(C&C) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

[LinguoFranco]

I've only created conlangs for human speakers, but I have been wanting to make something for a non-human race, but still close enough to human to have the same speech organs, like elves, for example.

However, I think elvish are overdone for conlangs, and wondering what some other species I could make a language for aside from your stock races (dwarves, orcs, etc.)

[sangi39]

I've only created conlangs for human speakers, but I have been wanting to make something for a non-human race, but still close enough to human to have the same speech organs, like elves, for example.

However, I think elvish are overdone for conlangs, and wondering what some other species I could make a language for aside from your stock races (dwarves, orcs, etc.)

I created the Kovur as a sort of in-world version of "werewolves" (although they're not human in anyway and instead come from a different lineage that evolved on the opposite side of the planet to humans), since it gave me a chance to work on a non-human language for a "fantasy race" that, probably because of the way they're often depicted, don't often get their own language (when they do, it doesn't seem to be a strictly "werewolf language" but instead the language of a long-lasting lineage of werewolves within a human wider community, who then moved away from or survived that human community).

The same thing seems to be the case for vampires. There's an old "core" of vampires who, either through birth or initiation, understand some vampiric language, but for the most part vampires outside of this core are either turned as adults and just learn whatever human language exists in the area at the time, or smaller "peripheral" vampire lineages form that speak one specific human language that they carry with them.

I think this is probably because transience and "nesting" are big features of vampire and werewolf lore, at least in modern cultures, and where there is an older core lineage, it's often very remote and mysterious.


Giants don't seem to be given very much in the way of languages either, even though they're probably considered "stock races"(?), and where they are, from what I can tell, it's often either a straight rip-off of something like Swedish, or is presented as a sort of stereotypical "primitive caveman" language. The same seems to be true of trolls as well come to think of it.


There's always merfolk if you want to go for a difference in environment as well, or something like selkies and kelpies (if you want they're default form to be human, you could say that the seal/horse form is something they use as a defence mechanism, a means of traversing the sea, etc. similar to the Wildshape of Druids in D&D).


Possibly the household spirits like Kobolds, Bogles, Boggarts, and Bogeymen, etc. Thinking about it, faeries too always just seem to get dumped with Gaelic or Welsh, but there's no reason to suggest that would be their primary language beyond "they probably learned it to trick humans"

[Creyeditor]

Can a species have civilization without sentience?

[eldin raigmore]

Can a species have civilization without sentience?

Depends how you define the terms “species” and “civilization” and “sentience”.

[Creyeditor]

Let's assume that sentience is the combination of sapience (the ability to contemplate and act using knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense, reason and insight.), self-awareness (the experience of one's own personality or individuality), and consciousness (awareness of internal and external existence).
Let us assume that civilization is characterized by urban development, social stratification, a form of government, and symbolic systems of communication.

Could bees be a non-sapient civilization without self-awareness, but with a monarchical city system and bee dance as symbolic representations?

[Flavia]

The "Xenology" book calls it "genetic sentience" and says that a single bee isn't sentient, while the whole hive is.

[Salmoneus]

Let's assume that sentience is the combination of sapience (the ability to contemplate and act using knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense, reason and insight.), self-awareness (the experience of one's own personality or individuality), and consciousness (awareness of internal and external existence).
Let us assume that civilization is characterized by urban development, social stratification, a form of government, and symbolic systems of communication.

Could bees be a non-sapient civilization without self-awareness, but with a monarchical city system and bee dance as symbolic representations?

*shrugs*
If a tree falls in a forest, does it make a sound? If you have a fever with a cold, can it still be called a cold?

With respect, I'm not sure your question means anything, since the answer depends entirely on definitions.

Certainly you can have complex systems without sapience, or even sentience (you're using the word strangely - sentience just means being able to have sensations). The solar system's pretty complicated. Or look at your computer, that's massively complicated.

But is complexity 'civilisation'? Well, you give some criteria, but those criteria are all just ways of rephrasing your original question. When does a complex system become "a form of government" - does it require that the governor and the things governed are sapient? What makes a complex system "symbolic" (rather than merely responsive) - does it require that the creator and interpreter of the symbols be sapient? What makes a system in which different things act differently "social stratification" - does it require sapience? What makes a system in which some items cluster together in an environment that has evolved for that purpose "urban development" - does it require sapience?

The usual answer to all these questions is of course that these things require sapience, but that's not a factual claim. Its just that you're using a set of words that's usually only used of sapient things. When similar things happen without sapience, we use different words. We don't call your computer a complex urban development housing electron citizens; we don't call a beach a culture in which social stratification has lead to the development of a class system based on grain size; we don't say that the LEDs in your TV are subject to a draconian and anti-democratic system of government; we don't say that an avalanche symbolises the mountain's feelings about the loud noise it just heard...

...but, I mean, we could. If we wanted. If you decided that you could have a civilisation without sapience, then you could go around renaming all sorts of things in sapience-language, and nobody would be able to say that you were factually wrong in any way, just that you were speaking whimsically. [well, I guess a priest might claim that you were wrong, but it's not like they'd have any empirical basis for that, or objective proof that their theology was better than yours].

So it's kind of just up to you how you want to use the words - there's no truth or falsity at stake here, I don't think.

Instead, these questions are more like "could you have a bony fish that had lungs instead of gills?" - well, according to one way of speaking (eg traditional definitions of 'fish'), no, but according to another way of speaking (eg cladistic onomastics) yes, you could, and you are one. Questions like this are just asking which of two ways of speaking you 'should' use, and there is no way to answer that.

[Creyeditor]

Interesting points, espacially the side note on theology. I was thinking about adding a non-sentient/non-sapient species (in the sci-fi sense) to my conworld that comes close to the definition of civilization *there*, maybe some eusocial semi-aquatic con-mammal. But maybe only people discussing theology would really wonder if this non-sapient species is civilized.

[LinguoFranco]

What is needed to sustain a permanent settlement in the mountains.

I'm thinking of a small village rather than a whole kingdom like the Incas.

Obviously, there should be substenance farming, but what else is needed, and why would mountain people choose to rely primarily on farming as opposed to herding?

[Salmoneus]

The same things you need anywhere else: a source of food (from hunting, gathering, fishing, farming or herding), a source of water (rivers, springs, glaciers), and probably (not necessarily, but probably, depending on climate) sources of shelter and/or clothing.

People prefer to rely on farming than on herding because farming delivers more calories per acre of land. And because fruits and vegetables are a better basis for a balanced diet than meat is. [although most farmers also engage in some pastoralism as well, as a way of exploiting otherwise less useful plots of land, of producing protein-rich foods, and of producing other useful animal byproducts (hides, glue, wool, etc)]

[Keenir]

apologies for the lateness of my reply...

I've been reading about coreless planets, and I'm wondering if it is possible they could contain a strong magnetosphere?

if the magnetosphere belongs to a planet that its orbiting (like Jupiter's magnetosphere covers Io and Europa)

By coreless, I mean a world that has no metallic core or magma, and is entirely rocky mantle.

Is there a way I can get around having a core in order to have a magnetosphere?
The idea for my world is about a society with no metal, and I thought "Hey, what about an entire planet without metal?"

You could have a core, and all the heavy metals sank into the lower part of the crust, the mantle, and the core...making the surface (and the easily mineable depths) poor in the metals needed to get past the Stone and maybe Copper Ages.

[Keenir]

- meanwhile, although the outer mantle has not collapsed, it is straining under its own weight. It is gradually contracting, causing such phenomena as deep sea trenches, subduction and orogeny. This contraction causes scraping, causing heat, melting rocks and causing surface volcanoes.

Sounds a bit like what forms the scarps of Mercury: tectonic shrinkage.
(also a bit of plate tectonics IRL, but I'd wager that geological models exist to show how shrinkage alone could create scarps - after all, the plate movements part is a recent discovery)

[Torco]

People go to live and farm in the mountains for all sorts of reasons:

they're not as hard to live in as they look. no, really. you get used to climbing stairs, and the terraces once you build them are just there. even the most mountainous places are, well... earth! <or your conworld> in that they have oxygen, earth, vegetation... okay, maybe not *veeeery* high up in the mountains, but everywhere else is just going to have nice valleys in the middle of all that mountain. I used to live 1km over sea level, way above the rest of Santiago, and I mean, you just get used to the walks uphill, and the view is lovely.

If you're in a hot area, the mountains are less hot: this means that plants that won't grow in the lowlands will grow up there, and that, depending on the plant, can be lovely.

other people don't go there, right? empires have it hard to conquer highly mountainous regions, as can be observed by history both recent and ancient. So if you're unhappy with the big centralized hydraulic empire, you just go live in the mountains. and once you're there, sure, goats are nice, but isn't it nicer to just go outside and harvest your turnips? not have to walk everywhere?

easily defended. look, this is the seventh time our village gets raided by horse people this year. my uncle, the goat guy, says that up in the mountain he never sees horse raiders, and he saw a nice little valley with a river you can get to only through a narrow, rocky pass: we'd only need seven guys with bows and arrows to hold that pass against a hundred horse pirates, and that's if they dare go near it. come on guys lets gooooo.

rain and fog. If you live in a desert, the mountains are probably a good bet to get a decent amount of water as the wet air rises and cools and drops some of its water.

they're beautiful. and this may seem frivolous but beauty is good for people's mental health. and a happier population is one that's probably more harmonious, more stable, and even more productive, possibly.

high availability of hydraulic power. this is, again, not huge but it's not irrelevant: those water wheels really help with the milling of wheat.

relatively low productivity: again, this discourages empires, kings and other sorts of pirates from taking residence and enslaving everyone. and some people are into that sort of thing

minerals! mountains tend to have a lot of minerals. my country is like number one in copper and we're nearly nothing BUT mountains.

distance! I'm speculating, but it seems like having a bunch of remote, not very accessible valleys separated from each other by harsh and uninhabited mountains would works as a sort of natural social distancing policy, thus slowing the spread of disease, which was much worse than it is now, even with COVID.

[Khemehekis]

I've only created conlangs for human speakers, but I have been wanting to make something for a non-human race, but still close enough to human to have the same speech organs, like elves, for example.

However, I think elvish are overdone for conlangs, and wondering what some other species I could make a language for aside from your stock races (dwarves, orcs, etc.)

How about the Greys? Abductees and contactees usually describe Greys as speaking telepathically, but I have my Grey cultures in the Lehola Galaxy "speak" with telemes instead of phonemes. Telemes can be written down with corresponding letters, but because of their telepathic nature the message gets translated inside the head of the person to whom they telepathize it.

You could also create sapient parrots, since parrots, with their syrinx, can replicate all human phonemes and then some.

[Salmoneus]

I've only created conlangs for human speakers, but I have been wanting to make something for a non-human race, but still close enough to human to have the same speech organs, like elves, for example.

However, I think elvish are overdone for conlangs, and wondering what some other species I could make a language for aside from your stock races (dwarves, orcs, etc.)

How about the Greys? Abductees and contactees usually describe Greys as speaking telepathically, but I have my Grey cultures in the Lehola Galaxy "speak" with telemes instead of phonemes. Telemes can be written down with corresponding letters, but because of their telepathic nature the message gets translated inside the head of the person to whom they telepathize it.

You could also create sapient parrots, since parrots, with their syrinx, can replicate all human phonemes and then some.

Not to reopen a conversation from more than two years ago, but surely "the Greys" is just as much a stock fiction race as "orcs"? More so, I'd say, since "orc"/"ork" can describe probably a broader range of species (almost anything that's conventionally ugly and not much bigger than a human could plausibly be called an 'orc').

EDIT: and that's the problem with the question, really. If someone can suggest a species from some mental list and have the other person know what they're talking about, it's kind of definitionally a 'stock race'...

[Khemehekis]

Not to reopen a conversation from more than two years ago, but surely "the Greys" is just as much a stock fiction race as "orcs"? More so, I'd say, since "orc"/"ork" can describe probably a broader range of species (almost anything that's conventionally ugly and not much bigger than a human could plausibly be called an 'orc').

EDIT: and that's the problem with the question, really. If someone can suggest a species from some mental list and have the other person know what they're talking about, it's kind of definitionally a 'stock race'...

I guess you're right.

[Creyeditor]

I recently produced my first climate map of Fredauon. I am not at all sure if I'm doing this right, though. I was mainly following the Climate Cookbook, but I think I might've misunderstood some stuff, especially when it comes to non-coastal climates. Is there anything that you notice that is completely off when you look at the following map?

Spoiler:

A
Af (Tropical Rainforest) purple-red
Aw (Savannah) orange-y red
B
BWh (Hot desert) reddish orange
BSh (Hot steppe) brown-ish orange
BWk (Cold desert) yellow-ish orange
BSk (Cold steppe) yellow
C
Cfb, Cfc (Maritime west coast) light green
Csa, Csb (Mediterranean) green
Cwa,Cwb (Temperate monsoon) dark green
D
Dfa,Dfb (Laurentian) dark greenish blue
Dfc, Dfd (Subarctic) dark blue
Dwc, Dwd (Subarctic east) light blue
E
ET (Tundra) dark grey
EF (Icecap) light grey


grey sparkles = mountains

[Arayaz]

I'm working on climate right now, and I couldn't answer that. I'm already stuck on the distribution of tropical monsoon environments.

[Creyeditor]

Thanks
That means it's not the case that nobody is answering because the quality is just so bad. It also means that I will have to continue trying to figure out how everything works and continue working on it and also maybe try to get feedback from other places at some point, e.g. the Carthographers' Guild maybe.

[WeepingElf]

Seems fine to me.