I'd like to head any potential flamewars off at the pass before we begin, so here's a little out-of-universe background on the Tlar Canà: Before I decided to make two separate continents instead of one supercontinent, I had conceived of the patriarchy/matriarchy split as occurring on the northwest and southeast halves, respectively, of the original landmass. The matriarchal Tlar Canà were to have been the foil of the Schwarzenegger-esque, manly-man patriarchy of the Tim Ar.
So. A little bit about the Tlar Canà, about whom I talked a bit in the previous post.
The Tlar Canà were originally patriarchal and lived in the southeast of the eastern continent. I haven't worked out the details of the climate yet but I'm hoping to put a jungle or rainforest there and if I can I'd have it rain a lot, at least in Mȍy Bǎȍn.
After first contact was established, there was a remarkable lack of colonialist sentiment on the eastern continent. At least, that was how it was in practice—it certainly existed, but the various Täptäg principalities, which were located on the western coast and were therefore close to the western continent (relatively speaking), started engaging in trade there, and everybody liked how the money flowed in. Most serious plans at colonization of the western continent were therefore arrested; the inhabitants of that continent were generally viewed as some mix of curious, quirky, backward, insufferable, culturally alien, and good for business. (It should be noted that the history of the Rock and the associated archipelago is rather complex and involved multiple changes of hands until the Tim Ar finally steamrolled in and took it over, basically turning it into some mix of Hawaii and
Tristan da Cunha.)
At this point I would like to remind y'all about the basic cultural difference between the continents: The civilizations on the eastern continent tended to be more patriarchal in structure, whereas those on the western continent tended more towards matriarchy.
On the western continent, circumstances were different. On the eastern coast, where the early contact occurred, there were no primarily trade-driven polities like the Täptäg city-states (nobody had figured out that you could get to the continent from the other side yet). Several powerful empires existed (such as those of the Waqwaq/Wohoq and, pertinently, the Jädawan) and they had no qualms about invading these new lands to increase their holdings. Eventually someone figured out that the world was round but small enough that you could reach the other continent from the other way in a reasonable amount of time.
Initial attempts at colonization began with the Xiaoxiao, on that big island in the eastern sea; I'm not sure yet how they panned out. The Jädawan eventually made some inroads onto the mainland. They ended up setting up a colony of some permanence in Tlar Canà land and began rewriting the culture. Under their rule they gradually installed a matriarchy. The matriarchy took hold most deeply in the land of the Tlar Canà, to the extent that even after four hundred years of decolonization and propaganda efforts by the Tim Ar, the new social order is still in place. Males are generally treated like second-class citizens, good only for labor, procreation, and running into gunfire (cf. the barefoot-and-pregnant stereotype in human societies); this treatment extends to language as well—male speech realizes syllable-initial /tl/ as an affricate [tɬ], whereas female speech generally features a stop-liquid sequence, and a big deal is made of these differences in articulation.
The Tlar Canà are basically the rump state of the Jädawan on the eastern continent—think Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. They are the major power broker on that side of the landmass. This being said, they are more like a loose conglomeration of ethnically-related people clustered around a few regional power centers that fight each other for power; there are three of note: Mȍy Bǎȍn, Ngòynâ, and Nǐcúwār.
Mȍy Bǎȍn, the "Golden City", is the largest of the three, and wields the most influence, though its power is declining. The dialect spoken there is considered the standard or prestige dialect. For most intents and purposes it is the capital city of the whole political unit.
Ngòynâ is the second-largest and second-most powerful. Two of its claims to fame are a well-regarded institution of higher learning and a very old and large library system.
Nǐcúwār is the odd one out, but is gaining power. The treatment of males there is not as severe as it is in regions dominated by Mȍy Bǎȍn or Ngòynâ, and males who have been treated particularly badly often try to escape to here or to an allied area. The women's speech there realizes syllable-initial /tl/ as [dl], further alienating them in the eyes of the other regions.
The big war in history, the World War II of the setting, was the one between the Tim Ar and the Jädawan. It occurred when technology was more or less comparable to the WWII-era, but lasted for about forty years.
The Tim Ar were not even a coherent polity just prior to it. At that point they were still a scattered group of small states and city-states that happened to more-or-less share a common language and lineage. They, however, looked at the Jädawan encroachment with trepidation—as I said above, they were a bunch of Schwarzenegger-esque patriarchal states, and to them, the matriarchy was repulsive, and it was on their doorstep. This outside pressure stopped them from fighting with each other enough to band together under the leader of a military general; he became the first Imperator. The goal wasn't even to completely destroy the Jädawan, but rather to force them off the continent and return to the prior status quo, such as it was.
There were imperialistic aspects to the war, and in the decades following the Tim Ar gobbled up more land to the north and east. I haven't decided the reasoning but the southern regions were mostly left alone; the Baigas were installed as a buffer state, and their government has been periodically ousted and replaced ever since.
Avestani)
Kgáweq')
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Ngade n Tim Ar · 
