conlang.phundrak.com/docs/proto-nyqy/culture-and-people.org

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#+setupfile: ../headers
* Culture of the Proto-Ñyqy People
While the Proto-Ñyqy is the most well attested cultural and linguistic
family, the temporal distance between the Proto-Ñyqy people and us
makes it extremely hard to reconstruct anything. The various branches
of the Ñyqy family evolved over the past eight to twelve past
millenia, and some changed pretty drastically compared to their
ancestors. Therefore, do not expect an in-depth description of what
their society was like, but rather what could be considered an
overview compared to some other culture descriptions.
** The Name of the Language
First, it is important to know where the name of this language came
from. Since it has such a wide spread in this world, giving it a name
based on where its daughter branches went would give it a very long
name, or with a shorter one we would have very boring or limited names
--- the “Proto-Northern-Southern” language doesnt sound very good,
and the “Proto-Mojhal-Andelian” language leaves other major branches
out, such as the Pritian branch which we cannot ommit, just as the
Mojhal and Andelian branches. So, researchers went with the
reconstructed word for the inclusive /we/: {{{recon(ñyqy)}}}. It itself is a
coumpound word made up of {{{recon(ñy)}}}, which is the first person
pronoun, and {{{recon(qy)}}} which is sometimes used as a grammatical
morpheme indicating a plural --- it also means six, as we will later
on, the number system of the Proto-Ñyqy people was a bit complex.
** Geographical Location
It is often very hard to find the location of very old reconstructed
languages, such as the Proto-Mojhal language itself which location is
still not clearly known despite its name. But when it comes to the
Proto-Ñyqy people, we have a surprisingly good idea of where they
were: in the hot rainforests of the northern main continent, most
probably near nowadays Rhesodia. We know this thanks to some of their
reconstructed words which are typical for the other people that lived
or still live in hot rainforests, and these terms are older than the
split between the northern and southern groups. For instance, both
groups have a common ancestor word for /bongo/, {{{recon(zebec)}}}, as well as
for the /bonobo/, {{{recon(pœwec)}}}, which are only found in these
rainforests.
** Society
The Proto-Ñyqy was a matriachal society, led most likely by older
women who had an important spiritual role. This cultural trait is
found in numerous daughter branches of the Ñyqy family, and it would
be unreasonable to think a large amount of them would change in the
same way despite many branches being most likely disconnected from one
another, and the patriarchal branches almost all retained women as
their spiritual figurehead, even if political power passed in the
hands of men.
** Religion and Beliefs
This question might be the hardest of all to answer, as we can only
speculate based on the religions the daughter cultures of the Ñyqy
family had, as well as the few hints we can get through the Proto-Ñyqy
vocabulary. Through this keyhole, dusted by millenia of cultural and
linguistic changes, we can offer an initial answer. It seems the
Proto-Ñyqy reveered several gods, with however one god or goddes above
them called {{{recon(Qiisci)}}}, that might have been to them some form of
queen or some sort of god for the gods themselves. We can find for
instance this figure in the Mojhal patheon under the name of Kísce.
Other than the parental figure of this divinity, their role is vastly
unknown.
** Personal Names :noexport: