A Complementary Blog

Just set up another blog : The Veiled Aspect, so that I can upload my draft without resorting to a gargantuan Google Document. There wasn't a good way to present it in Google Docs chapter by chapter except by creating a series of documents, which would have made for a very cluttered folder and a whole series of links to share. A second blog was quite necessary to prevent chapters of the draft being interrupted by posts about all sort of other details, given how I am working on the language, mythology, philosophy and so on of Eldwan's societies.

I decided to give wordpress a try, then I realised that neither blogger nor wordpress have user friendly table options... I wonder why they both don't seem to think tables on blogs are useful enough to make an approachable interface for that function.

Inhibited Linguistic Evolution

I recently read 'Latin: Story of a World Language'. Fascinating, although the technicalities are somewhat imposing for an amateur latinist like myself. It's gotten me thinking about linguistic developments and changes as societies progress, and how intimately it is tied with political and cultural factors. Of course there is one major difference between the society of Europe and the societies of Eldwan in the Age of Light which has rather unforeseeable consequences - lifespan.

It would be a massive oversimplification to attribute all alterations of language to generational succession, but it is undoubtedly a significant factor. As older speakers die, it is inevitable that their period's particular style of vernacular is lost. Conversely, as younger speakers and writers come into their own, they also wish to establish themselves, and part of this is involves inventing new expressions and reusing existing words in novel ways.

Perhaps it would be best to say that a written language has much more stability than a language that exists purely as atmospheric vibrations. The Radiant and the Faithful establish their written culture early on, having a common heritage of scripts from the Age of Harmony. Furthermore, if anyone contributed to Tas Eldwarach in the same way that Cicero and the other great Roman writers contributed to Latin, a codification of grammar and style would soon set a standard. Furthermore, these immortal authors would exist to clarify and critique any grammatical confusion of future generations, likely further inhibiting any drift away from their established rules.

Innovation would still be permitted, surely. But texts would be carefully sorted by the period in which they were written and overall, there would be far less change than what we observe in our present day languages. Furthermore, pronunciation would also have reduced variation, as the younger speakers grow up among a very static population of speakers who have been using the same vowels and consonants for centuries. The younger speakers would have to adopt the phonetic values of their elders to be understood, and this may have been firmly entrenched by formal education.

However, the situation is rendered a little more complicated by the existence of two separate societies in the Age of Light. I suggest that their grammar might not have differed significantly, since that was established when humanity was united. The definitions and connotations of words would have shifted. It might be particularly evident with words that were involved directly with the Day of Rebellion and Alero. For example, words like dragon, noon, independent, judgement and sunset, would have polarised positive or negative associations between the Radiant and the Faithful.

New words invented post-Rebellion would also have existed predominantly in only one society. This would include technical language, to describe new inventions, new discoveries and new ideas. These words would have migrated over to the other society, but would have been labelled as foreign borrowings. Since the Radiant focused on physics and electromagnetism in particular, they would have the appropriate terminology, while the Faithful, with their focus on natural symbiosis, would have had their own set of jargon. Words would also dance in and out of favour, just as they do today. The societies would have diverged in their choice word for a particular activity or noun.

Considering a wider range of events, the High Elves on the Far Continent would have had a very different language from the Cradle societies, but the telepathic abilities of the Elves would allow the Ward Elves to integrate themselves quite easily if they ever came into contact. But the essential features of the High Elvish language would have been fixed, as it is also descended from the original Tas Eldwarach.

Moving forward into the other ages, Tas Eldwarach is still spoken in Alaris in the Age of Water, but since death is now a prevalent spectre, it soon becomes the formal codified language and is distanced from the population's vernacular. The gods of Alaris would have persisted in Tas Eldwarach, so it would become the tongue of the state, the law and of religion. Of course the Elves would have spoken it as well, but the language of the Scattered along the coasts would have embarked on great Odysseys of transformation.

Tas Eldwarach was eventually lost to mortal man during the Confusion, the fatal blow to Alaris and human hubris. Thereafter it was known as the language of the Elves, as the Elves spoke it among themselves and not when interacting with the Fallen. After the Confusion, the languages of the Fallen would have proceeded, uninhibited, in their fragmentary metamorphoses. The languages of the Scattered would become isolate languages as the societies of the proud descendants of Alaris set out to claim vast tracks of land in the Age of Rulers.

Against Antediluvian Aprecipitation

One of my greatest frustrations with the interpretation of the creation in Genesis was when I discovered how irrationally the whole situation was presented, by both the so-called literal interpretations and the fully scientific rejection of it. Part of my motivations for imagining Eldwan include presenting a different take on creation. I'll deal with a couple of points in this post.

The first major gripe - Who in the world advocated the idea that there was no precipitation until Noah's flood?

A little research directs me to Genesis 2 : 4 - 6 'This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created. When the Lord God made the earth and the heavens- and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground-', which has been interpreted to suggest that there was no rain until rain is quite undeniable by Genesis 7 : 12.

Let's try and sort this muddle out. Genesis 2, as I understand it, is an account of Day 6 of creation in more detail, about the creation of Adam and Eve. As such, the unique characteristics of this period, namely that there were no plants of the field, that there was no rain and that there was no man to work the ground, should be confined to our understanding of Creation Day 6. Of course there is no indication of when these conditions ceased to prevail, but I don't think they can be reasonably interpreted to have lasted until the flood. For one, after this brief description of the state of creation at the beginning of Day 6, the Lord raises the garden of Eden, and creates man. This already changes the conditions from 'no plants of the field' to many garden plants which are pleasing to eye and good for food. And man, while he may not be a worker, has also come into existence. These alterations already take effect by the end of Day 6.

By the time of the fall, man has clearly been cursed as a worker of the field, whose toil is what cultivates food for consumption. Cain is a farmer. Since the absence of rain was described with the other points that have clearly been changed, even by the fall, let alone the flood, I think rain would have pattered down on the vegetation of Eden as well. I have serious doubts about alternative hydrological cycles prevailing in this early stage of Earth's history. Just because God used rainbows as a symbol of his promise doesn't mean no one had seen a rainbow before.

Which leads me on to my second major gripe - The vapour canopy hypothesis

Unless the fundamental chemistry and intermolecular forces of water were drastically different from what they are today, I doubt that any water canopy could hover over the atmosphere of the earth for the length of time that these theorists claim. Incidentally, if water were so dissimilar to permit such structures, I don't think it would have functioned very well in human bodies.

The vapour canopy doesn't agree with scientific facts, or even biblical facts. If it was indeed the water above the earth, then the 'sky' would be limited to the space between this suspended aquatic layer and the seas. Since the sun and the moon were stated to have been placed in the sky, that would mean the sun and moon should have been sandwiched by the waters. Having a flaming sphere of plasma in such close proximity would hardly befit pre-rebellion paradise.

Exercising some creative liberty, I am re-imagining the water above the sky in Eldwan as an ice-belt that existed outside the orbit of Earth. If water was indeed raised to such an extent, the region between the ice belt and the Earth's seas would be the sky between the waters. The Sun and the Moon at least, would literally be contained within these two regions of water. I admit I cannot help the position of the stars, as they are a little too far away to wrap in an envelope of dihydrogen monoxide. But an ice-belt would at least fulfill a few more criteria that a vapour canopy cannot hope to explain.

Imperfect Apotheosis

This idea has grown to become particularly important despite its origin as a cursory addendum. So many essential themes have grown entwined with it that I should record its current state. It has to do with the postcorporists and Alero's dream for humanity. With the new reflections of Alero's motives, my original intentions for various events have grown irrelevant or inconsistent.

Alero's goal is for human fulfillment, and he interprets this as humans having the full potency of Eleyon in creative power and knowledge. This is not entirely out of line with what Eleyon wants of course, but it is incomplete and Alero jumpstarted the process before the evezhen were ready during the rebellion. After that fateful day, Alero remained proud and boasted that he could bring humanity into full bloom without Eleyon. Because of this, Eleyon decided to give Alero his way for a time, the Age of Light, and so a group of people who were willing to serve Alero were handed over to Alero to do as he pleased. At the end of that time, Eleyon showed Alero that the evezhen would never be made complete apart from himself.

Accepting this challenge, Alero holds the advancement of his followers in his hands. He guides them to greater and more potent technological ability in an accelerated manner. Alero grants them magic, albeit through unethical means, to enhance their progress further. He pushes for the postcorporists, the gods within the machine. By transferring their primary existence into the digital network, those individuals who gave up their physical bodies could exercise a shadow of Eleyon's creative ability. By intending and designing it, whole virtual worlds and simulations could come into existence.

Initially, I thought of it as borrowing from science fiction. However, I realised something potentially more significant upon deeper reflection. It may be, that out of a multitude of human endeavours, our only true creative efforts come through language. Anything physical is simply a rearrangement of pre-existing material. But words - the meaning of words is shaped by subtle societal forces, creative leaps of fluid definition. The language of a society is a collective lexical masterpiece, a creative effort en masse with every syllable we express, written or spoken.

Our control over virtual worlds is no different. We create them by language. Not by a natural human language, but a language of computers, which nonetheless finds itself the product of human ingenuity. So by inducing a shift from a physical world into a virtual world, Alero is really immersing humanity into the only domain in which their creative potential can be directly manifested, the domain of language.

Of course though, Alero's attempt is incomplete, just as his interpretation of human fulfillment is lacking. We are not fulfilled by power or ability. Our divine qualities shine through not when we are capable of immense god-like actions, but when we reflect the divine character of the Creator. Eleyon points this out to Alero before he destroys the Radiant society in the Flood.

Alero remains bitter, convinced that he could have achieved what he intended if Eleyon had not interfered. And so, with such an attitude, the next Age, the Age of Water, commences. The postcorporists in the network of Alaris reboot as the tidal generators begin to power the skeleton of the city. In their turn, they present themselves as gods to the scattered people of the coasts. Alero hears of them and approaches them, but instead of finding the gratitude he expects, they reject his leadership. The postcorporists are determined to achieve equality with the infinite for themselves with their second chance. Alero's love for them changes to hatred.

Through their actions and their internal feuds, it becomes clear that the new gods of Alaris are anything but divine. They are petty, selfish human beings who have found themselves with the power of gods. Alero finally admits in his own heart that they were never going to approach true apotheosis by the simple accumulation of power, but he bears a vendetta against the Alarians for the rest of time.

Eventually, when Eleyon himself comes to humble the Alarians, he does so by confusing their greatest creation; their language. They are cut off from their cultural heritage, from their philosophical texts, from their great novels, from their historical records. Man is truly humbled and progress must begin anew in the fragmented nations.

The fleeing, divided groups of Alaris carry their stories of their gods by oral tradition to the various areas of the coast they settle in from the destruction of their metropolis. From their half-remembered stories, the pantheons of gods of the various cultures in the Age of Rulers have their altered derivations. Stories of gods with jealous fights, selfish agendas and fickle favour. After two Ages of history, the people of Eldwan stop struggling to grasp equality with God, and Alero realises what a Sisiphean proclamation he made on the Day of Rebellion.

Horological Dabbling

I've decided to come up with the system by which the evezhen and their various divisions would have used in order to track the passage of time. The systems would have been based around the relative motion of the celestial luminaries, and would have differed between the Age of Harmony, Light and Water according to the earth shaking events that enacted their transitions. With this in place, it would help to solidify the exact dates of various historical events. 

To begin with, the original system that existed in the Age of Harmony. I know that I've posted that the passage of time was not carefully monitored due to the absence of death's call, but that is in terms of the number of years that would have passed. The evezhen would be bound to notice the day-night cycle, the phases of the moon and the turning of the constellations. But a count of years was not kept, and before the calendar was devised and decided on, none of the evezhen remember how many years had passed. Thus those who lived in this time were indeed of unknown age.

Due to the creation of the heavenly lights for the purpose of marking time, it makes logical sense that the evezhen would have reckoned time by the lights of the firmament. To that end, the names for day, month and year are compound words in tas eldwaraj. They are simply sun-cycle, moon-cycle and star-cycle, or satcwan, latcwan and yatcwan. In the perfect state of unblemished creation, these cycles matched up in exact periods. A year held 13 months and 364 days. Bear with me and I'll explain the rationale behind these odd numbers. The first evezhen held a seven day week, so the year was divided into 52 weeks. Each of the 52 weeks was in turn grouped into four week blocks of a month, resulting in 13 months. A month began with each full moon. Each new year began when the crown star, the brightest star in the sky, was at the zenith at midnight. 

Why have a seven day week? Seven became a sacred number to the evezhen, for to them, it represented perfection, completion and unity. Seven is the number of persons in the original pantheon of the Yevel. The three persons of Eleyon, Alero, Ilvesu, Oleri and Unavo. These seven persons sculpted the world in a grand cooperative exercise. Seven is a prime number, indivisible. Tolkien had his elves count in sixes and twelves, but I suggest otherwise. Six and twelve are useful because of their factors, it makes it easy to divide quantities of various things for trade, commerce and partitioning. The evezhen, in Elin Garden, would have had no need for such divisions. We prefer factorisable numbers because we are used to calculating exactly how much someone should get for each transaction and what those calculations to be straightforward. The early evezhen would have honoured prime numbers above all as little cohesive jewels, unconcerned as they were about possession and partition in their material abundance. 

The seven days of the week would be named after the seven persons of the pantheon. Spirit's Day, Soul's Day, Matter's Day, Alero's Day, Ilvesu's Day, Oleri's Day and Unavo's Day. Of the four weeks in a month, they could have been named the waning week, the failing week, the waxing week and the ripening week, following the shape of the moon. Then, each month would have been named after a constellation that would be at the zenith at midnight for the greater duration of that month. I haven't yet thought of imaginary constellations on a star map, so these months may remain unnamed for now. Then again, it also implies that I need to design a star map on top of a geographical map, quite literally. The Day of the Spirit was the holy day of rest.

Why 13 months? Well there's certainly no triskaidekaphobia amongst the garden evezhen, and 13 is another lovely prime number. The 13 months would be grouped into three seasons of four months each, and an extra month, the month of worship. During the month of worship, all other activities would be put aside for a collective focus of giving glory to Eleyon Cilves. The three seasons, another prime number mind you, were named after the three planes, the season of the Spirit, season of the Soul and season of the Body. As the garden was situated at the equator, there would not be much seasonal variation apart from varied precipitation and the change of the wheeling stars. 

After the Rebellion, the massive tectonic activity and the destructive geological actions that ensued caused the cycles to go out of synchronisation. In actual fact the only thing affected is the rotational speed of the earth, turning slightly faster. Therefore in the Age of Light, a year had 365.1633 days instead. A month lasted 28.089 days and not exactly 28 days.

Because of these changes, the Elves had to alter their calendars. An extra day was added, and this day was not included in the weekly cycle to keep as much of the old system of weeks intact. It was known as the Day of Mourning, for on that day the Elves remembered the destructive effects of the Rebellion and wept over what was lost. That day was located in the middle of the season of the Spirit, for that was when Alero had enacted his plans. Furthermore, the days of the week were changed to the Spirit's Day, Soul's Day, Matter's Day, Light's Day, Water's Day, Air's Day and Earth's Day, in order to remove Alero's name from the week.

Corrections had to be introduced to account for the discrepancy between the years and the days. There was a leap year every 7 years. This day was added to the thirteenth month, and was another day of remembrance, but this time of the promise that Eleyon would return to set things aright. Every 49 years, the corrections would be too much, so there would be a leap lap year, where no extra day was added. Unfortunately the moon was very hard to account for, and the months and the phases of the moon gradually diverged. Every 12 months, the days would go out of alignment with the months by a day, so a day was taken from the twelfth month and given to the thirteenth. This gradually caused the months to shift out of step from the year. I'll work out more of these details once I study lunar calendars.

While the Elves kept with a seven day week, the Radiant changed their calendars under the direction of Alero. They preferred to count in sixes and twelves, their new mindset about possession and barter inclining them to factorisable numbers. They tried to enforce this system on the calendar as well, with a six day week. Thus, they had sixty weeks of six days a year, which were divided into twelve months of five weeks long. They renamed the days of the week to the Light's Day, Sun's Day, Moon's Day, Star's Day, Dark's Day and Man's Day. Man's day was the day of rest. The twelve months were named after the constellations as well, but the original thirteenth constellation was annexed into its two neighbours. The months were divided into four seasons. As for the five remaining days, they were festival days inserted between the seasons, with the gap of two days marking the start of the new year. These five festival days were named after the gods of the Pantheon of Light, Alero's Day was at the start of the year, then Saroza's Day after three months, Lassier's Day after half a year, Stalie's Day after another three months and Daron's Day at the end of the year.

The corrections would also have had to apply to the Radiant calendar, and would have frustrated their numerologists. To the Radiant, it was an ugly seven year reminder that whatever their preferences and senary impositions, the original seven would still persist, and haunt their timekeeping.

Infantile Translation

I decided to have a go at translating ths Lord's Prayer from Matthew 6:9-13, into Tas Eldwarach, to test how well the language would hold out in its present state. I'll admit that there were some simplifications and loss of subtle meaning, but my vocabulary is not extensive enough yet. Anyway here it is :

Bevos üt ocesach, idizhen id weidin, ebeto arel beupesach. Abeidin beupesach utaito, wetel beupesach sepi seto, id udidin rabreu eten sete seto id weidin. Ocen satcwan, egeto zhazhen satcwagüu üt ocesach üt ocesun, ec egilto üt oces vasodz üt ocesach, rabreu üt oces egilto vaves üt ocesun. Acatom üt oces eserun vasaj, ot ibeto üt oces valots. Cive beupes geto abedin, ec esel, ec ebel, sepilun sedülach. Oseto ocen sepi seyo.