Chlouvānem: Difference between revisions

===Writing===

The Chlouvānem script is almost entirely composed of curved lines as, initially, it was written on leaves with reeds (''ħålka'', pl. ''ħålkai'') or brushes (''lattah'', pl. ''lattai''). With the invention, in the late 5th millennium, of paper (traditional Chlouvānem paper or ''mirtah'' is handmade by fibres from various types of wooden bushes; traditional papermaking is still important today as formal handwritten documents are usually written on traditional paper), the use of reeds or brushes often became region-dependant; the reeds of the ''ñagala'' plant became the dominant writing tool in most of the plains, as this plant abundantly grows by the river shores; in the Jade Coast, brushes (whose "hair" are actually fibres of wetland plants such as the ''jalihā'') were preferred.<br/>

The traditional ''ħålkai'' and ''lattai'' have not disappeared, as both are still found and used - even if only with traditional handmade paper. Both are commonly used for calligraphy as well as in various other uses: for example, [[w:Banzuke|banzuke]] papers for tournaments of most traditional sports are carefully handwritten with reed pens, as are many announcements by local temples (written with either reed pens or brushes); a newer type of brush pen (much like Japanese [[w:Fudepen|fudepen]]s) has proven to be particularly popular even in everyday use (both with traditional and modern industrial paper) in the Jade Coast area - many Great Inquisitors from there, including incumbent Hæliyǣšavi Dhṛṣṭāvāyah ''Lairē'', have been seen writing official document with such kind of pens.

* Southern, Far Eastern, Toyubeshian, and Dabuke words (''maichleyuñcų lallanaleiyuñcų no tayubešenīs no dabukyenīs no maivai'') – that is, words taken from the languages of the territories of the first millennium of expansion of the Chlouvānem world. They mostly relate to natural and cultural features of those territories, with Toyubeshian words being particularly important because they form most of the Chlouvānem words relating to a temperate climate area; whatever proto-Lahob roots that had survived the Ur-Chlouvānem migrations were mostly readapted to the tropical climate they had settled in; as a striking example, the Chlouvānem terms for the four main temperate seasons are all Toyubeshian borrowings.

* Skyrdegan words (''ṣkurdauryenīs maivai'') – the Skyrdegan civilization was the first one too large and strong to be fully Chlouvānemized, and the languages of the Chlouvānem and Skyrdegan people have, for the last eight hundred years, exchanged words for their habitats (tropical to equatorial for the Chlouvānem; temperate to subpolar for the Skyrdegan) and all new discoveries in their cultural spheres; this keeps happening today, with the Skyrdegan countries being politically more open than the Inquisition and many Western cultural concepts reaching the Inquisition only through Skyrdegan mediation. The few words of Bronic and Qualdomelic origin are usually added to this group, despite the very different history (Brono and Qualdomailor were historically minor, less influential countries, whose present identity has been thoroughly influenced by the Chlouvānem spreading the Yunyalīlti faith among them).

** Western words (''kerultugi maivai'') – a subset of Discovery-era words, including those that have their origins in the more technologically advanced civilizations of Evandor, the Spocian cultural sphere of northern Védren, and the Nâdja- and Kenengyry-speaking world. This is overall a small group, but includes many modern international words and, among words of Kenengyry origin, quite a few slang terms because of the Kaiṣamā-era settlement of Kenengyry peoples (particularly Soenjŏ and Kŭyŭgwažŭb) in the Inquisition and of Chlouvānem people in Kenengyry-speaking territories.<br/>As for words actually originating in the West (Evandor and Evandorian colonies), a large number of them, particularly for the earliest ones, come from [[Auralian]], as Auralia was the first Western nation the Chlouvānem had fairly regular contacts with<ref>Such terms include food, such as ''ṣryūvas'' "pomegranate" (Aur. ''sryuf''), ''braṇyājas'' "sweet bite-sized pastries" (Aur. ''brenayyaz''), or ''taħivkam'' "cold cuts" (most commonly head cheese) (Aur. ''taḥifket'' "ham", originally borrowed as the plurale tantum ''taħivkāt'', from which the singular form was developed by analogy); Western elements such as ''arṭīlas'' (Asèl, the Aselist deity; Aur. ''Arṣil''); and miscellaneous stuff such as ''jabræktas'' "cigarette" (Aur. ''zbrekt'' "tobacco") or ''lyoca'' "(recreational) drug" (from earlier ''berlyotsas'', from (today obsolete) Aur. ''brilyuts'', originally "alcohol", particularly the one drunk by sailors).</ref>. Nordûlaki and, especially, Cerian borrowings are much more recent, though the prevalence of Cerian as modern Calémere's main lingua franca, only rivalled by Chlouvānem itself, has led many toponyms in Chlouvānem to be adaptations of the Cerian names.