Purplesfinx

Part 3 will be a shared post for the twins and Talas. The name Talas was likely inspired by either the Talas River (which runs through Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan) or the Talas Province of Kyrgyzstan. The twins’ names (Laila and Leyli) might’ve been inspired by Leyli o Majnun (“The Madman and Layla” in Persian), a love story that originated as a short, anecdotal poem in ancient Arabia and later significantly expanded and popularized in a literary adaptation by Azerbaijani poet Nizami Ganjavi.

Unlike Amira and Karluk, our secondary characters’ hometowns are named. Talas lives in Karaza. I tried searching for this place on Google, but have not found any information about it. It is possible the romanization is off (as Talas is often translated using the Japanese pronunciation “Taras” or “Tarasu”) or the town could be a fictional one devised by Mori. However, if I had to guess, the town Karaza is likely in Karakalpakstan. Aside from the obvious reason of the area’s name coinciding with Talas’ ethnicity, there are also two other reasons. The Karakalpak language is so close to Kazakh that some claim it is a dialect of it; considering it was Amira that Talas shared her feelings for Mr. Smith with, I think the high mutual intelligibility of their native languages helped Talas to more precisely describe her thoughts about the situation to Amira. Secondly, Mr. Smith later has to go west and cross the Aral Sea to get to Turkey. The Aral Sea is primarily in the Karakalpak region.

The twins are stated to be from the fishing town Mo‘ynoq, also spelled as Muynak and Moynaq. Mo'ynoq is a city in northern Karakalpakstan, meaning Mr. Smith didn’t get too far from Karaza before he met the the twins. The twins are also Tajik, meaning, like Amira and Karluk, they are not a majority group to the area. In fact, mnxmnkmnd.tumblr.com pointed out that Tajiks are not even Turkic, they are Persian! This raises some questions as to what language the twins speak, as there is little to no mutual intelligibility between Tajik and Turkic languages. Judging by the lack of trouble Mr. Smith has communicating with them (compared to the difficulty he has talking with Anis’ husband, who is implied to be Persian), I would say it’s safe to assume the twins communicate in the Turkic language of that region.

Next is Karluk’s Town! Fun fact about the name Karluk, it’s the name of a nomadic Turkic tribal confederacy (who are closely related to the Uyghurs) and is also one of the six major branches of the Turkic Language Family (it includes Uyghur and Uzbek!) As I mentioned in my first post, Uzbek likely refers to the area he lives in (Uzbekistan) and Uyghur is probably his actual ethnicity and linguistic group (since there is no Uyghur country). I find it fascinating that both Karluk and Amira are ethnic minorities in their respective areas.

According to one blogger Uzbek and Uyghur are fairly close languages, about 65-70% mutual intelligibility. However, this is only when comparing Uzbek to the dialect of Uyghur spoken in Xinjiang Province, China. An Uyghur language spoken alongside Uzbek would likely be more influenced by the local language in both accent and loan words. This kind of Uyghur would likely have a slightly higher intelligibility, probably around 75-80% (in other words, Karluk understands Uzbek about as well as Amira understands Kazakh). As a point of comparison, many Portuguese-language TV channels will not put up (Portuguese) subtitles for Spanish-language interviews or sports programs, and vice versa; this is despite a comparatively low mutual intelligibility of 54%. Thus, Karluk can probably understand Uzbek quite well.

I bring up mutual intelligibility not only because it implies a certain level of harmony (or disharmony) between a particular minority tribe and the majority population, but also because this raises the question: Just how well can Karluk and Amira understand each other? Perhaps it was just me, but Amira’s obliviousness, blank stares, and few words in the early chapters gave the impression that understanding Karluk’s language and expressing herself in it took a bit of effort and “processing time”. This is supported from the same blog: “Uzbek and Kazakh are not intelligible, but there is an intelligible dialect between them.” Many Central Asians also commented that Kyrgyz/Kazakh is more difficult to understand compared to other Central Asian languages. This difference is also evident in how the two are categorized: Kyrgyz is in the Kipchak family and Uyghur is in the Karluk family.

However, judging by how much more talkative Amira is in the later chapters, I think it’s safe to say she becomes fluent in Uyghur over the course of the year she lives with Karluk. On top of this, with their home villages being relatively close to each other, I imagine their dialects have a higher intelligibility to each other than is the norm between Uyghurs and Kyrgyz.

As for where his village is, the best we have is:

Probably the area close to the gulf, with Kazakhstan to the west and Turkmenistan to the south and and east.

Ice loser party

still ruminating over Lost In the Book With Spooky Skeletons Part 1, so here's a selection of some of my favorite little bits! (...some more loosely paraphrased than others) (I just feel like Idia has no room to criticize in general, okay)

I think the main reference to his height is Epel being surprised they're the same age because he's taller than Sebek, yes? which I find interesting, considering Jade and Malleus -- two of the tallest guys in the main cast -- are also there. and, since I've never been one to not think waaaay too much about the absolute stupidest minutiae about fictional characters, I see two possibilities:

one is that Epel is extremely good at eyeballing heights (I actually do feel like he could be? like. I'd believe he can estimate someone's height fairly accurately by calculating based on the life stages of an apple tree, or how many apples tall they are, or something else apple-related like that.) and Scully does, perhaps, fall into that narrow margin between Sebek and Jade in height.

OR two, out of the three certified Tall Guys there, Sebek is Epel's main frame of reference because he's the only one he's had any real interaction with for, let's be fair, pretty obvious reasons.

everyone out of the way, this is the only thing I'm going to be thinking about from now on.

(okay, there is one more thing)

immediately had to drop everything to draw this in a fugue of utter delight. I'm SO glad that 1) at least one character does, in fact, sleep in full-on Scrooge cosplay, complete with the little pompom on his hat, and 2) of course it's Rook. of course it is.