Lands of Ice and Mice: An Alternate History of the Thule
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What about liberties with wildlife? One of whaler crew is a naturalist collecting specimens of rare birds, and nearly gets into trouble trying to steal a pair with distinctive bright blue feet, which happen to be someone's pet.
Cue Brian Blessed bursting into the room bellowing:
"Take your hands off my wife's boobies!'
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Holy crap, this is still ongoing? I have a lot of catching up to do. I haven't read this since...2015 I think.
I've always been amazed by the industriousness of the IRL Inuit. From their material technologies -- kayaks, wetsuits, harpoons, weaponry (I think I remember seeing a picture of a crossbow somewhere too), to their planning and architectural knowledge they put in their winter homes and igluit, it's all such an amazing conquest of the frozen north, making the most out of it in a way most people would barely manage. It's so fun to see that cranked up to 11 in this TL.
I've always been amazed by the industriousness of the IRL Inuit. From their material technologies -- kayaks, wetsuits, harpoons, weaponry (I think I remember seeing a picture of a crossbow somewhere too), to their planning and architectural knowledge they put in their winter homes and igluit, it's all such an amazing conquest of the frozen north, making the most out of it in a way most people would barely manage. It's so fun to see that cranked up to 11 in this TL.
A quick note, and a bit of shameless self promotion.
No, I haven't abandoned this timeline, and I do have places I want to take this and others.
But real life does get in the way. Anyhow, a couple of developments during my absence.... "ahem"
My novel, "The Mermaid's Tale" has been short listed for the Kevin Van Rooy Award for Genre literature. Who is Kevin Van Rooy? I have no idea, but I'm nominated for a literary award, which is nice. Apparently, there's a plaque and a cash prize and everything. (Available as paperback, ebook and audiobook at Five Rivers Publishing, or through Amazon. If you go Amazon, include my name, Valdron, or you'll never ever find it)
Also, I just this week finished my follow up novel "The Luck" technically a prequel to the Mermaid's Tale, and delivered all 136,000 words to the publisher. It's been hell trying to find the time to finish it, and this place has been a running distraction. So I'm happy to get that done.
Maybe there's a career for me as a real writer, who knows.
Unfortunately, many many more real world projects demanding my attention, so I might not be around as much. But this is on the list... Promise!
No, I haven't abandoned this timeline, and I do have places I want to take this and others.
But real life does get in the way. Anyhow, a couple of developments during my absence.... "ahem"
My novel, "The Mermaid's Tale" has been short listed for the Kevin Van Rooy Award for Genre literature. Who is Kevin Van Rooy? I have no idea, but I'm nominated for a literary award, which is nice. Apparently, there's a plaque and a cash prize and everything. (Available as paperback, ebook and audiobook at Five Rivers Publishing, or through Amazon. If you go Amazon, include my name, Valdron, or you'll never ever find it)
Also, I just this week finished my follow up novel "The Luck" technically a prequel to the Mermaid's Tale, and delivered all 136,000 words to the publisher. It's been hell trying to find the time to finish it, and this place has been a running distraction. So I'm happy to get that done.
Maybe there's a career for me as a real writer, who knows.
Unfortunately, many many more real world projects demanding my attention, so I might not be around as much. But this is on the list... Promise!
This it? I found it by refining to 'Science Fiction and Fantasy'
Wishlisted. You've got some pretty good reviews there!
This it? I found it by refining to 'Science Fiction and Fantasy'
Wishlisted. You've got some pretty good reviews there!
Cool!! That's it!
Way back on page 35, but given linguistics is my specialty, I had to give some some late input/commentary.
The Inuit languages, at first glance anyway, seem to be a poor fit to a syllabic writing system, they have far too fluid vowels, too many diphthongs, and entirely too many consonant clusters. Looking a bit deeper, the vowels... aren't really all that important to a syllabary, if people pronounce them differently twenty miles away, so what? As long as they're pronouncing all of their vowels differently, it won't matter, and given that all the modern Inuit languages seem to have an underlying system of just three vowels, it's unlikely there'd be overlap.
The consonant clusters, in themselves, aren't an insurmountable problem, syllabaries the world over have come up with solutions, but when exposed to an alphabet, an alphabet is often what evolves, unless there is some critical cultural disconnect, or incompatibility. OTOH, humans seem to gravitate towards syllabic or systems like syllabaries, unless the language is incompatible, English being a notable example, allowing for truly horrendous consonant clusters, especially if compared to Japanese, whose syllable structure is (C)V(n). Incidentally, it turns out, in Kalaalisut at least, that the phonotactics are simpler than they first appear, most syllable-final consonants tend to merge and geminate the first sound of the next syllable, or otherwise assimilate to the following sound, I imagine the few exceptions are frequent, like Japanese /n/, languages tend to use rarer features more frequently if they have them, the English /đ/ and /θ/ sounds being extremely high frequency, and Indic languages highly prevalent retroflex consonants being key examples. Overall, it seems like a syllabary should work, despite my initial skepticism.
The Inuit languages, at first glance anyway, seem to be a poor fit to a syllabic writing system, they have far too fluid vowels, too many diphthongs, and entirely too many consonant clusters. Looking a bit deeper, the vowels... aren't really all that important to a syllabary, if people pronounce them differently twenty miles away, so what? As long as they're pronouncing all of their vowels differently, it won't matter, and given that all the modern Inuit languages seem to have an underlying system of just three vowels, it's unlikely there'd be overlap.
The consonant clusters, in themselves, aren't an insurmountable problem, syllabaries the world over have come up with solutions, but when exposed to an alphabet, an alphabet is often what evolves, unless there is some critical cultural disconnect, or incompatibility. OTOH, humans seem to gravitate towards syllabic or systems like syllabaries, unless the language is incompatible, English being a notable example, allowing for truly horrendous consonant clusters, especially if compared to Japanese, whose syllable structure is (C)V(n). Incidentally, it turns out, in Kalaalisut at least, that the phonotactics are simpler than they first appear, most syllable-final consonants tend to merge and geminate the first sound of the next syllable, or otherwise assimilate to the following sound, I imagine the few exceptions are frequent, like Japanese /n/, languages tend to use rarer features more frequently if they have them, the English /đ/ and /θ/ sounds being extremely high frequency, and Indic languages highly prevalent retroflex consonants being key examples. Overall, it seems like a syllabary should work, despite my initial skepticism.
??? You do realize that Inuktitut is written in syllabics iOTL?
No. No I did not. Only native American languages I have any firsthand knowledge of are Ojibwe and some of the other tribes in Michigan. Other than that, I look things up. I didn't even know that Inuktitut had a written form, I was mostly looking at Kalaalisut, especially since the events were taking place in Greenland. Thank you for enlightening me.
According to a certain online encyclopedia the Inuktitut syllabary is based on Cree.
Been a long time. Are semi-domesticated walruses, sea cows and flightless auks still a thing?
I remember bantering about the Thule being essentially ancient versions of the whole "Pleistocene Park" deal. Hyper-aware of both animals and plants as possible domesticates and as general ecosystem enrichers. Those Shamans yo!
I remember bantering about the Thule being essentially ancient versions of the whole "Pleistocene Park" deal. Hyper-aware of both animals and plants as possible domesticates and as general ecosystem enrichers. Those Shamans yo!
The reason I say this is because while agriculture can work anywhere, the effort expended versus the return isn't going to be the same. A very smart and shrewd shaman may realize that intensive animal husbandry may pay off. It would be a big investment, bbut the pay-off would be HUGE. The modern Artic lands should have enormous herds and be mosaic steppes. Tundra is actually man-made as we all know.
http://blog.ted.com/fighting-the-growing-deserts-with-livestock-allan-savory-at-ted2013/
http://blog.ted.com/fighting-the-growing-deserts-with-livestock-allan-savory-at-ted2013/
It seems like the Sea Thule are ending up as pieces of the more inner European Economic system. I think its not unreasonable for any North Sea industrialization to include them as they are a group which has low agricultural productivity lands. This seems quite likely for Svalbard and less likely further out.
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One of the features of Thule cultures at this stage is a certain amount of social flexibility between hunter/gathering, nomadic and semi-nomadic herding economies, and horticulture/agriculture economies.
The returns on Thule Agriculture are relatively poor compared to other Agricultural areas. But they're much richer than alternatives. The choice is often a feature of the length of development and the ability of lands to sustain use. So for instance, we saw a wave of agriculture moving into the Archipelago, failing, and a herding culture eventually dominating. In Greenland, we kept seeing transitions back and forth.
Thanks for the links and counter-links on Allan Savoury. A lot to think about there.
I've seen this timeline a few times and never gave any thought to it. Then it popped up in another discord so I thought to read it. I remember reading Jared's Land of Red and Gold timeline and I say its quite similar in its plausibility and yet major impacts. Definitely proven to be one of my favorite timelines. Quite impressive indeed.
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