Sego

[sasasha]

Context

I returned with teen-like vigour to my teenage conworld about five years ago. I guess I adopted a sort of ‘save the refugees’ mentality: all those old ideas of people, languages etc were going to die unless I gave them a proper home. My 30-something-year-old self started plucking old bits of papery debri out of the vast ocean of life and drying them out next to each other on little mind-rafts, and for a while just stared at them, wondering what it could possibly all be for.

Slowly I realised how much material is here. The more work gets done, the more connected and cohesive it becomes. I'm finally getting towards building one coherent language family in particular...

And that's why I need help. Never really got this far into one conlanging project before: my technical skills have been pretty much exhausted, and I would need pointers to keep stretching and growing this practice.

I've got a Google Drive folder I'm trying to turn into an encyclopedia. But I don't want this work to miss out on the opportunity of being informed by much cleverer and more experienced conlangers than I.

You may find stuff to review in here that you can really help me with; and/or stuff that you might find interesting. If so, thanks and you're welcome.

Note: I haven't (at all) abandoned working on Almean music. I work at a totally erratic pace (for which I apologise) and work on many things in parallel but I would still appreciate this space to ask for feedback on my own conlanging and conworldery, which tends to happen as a backdrop to my life whether I want it to or not. The music project is, in fact, so unwieldily large, I am struggling to document it properly due to lack of time. Mark suggested I use videos, which I'm down for, but there's a lot going on in my life right now so sadly I'm more behind than I want to be. Anyway. I think I'm actually a bit blocked with that by feeling like I should only post here if it's about that: so this is, perhaps, reverse psychology which might, actually, help get me going with sharing the, by now, several years I've enjoyed spending working out corners of Almean music!!!


So... What is Sego?

A ‘planet’ run in a vastly powerful simulation by near-immortal beings who would be bored to death, were death not illegal for them.

NB: I may have just spoiled the twist of possibly more than one inchoate novel. Ah well. It was pretty obvious anyway.


How does it manifest?

As a handy setting for fantasy-like fiction, which also allows plumbing of existential questions of the type more akin to sci-fi.

As a bunch of scrawled notes, maps and Google Docs amassed over 20 years, weathered by time and obscured by the billowing shrouds of ADHD.

At some point, hopefully, it will exist publicly as an encyclopedia (simply as a link to the Google Drive folder all linked up and shared for viewing).

There are also over a dozen novels/stories in some degree plotted... mostly (though not exclusively) rather vaguely. Will they ever fall through the gates of not-being into the realm of being? Who can say. Perhaps this thread will help the birthing process.


What are some of its features?

Its main ‘now’ is set about 10k years after a ‘Thermal Crisis’. Agricultural communities survived the Crisis mainly in polar and montane refuges. The sea continued to eat up the best land for millennia afterwards. The common name for one of its chief continents, Aretia, is derived from a word meaning ‘burned’.

Recovery was, to some extent, aided by a non-human sentient species, the winged Vashari. Humans, usually, repayed the Vashari by trying their hardest to wipe them out as soon as they remembered how to do genocide in their respective parts of the globe. Vashari today are the stuff of legend in most of the densely populated areas.

Most of the ancient belief systems are rooted in what Felonian scholars called ‘The Talent’, and what most people might call ‘magic’. They are also rooted in veneration of what are known (in a calque of the Iozhi word) ‘Sentinels’: portals through which one might communicate with the gods, whence powerful intercessions can be sought.

Modern peoples are unlikely to believe in The Talent, or even the existence of the Sentinels, let alone their effectiveness. They believe in steamships and insurance and Secularism, which teaches the innocence of the Old Ones and the need to stamp out all the old poppycock about gods and magic and golems and angels and suchlike. They are statistically pretty likely to have fallen sway recently to the Goğon Empire, which purports to rule over half the people of Sego. They are quite horribly unlucky if they are from the large southern continent of Seguwe, which the steamships reached not too long ago.

This modern outlook sits uncomfortably next to the world-views of more traditional peoples, and, in some places, surviving pockets of Vashari.

There are a few subsequent twists which I will keep close to my chest; but this is a neat-enough gateway overview of the setting.


Why does it nearly share its name with a brand of stuffing?

Yeah, that bothers me, too. My subconscious stole the word ‘Segoy’ from Ursula Le Guin as a kid, and vomited it up as ‘Seguwe’, the continent (and endonym of one of my teen conlangs, Seguwe-akhe). I can't shake it and decided not to, out of tribute. (‘Sego’ is currently telling me it is a sad Megâzi borrowing of ‘Seguwe’, taken thanks to the counter-culture spread of Seguwean religions in the slavery-heavy colonial era, a last hurrah of non-Secularism... but that's subject to revisal.) The planet has many endonyms, of course. Seguweans call it all Seguwe. The Caebaeq priesthood call it, in the ceremonial language Peoppaeq, Luvaśkah (‘big round platform’). Old Orlogians called it O. The Hamak call it ‘perch of the soul’. Aretians usually just call it ‘soil, dirt, earth, ground’, like we call our planet; I often use ‘the earth’ and ‘the world’ for it in my writings. It may get a different common name, in the end.

When I need to refer to the setting as a simulation rather than a planet, I call it ASego. Like Artificial Sego, I guess. Or ‘non-Sego’. It just happened like that because I wanted the folder to be alphabetically first... Then it, too, stuck.


Next update: major (modern) language families of Sego (as presently known).

[sasasha]

Ok, I lied about the next update.

Here's a random article instead on Rong Bone Trees.

And for context, the article for Goğonlird (where they are found).

Both just drafts, but meaty ones. (The Goğonlird article has an odd tone and may turn into a ‘translation’ of an in-world text; it doesn't exactly follow the format of my other encyclopedia articles.) Images courtesy of Dall·E.

I had (teenage-era) sketches for the Goğon language (which used to be called Goğonlird, though now I seem to have adopted that name for the island instead) - but I don't remember or seem to have them anymore. I remember only that Ogholt conjugated the verb ‘to have’ more-or-less thusly in the present singular:

1 þut
2 þat
3 þasa

... Which isn't a lot to go on ... So all the names are just aesthetic sketches at present. Goğon religion is crucial to one of my novel ideas, so hopefully I'll produce something on that.

For my purposes, if someone could confirm that they can view but not edit these, that would be great; also if the internal links between them work for you? Thanks!

[bradrn]

I remember only that Ogholt conjugated the verb ‘to have’ more-or-less thusly in the present singular:

1 þut
2 þat
3 þasa

... Which isn't a lot to go on ...

Unless this verb is irregular, you could generalise this either into a biconsonantal framework or a consonant mutation system (or possibly both).

[sasasha]

My iPad recently died without backup, sadly taking with it my most lovingly crafted global map, which was actually starting to look rather pretty. (Yes, I'm stupid.)

This map will help you simply get your bearings on a global scale, though.

The shape of Aretia, in particular, is pretty ‘wrong’ (although it's difficult to get it feeling ‘right’ because of the latitude it sits at), and the seaways between the middle continents are too uniform; this was just a ‘get yourself thinking better about climate’ sketch.

[sasasha]

I remember only that Ogholt conjugated the verb ‘to have’ more-or-less thusly in the present singular:

1 þut
2 þat
3 þasa

... Which isn't a lot to go on ...

Unless this verb is irregular, you could generalise this either into a biconsonantal framework or a consonant mutation system (or possibly both).

Good point. Consonant mutation definitely; I don't want to put too much patterning here as the Aretian languages are already sort of ‘quasi-Indo-European’ in aesthetic, while the Sunorian languages are already ‘highly patterning and non-Indo-European, though not exactly in a straightforward Semitic-esque way!’ (a pattern I've noticed with a lot of conlangers: put a patterning language family close by a more familiar inflecting family for contrast).

I don't want too many of my non-Aretian languages to be so obviously ‘othering’, from my British perspective, in quite this way. So gentle ablaut maybe, but I think the vowel changes are more likely to result from e.g. back-mutation and apocope.

A big part of Goğonlird as a concept is rooted in my younger attempts to shake up my terrestrial associations both with language aesthetic and geopolitics: in Sego, half the world is essentially conquered by a polity rooted somewhere like PNG (crossed with imperial Japan, and Mesoamerican civilisations, and medieval Scandinavia, and Tudor England...). And I want its language aesthetics, from a terrestrial view-point, to be as mixed, and non-singular in origin.

Anyway, just riffing on your observation; thanks!

[bradrn]

My iPad recently died without backup, sadly taking with it my most lovingly crafted global map, which was actually starting to look rather pretty. (Yes, I'm stupid.)

Oof. My condolences. (And let’s hope it can be recovered somehow!)

This map will help you simply get your bearings on a global scale, though.

But this map is… honestly, really good. I wish I could draw like that.

Incidentally, it looks like the latitude/longitude lines are actually indented into the page; however did you do that?

(a pattern I've noticed with a lot of conlangers: put a patterning language family close by a more familiar inflecting family for contrast).

So the Middle East is a conworld? That would explain a lot, actually.

[sasasha]

Oof. My condolences. (And let’s hope it can be recovered somehow!)

Thank you... And apparently not. I've also lost a map I was reallllly attached to which my partner asked me to do for their fiction setting... And my designs for a mixed syllabic-logographic runic system for Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea setting. (Incidentally, there is one survival of that here.) I will rise from the ashes, I guess. And never, ever not back up again!!!!!

But this map is… honestly, really good. I wish I could draw like that.

Incidentally, it looks like the latitude/longitude lines are actually indented into the page; however did you do that?

Thanks so much! I think it's actually a yellow pencil, which almost disappeared when coupled with the light and a filter I applied to get the detail to pop a little more. (I hadn't noticed, actually, that the lines fading was a happy element of the ‘popping’, but it makes sense.)

So the Middle East is a conworld? That would explain a lot, actually.

That actually has prompted me to resurrect ROFL!

[sasasha]

Oh!!
The iPad was just sleeping very soundly!!!
Phew!!!!!!

Here’s another map, then. (Must have traced the paper one, as I have the same general issues with the shapes.)

Also, when I wrapped it to a globe, I realised there wasn’t nearly enough ocean. But I don’t like the way it looks on paper when I add more. So, the next step, I guess, is going Zompist on it and getting a football, to get it right on a sphere first.

[sasasha]

A polar view of South Seguwe from a Goğon perspective of the Magnolia Age (c. FE 395), with an ‘age of exploration’ vibe.

[Moose-tache]

Love the maps!

[sasasha]

Love the maps!

Thank you very much!

I've spent a few hours writing out full tables for the Seguwean syllabary, Methakhe-kēu (lit. ‘Pigment Herd’). It is one of the continent's two chief pre-colonial writing systems, also adapted to write unrelated languages such as Lantha.

I will probably continue to tweak it; the first draft is nearly 20 years old, but I never bothered to sit down and make a full system.

It's a simple idea, best suited to a CV language such as Seguwe-akhe: the ‘heads’ are the Cs and the ‘bodies’ are the Vs. For e.g. Lantha, and dialect and colloquial renderings, the heads can appear by themselves. A little scribal joke at the uncivilised coda-consonant pronouncers’ expenses, especially when transcribing names of enemies: lone heads are often depicted lopsided and ‘dead’-looking, falling down onto the line. (No such judgment is levelled at headless creatures, btw, which abound.)

The forms are related to Seguwean religious beliefs and ritual, which consists of much of what the script came to be used to document. However, it seems to have developed from logographic accounting systems around RE 600 (and thus has roughly a thousand-year history by the colonial era) initially as a way to record the names of those who owned the agricultural produce accounted, and who were responsible for returning proportions of it to the Emperor as tithe. Some ‘heads’ are distinctly plant-like, as a result.

You can find two tables (the b&w one is fuller and more up-to-date) and some samples here.

Does anyone know how one would make a font for this, btw? I don't know how syllabic fonts work (and have never created a font).

NB. I joined the ZBB (as sasasha) in 2002. It was serendipity that led me to realise the word means ‘thunder god’ in Seguwe-akhe. But it's fun for it to have a meaning now.

Edit, as I realised I'd contradicted some old notes, so here's the amalgamation:

The styles vary from highly ornamental to a fair bit more scribbly. This is perhaps a standard scribal hand from around 0 FE, four hundred years or so before the colonial era began. In 280 FE the Seguweans standardised their calendar; they also extended the number of ‘bodies’ in Methakhe-kēu from 8 (plus two used for neighbouring languages) to 18, adding elements for all sequences of VV and V̄V (though not VV̄). Thus they had 360 individual glyphs, and each day could be referred to with a single glyph (spoiler: Sego is astronomically a clone of Earth, for... reasons...). In 283 FE they shifted to yet another system of 7,200-day or 20-year cycles, in which each day has a 2-syllable name. The whole numerical/calendrical ordering system and, jointly, syllabic ordering system is called paphaelūra after the first two syllables pa and pha; the extended syllabary was renamed Eusebaze ‘parade of creatures’, as sebaze was a fancy buzz-word of the regime at the time.

[Travis B.]

Oh!!
The iPad was just sleeping very soundly!!!
Phew!!!!!!

I'd highly suggest backing up everything from it ASAP at this point.

[sasasha]

Oh!!
The iPad was just sleeping very soundly!!!
Phew!!!!!!

I'd highly suggest backing up everything from it ASAP at this point.

Thank you! Indeed I have done. The worse moment will come when Google is destroyed by malevolant AI / aliens / nasty people and I lose the place I put everything and all my backups! I suppose I should get an external HD as well...? What do you do?

[evmdbm]

How does it manifest?

As a handy setting for fantasy-like fiction, which also allows plumbing of existential questions of the type more akin to sci-fi.

As a bunch of scrawled notes, maps and Google Docs amassed over 20 years, weathered by time and obscured by the billowing shrouds of ADHD.

At some point, hopefully, it will exist publicly as an encyclopedia (simply as a link to the Google Drive folder all linked up and shared for viewing).

There are also over a dozen novels/stories in some degree plotted... mostly (though not exclusively) rather vaguely. Will they ever fall through the gates of not-being into the realm of being? Who can say. Perhaps this thread will help the birthing process.

Every so often I've been putting synopses of stories I wrote 20-odd years ago as a teenager and in my early twenties up on the board and although I started with the aim of just "bunging it out there" to get it off my chest and never really intended to go back and do anything with it I now think I have to but fortunately

The more work gets done, the more connected and cohesive it becomes.

I think I am where you are. We can both make this work. Solidarity is good

[bradrn]

Does anyone know how one would make a font for this, btw? I don't know how syllabic fonts work (and have never created a font).

Well… it looks like in this one, the ‘head’ and ‘body’ get fused in semi-irregular ways, so you may well be forced to make a separate glyph for each syllable. You could re-use the Unicode codepoints for Geʼez (‘Ethiopic’), which does basically the same thing.

For most other abugidas, the ‘standard’ approach is to use full letters for the consonants, and treat the vowels as diacritics going above or below them (with various subtleties depending on the precise language in question). It looks like this would suffice for most of your syllables… and in fact, now that I think of it, you could use define the remaining ‘irregular’ syllables as ligatures for specific consonant+vowel combinations. Could be worth a try.

[sasasha]

Solidarity

That’s awesome encouragement! Thanks, and I’ll check your work out.

Abugida encoding advice

Thank you! Do you have any recommendations on software to use?

[sasasha]

From 283 FE the Seguweans used an extended syllabary (/abugida) renamed Eusebaze (‘parade of creatures’).

Here it is.



The warm colours show the original set. Cool = the extensions. The two lilac columns, for -i and -o, are used to write other languages (especially Lantha), and the several dialects which can helpfully make use of them.

Below: the word ‘Eusebaze’ as on a chalk-board. I haven’t decided yet whether I love or hate the incongruousness of the shark glyph.

[bradrn]

Abugida encoding advice

Thank you! Do you have any recommendations on software to use?

FontForge is a good and capable program, though there’s definitely a bit of a learning curve. (But that’s the case no matter what you use.) It definitely helps having made images already. There’s also a nice tutorial; you may way to have a look at the section on Devanagari. [EDIT: or not, looks like that section is less useful than I thought]

[sasasha]

Abugida encoding advice

Thank you! Do you have any recommendations on software to use?

FontForge is a good and capable program, though there’s definitely a bit of a learning curve. (But that’s the case no matter what you use.) It definitely helps having made images already. There’s also a nice tutorial; you may way to have a look at the section on Devanagari. [EDIT: or not, looks like that section is less useful than I thought]

Thank you - much appreciated!

[Richard W]

Does anyone know how one would make a font for this, btw? I don't know how syllabic fonts work (and have never created a font).

The first step is to think about the encoding and whether you want it to work with Window applications. Fortunately (unless you use certain styles of Sanskrit), text on Microsoft Edge is now rendered as though it were not a Windows applications. Unless things have improved recently, for Windows you may have to use a previously encoded script (a 'hack' encoding), whereas puristically you should the Private Use Area (PUA), which is typically lacking in support for graphic ligatures with the Windows rendering. For HarfBuzz applications, unless things have degraded, one can have ligaturing between points in the PUA.

Whether you encode it as a syllabary or an alphasyllabary (compare the Cree syllabary) is up to you. It's not an abugida. It may be simpler to encode it as an alphabet if you plan to use programs to modify text. Now, you may choose to treat the circle used for some of the long(?) diphthongs as a separate character, but if you don't, a font for a PUA encoding would work with Windows applications.

Well… it looks like in this one, the ‘head’ and ‘body’ get fused in semi-irregular ways, so you may well be forced to make a separate glyph for each syllable. You could re-use the Unicode codepoints for Geʼez (‘Ethiopic’), which does basically the same thing.

If using a HarfBuzz renderer (standard on Linux and most non-Apple browsers), or a hack encoding based on ASCII, one can generally get the characters to ligate.

For most other abugidas, the ‘standard’ approach is to use full letters for the consonants, and treat the vowels as diacritics going above or below them (with various subtleties depending on the precise language in question). It looks like this would suffice for most of your syllables… and in fact, now that I think of it, you could use define the remaining ‘irregular’ syllables as ligatures for specific consonant+vowel combinations. Could be worth a try.

See caveats above on cruel renderer limitations.