Zompist Bboard Again

I was curious about the clear Chinese influence on the Nanese and Bekkayin languages... I'm wondering if it's to the same level as on Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese?

For example, I think "Bekkai" might be rendered 北海, which is the first two characters of "Hokkaido".

I remember that Verduria somehow had contact with Chinese, and if it's the same sort of contact that would have led Nanese to get a heavy Chinese influence without having to explain it as convergent evolution as with Eastern versus Indo-European.

My meta-theory on Almea-- and on otherworld travel-- is that it's very close to us in probability space. In effect it's an alternate Earth.

That's why it (and other fantasy worlds) resemble Earth in many ways-- why they're populated by humanoids and often speak Earth-like languages. When you check for otherworlds, you'll always find one close to you, and for Earth you'll get Almea.

But it's not a very close variant. In Almea+400 this will be more important.

So to answer your question, the Bekkayin languages aren't influenced directly by Chinese, any more than Verdurian is directly influenced by Russian.

(But because direct otherworld travel is possible, direct influence can exist; cf. the Elenicoi.)

Okay, that makes sense. I even stumbled upon some ancient Greek or Roman geographer (I forget who) that believed our Earth had a Zone of Fire similar to what you have for Almea, and most of them assumed in general that the tropics were too hot to cross and the Southern Hemisphere was inaccessible.