nihilo, etc.) because I tried to explain my mythology to my mother in order to help flesh out the entities and beyond it and she's like "you know why all the earth deities are female right?" and I try to explain to her that it doesn't matter, but she's like, "yea but people aren't going to be interested if the premise makes no sense". I don't know but now I feel like If I want an male earth deity and a female celestial deity pairing it has to be earth and sky and not earth and sun and have to have the sun be some stupid chariot riding god in the sky or eye or something.

Quick, tell all the readers of The Fifth Season!

Part of the premise of that book - series, even! - is that the Earth is a male vengeful god. It makes sense for the story Jemisin tells, and that's all readers need.

[KathTheDragon]

Interesting tidbit: in (late-)PIE, "sun" was feminine and "moon" was masculine.

Semi-correction: "sun" may have still been neuter in late PIE, as it probably was in early PIE (before the innovation of the feminine gender).

[Ahzoh]

Interesting tidbit: in (late-)PIE, "sun" was feminine and "moon" was masculine.

ah yes, moon and sun are also common pairings, although in my conreligion the moons (I have two) are the children of the sun and earth.

Also the sun and earth were both bright and hot entities, but the earth somehow tripped off of the cosmos and died, resulting in his body growing cold and solid. Now see I think that is an interesting premise, but my mother seems limited in imagination as she seems to think that the earth has to be an earth womb mother to explain the origin of humans if humans are to be the result of a cosmic sexual union between celestial and ground.

I am still trying to flesh out the cosmogony, so that it sounds like an elegant story that isn't only three or four sentences long.

I'm not too sure of the exact details, mostly wanting to resolve:

• how/why do the sun mother and earth father split
• how does earth father die
• the appropriate human-like response of the moon children and sun mother to the sudden and unexpected death of earth father and the resulting encounter with the concept of dying
• reason for making humans and putting them on the corpse of the earth father

[linguistcat]

I'm not too sure of the exact details, mostly wanting to resolve:

• how/why do the sun mother and earth father split
• how does earth father die
• the appropriate human-like response of the moon children and sun mother to the sudden and unexpected death of earth father and the resulting encounter with the concept of dying
• reason for making humans and putting them on the corpse of the earth father

Could the humans have already been created (either birthed themselves by the sun but as lesser children, or created as gifts for the moon, or otherwise) at this point but have no home to live on? Then you could have the world be built out of earth father a la Ymir of Norse myths. That was my first thought. I'm sure there are others if you don't feel it fits

[Ahzoh]

Could the humans have already been created (either birthed themselves by the sun but as lesser children, or created as gifts for the moon, or otherwise) at this point but have no home to live on? Then you could have the world be built out of earth father a la Ymir of Norse myths. That was my first thought. I'm sure there are others if you don't feel it fits

Actually I was gonna have them be created by the moons; one moon makes women, the other makes men.