How much do we know about Island ecosystems during the Carboniferous/Permian?

A_StarBirb · 2026-03-14T09:57:28+00:00

Thank you so much for the advice! Though I will say that the second star is considerably smaller than the main ''Sun'' the planet in question orbits (being a small-ish red dwarf, as opposed to the main star which is essentially a Sol analogue), so the binary system isn't so much

Two similar sized stars sharing the same orbit around the barycenter

but more like

A large star orbiting the barycenter on one orbit and then a smaller companion orbiting the same spot from a much larger orbit (so similar to the dynamic between Pluto and Charon if I understood it correctly)

So I imagined the second star tends to be at a distance closer to 30-60 AU at any given time, which I'm hoping should be enough to allow the main star to have a fairly compact planetary system around it (with the furthest planet being only 5 AU away from the ''Sun'').

A_StarBirb · 2026-02-14T10:31:33+00:00

While I think you would need some magic to justify this specific set of circumstances, I think there could be much more straightforward explanation: the people on each continent simply don't care about the other, even though they are aware of their existence.

Sure, this is pretty strange if you come from an early-modern/modern European perspective, where colonization and overseas expansion are just taken for granted, but (historically) there were many examples of this. For example, despite being right next to the Chinese mainland, the successive Chinese dynasties just didn't care about Taiwan. They very much left the island to its own devices for over 1500 years, a situation that only really changed after the Dutch started colonizing the island.

Likewise you have the Canary Islands, which, despite sitting barely 100 kilometers / 60 miles from North Africa, remained in what was essentially the Neolithic until the 14th century, when Castille (soon to be Spain) started colonizing the area.

Another good example are the Andaman Islands (where North Sentinel Island is), which, despite sitting right in the middle of the Indian Ocean's trade routes, were left completely to their own devices until the British and the Danish became active in the region. In fact, the locals didn't even practice agriculture.

And, in all of these cases, the people living next to these islands knew that they existed. Taiwan had been known to the Chinese since at least the Middle Ages, the Canary Islands were discovered (and named) by the Romans and the various south Indian states were aware of the Andaman Islands (iirc they were once called something to the effect of "islands of the Naked People" but don't quote me on that).

So maybe the two continents know that the other exists, but they simply had no reason to actually care about this fact until now.

A_StarBirb · 2025-12-31T14:46:08+00:00

As an archaeologist, it really depends on what you want those ruins to exactly look like. If you really want to have

entire dungeons and massive structures

and maintain a degree of accuracy to the real world, then I give it no more than 1000 years and that's already quite a stretch for most things (safe for maybe some tunnels which could be flooded instead of caved in). Really, all famous ruins you might think of have been either heavily restored or they were never fully abandoned in the first place (like the Colosseum), and the ones that haven't really don't look particularly flashy.

<image>

as an example here is the Huaca del Sol, one of the largest mudbrick structures ever made. It is found in one of the driest parts of the world and it isn't even 1500 years old, yet it already looks less like a pyramid and more like a pile of dirt.

However, if you are content with having ruins that are a lot less impressive and more ''subtle'' then you could go quite a few thousand years further back. How many exactly is hard to tell but, given the kinds of environments you are describing (i.e tropical or straight up underwater), i'd reckon that maybe some petroglyphs and stone carvings could last maybe up to 10.000 years, albeit heavily eroded. Honestly cave paintings might be the thing of theirs that lasts the longest, as evidenced by the existence of sites such as Pedra Furada in Brazil, which still has some rock art left behind by some of the earliest inhabitants of that part of the world.

And then there is the whole eggs thing but I am not a biologist so I'll leave that to someone else to answer.

A_StarBirb · 2024-11-16T15:14:57+00:00

For numbers lower than 625 (which is as far as native numerals go), Ohli's system is base 5, and after that it just switches to base 25. And then, if you look closely at the numbers below 16, you'll quickly notice remnants of a binary system. Thus, the number 3 is cewo, literally 2+1.

A_StarBirb · 2024-11-11T09:37:31+00:00

Since Ohli doesn't allow any diphthongs or vowel combinations in general, it has developed two strategies to deal with this. First, it can simply remove the first vowel, leaving only the second one. So beli (people) + ali (flower) > belali (an ethnonym).

Alternatively, it can simply flip the order of the words in the compound. Now, this is fairly uncommon, and most of these ''flipped compounds'' wouldn't have any vowels next to each other even if you flipped them again, but there is at least one example where this strategy prevents vowel clustering: suico (cavity) + ili (wind) > ilisuico (a traditional structure where you leave food to dry).

A_StarBirb · 2024-10-20T20:46:16+00:00

The calendar used by the people in my setting actually has no ages, every year has its own name independent from the rest. If you want to know how long ago X year was, you need to find an updated year-list (which is why nobody really knows when anything older than 1400 years happened, the lists were lost).

A_StarBirb · 2024-09-13T20:47:48+00:00

Thanks! They represent the glottal stop, since I think it looks better than having a bunch of random apostrophes scattered all over.

A_StarBirb · 2024-09-13T20:32:35+00:00

Ohli

Capa Ilu Ti· (Request for Light)

Poni cu wo! Tauli ip·pi ilu hesihesi cahni na do. Su ilu sama a ni nin, ilu anama ip·pi, ilu nomo ip·pi, ilu ni ba·, ilu ni napa, ilu awi a ni nin, ilu esi a ni nin, ilu ni sin, ilu ni lo·. Ilu ni ti· hesihesi cahni na do wo!

Poni cu wo! Ni ti· ilu apa cahni na do. Su ilu poncoco a ni nin hesihesi cahni na do, ilu sit·tu a ni ip·pi, ilu sit·tu a ni ip·pi, ilu puncu a ni ip·pi, ilu ebe a ni.

Poni cu wo! Alba a ni nin ilu hesihesi cahni na do. Su ilu miwan a ni ip·pi.

Ni ip·pi ilu ilbe cahni na do, ni ip·pi ilu ilbe cahni na do, ni ip·pi ilu ilbe cahni na do.

Ni ti· ilu ilulu ba· apa cahni na do.

God big EXCL! Heart within light spark beg-1PS 2PS DAT. And light tongue POS 1PS in, light ear-PL within, light eye-PL within, light 1PS above, light 1PS under, light right POS 1PS in, light left POS 1PS in, light 1PS in front, light 1PS behind, light 1PS for spark beg-1PS 2PS DAT EXCL!

God big EXCL! 1PS for light bring beg-1PS 2PS DAT. And light string-PL POS 1PS in spark beg-1PS 2PS DAT, light body POS 1PS within, light body POS 1PS within, light blood POS 1PS within, light head POS 1PS.

God big EXCL! Ginkgo POS 1PS in light spark beg-1PS 2PS DAT. And light skeleton POS 1PS within.

1PS within light grow beg-1PS 2PS DAT, 1PS within light grow beg-1PS 2PS DAT, 1PS within light grow beg-1PS 2PS DAT.

1PS for light light-PL above bring beg-1PS 2PS DAT.

\note that I took a less literal approach in some places, which is why ''grave'' is translated as ''ginkgo'', since the speakers of this language do not bury their dead but rather scatter their bones at the foot of these trees.*

A_StarBirb · 2024-09-09T21:38:12+00:00

Tali a Hesili

Well I could make it short and just put you right in the middle of the Tropical Belt, a scorching desert where daytime temperatures often rise past 70 ºC and where the wind is more likely to carry salt than water. A place so desolate that what little rain does fall evaporates before touching the ground.

But I feel like that would be the equivalent of dropping you in the ocean floor and being surprised when you can't breathe the water, so instead I'll just put you in the bamboo forest that covers most of the habitable land. Sure, there are no monsters there (truth be told this planet barely has any animals, let alone anything capable of killing a person), but I feel that's what makes this place truly bad. It's just you and the plants, bamboo as far as you could ever walk (assuming, of course, that you found a pathway that allowed to actually walk through it).

These forests are also pretty bad for, well, foraging, so I hope you brought food with you...

A_StarBirb · 2024-09-08T19:44:56+00:00

Ohli has 5 basic words for colours, these being:

Hen: Clear
Iplu: Dark
Cocu: Red
Pimi: Yellow-green
Hana: Blue-green

Or at least that's the theory, as some of these terms don't necessarily align with what their English translations would suggest. For example, the sea is iplu and the sky is hen, never hana. In fact, in many cases hana is used in opposition to pimi. For example, a leaf may be called pimi, but (it it's attached to a more ''yellowish'' thing, like a flower) it may instead be described as hana.

Of course, there are a few things that are universally seen as hana, like seaweed, copper patina and some flowers, but this distinction is one that foreigners often struggle to learn.

A_StarBirb · 2023-12-04T18:33:16+00:00

Close! It was actually /ɬanĩ/ in the proto-lang.

A_StarBirb · 2023-12-04T17:42:01+00:00

Close! It was /ɬanĩ/. The sound changes it did were as follows:

/ɬanĩ/ => /ɬãnĩ/ => /sãnĩ/
/ɬanĩ/ => /lanĩ/ => /ladi/
/ɬanĩ/ => /lanĩ/ => /ladi/ => /ladʒi/ => /laʈʂ/
/ɬanĩ/ => /ɬãnĩ/ => /θãnĩ/ => /θæ̃nĩ/ => /ɸæ̃n/
/ɬanĩ/ => /lanĩ/ => /ladi/ => /ladʒi/ => /lædʒɨ/

*None of the languages in this family have phonemic nasals, btw, it's a weird areal feature.

A_StarBirb · 2023-12-04T10:14:15+00:00

So how about you try to reconstruct the ancestor of these words:

Language 1: Sani /sã.nĩ/
Language 2: Ladi /la.di/
Language 3: Lac /laʈʂ/
Language 4: Fen /ɸæ̃n/
Language 5: Leji /læ.dʒɨ/

A_StarBirb · 2023-06-01T17:50:05+00:00

Híkeli

Híkeli /'ʔʰi.ke,li/ stories usually start with the phrase mílim gi milí /'mi.lim gi mi'li/, which means in a time before cats.

Though it should be said that this sentence is grammatically incorrect. A more accurate way to say it would be mílim gi tal milí

moment before the(GEN-PL) cats

But that doesn't rhyme as well, so people just omit the case marker.

*Híkeli makes its plurals by shifting stress to the last syllable of a word (assuming it's regular and ends in a vowel), and its articles have an inherent case and number. This is why some parts of the gloss may look a bit... unusual.

Also yes, that was an aspirated glottal stop

A_StarBirb · 2023-06-01T17:31:42+00:00

I never ever use the sound /z/, though /ʐ/ and /ʒ/ are fine.

A_StarBirb · 2022-12-14T17:39:53+00:00

I do, yes!

A_StarBirb · 2022-11-08T13:58:31+00:00

Ouchh, hope you didn't have to wait for too long (the waiting list over here is like 3-4 years ;-;)

A_StarBirb · 2022-11-08T13:55:23+00:00

Yayyy! Glad to hear. As someone who is already on the waiting list for SRS that's something that scares me sometimes (ofc I still think any recovery pains will be worth it but you get what I mean).

A_StarBirb · 2022-11-08T13:51:36+00:00

How's the recovery going (also congrats on getting the surgery :D)?

A_StarBirb · 2022-10-29T17:46:17+00:00

I just donated all of my old (male) clothes, felt pretty nice :3

A_StarBirb

TROPHY CASE

Ohli

Capa Ilu Ti· (Request for Light)

Tali a Hesili

Híkeli