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

[Pabappa]

how do you make wine out of a solid?

I don't know. But there is an alcoholic drink called "tiger wine" made in China at a place called Badaling. It is not made of urine or even of blood, but apparently from the bones:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_bone_wine

[Shemtov]

how do you make wine out of a solid?

I don't know. But there is an alcoholic drink called "tiger wine" made in China at a place called Badaling. It is not made of urine or even of blood, but apparently from the bones:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_bone_wine

I think what Sal is missing is that it's a stereotype, yes they practice human sacrifice of POWs, but they're not cannibals or urine drinkers. Maybe the stereotype should ommit the diabetic part, and say they dissolve the victim's blood in grape juice and ferment it.

[Shemtov]

The history of the stereotype is that there was a dead civilization that had some cults believe that the sacrament of the sun dried fruit was transubstiated into the sun god's Zlaund's flesh, that came off in his battles with Mwani, the evil Moon goddess . This belief was very prevalent in the south during the last days of the empire. When some people arrived as refugees, given the collapsing empire, they regarded them with suspicion, and accused them of having a similar belief, but with human blood, and it being Mwani's menstrual blood.. This is based on the medieval idea of the Black Mass. The refugees responded in desperation that their enemies, the M'aillysites did that, and eventually convinced themselves that was true, and this stereotype of the M'aillysites spread to a new culture that was absorbing the empire into their empire

[LinguoFranco]

I’m thinking about creating a diesel-punk world, but basing the society on WW2 Japan instead of!Europe.

Would this be too controversial or touchy? I don’t plan to protest any particular country as “good” or “evil,”

[Keenir]

I’m thinking about creating a diesel-punk world, but basing the society on WW2 Japan instead of!Europe.

Would this be too controversial or touchy? I don’t plan to protest any particular country as “good” or “evil,”

Not sure how it would be controversial
(wait, is it because some accuse steampunk of legitimizing {victorian} colonialist mentalities?)

I think you should give it a try {the creation of the dieselpunk world}, and see how it feels to you, and then decide.

[Salmoneus]

It would be controversial for two reasons:

- a non-Japanese person appropriate Japanese symbolism in order to create a setting based on negative stereotypes of Japanese people at the most controversial period in their history is going to risk seeming exploitative.

- anything involving WWII-era Japan is insanely controversial in many parts of the world - western companies have gotten in trouble for products that even seem like they have a rising sun on them. Many people view the WWII-era Japanese in a similarly way to the way older Israelis might view the Nazis.


That doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. Something like The Man in the High Castle has been commercially and (relatively) critically successful. But I do think you should be aware that it's a sensitive area, and if you're going to be showing it to other people you might want to take care to operate with appropriate respect.

[Keenir]

- anything involving WWII-era Japan

I didn't see that part of the original post - that it was based on WW2. I saw that it was based on Japan, but not the date - ergo my confusion.

sorry guys.

[holbuzvala]

Do you think a culture that has its perception of time rising upwards would employ an upwards-read script?

[WeepingElf]

Do you think a culture that has its perception of time rising upwards would employ an upwards-read script?

That would make sense. Indeed, this may be the reason why the Old Albic script is running bottom to top! After all, the Elves do perceive time as going "upwards" in the sense that they believe in progress and ascension. Thank you!

[Pabappa]

I think that a vertical script (either direction) would be an obstacle to writing, so it depends on how literate this society is and what their medium of writing is. I dont know if that is because its just easier to move the hand laterally vs vertically/dorsally,
or if there is some other facotr .... but vertical scripts in general seem to be rare, and left-to-right is mechanically better than right-to-left when the medium is ink (since most people are right handed), but there are major right-to-left scripts still in use whereas the vertical sscript of Mongolian seems to have essentially disappeared.

[sangi39]

I think that a vertical script (either direction) would be an obstacle to writing, so it depends on how literate this society is and what their medium of writing is. I dont know if that is because its just easier to move the hand laterally vs vertically/dorsally,
or if there is some other facotr .... but vertical scripts in general seem to be rare, and left-to-right is mechanically better than right-to-left when the medium is ink (since most people are right handed), but there are major right-to-left scripts still in use whereas the vertical sscript of Mongolian seems to have essentially disappeared.

That's likely down to pressure from the USSR, and similar things happened for languages in the Caucasus, IIRC, where traditional Arabic-derived scripts were dropped in favour of Cyrillic for, effectively, political reasons (look at the way Turkish dropped the traditional Arabic-derived script in favour of a Latin-based orthography in the early 20th Century). The script has survived longer in Inner Mongolia where use of the traditional script was still preferable to some Chinese-derived script.

One of the other things that may have led to the speedy adoption of Cyrillic in Mongolia (and in the Caucasus) is that the traditional scripts actually contained a fair degree of ambiguity that required knowledge of the spoken language to make sense of (vowel harmony wasn't indicated, some forms are graphically identical (/a/ and /n/, if I remember rightly), so you need to be aware of syllable structure). Switching to the more or less phonemic Cyrillic script solved that.

As to writing-direction being an issue, perhaps, but I'm not entirely sure what effect it would have had in and of itself on the adoption or loss of a vertical scripts (Mongolian itself derives from a right-to-left script, while the same direction eventually led to the left-to-right Greek script).

[eldin raigmore]

Right to left is more convenient when you’re right-handedly chiseling the letters into stone. You hold the chisel in your left hand and the hammer in your right. If you were writing left to right, your left hand would obscure what you’d just done.

If you’re using ink, your right hand might smear the ink of what you’d just written if you were writing right-to-left and were right-handed. So left-to-right is better if you’re using ink, or pressing a stylus into clay.

For those combinations of medium, substrate, and writing tool, top-to-bottom is more convenient than bottom-to-top, for the same reasons given above.

I don’t know about carving it into wood with a knife.

—————

In spite of that, I’m going to use vertical boustrophedon, with the first line being at the right edge, and each successive line being just to the left of the preceding line. The first line will start at the lower right corner and run to the upper right corner. The next line to the left will run from top to bottom; then the third line will be just to the left of the second line, and run from bottom to top; and so on.

Some people just like to do things the hard way, I guess.

[holbuzvala]

All good points. I had heard of an experiment where people were given three images (an apple, an apple with a bite taken out of it, and an apple core) and asked to put them in order. For speakers of languages with left-right orthographies (most of europe), they aranged them apple leftmost to core rightmost; and the inverse for speakers of languages with right-to-left orthographies (hebrew and arabic). For the chinese speakers, I think there was a mixture of putting them left-to right, or top-down (to reflect the two ways chinese is written). Speakers of languages that were largely unwritten arranged the images according to their perception of time (I believe), and my favourite of these was that australian language that lacks words for relative direction like 'left' and 'right' and only uses cardinal direction words like 'north' and 'west' - they arranged the images east-west (perhaps mimicking the path of the sun).

Anyhow, I'd forgotten about the basic principle of considering the writing medium. My conculture began their foray into literacy with carving notches into wood, bark, and trees, so I think the script would be esthetically and diachronically pleasing if it were vertical top-to-bottom (like traditional chinese). Trees have more height than width, so that makes sense to me, and carving upwards would be really uncomfortable. Then, after acquiring ink or printing technology, they keep the writing in its top-to-bottom direction for traditionalism's sake. Thoughts?

Also, not sure if it should go in columns right-to-left or left-to-right. Any suggestions, considering the wood-carvy nature of its inception, as to how this might affect direction?

[eldin raigmore]

Anyhow, I'd forgotten about the basic principle of considering the writing medium. My conculture began their foray into literacy with carving notches into wood, bark, and trees, so I think the script would be esthetically and diachronically pleasing if it were vertical top-to-bottom (like traditional chinese). Trees have more height than width, so that makes sense to me, and carving upwards would be really uncomfortable. Then, after acquiring ink or printing technology, they keep the writing in its top-to-bottom direction for traditionalism's sake. Thoughts?

Also, not sure if it should go in columns right-to-left or left-to-right. Any suggestions, considering the wood-carvy nature of its inception, as to how this might affect direction?

I have an idea, but it might be bullshit, in part because it’s original with me as far as I know.

In the Northern hemisphere moss grows more on the north sides of trees; because that side is shadier, hence moister.
(According to http://scienceline.ucsb.edu/getkey.php?key=629 ).

So if a writer starts work in the morning — especially in fall or winter, where the sun’s highest point might be south of the zenith even at noon — s/he will want to start and end on the sunny southern sides of the trees.
(At noon in the summer, the sun will have swung north of the zenith; but the writer might rather just take a break then rather than switch to the north side.)
The writer’s shadow will fall to his/her west (left) in the morning, since it will be shining from the ESE or SE or SSE, from her/his rightish and behindish side, as s/he faces north to face the tree he’s south of.
S/he’d rather not have his/her shadow fall on his current and immediate past and immediate future writing until s/he’s finished with that column. Then, to keep the just-finished tree in the sunlight, and avoid throwing shade on it, s/he’ll move one tree to the west (left); keeping his work of earlier that morning to his near east (right).

After noon, will he keep moving to the left? Or will he switch to moving eastward, to keep the lines he’s already finished in the sunlight coming from his SSW or SW or WSW, so he can keep the tree he’s currently working on out of his eastishly-cast shadow?

So the answer could depend on what hemisphere he’s in (northern or southern), what time of day it is (morning or midday or afternoon), and possibly even what season of the year it is (fall-winter or spring-summer). (If he’s closer to the tropics than the polar zones, it’s closer to the summer solstice than to either equinox, and he decides to carve on the poleward side of the trees close to noon instead of the equatorward sides.)

Put yourself in their position and figure out what you’d rather do if you were them.

—————

Or don’t. My reasoning could be specious; if so, it’s worth no more than I’m charging you for it.


++++++++++++++++++++

Maybe it could partly depend on which shift the writer works.
Let’s assume it’s in the northern temperate zone,

Edit: south

of 45 degrees N latitude, and the season is between Beltane and Lughnasad (roughly May 1 and Aug 1).
Writers who work in the first quarter or first third of the daylight period — the first half or first two-thirds of the morning —- may want to move from east to west (right to left) when they change to the next tree.
Writers who work in the last quarter or third of the daylight — the last half or last two-thirds of the afternoon — may want to move from west to east (left to right) when they change to the next tree.
Writers who work in the middle third or middle half of the daylight, may prefer to write on the north sides of the trees.

Of course, a writer’s preceding and/or following column might not be on another tree; he might have two or three or more columns all on one tree.
In that case, I am guessing, between Samhain and Candlemas (Oct 31 and Feb 2), if he’s in the northern temperate zone but north of 45 degrees N latitude, he’ll want his first column on the east side of the tree in the morning when the sun is coming out of the approximate ESE or SE or SSE; want his middle columns on the south side of the tree when the sun is coming out of the approximate SSE or S or SSW; and want his last columns to be on the west side of the tree, when the sun is shining out of the approximate SSW or SW or WSW.

Whatcha think?

[holbuzvala]

Spoiler:

I have an idea, but it might be bullshit, in part because it’s original with me as far as I know.

In the Northern hemisphere moss grows more on the north sides of trees; because that side is shadier, hence moister.
(According to http://scienceline.ucsb.edu/getkey.php?key=629 ).

So if a writer starts work in the morning — especially in fall or winter, where the sun’s highest point might be south of the zenith even at noon — s/he will want to start and end on the sunny southern sides of the trees.
(At noon in the summer, the sun will have swung north of the zenith; but the writer might rather just take a break then rather than switch to the north side.)
The writer’s shadow will fall to his/her west (left) in the morning, since it will be shining from the ESE or SE or SSE, from her/his rightish and behindish side, as s/he faces north to face the tree he’s south of.
S/he’d rather not have his/her shadow fall on his current and immediate past and immediate future writing until s/he’s finished with that column. Then, to keep the just-finished tree in the sunlight, and avoid throwing shade on it, s/he’ll move one tree to the west (left); keeping his work of earlier that morning to his near east (right).

After noon, will he keep moving to the left? Or will he switch to moving eastward, to keep the lines he’s already finished in the sunlight coming from his SSW or SW or WSW, so he can keep the tree he’s currently working on out of his eastishly-cast shadow?

So the answer could depend on what hemisphere he’s in (northern or southern), what time of day it is (morning or midday or afternoon), and possibly even what season of the year it is (fall-winter or spring-summer). (If he’s closer to the tropics than the polar zones, it’s closer to the summer solstice than to either equinox, and he decides to carve on the poleward side of the trees close to noon instead of the equatorward sides.)

Put yourself in their position and figure out what you’d rather do if you were them.

—————

Or don’t. My reasoning could be specious; if so, it’s worth no more than I’m charging you for it.


++++++++++++++++++++

Maybe it could partly depend on which shift the writer works.
Let’s assume it’s in the northern temperate zone, south of 45 degrees N latitude, and the season is between Beltane and Lughnasad (roughly May 1 and Aug 1).
Writers who work in the first quarter or first third of the daylight period — the first half or first two-thirds of the morning —- may want to move from east to west (right to left) when they change to the next tree.
Writers who work in the last quarter or third of the daylight — the last half or last two-thirds of the afternoon — may want to move from west to east (left to right) when they change to the next tree.
Writers who work in the middle third or middle half of the daylight, may prefer to write on the north sides of the trees.

Of course, a writer’s preceding and/or following column might not be on another tree; he might have two or three or more columns all on one tree.
In that case, I am guessing, between Samhain and Candlemas (Oct 31 and Feb 2), if he’s in the northern temperate zone but north of 45 degrees N latitude, he’ll want his first column on the east side of the tree in the morning when the sun is coming out of the approximate ESE or SE or SSE; want his middle columns on the south side of the tree when the sun is coming out of the approximate SSE or S or SSW; and want his last columns to be on the west side of the tree, when the sun is shining out of the approximate SSW or SW or WSW.

Whatcha think?

I think that's brilliant! I had envisaged my conculture reasonably far north (on Earth), so writing on the southern side of trees makes hella sense. And so, following the path of the sun (or rather the light, which is its inverse) would yeild a right-to-left system, which is brilliant as that's what I envisaged originally - but now I can justify it! Reminds me of creating a new kind of conlang word, and then inventing a bunch of retrojective diachronic rules to justify its existence. Thanks for you help :)

[eldin raigmore]

Do you think a culture that has its perception of time rising upwards would employ an upwards-read script?

Adpihi & Reptigan do perceive the journey through life as a climb or ascent; and so, like palaeontologists and archaeologists, think the past is below and the future is above.
The first line of an Adpihi text is from bottom to top, just as you say. Now you’ve given me an excuse!
But a multi-line text is written in “vertical boustrephedon”, so second and fourth and sixth and other “even-th” lines are written top-to-bottom. But third and fifth and other “odd-th” lines run bottom-to-top, just like the first line.
Each line is just to the left of the immediately preceding line, which it follows.

Edit: I assume once they invent paragraphs, they’ll want the first line of each paragraph to run bottom-to-top.

[LinguoFranco]

What kind of clothing would people wear in the mountains? I expect maybe something thick for higher altitudes, but what about lower altitudes or at the base of the range or in valleys?

[Creyeditor]

What kind of clothing would people wear in the mountains? I expect maybe something thick for higher altitudes, but what about lower altitudes or at the base of the range or in valleys?

Don't forget that high altitudes in the tropics are still pretty warm. The mountain dwelling people on the island of Papua often wear nothing but a Koteka.

[Zekoslav]

So, while browsing The Other Board, I've stumbled upon an interesting observation concerning climate: that Geoff's climate cookbook (the usual beginner's resource) is not quite accurate when things deviate too much from Earth, especially when there are east-to-west coastlines in the wrong place.

I'm quite interested in where I might find information about this: looking at a world map, east-to-west coastlines seem to be absent in the temperate zones, and are quite rare at the equator.

My main con-continent ( ) is a sort of bulked-up North America: first there's an east-leaning coastline from the equator to the northern tropic (roughly 45 degrees), then there's a roughly square shaped piece of land situated between the northern tropic and the northern polar circle which can only receive moisture from the south and the east (to the west, there are mountains which separate if from an equally thick if not thicker piece of land). Unlike North America, it's east coast is completely vertical and it's Florida-equivalent is large and elevated, crossing the northern tropic slightly.

Now, I guess the eastern coast would have a humid subtropical climate, but what about the large east-to-west-coastlined bay? Would it be a continuation of the humid subtropical climate or would it be more arid?

[gestaltist]

So, while browsing The Other Board, I've stumbled upon an interesting observation concerning climate: that Geoff's climate cookbook (the usual beginner's resource) is not quite accurate when things deviate too much from Earth, especially when there are east-to-west coastlines in the wrong place.

I'm quite interested in where I might find information about this: looking at a world map, east-to-west coastlines seem to be absent in the temperate zones, and are quite rare at the equator.

My main con-continent ( ) is a sort of bulked-up North America: first there's an east-leaning coastline from the equator to the northern tropic (roughly 45 degrees), then there's a roughly square shaped piece of land situated between the northern tropic and the northern polar circle which can only receive moisture from the south and the east (to the west, there are mountains which separate if from an equally thick if not thicker piece of land). Unlike North America, it's east coast is completely vertical and it's Florida-equivalent is large and elevated, crossing the northern tropic slightly.

Now, I guess the eastern coast would have a humid subtropical climate, but what about the large east-to-west-coastlined bay? Would it be a continuation of the humid subtropical climate or would it be more arid?

Hard to say without a map for two reasons: 1) the positions of all continents impact the global climate (e.g., the fact that there are few landmasses in the southern part of the southern hemisphere on our Earth makes the westerly winds much stronger and impactful than their northern hemisphere counterparts); 2) not knowing the exact position and extent of the mountains you mention is a problem.