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text; @The Seventh Crown of the Seventh Demon King;
[ Four lines of text. ]
This is written in Victorian.
Kore wa Laterano-ji Higashi-go de kakareteimasu.
This is written in Higashinese.
This written by in Yanese. (Might be bad. Sorry.)
Please do let me know how many of these sentences you understand.
[ The first is in what would be considered Earth English, the second is what would be known as Japanese written in Romaji, but he's called it "Laterano-ji Higashinese". The third was written in Japanese, the fourth was written in some rather poor Chinese. He's called the languages themselves clearly incorrect names. What's more important, though, is that only the second one should parse as phonetic, and should only be understandable to fellow Japanese speakers. The rest are in whatever language is most understandable to whoever reads it. Funny, huh? This city sure is strange! ]
This is written in Victorian.
Kore wa Laterano-ji Higashi-go de kakareteimasu.
This is written in Higashinese.
This written by in Yanese. (Might be bad. Sorry.)
Please do let me know how many of these sentences you understand.
[ The first is in what would be considered Earth English, the second is what would be known as Japanese written in Romaji, but he's called it "Laterano-ji Higashinese". The third was written in Japanese, the fourth was written in some rather poor Chinese. He's called the languages themselves clearly incorrect names. What's more important, though, is that only the second one should parse as phonetic, and should only be understandable to fellow Japanese speakers. The rest are in whatever language is most understandable to whoever reads it. Funny, huh? This city sure is strange! ]
no subject
Looking back over your post, "Yan" is similar to "Han," which is the largest ethnic group living in my world's country of China. I'm Han myself. And you wrote "Higashi" with the character for "east"...Japan is an island nation that indeed lies to the east of China. Even "Victorian" is familiar...one of the most famous queens in the English-speaking part of the world was named Victoria, although the language and country predate her by several hundreds of years.
I wonder if we're looking at an actual case of parallel histories here? Perhaps our worlds used to be the same, but diverged at some point in the distant past?
no subject
[ The characters for this "Japan", for example, are a bit less self-evident than Higashi, but perhaps whoever named this Nihon had some opinions about the common culture? A country named after its books doesn't seem all that bad. ]
So that would make you similar to the Lung people, or perhaps the Oni of Higashi... I see. If we're looking at where or how our histories diverged, I suppose we'd have to look back to see if there was one common event that we had in common? Recorded history of the common era of Terra started a little over a millennium ago, during the Nightzmoran conquest... Before that, most history is legend or myth.
no subject
But that's not as important as these Nightzmoran. I don't recognize that word at all, and there certainly was never an invasion in my world that wiped out all recorded history! What were they like? Were they a human civilization, or something else?
[Aliens? Demons?? There are several possibilities, and he's on the edge of his seat to find out!]
no subject
[ After all, if people from 13,000 BCE still walk Terra, not to mention some millennia old vampires from Midnight's own culture, there's less of a need for documentation! :) ]
The Nightzmoran invasions were mostly a western phenomenon, though I do believe that their influence reached as far as Sargon and Ursus before the movement eventually collapsed. As for their influence... Well, I believe the invasions were more the impetus for nations to establish enough common ground to form a combined history globally and less of a Catastrophe that wiped out what existed. I'm no historian, but I believe the Catastrophes did much to erase whatever records we had before then.
Anyway, Nightzmora were Sarkaz, same as me. Human as anyone. Just angry, as one is.
[ ... So, the cultural differences are vast. ]
no subject
Ah, forgive me if I'm being too demanding! I fear my enthusiasm is liable to get the best of me. Please don't be afraid to tell me off if it gets to be too troublesome!
no subject
I've been meaning to ask someone about the latter, actually. I'm getting the feeling that you may live in civilizations that have progressed without the threat of Catastrophes hanging over one's head, as it were. We do have hurricanes and typhoons and so on, but most Catastrophes come with the threat of complete annihilation, and leave unstable Originium in their wake, so humanity's evolved to stay on the move, as it were. Am I right in assuming that most of society stays put where you're from? That is, most city centers and developed nations in your world have no need to be mobile?
As for the Nightzmora... Well, they were culturally Sarkaz, although they were technically Kuranta, if I remember correctly. As Kazdelian as one can be without the blood... Although I suppose that means nothing to you, does it?
[ Hm. ]
Do the Arts exist in your world? Or "magic", I suppose.
no subject
My friend, if I didn't know any better I'd think you were teasing me, by throwing so many cultural names at me without any additional context! I don't recognize any of those peoples at all -- and besides, I thought you were Higashese? Or is that only the word for the country, and Sarkaz is the name of the people? Or have I misunderstood completely?
You're right about society, however. Our cities consisted of buildings like the way ones here, with permanent foundations and accomodations for many families to share the same plot of land. This is the norm for most human cultures in my world; although a few maintain a nomadic lifestyle out of tradition and cultural identity, they are a very small minority and, I'm sad to say, discriminated against by some governments.
We didn't have magic in my native world, although just for the record I am normally capable of doing magic, as I had the mixed fortune of living in a different world for a number of years before landing in this one, and learned a few tricks while I was there. I just mention this to save confusion later, if Liu Feiyu and I ever figure out how to undo the seal our captors put on my cultivation.
Now, this Originium. What is it? What connection does it have to the Cataclysms? And what are their origin, anyway? The more you speak, the more curious I am!
no subject
[ He's aware that he might be making more questions, but that's about as clear as he can make it. (Yes, he did just casually mention that his parents are at least a century old.)
Midnight's going to keep that mention of "cultivation" in mind later, along with the absolutely puzzling idea of trying to discriminate against a people just for being on the move. (Now, discrimination for being nation-less... That's another issue entirely.) For now, there are direct questions to answer! ]
Originium is the source of the "magic" of Terra: the Originium Arts, or Arts for short. It's a black mineral, very unstable and prone to reactive behavior when exposed to oxygen, but once it's processed, the stable form is used for power and various sorts of technology in Arts research. To answer your previous question about the conquests, Sarkaz tend to have a higher affinity with Originium and the related arts, so the Nightzmora had an edge on their neighbors via their witchcraft. As for their connection to the Catastrophes... I think that's more of a question that reaches back into antiquity. It's a fact of life for anyone who isn't a Catastrophe Messenger or a professor of meteorology or the Arts. Catastrophes carry Originium like the spectrum of light has several colors, like the two moons in the sky, like the unpredictable movement of the stars.
[ Terra is different, man. On the other hand, though, Midnight's very curious about this Earth. In the absence of Originium, is all power on Earth nuclear? Wind based or solar, maybe? ]
no subject
Multiple species of human??
His parents are HOW old???
TWO MOONS??]
Wow...your Terra is much more different than my Earth than was apparent at first glance, my friend. I'm actually a little more surprised now, that we shared so many languages and cultural touchstones! You'd think that with such different histories, everything would be different, but apparently not...
[Actually...it kinds of reminds him of some fantasy novels he's read, where the authors will go wild flights of fancy about the magic and wars and other exciting stuff but just a regular world map with slightly different place names, so they don't have to come up with new names themselves. But of course that's silly, his friend Luo Binghe may be from a book but Shen Yuan can't assume that anyone else! If nothing else it would probably be rude.]
May I ask you a slightly personal question, though? Of course you don't have to answer if you'd rather not, I'm just curious.
no subject
We'd have to sit here and go through history point by point, I think, in order to catch all the differences... and I can't say history was my best subject. Still, I'd be willing to help with the endeavor where I can.
[ At this point, who's the say which is real and which is fiction? Midnight wouldn't mind either way, honestly. ]
Well, there's know way of knowing unless you ask, right? Please, by all means.
no subject
But I was wondering, friend, how old you actually are? It's just that on my Earth, a single century is really pushing it for humans...most people tap out around 70 or 80, depending on how good their country's health care might be. So if your parents emigrated a couple centuries ago, I wonder what that means for their lifespan and for yours?
But if that's not something you're comfortable discussing, you can just forget I asked.
no subject
Just to get any potential questions out of the way, Earth is one of those worlds with only one human species variant, correct? No species or subspecies? My world has several dozen different types of humans with different maturation rates, so we tend to refer to age by relative maturation, not years, unless we're in a conversation with our own kind.