#tangential speculation

Most of the world is on this great big mass of land. For a while it was split into a bunch of little continents, over 100 million years ago. Over time they came together again, and that’s where we are now. But they used to be together even further back in time than that! This coming-together and going-apart happens every 500 million years or so.

The interior parts can get very, very dry because they’re so far away from water. But it isn’t completely unlivable. Splatsville’s somewhere in the desert to the southeast, I think, and I’ve heard it’s been booming recently. It’s wetter along the coasts, though. That’s where Inkopolis is. Right up around here:

(This spinning globe is in the basement of Shellendorf. Really cool geology exhibits down there, but the lighting can be awful!)

The rocks around Inkopolis have a lot of the element copper in them. There’s a copper-rich belt that starts here and extends way inland to the east. The rocks with these copper deposits were laid down 90 million years ago - at that time there were huge flightless birds living in this area!

Unsurprisingly, this copper has been mined for many years. It’s among the many things they dig up at Piranha Pit, and there are other mines around that focus specifically on it. It’s a great electrical conductor, so it’s used for electrical wiring and such. Also - here’s a little-known fact - the Aerospray PG is coated with copper, not bronze as some assume.

Octolings that stayed in Inkopolis after the Great Turf War have started to develop a subtly different dialect from the Octarian diaspora - notably, the letter q is almost always pronounced “g”

Octolingo has three types of third-person pronouns: people and other living things (ri), inanimate objects (mi), and non-physical concepts (bi)

There are three articles: o (”the”), ea (”a”), and a (which denotes proper nouns; e.g. a Yma emphasizes that Yma is a name)

Saying po (“no”) before a clause negates it - e.g. lanqa wakusi = “we won”, po lanqa wakusi = “we did not win”

End a sentence with wa to make it a question

Emphasizing adjectives by saying them twice in a row is grammatically acceptable

Base-eight number system: ha, nu, roa, ky, rima, tani, isak, oqto

Oqto has also become a colloquial term for both Octolings and Octarians because they both have eight arms and there’s no other term for the both of them

Hello! -> Ora!

My name is [x] -> Rimu-aqu a [x]-pa

Nice meeting you! -> Rosabinowha-pa or Rosabinowha-satu

How are you? -> Ni amo-pa wa?

I’m doing well -> La myva-pa

Do you want to play Turf War? -> Ni Terwhu War rewhi masuna wa?

Yes! -> Uy!

No -> Po

We won! -> Wakusilanqa or Waku-pa

We lost -> Douwhisilanqa or Douwhi-pa

There are twenty consonants: B, D, G, H, K, L, M, N, NG, P, Q, R, S, SH, SZ, T, V, W, WH, Z

Q is like k but further back in the mouth (if you can’t do it you can just use k)

WH can be pronounced either as f or the lips-only [ɸ] (similar to in Māori)

SZ is properly pronounced as s leading into z. In practice, it’s often pronounced as either s or z, and thus is starting to fall out of use

There are seven vowels: A, E, I, O, U, Y, OU

Y is a long i sound

OU is a long o sound, sometimes pronounced as o leading into u. Rarely used

There are no th, ts, zh, ch, or j sounds

There are also never more than two consonants in a row - so when speaking other languages, Octolings either drop extra consonants or add “filler’ vowels

Some notes while I put together how grammar works:

Sentences are in subject-object-verb order

Nouns are made plural with the prefix ma-. Possession is denoted with suffixes

There is no distinction between simple verb tenses (e.g. ”I walk”) and continuous tenses (e.g. ”I am walking”) - they use the same word (namisuna). The distinction is difficult to pick up when learning other languages

There is no “to be” verb, instead the suffix -pa is used after the noun or adjective that would follow “to be”

No distinct adverbs, only adjectives

CENOZOIC ERA (0-65 million years forward)

500 Years in the Future: Global temperatures have increased, and sea levels have risen. Humans, which have been battered by war, disease, natural disasters, resource depletion, and a reversal in earth’s magnetic field, will soon be extinct on Earth. With them, at least 45% of all species present at the beginning of the Holocene do not make it to the end. But life will recover, as it always has.

50,000 Years in the Future: The Holocene interglacial ends as the world falls into another ice age. Or at least, it would, but thanks to humans temperatures fall to pre-Industrial Revolution levels. Nevertheless, the increased atmospheric carbon dioxide dissipates over the next few ice age/interglacial cycles, reaching a stable “status quo” level within around a million years. The Cenozoic glaciation will begin again.

40 Million Years in the Future: By now, the earth’s biosphere has long since recovered from the impact of humans, and life is thriving again. The continents, however, will not stand still for this. Antarctica departs its position at the south pole and moves towards South America. Since the Cenozoic glaciation is largely a consequence of the south pole being covered by land, the ice begins to melt, and a very long warm period begins.

HOTHOUSE ERA (65-215 million years forward)

100 Million Years in the Future: By now the world is warm and wet, with high sea levels, widespread swamps, and lush forests. A mass extinction has come and gone, and many charismatic groups of animals have either evolved or been replaced. The continents have hit their maximum amount of expansion - after this, the Atlantic Ocean will narrow, and the continents will move together again.

190 Million Years in the Future: By now the Atlantic is a shallow, narrow strip separating the Americas from Afro-Eurasia. The collisions of Africa and Australia with Eurasia have formed new mountain ranges. While the world is still highly forested, a brief dip in temperatures have caused sea levels to decline a bit. However, the continued movement of the continents will soon change the climate again and cause yet another mass extinction.

SUPERCONTINENTAL ERA (215-? million years forward)

240 Million Years in the Future: Welcome to Pangaea Ultima. 25 million years previously, the Atlantic Ocean finally closed. Now, there is one giant continent and one giant ocean. The center of Pangaea Ultima is a vast desert; the polar regions and coasts are the most habitable. By this point, mammals are virtually extinct, and plant diversity has taken a hit in this hot, dry world. Around this time, a dip in oceanic oxygen causes a minor extinction event, but prompts some marine species to take steps onto land.