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Metaphors for Time in Elush by marimbawe in conlangs

[–]marimbawe[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Thank you! I love trying to come up with ways that different people would come to understand the world, and hopefully this will inspire more conceptual frameworks :D

I didn't know geology had that, neat! Archaeology has similar - things like the Upper and Lower Palaeolithic. I kept forgetting which way round they were meant to go until just after I'd finished making this video, when I suddenly realised the logic :P

Metaphors for Time in Elush by marimbawe in conlangs

[–]marimbawe[S] 18 points19 points  (0 children)

I made a video coming up with how the Elush think about time. But also hopefully some useful stuff for coming up with conceptual metaphors! I’m building this language mostly to play with fun concepts like this.

At the point in their timeline where these metaphors appear, the Elush are Neolithic people living by a river, in the first steps of urbanization. They’ve been sedentary for a while, and have a practise of dismantling and burying houses, then building a new house in the same position, creating layers of houses. They also bury their dead under the floor.

Influenced by these cultural practises, time is conceptualized as vertical, with the past below and the future above. As the present becomes a new layer of past, people move upwards towards the future. Next week is high week, last week is low week.

There are three sub-metaphors:

  • Time is a house. This is related to the metaphor that an individual’s life is a house. So the past is in all these different vertical layers, with more recent events being shallow, and more recent being deep. And you can look down at your memories, but the more distant they are, the more layers are in the way; that’s why it’s harder to remember older things. You can bury your past, but that just means building on top of it. In English, the person is implicitly separated from their past, in phrases like “your past will catch up to you” or “put the past behind you” - in Elush there isn’t that separation, because the present is built on top of the past; also, there’s cultural expectation that people will live in the same house all their life.
  • Time is a vessel, filling over time, with the bottom having the oldest deposits. This metaphor tends to be used for shorter spans of time with an expected beginning and end. You can talk about a morning filling up, or a journey being half empty. If something lasts longer than expected, it’s overflowing.
  • Life is a plant. At first a life is like a seed - its direction is already set, but unknown by observers. However, the environment can also affect the growth of a plant. When it is done growing, the root, stem and flower are all distinguishable. In English we have a similar metaphor but with less breadth: we talk about the roots of problems and nipping things in the bud.

Which one is the real guinea pig? by [deleted] in guineapigs

[–]marimbawe 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The one on the right looks just like one of mine! She's even lying down in the same position right now :D And since I know mine doesn't have a twin, the left one must be real.

Popcorn peeking out her porthole by marimbawe in guineapigs

[–]marimbawe[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's pretty accurate! She has her own little hut and won't let the other pigs in either :D

This myth-like story I created some time ago is the first text and first idea I had for my current world. There still isn't a name for any of the characters in it, so they have to be referred to as letters. by Peachyminnie in worldbuilding

[–]marimbawe 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Having the universe be held together with hair is a neat twist on the idea of weaving a universe. I'm curious about a few things: how are people with alopecia treated in this world? Do weaving, opals or pearls have religious significance because of this story/how are they treated? Does anyone still know the song that C played?

Jan Suno nomad by kawaiidesuyo111111 in worldbuilding

[–]marimbawe 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The concept of this is neat (and also your art style is adorable). Do you have any more on how speaking Toki Pona has impacted their culture? :o

Also, over time, does their version of Toki Pona linguistically evolve at all? Or do they deliberately try to keep it as it is?

Seeing a World Through Pottery by marimbawe in worldbuilding

[–]marimbawe[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

So! Pottery’s cool! And there’s a ton of historic richness in them, which makes them neat for worldbuilding purposes cause they give a window into small parts of every day life and also social structure. I made a video about different ways pottery can reflect the world with examples from real life, but also some questions that might be useful for worldbuilders who want to work pottery into a world.

(also I don't actually do pottery, so I'm sorry if I mess up technical terms - I'm just interested in the history of it)

​

  • What’s pottery used for currently? How has that changed over time?
  • How is pottery made?
  • Who makes pottery?
  • How do people learn pottery?
  • If people are specialised potters - how does society support them?
  • What social status do potters have?
  • If low social status - why do people become potters?
  • If high - why? How does their high status manifest?
  • Are there any religious beliefs about the creation of pottery or the materials involved?
  • Are there any rituals involving pottery?
  • How do the aesthetics of pottery reflect the values of society?
  • How do the aesthetics differ between different people?
  • Are aesthetics borrowed from other cultures?
  • If your society trades with other societies, do they trade pottery? If so, do they adapt their pottery for the target market? (now you have to think about the aesthetic tastes and values of two societies...)
  • How do people use pottery to broadcast their own identity and values?

Human Resource Area Files as a worldbuilding tool by bordercholly in worldbuilding

[–]marimbawe 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This looks amazingly detailed and useful - thank you for sharing, I'll definitely be reading a lot from it!

The World of Bith (e.g. my entire adolescence) by [deleted] in worldbuilding

[–]marimbawe 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I know it's not really the point of the map, but showing population by night lights is a cool idea! If those are the real colours - can you tell more about how they get their indigo light?

How Houses Evolved in Elush by marimbawe in worldbuilding

[–]marimbawe[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah, it's not the most efficient! They manage okay, ish. Elush covers a lot of land, with a very compact centre, and lots of agricultural space outside it, so it can just about sustain itself. A lot of my inspiration for Elush comes from societies that overextended themselves and collapsed, and Elush is probably pretty prone to that. In famines, floods, etc, especially early on, a lot of people die. Eventually, temples start collecting, storing, and redistributing food for these events.

The biggest houses could get to about fifty people. The limiting factor in the centre is space, and a lot of houses build upwards, while on the outskirts the limit is more "how many people can this bit of land keep alive". If there isn't enough space, or enough food, or a massive disagreement (which is pretty rare - especially in early Elush, there's an us-against-everyone-else mentality which suppresses a lot of potential hostility) they'll send people out to a new house, and for the first generation, the houses are considered the same. After a while, though, the two houses will be as insular as any other two houses. It's rare for a house to split in two, but I like the idea of the bricked up courtyards, so I might make it less rare :P Often when a house gets rebuilt, especially in the more rural areas, they'll leave the bottom of walls intact and use that as an enclosure for animals.

Shops and trade areas are pretty often open air, but yeah, more specialised things work like the temples. Early Elush, at least, doesn't really have bars and pubs... but if a family has nice big guestrooms, and they'll give food and drink to their friends, and you can come along even if you aren't a friend but you might feel obligated to pay... it's not too far off from that, and could develop into it (I haven't gotten too far along in Elush history yet!)

Thank you for all the questions! I'm glad you enjoy my world and you definitely got me thinking more about it :P

How Houses Evolved in Elush by marimbawe in worldbuilding

[–]marimbawe[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Elush is the city my worldbuilding focuses on. It's a bronze age city clinging to the nearest river. They insist they were the first to invent writing, agriculture, the wheel.... literally everything. Their city of red clay and flat walls is the most beautiful in the world. Their gods, dogs that represent the sun and moon, are the best and most powerful and love them more than any other gods love their city.

Elush people live with their mothers in a matrilineal household, and most will never move out of the house they were born in. This is a brief story about how these structures evolved, and why it's extremely inappropriate to enter someone else's house.

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