Number of Speakers: c. 500,000
Brahvnikian
Origin: Old Zak. A much-simplified tongue (related to Zak roughly as English is to German) spoken in Brahvniki City and environs. Brahvnikian ana the Zak trade-patois are mutually comprehensible when confined to simple phrases.
Number of Speakers: c. 300,000
Aenir
Origin: Slavic (Ukrainian, East Russian), Turkic influences. Much influenced in early stages by Old Zak. Many regional dialects. Spoken throughout middle and lower Brezhan and areas to the east; written, but no official dialect.
Number of Speakers: c. 6,000,000
Ryadn
Origin: Lithuanian, heavy Finnish influence, later in contact with Old Brezhanian dialects. (Proto-Zak, Proto-Aenir). Spoken in open steppe country east of the Brezhan by nomadic (Ryadn) and semi-nomadic (te-Ryadn) groups, stretching far into Central Asia.
Number of Speakers: Unknown
Mogh-iur
Origin: Magyar (Finno-Ugrian). Spoken in Mogh-iur kingdoms tributary to Arko until the Yeoli War, northeastern Imperial provinces.
Hyernic
Origin: Tigrinya (Semitic language spoken in Eritrea, northern Ethiopia). Some influence of substratum languages (Enchian, Greek and Albanian-derived). Not generally a written tongue.
Number of Speakers: c. 800,000
Srian
Origin: Central Sudanic languages (principally Bornu). Some influence from substratum language (Arabic). Result of folk-migration across the former Sahara desert as climatic changes increased rainfall c. 3000 AD. Modern form reduced to writing during Iyesian period. Spoken on northern African coast.
Anglun
Origin: English. Spoken by isolated but advanced kingdom in northwestern Europe. Complicated tonal inflection system, with extreme shortening of word-elements to single syllables. Some loan-words from Enchian. Number of Speakers: c. 900,000
Moryavskan
Origin: West Slavic (Slovak), extremely conservative, some borrowing from Iyesian and more recently from Mogh-iur.
Number of Speakers: Unknown; widespread through central Europe
Soldenkor
Origin: Swedish. Positional grammar, few inflections. Has recently spread widely due to folk-migrations.
Number of Speakers: Unknown; widespread through north-central Europe
Notes on Fehinna
4970 AD (871st year of the Second Tecktahate, Sun Year 2930)
Area: 125,000 sq. m. (most of Virginia, parts of West Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina)
Climate: Slightly warmer than at present, particularly in coastal areas
Population: 12,753,000
Rural: 10,552,000
Urban: 2,201,000, which consists of:
Nobility: 120,000
Middle classes: 300,000 (includes yeomanry, merchants, artisans, priests, civil servants, all other intermediate classes)
Foreigners: 50,000 (legal residents)
Free poor: 8,500,000 (includes nominally free tenants, shaaid)
Slaves: 3,733,000 (includes native and foreign)
Birth rate: 22 per 1,000
Death rate: 18 per 1,000
Demographics: Roughly 1 in 5 children do not live to reproduce. Average age of death for those who do is in the mid-60s for men and late 60s for women, with the lower classes dying younger than the higher.
(Upper classes have a slightly higher birth rate than lower; slave birth rate is slightly below replacement; urban death rate slightly higher than rural. Main causes of death are degenerative diseases (e.g., heart failure), cancer, infectious disease.)
Physical type
Predominantly a long-established local race, a stabilized Caucasian-Negroid mixture characterized by medium to short stature, olive to light-brown skin, dark wiry to wavy hair, brown or black eyes. Slightly lighter skin color and straighter hair in the inland districts, particularly near the border with the Palach highland tribes.
The slave population was traditionally largely derived from the mountain peoples to the west. These vary widely (with substantial Fehinnan admixture near the border) but have more Caucasian genes. Other sources include the Kai-Lun areas to the south (similar to Fehinnans but with more Palach mixture) and the areas from Joisi on the coast north (Caucasians). In the last two centuries, the Middle Sea (Carribean), Zarzil Continent (south America) and, most recently, the areas across the Lannic (Mitvald Zee, Africa) have been tapped.
The Fehinnan ideal is medium to tall by local standards (c. 5'5 to 5'9), compactly built, muscular, with broad shoulders and (in females) broad hips; a toast-brown color is most esteemed. Oval faces with regular features are most favored. Both white and black skins are regarded as mildly repulsive. People with fair hair and light eyes are regarded with some suspicion, and stereotyped as violent, highly sexed and mentally primitive. Blacks are regarded as intelligent but effete.
Costume
Standard Fehinnan dress is a cotton loincloth (a 3-ft. strip of cloth tied around the waist and drawn up between the legs), a halter for most women, and a knee-length tunic often worn with a cloth or leather belt; commonly, a pouch and knife are worn on the belt, although the tunic will have pockets. Sleeves may be short or long. Footwear is most commonly sandals, cross-strapped to the knee. Hats of various types (leather, straw, felt) and caps are commonly worn out of doors.
Prepubescent children usually go nude or wear only a loincloth in warm weather; otherwise, children s clothing is much like adults. The lower classes, particularly in the country, may go barefoot in summer, as do many children, and may strip nude or to the loincloth for work.
The tunic may be modified to suit occupational needs; leather for manual workers, blacksmiths, or hunters, for example. Cotton is the most common fabric, but linen, wool and mixtures are also worn. In colder weather, the tunic will be of wool—often a knitted overtunic pulled on over the usual woven cotton, linen or linsey-woolsey garment. Leggings of cloth or knitted wool may also be worn, and fitted shoes (or clogs for the lower classes). Scarves, pull-on wool hats, and gloves are also known.
Upperclass persons, particularly rural gentry and the military aristocracy, may wear tight trousers, boots and a shortened tunic for hunting and other outdoor work.
Middle-aged to elderly members of the upper classes wear ankle-length, long-sleeved robes of various types, often with a broad sash around the waist or over tine shoulder; all members of the upper classes do so on formal or ceremonial occasions. (These resemble a caftan, and may have a hood). Such robes are usually brightly colored, and may be heavily embroidered, and are accompanied by curl-toed slippers as footwear. Conical cloth hats accompany formal wear.
Uniforms: Members of the army wear a dull-red tunic with badges of rank on the shoulder. The tunic is worn under armor when in the field, with additional padded undergarments.
Priests wear formal robes of a bright saffron color, with hemming and cuff embroidery to indicate rank.
Civil servants wear a white tunic, with a script-case slung over the shoulder to carry documents, slide-rule and writing implements.
Only soldiers, nobles, and accredited members of the Guards, Caravaneers and Mercenaries’ Guild may wear weapons (knives longer than four inches, spears, swords, etc.), although exceptions are made for some sailors, merchants and border-dwellers. Nobles in the country generally wear a dagger and long straight single-edged sword.
Conventions and Taboos: Fehinnans have no nudity taboo as such, but do have certain customs as to appropriate dress. Going nude in public is acceptable for children, or when swimming or bathing (both usually done communally), or at private entertainments, or for athletics. Generally, public nudity is otherwise considered more appropriate for members of the lower classes—vulgar for the middle castes, and for an aristocrat a sign of contempt for the viewers. Stripping to the loincloth is accepted when working in warm weather, but again seen as somewhat lowerclass. The more formal the occasion, generally the more that must be worn. Certain types of f
abric (e.g., silk) and color (crimson, yellow) are reserved for the wealthy or for the nobility.
Slaves generally wear a collar, usually of treated wood or fiberglass; this may be ceremonial or even ornamental, for certain valued house servants.
Ornaments: Only members of the highest castes— nobles and, within the city walls, wealthy merchants— may wear gold jewelry. The lower castes—shaaid and slaves—may not wear any jewelry, although slaves may wear livery.
Jewelry is very varied, and includes faceted gems. Iron, steel, bronze and brass are used as ornamental metals; carved wood, carved ivory, and tooled leather are also used.
Hair: Most Fehinnans of all classes wear their stiff, wiry hair cropped close to the head, sometimes with patterns shaved closer. Plaits (somewhat like dreadlocks) are fashionable among some of the upperclass youth of Illizbuah, often combined with beading, but this is regarded as daring and unorthodox. Those in mourning often let their nair grow out for a year or so.
Technology
Fehinna is among the most advanced countries in the world in the late Fifth Millennium. The following are some characteristic technologies:
1. Agriculture. Fehinna practices an extremely advanced form of intensive organic agriculture.
Land Tenure: The large estate is characteristic, with some parts rented out to tenant kinfasts and others directly cultivated with slave, hired or labor-tenant (labor service as part of the rent) workers. Typically, tenants in the lowlands pay more of their rent in labor and shares of their crop; in the piedmont uplands, cash rents and shares are more characteristic, but all areas have a mixture. A lowland tenant kinfast holding 60 acres would characteristically pay one-third of their grain and vegetables, every third piglet and lamb, and labor calculated to be one day in three for every adult. Special payments—e.g., entry fines, extra work in harvest time—are also common. Upcountry tenants generally pay less, and may send ox-teams and tools as well as hand-labor. Farmers generally live in nucleated villages of 200-700 people on their landlord’s property; slaves and hirelings live in cottages attached to the manor house.
Crops are rotated, with legumes (e.g., soyabeans, alfalfa, peanuts) used to replenish nitrogen, and great care taken to prevent erosion and maintain humus content; rotation also reduces insect damage. Marl and limestone are used to correct soil acidity; slopes are terraced; all manure, human waste and crop residues are carefully composted and applied to the soil. (So is treated sewage around cities and towns.) Trash fish— alewives—are also used as fertilizers in coastal areas. Drainage and irrigation are applied where appropriate; there is scarcely a wasted square inch in the Teckta-hate, and maintaining maximum productivity is a religious duty. Field borders are usually live-hedges, principally rosa multiflora.
The primary cereal is maize, followed closely by winter wheat, the other small grains (barley, oats, triti-cale), and rice in lowland areas. Root crops, sweet and white potatoes, are an important source of starches and are also distilled for alcohol. Fodder crops include alfalfa, various clovers and grasses, kale, and beets; they are preserved by both drying and ensilage. Beehives are extensively kept. Livestock includes horses, cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, rodents (rabbits and guinea pigs) and poultry—including the four-footed turkey (produce of pre-Fire genetic engineering), two-footed turkeys, chickens, ducks, geese and pigeons. Breeding is fully understood and carefully carried out; there are many specialized breeds of livestock. Horses are bred mainly for saddle and carriage work, or for crossing with donkeys to produce mules. Draught power is largely oxen, secondarily mules, with some use of donkeys. Most cattle are kept for draught or dairy purposes; bull-calves and overage animals are the primary source of beef, but some fatstock is kept for luxury beef production. Sheep and goats are used for dairy produce as well as for meat, wool and hides.
Most estates have an elaborate system of fishponds, which produce fertile muck as well as carp, catfish and trout.
Land not suitable for field crops is planted to vineyard and orchards (grape, peach, pear, apricot, pome-granite, apple, etc.) with the type varying according to location. Fruit is eaten fresh, as wines, brandies and cordials, and in dried form and as jams. Except on the western borders, real forests are rare, but less fertile soils are often planted to managed woodland; roads are generally tree-lined. These produce timber and charcoal, and also serve as pannage ground for swine; some of the larger provide hunting preserves for the nobility. The nobility also have gardens, both truck and ornamental, around their manor houses. Usually these are fairly modest, except in the case of the very wealthy. Ordinary country-dwellers cultivate truck gardens around their villages, and small herb- and flower-gardens about their cottages.
Industrial crops include dyestuffs, cotton (south of the laimz river), tobacco, flax (for linen and oilseeds), timber, etc. In general, cash crops are grown for sale by the gentry on the land they farm directly. Food crops and livestock products for sale in the cities generally come from the same source, or from share-rents paid by tenants and sold by their landlords. Some specialty crops (high-quality wines, dye plants) are grown on a plantation basis, with landlords buying food for their workers, but this is still rare, although increasing.
Methods are labor-intensive, since Fehinna is densely populated. Tools include hoes, flails, sickles, scythes—generally of wood, stone and ceramic, e.g., sickles of wood with tempered-glass blades fitted into a slot, since metal is too expensive. Harrows, ploughs, seed-drills and multi-row cultivators are also used; woodsmen use steel axes and billhooks. Meticulous, intensive hand labor is characteristic, with a gardener’s attitude even to field crops.
Processing and preservation: Vegetables and meats are preserved in sealed glass/ceramic jars, by pickling, salting, smoking, and in the upcountry in ice-cellars. Grain is ground in water- or wind-powered mills, which are also extensively used for fulling cloth, etc.
2. Roads and bridges: The main highways and bridges in Fehinna are owned, built and maintained by a division of the central government which is part of the military.
First-class highways—of which Fehinna has more than 10,000 miles—are built of rock and concrete. The first step in laying out such a road is surveying, with a straight path maintained even when extensive cutting and grading is needed. Ditches are dug 40' apart, and the earth fill used to build the base grade of the road, firmly tamped down. Over this is laid a layer of crushed rock, the individual stones being about the size of a small fist, 3'6" deep in the center, falling to 3' at each edge of the 25' broad roadway, which is edged with cast-concrete blocks. These stones are carefully fitted, then rolled and pounded. Good-quality concrete is then poured and worked into the crushed-rock surface until gaps are filled, and allowed to dry. A wearing layer of concrete is then laid, again 3'6" in the center and 3' at the edges; a layer of hard granite gravel is then rolled into the surface. Expansion joints several inches wide are left between sections of roadway every 35', and covered with fitted stone slabs laid flush with the surface in grooves cut from the concrete surface. These slabs are of standard size, 1' x 2'.
Concrete-pipe culverts are laid as necessary. Bridges are usually concrete reinforced with glass-fiber, using a long-chord arch form with piers of similar material as necessary. Piers are driven to bedrock or firm footing using caissons and pumps, and are faced with cut stone where possible.
Second-class roads are similar in size to the first, but are laid on a graded-dirt bed and are covered with a 3' to 2' layer of inch-sized crushed rock. This paving is graded, watered and rolled, and replaced as needed.
Third-class roads are graded dirt, laid out by the central government ana inspected frequently, but maintained by local authorities using tax-labor from the peasantry.
Town and city streets are the responsibility of the municipal authorities.
Railroads—horse and miniature-elephant drawn—run on durcret rails.
3. Building and Architecture: Fehinnans use most materials from mud wattle-and-daub to brick and cut sto
ne, but the largest structures are made with marl-based concrete, either alone or with glass-fiber reinforcement. The basic design for country homes is a hollow square or a C open at one end around a courtyard or series of courtyards; peasants have similar designs, greatly simplified, in rammed earth, mud or (on the western frontier) logs.
4. Weapons and War: Basic infantry weapons are a short double-edged sword and dagger, spears (for close combat troops), pikes up to 18' long, halberds (spear-axes) and bolt guns—a form of magazine-fed repeating crossbow powered by coiled springs. Pike troopers and boltgunners carry a small round shield that can be used one-handed or slung on a leather strap. Marines and other close-combat infantry use a tall, convex, oval shield with a forearm strap and handgrip. Cavalry use long single-edged swords with basket hilts and smooth 10' lances.
Armor consists of steel helmets, usually bowl-shaped, and with added lobstertail style neckguards for officers and cavalry. Body armor is overlapping articulated plates of leather (usually 3-ply bullhide, whale or sharkskin) boiled in wax and treated with preservative, on a backing of fiberglass. High officers may have steel supplements.
Large-scale warfare is similar to the pike-and-shot methods of 16th-century Europe, with the bolt gun taking the place of the arquebus. Gunpowder is known but little used, since primitive gunpowder weapons are no more effective than the other weapons available and much more expensive.
Fortifications are constructed of glass-reinforced concrete, often faced with granite blocks, and are both common and very formidable (e.g., walls 30 meters thick and 100 meters high). Towers, etc., are lavishly used.
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