#iamnotoneofthem

My ancient peoples used to live during the day, but became nocturnal due to a variety of reasons. I’m at loss on how a loss of nuanced, three colour based colour vision in favour of better night vision would be reflected in the language of those people.

Say that they become red-green blind, over generations, and we return to them a long time in the future. Would they still use the word “red” to refer to e.g. blood, and “green” for plants and the like, or would they call both of those brown if dark and yellow if bright? Would they use the terms because the language has assigned those terms to things, such as grass or blood, even though they are no longer distinguishable? And how can I reflect that in writing? I could say “her blood was the same colour as the grass as it flowed out from her body”, but wouldn’t that just be really confusing?

Feral:   You have accidentally stumbled into a major, controversial debate, my friend. One that I happen to live for.

There are two general theories on how names for colors develop and how those words interact with culture.

Universalism describes a general trend in the development of color words across all cultures. First there are words for white and black or dark and light, then red, then green and yellow, then blue, then grey, brown, purple, pink, orange, teal, etc and then finally super specific things like Sherwin-Williams paint colors. This is despite any environmental reasons one might develop color words out of order.

Relativism (you’ll also see Whorfianism) describes the effect on the development of color words based on environmental factors and the effect the existence of those color words has on individuals’ abilities to differentiate between colors. For example, a community that has two colors of flowers growing wild near them, one of which is pink and is good to eat and one of which is orange and is deadly if ingested, would logically figure out an efficient way to describe them, in this case with color words, and would logically also become better at differentiating between the colors, especially if they are on a spectrum that can get very close to one another.

Homer’s reference to the “wine-dark sea” in The Odyssey gets pointed to a lot in this debate. Universalists will tell you that when Homer, or whoever, composed The Odyssey, Greek had not yet developed beyond the dark/light or dark/light and red stage; thus, Homer was describing it based on terms of light/dark and the wine reference is more about its viscosity. Relativists have been known to argue that Ancient Greeks were blue color blind. 

As with most binaries, the answer falls somewhere in the middle of what’s actually a spectrum. But as a world-building tool, it can be really helpful to take a stance somewhat close to one of the extremes. 

I’ve done a lot of research on this particular topic, but unfortunately, due to its academic nature, a lot of that is behind paywalls. Here are some free resources to get you started:   

Wikipedia: Lignuistic Relativity and the Color Naming Debate  

Sapiens: Do You See What I See by Nicola Jones  

APA: Hues and Views by Rachel Adelson 

Berkeley.Edu: Language, Thought, and Color by Terry Regier and Paul Kay  side note: Paul Kay is one of the go-to researchers on this topic if you can find more by him 

Color Blind Awareness  will probably also be helpful for you to reference. 

As for your specific query, I strongly caution against saying that her blood is the same color as grass. I’ve worked with a number of color-blind clients and I am fully aware of that 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women are color-blind, I’m still gonna assume if I’m reading a fantasy novel that the blood is just green. And if you’re saying it’s both red and green, I’m just going to be confused. It would be much clearer immediately if they simply didn’t have color words for red and green, or share a color word for them, and someone from the outside introduces the concept that they are two different colors, preferably before anyone is bleeding out.   

Another thing that might be helpful for you to research is the etymology of modern color words in as many languages as you can to realistically project how your new language has evolved from the ancient language. “Green,” for example, traces back to exactly what you assumed it does, the PIE root *ghre- meaning “grow” or “the color of growing plants.” (and don't get me started on the etymology and history of "blue"; it is legit wild),

Well, some myths have oracles being born into their position, while others say they communicate with the gods. They don’t have a pact, per se, so I’d lean more towards a celestial sorcerer or a knowledge cleric. A reflavored diviner wizard could also work.

I did homebrew an oracle domain for clerics, once, but it’s not super balanced (I made it before I knew much about homebrewing subclasses).

i have been meaning to make a patron archetype along the lines of The Knowledgeable, for entities like sphinxes and knowledge deities, which i’ll be trying to get to soon! it will probably end up somewhat similar to mod luci’s unknowable patron but i think its worth doing

I’m not sure how true this is, but in my year nine Italian class, the teacher said it takes the average person about three months of complete immersion in a new language to be able to get up to a reasonable level of understanding. I’m assuming that this is based on there being friendly people who are willing to help out the newcomer through the process, and that there aren’t any major issues that would prevent the person being able to learn.

There are a few basic phrases that you’d need to know in order to live within the first day or so of a new place. I think in no particular order, 

“Hello.” 

“Can I have food?” 

“Can I have water?” 

“Where is the toilet?”

“Where can I sleep?”

Think about the way that we tend to greet people who seem distressed. Usually you’d start off with a greeting to get their attention--“Hey!”--and then go with a question--”Are you okay? You seem lost.”--if the person doesn’t seem to understand, we backtrack to greetings--”Hi,” a little wave hello, “are you lost?” gesturing to the person and the place around you--from this, at least the ‘hi/hey’ greeting is something that the person could pick up.

Imagine it from the perspective of the person who is lost. They hear someone speaking, but since they don’t understand, they don’t really have a way of knowing, aside from body language, if it is addressed to them, or if it’s something friendly. The repetition of the greeting and use of gesture helps to create a dialogue, they can recognise a greeting, and that this person, though they can’t understand them, is trying to help.

Move forward a while, perhaps our lost traveller is staying with the household of this helpful person. The family and the traveller probably develop a kind of gesture-and-words-based pidgin, so that they can communicate simple concepts to one another, and so they can try and teach the traveller the language.

So they’re sitting at the dinner table, our traveller is being addressed by one of the family members, she is asking a question, and they know the words for ‘hand me that’ and ‘please’ (because our family is very polite, of course!), but the thing she wants is a jumble, they don’t know it. So she points to the dish she wants, and the traveller hands it down. Then she might repeat the name of the dish, while the traveller tries saying it, so that in future, they will be able to have this interaction far more easily.

While this is going on, presumably the traveller is going to be out and about in the town. Now equipped with the basic phrases needed for survival, our traveller can ask for food at a market stall, or for basic directions, but is also probably spending a lot of time listening to every conversation that they pass. It will be easier to pick up the gist of a sentence now, even if they don’t know every word that is used, the context of the conversations can help them assimilate a lot of new information, and later they can go home and ask what specific new words mean.

Now, this is the extent of what I can really say about this topic, as I’ve said, I actually am monolingual (not for lack of trying, sadly) and this post is mainly piecing together things I’ve heard from friends and acquaintances who have studied abroad and learned languages in immersive environments.

As for how to write this out in dialogue and prose, I have [THIS] post about translation convention in stories with multiple languages, and [THIS] post which has a simple outline of how different kinds of translation can be used for different effects.

Could you link me to any information on plants, spices and herbs native to the Eastern Woodlands region of North America / the Washington D.C.-Canada region? Or, more specifically, is stuff like Hibiscus, juniper, spearmint, marjoram, damiana or valerian native to the states? I’m not even sure there are any digestable, flavour-carrying plants in that region, to be perfectly honest… I’d appreciate any help you can give me, I’ve been researching for ages, but most come from further South… 

Hi iamnotoneofthem!Of the plants that you listed, Juniperus virginiana L. and Hibiscus moscheutos L. are both native to this entire region that you are looking at. Valeriana pauciflora is native to the lower portion of the region, from Pennsylvania south. Valeriana uliginosa is native to the upper portion of the region, from New York state north. Spearmint and marjoram are native to Europe and Asia and were only introduced to North America. Damiana is native to Texas and Central America, as well as the Caribbean islands.

Some other plants you might consider are:New Jersey tea Ceanothus americanus -leaves used as teaSpicebush Lindera benzoin  - berries dried into savory, peppery seasoningSassafras Sassafras albidum - root provides “root beer” flavor, leaves are primary ingredient in Filé powder, used to flavor and thicken soups and stewsGroundnut Apios americana - beans and underground tubers are edible

I really recommend looking through this list of edible North American Eastern Woodlands native plants. It provides specific information about what parts of these plants are edible along with any issues such as needing to prepare a certain way to avoid toxicity.

http://www.perennialsolutions.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/USEFUL-NATIVE-SPECIES-OF-THE-EASTERN-FOREST.pdf

This is a list of edible plants common in the North American Eastern Woodlands, which means it does not differentiate on if they are native or introduced. It’s really a survival guide, and the list is shorter, but there is a lot more detail about what parts of plants can be edible and how to prepare the ones that need special preparation. 

https://ruralsurvival.info/downloads/Unofficial-Hunger-Games-Edible-Plants-Download.pdf

I also want to encourage you to think about how not having oceans would change our world. Our world is the way it is in large part because the majority of it is oceans. The climate zones and ecological regions that we see are in large part associated with out much moisture the areas receive from oceans.

I hope this helps.~*Mod Den*~

Disclaimer

There is quite a difference between the tech of, say, Ancient Greece or China and the Middle Ages (5th-15th century AD). What you’re going to want to do is pick out a few elements of the Middle Ages that people heavily associate with that time and leave it out, even if it would technically fit. In the same way, focus on elements of ancient times, the Iron Age, that people really associate with that time period and play those up, while also implementing your own things.

One of the largest macro differences would be that during ancient times, in many ways the world was more connected. Before the Dark Ages and The Crusades, there was international economic trade in a way that there wasn’t again for many centuries…and that there certainly isn’t in our fictional portrayals of the medieval world. 

Here are a few examples of things that you could use to set your ancient civilizations apart from standard medieval settings:

Dictatorship and democracy rather than monarchy and, especially, feudalism.

Leather or iron-banded armor instead of scaled or steel-plated armor (almost complete lack of alloys)

There were two types of irons: meteoric iron and terrestrial iron. Meteoric iron can be shaped without smelting and was used for hundreds of years before the Iron Age, so it would be common. Terrestrial iron wasn’t popular until they figured out an easy way to make furnaces hot enough to melt it. 

Steel swords and armor did exist, but it was far more expensive and not common. Most weapons would have used wrought iron. 

No gunpowder, so no cannons or the like.

Writing on vellum, tablets, and papyrus rather than parchment or paper

Limited in food options, as crossbreeding plants had not yet taken shape

Overwhelming polytheistic governments as opposed to monotheism. Christianity (and all its European governmental forms) wasn’t a thing yet.

Architectural trends (Think Pantheon not cathedrals; no arches or buttresses).

Art was not the same. (Sculpting, weaving, and other hardform art was more common); Far fewer leisure societies

International roads were just becoming a thing (thanks to Rome), but the infrastructure for moving large groups of people wasn’t unheard of. 

When you’re talking about sizes of population (and armies), you can talk in millions and hundreds of thousands in a way that wasn’t true of the Middle Ages. When you’re looking at the Persian army, two million + isn’t incorrect. Whereas, many medieval armies couldn’t boast more than 50,000.

Geometry was invented during that time.

Cartography, on a large scale, was just becoming popular.

You can also look over a list of Ancient Greek Technology or Ancient China Technology and compare it to Medieval Technology.