Finally updated my Mythopoeic Index page

…yay!

OK, so I’ve removed more than I’ve added, but at least it’s more organised now.

Rawàng Ata: Tags

Rawàng Ata makes extensive use of sentential ‘tagging’ – elements attached to the end of a sentence to indicate the illocutionary or pragmatic function of the utterance.

Rawàng Ata tags can be divided into two main kinds: indicative, which relate to truth and knowledge, and subjunctive, which relate to suggestions, desires and so forth.

Among the indicative tags, wā, wānìa, wāhā, wāraluìhā, māru, māruhà, ìur, iùrva, nō, nonìa, nomahà, nomāru, ìurno, fānìa, fāno and nò all indicate true and literal statements, and are used to disambiguate from exaggerations, fantasies, rumours and so on. These tags are broadly equivalent in use, though precise connotations differ, and vary between dialects and registers; many more tags are also found with this function in regional and occupational dialects – the above are only the more conservative and widely-found possibilities. Of these, the longer tags tend to indicate more ‘serious’ intent, and nò is the most formal; wā is the most common in contemporary speech, being ubiquitous. Ill-educated speech is often characterised by the over-use of wā.

Longest books I’ve read…

Just on a whim, I had a quick look to try to find the longest books I’ve read. Now, two things must be noted: first, that I’m taking ‘longest’ fairly literally. And, second, that I’m taking ‘book’ literally. So these are the single volumes that I have read in that format that have the most pages. This isn’t the highest wordcount, which would be very hard to calculate. It also isn’t the literal dimensions of the book, which depends on the paper as well as the page count, and would involve me using a ruler for every book. It’s just a simple metric, and is entirely unfair, as it depends on which edition I happen to have of which book (most importantly hardcover vs paperback). But just for fun… the 30 longest books, in page counts, I’m aware of having read:

The internet can be a depressing place

Rawàng Ata – prepositions

Prepositions

Rawàng Ata has a relatively simple system of prepositions.

The three most important locative prepositions are ko, sà and òa. These are by far the most used locative prepositions, and are all based on the concept of the ‘index-plane’, a hypothetical surface covering the earth. In most cases, the index plane is identical with the surface of the ground or of a large body of water, but certain classes of item are conceived of as beneath, and hence extending, that plane: trees (but not bushes), houses and huts, caves and large overhangs (artificial or natural), the internal volume of ships, the internal volumes of people and large animals (but not insects, etc) regardless of their location, the internal volumes of objects placed on the index-plane (such as boxes when on the ground, but not when on a cart), and the volumes created beneath or within certain bounding or enveloping objects (such as cages) placed on the index-plane — this also includes the areas beneath elevated houses. The plane also extends to include areas that are naturally inimical to life, whether or not they are contiguous with the main plane — for instance, volcanic clouds are included within their own conceptual planes. The definition of ‘inimical to life’ can be superstitious: fog, for example, is generally considered ‘interior’, despite its low lethality. Contrariwise, small streams are considered above the plane, as are rising floodwaters, although the status of slow-draining departing floodwater is variable.

Future Religions: Multiplicity

For the same SF setting as the various aliens I’ve mentioned, the Life on Venus thing, and so on.

 

Who? Whoever. The ‘multiplicity’ movement has no single authority, no single name, no clear definitions of its extent. It does not require followers to abjure other ways of life – providing they are followed in a complementary way – and the extent of its influence goes some way beyond those who would consider themselves ‘followers’ of the movement. Other words/names that are relevant to the movement include ‘facet’, ‘conversation’, ‘talking’, ‘analysis’, ‘harmonisation’, ‘psychology’ and ‘co-operation’. Full-blooded acceptance of the movement is typically considered an intellectual, bourgeois life stance, though partial, syncretic use of its ideas is widespread everywhere.

Because of this fuzzy periphery, it’s impossible to give firm figures for the followers of Multiplicity. However, broadly speaking around 16 billion people on Earth take its ideas fairly seriously; twice that or more will be willing to consider its ideas from time to time, particularly in time of personal trouble, without wholeheartedly believing in them. On the other hand, only perhaps 2-4 billion are ‘devout’, putting their faith ahead of other influences and eschewing rival approaches.

The movement is much less popular in the colonies; it is a majority faith nowhere. However, it is ubiquitous – every colony will have its own communities of multiplicity-followers.