Acola

Acola is a language common in the Southern Reaches of the Greater Continent. It originated sometime during the Long Night.

Origin

Background

During the old Alliance era, the Southern Reaches were a key economic producing many new technologies in use by the Alliance. While most manufacturing was done either off-world or in Modia, several major tech corporations were headquartered in the Southern Reaches, along with many large and prosperous cities.

Then came the Long Night.

While much of the actual resistance in the region was carried out on the Agras and Lowland Plains, the Sourthern Reaches had the facility to fight back in a big way. While they lacked industrial capacity, the geniuses at the various companies could quickly build powerful one-off weapons. This, in turn, led to the armies of Samuel Fate razing the major cities in the region. During the Sunset period of the Long Night, the population centers were completely obliterated.

The remaining population was put to work erasing all evidence of their once mighty cities, then "geared down" to an agrarian civilization. This was especially challenging as, without modern technology, the region was unfarmable. To further complicate matters, Fate banned reading and writing.

By the True Night phase, the population had been reduced by ninety percent, and any semblance of resistance ground to dust. While Fate stationed governors in the region, they exerted little influence outside provincial capitols, and the now mostly nomadic population was given a greater latitude of freedom than those on the Agras, with the provision that they never go near the old cities.

Acola

Exactly how Acola began is the subject of folk tales, but most experts agree it was invented sometime around A.D. 1000, originally as a secret code. A common folktale tells a story of how the disparate tribes needed to 'recognize friends'. It is believed they devised a simple set of code words to determine which tribes still believed in the return of the dragon(the then foretold Battle of the New Day), and which tribes were illegally trespassing on the old city ruins.

The language was created, slowly, based on oral tradition. Speakers would use certain passages from widely repeated folk tales to refer to certain concepts(similar in some ways to the Rowen dialect, though much more complex). I speaker might refer to a certain 'mythical' character (such as Hunter Jusenkyou or Jason Bur'I, and some event from their stories that would be instantly recognizable, using it as a metaphor.

The language(and variants) were quickly adopted by the nomadic peoples of the region as a way to differentiate themselves from the settled groups(who still spoke common), further weakening their control on them. The nomads developed an entire culture all their own, and found ways to survive in what was then a harsh, resource-poor region.

As the language evolved, the original folk stories it was based on were forgotten, and the metaphors and events shortened to to make speaking easier. The vocabulary dwindled, but became easier to understand. With only about twenty to forty thousand unique words. Still, very complex concepts could easily be communicated by simply using enough words. A common trait was the repitition of a single syllable over and over again in order to indicate intensity.

The simplicity of the language allowed the speakers from any tribe to communicate, allowing for a very homogenous culture outside the capitols.

Written Form

Many tribes independently developed their own writing systems, often in code. Reading and writing was still banned and strict punishments enforced. The most common original writing system was a rope code in which bundles of strings were used with knots tied in them. The number of knots indicated the number of times a syllable was repeated. The problem with this system was that the holder of the bundle had to memorize the syllables in order to decipher the message.

The first real writing system emerged around A.D. 2000, and involved using a very large ball of twine made from leather. Specific items, such as shells or types of rocks, bits of horse hair, animal teeth, feathers, etc, were tied in to the twin followed by knots. The items indicated the syllable, and the number of knots indicated how many times it was repeated. The system was impossible to decipher without an innate understanding(which required having been raised in) of the nomadic culture. An item as simple as a duck feather split in half could mean something entirely unrelated to ducks.

This system then progressed to inscriptions in stone. Similarly to the twine balls, a pictograph would be scratched on a rock, then a number of notches placed above it. Later additions added notches bellow. Since the writing escaped entirely under the radar of the provincial govorners