In the Shade of the Baobabs

leopard9

Future updates...

Probably won't be until May. I'm working on a few sections of the TL simultaneously and I can tell that they'll need a lot of work and refinement before I post them. And I want to have my outline cleaned up and planned out some more so I can start setting up pieces for future sections. As well, things are getting super real at university with the end of the year and final exams and papers being due soon so I should probably give a little more of my focus to those :D. And then after the next two-three posts, I'll need to see where I want the story to continue, if it continues.

Also, let me know what you'd like to see down the line.
 

leopard9

Orisha91 said:
I'd like to know how the Fulani, Wolof and Tuaregs have been affected by a surviving Carthage and earlier rise of the Mande peoples.
Click to expand...

Future posts will be dealing with the Wolof and Fulani and mention how they've been impacted. Compared to their OTL counterparts at this time, the Tuaregs are more populous, better armed, and herd giant eland and camels. Those hired by Ansongo's government provide guidance and protection for the massive caravans that cross the Great Desert. The Ansongo caravan merchants in turn pay a special tax to the government bureaucrats to continue funding the protection. Ansongo hires out entire tribes to do these things. Of course, a core of Ansongo soldiers travel with the caravans to keep the Tuareg guards honest. Of the Tuaregs who don't have diplomatic relations with Ansongo, they have little incentive to keep the system running. Life is hard in the Desert and every little bit of material goods help and so they'll raid caravans when they can or demand tribute to allow safe passage.

Ansongo is nearing the top of its game and so thinks of the Desert Tuaregs as alternately useful and troublesome savages. The Tuaregs for their part regard Ansongo citizens as soft but have a healthy respect for its military, which has little trouble wiping out Tuareg tribes that grow too bold and few qualms about selling the survivors into bondage and assimilating them into the small Tuareg population that calls Ansongo home.
 

Orisha91

leopard9 said:
Future posts will be dealing with the Wolof and Fulani and mention how they've been impacted. Compared to their OTL counterparts at this time, the Tuaregs are more populous, better armed, and herd giant eland and camels. Those hired by Ansongo's government provide guidance and protection for the massive caravans that cross the Great Desert. The Ansongo caravan merchants in turn pay a special tax to the government bureaucrats to continue funding the protection. Ansongo hires out entire tribes to do these things. Of course, a core of Ansongo soldiers travel with the caravans to keep the Tuareg guards honest. Of the Tuaregs who don't have diplomatic relations with Ansongo, they have little incentive to keep the system running. Life is hard in the Desert and every little bit of material goods help and so they'll raid caravans when they can or demand tribute to allow safe passage.

Ansongo is nearing the top of its game and so thinks of the Desert Tuaregs as alternately useful and troublesome savages. The Tuaregs for their part regard Ansongo citizens as soft but have a healthy respect for its military, which has little trouble wiping out Tuareg tribes that grow too bold and few qualms about selling the survivors into bondage and assimilating them into the small Tuareg population that calls Ansongo home.
Click to expand...

Cool. I'll stay tuned.
 

leopard9

Thesaurus Rex said:
So do the elands get a unique name in this TL? Or are the Dutch still going to refer to them as elk?
Click to expand...

The Mande would probably refer to the giant eland ITTL as "baabinoo minano" which roughly translates into "grand horned antelope" which just as OTL, distinguishes giant eland based on the size of its horns. It might be colloquially referred to "baabinoo", or "grand/great horned".

twovultures said:
With a POD this far back, we can really play with the linguistics.

Personally I suggest that TTL's common name for eland be chozzwozzers.
Click to expand...

All right, I can tell you've played knifey spoony before.
 
Thesaurus Rex

Thesaurus Rex

Hey, that's kinda catchy really.

Now we can use that to play hot potato with language transfers and get some variations, and maybe even make an etymological 'path' for the word's journey. I myself don't really know much at all about African languages, though, but the languages between the Mande and the Mediterranean would seem to keep the word mostly unchanged. As the word reaches Numidia (either through word of mouth, written manuscripts or the actual sale of animals) it'll come into contact with Berber languages, which also would seem to keep the pronunciation (they have the required consonants/vowels as far as I can tell), but also a bit of Punic and Latin. In Punic it might be written something like BABNW or perhaps BABYNW (transliterating of course), and the middle 'i' could even wind up being dropped phonetically over the course of time. Latinizing this could wind up as babinus/babinos, or babnus/babnos if the 'i' is dropped. Things can potentially continue to go crazy from there, but because the use of this word in the temperate clime of Europe is going to remain restricted to bestiary manuscripts and the like realistically it won't undergo much change. If it evolves like it does IOTL, the French could spell it babinou, Dutch babinoe, the Spanish might opt for bab(i)no/babina (making it functional with gender inflections), and the same for the Italian language, babnú if not. Babinu/babnu might wind up the dominant spelling in most of the other European languages.

Be cool to see what someone much more linguistically proficient can come up with, I probably did a very crap job. I do like 'babnu', though.

Of course, its original definition would become inaccurate as many breeds of "baabinoo"'s horns would decrease in size (or even disappear in some breeds) as an unfortunate side effect of domestication, but by the time the word gets tossed around between languages it won't matter.
 

leopard9

Thesaurus Rex said:
Hey, that's kinda catchy really.

Now we can use that to play hot potato with language transfers and get some variations, and maybe even make an etymological 'path' for the word's journey. I myself don't really know much at all about African languages, though, but the languages between the Mande and the Mediterranean would seem to keep the word mostly unchanged. As the word reaches Numidia (either through word of mouth, written manuscripts or the actual sale of animals) it'll come into contact with Berber languages, which also would seem to keep the pronunciation (they have the required consonants/vowels as far as I can tell), but also a bit of Punic and Latin. In Punic it might be written something like BABNW or perhaps BABYNW (transliterating of course), and the middle 'i' could even wind up being dropped phonetically over the course of time. Latinizing this could wind up as babinus/babinos, or babnus/babnos if the 'i' is dropped. Things can potentially continue to go crazy from there, but because the use of this word in the temperate clime of Europe is going to remain restricted to bestiary manuscripts and the like realistically it won't undergo much change. If it evolves like it does IOTL, the French could spell it babinou, Dutch babinoe, the Spanish might opt for bab(i)no/babina (making it functional with gender inflections), and the same for the Italian language, babnú if not. Babinu/babnu might wind up the dominant spelling in most of the other European languages.

Be cool to see what someone much more linguistically proficient can come up with, I probably did a very crap job. I do like 'babnu', though.

Of course, its original definition would become inaccurate as many breeds of "baabinoo"'s horns would decrease in size (or even disappear in some breeds) as an unfortunate side effect of domestication, but by the time the word gets tossed around between languages it won't matter.
Click to expand...

Thanks for saying so! And also thanks for your suggestions. I know next to nothing about linguistic tendencies about different languages except that "Ki" prefix denotes a language and "Ba" denotes a people group in Bantu languages so any tips are well appreciated. The linguistics of TTL Europe are going to be fairly different than IOTL due to Punic influence and remaining Celtic influence.

I wouldn't worry too much about domestic (technically tamed) giant elands as a whole losing their horns. They use them for breaking off tree branches so they serve a practical purpose besides competing for mates and they're used for defending against the many predators of Africa. Also by this point the giant elands horns are strongly associated with masculinity, so a true man can't very well have hornless elands now can he? I can see the shape of the eland's horns changing, breeders selecting more curved horns instead of the ones that point straight back. And I've been playing around with their military usage. Maybe blacksmiths devise iron or steel holsters for the giant eland horns and soldiers train the elands to gore enemy troops when in battle but I'm unsure about the practically of such a practice, especially in an Africa that still deals with the perennial problem of a lack of people.

What I can see really differentiating domesticated giant eland from their wild counterparts would be their coat colors, much like OTL African cow breeds (some of which have very impressive horns). The wild giant eland's coat ranges from reddish-brown to chestnut with vertical thin white stripes on the back of the animal. As humans begin to play a role in giant eland breeding who knows what types of coat colors would occur? One farmer might breed two elands together to get an eland with very thick white stripes, another might specifically buy an unusually red giant eland to use for breeding stock.

Butterflies on top of butterflies...
 
Last edited:
Thesaurus Rex

Thesaurus Rex

leopard9 said:
The linguistics of TTL Europe are going to be fairly different than IOTL due to Punic influence and remaining Celtic influence.
Click to expand...
Oh my. :eek:
leopard9 said:
I wouldn't worry too much about domestic (technically tamed) giant elands as a whole losing their horns. They use them for breaking off tree branches so they serve a practical purpose besides competing for mates and they're used for defending against the many predators of Africa. Also by this point the giant elands horns are strongly associated with masculinity, so a true man can't very well have hornless elands now can he? I can see the shape of the eland's horns changing, breeders selecting more curved horns instead of the ones that point straight back. And I've been playing around with their military usage. Maybe blacksmiths devise iron or steel holsters for the giant eland horns and soldiers train the elands to gore enemy troops when in battle but I'm unsure about the practically of such a practice, especially in an Africa that still deals with the perennial problem of a lack of people.
Click to expand...
Hmm, do the horns of OTL domestic animals have such purposes? It's true that a lot of African (and elsewhere) cattle breeds sport some rather huge horns, but then again these aren't exactly riding animals. I can probably see some draught breeds having some rather outlandish horns. Eland also seem to fill the cattle niche* fairly well, especially when you look at a picture of some notably large adult bulls. Babnu bred for this purpose could have some huge horns. For riding, I think the very large horns of some individuals would just wind up getting in the way, in various ways, for the most part. The first thing that might happen in terms of breeding (for riding animals) would likely be reduced horns rather than curved ones. It probably won't happen until a bit later down the road, though, because an eland's horns aren't really long enough to be dangerous to the rider so much as a bit of a hassle, and shorter-horned varieties would be more preferable for ridng. You're right in that they probably won't go away for the most part, and an eland probably could be trained to gore (and as such the horns would be at a sufficient length), but it would just be to defend itself in combat. Still, given several centuries it's more than likely we'll see some really reduced-horn varieties and even polled breeds. Riding horns certainly won't be at the maximum size we see in the wild.

leopard9 said:
What I can see really differentiating domesticated giant eland from their wild counterparts would be their coat colors, much like OTL African cow breeds (some of which have very impressive horns). The wild giant eland's coat ranges from reddish-brown to chestnut with vertical thin white stripes on the back of the animal. As humans begin to play a role in giant eland breeding who knows what types of coat colors would occur? One farmer might breed two elands together to get an eland with very thick white stripes, another might specifically buy an unusually red giant eland to use for breeding stock.

Butterflies on top of butterflies...
Click to expand...

Well, wild-type horses and donkeys had some stripes too (and can still be seen on some primitive breeds). These are termed 'primitive markings' and are rarely seen. That's not to say eland stripes will go away, but it gives a clue. Thicker stripes and different striping patterns sound fun. It all just has to do with how the eland's genes handle striping, though. Red-furred morphs sound really interesting and might be a first order of business of sorts as far as domestic fur colors go, along with the usual white, melanistic and piebald coats. We might see some coat morphs seen in the wild pop up too, like a dun coloring with a bright patch of red hair on the head and possibly mane.

The fur itself is something of interest too, and we could see variations similar to goats (or some cattle). Being bovines their fur is softer than most (e.g pigs, most deer), and from what I can tell from pictures it seems to get naturally fuzzy at times. Out in the hot regions of Africa, there's no chance of this changing. But if they spread to more temperate regions they might develop shaggier coats, maybe a longer mane. The dewlap might get furrier or reduced. In some places the coats could get so thick so as to be used for fiber like Highland cattle or many long-haired goat breeds. Cashmere eland. That's something to think about.


* I found this picture of a bulky eland bull with lop-ears like a domestic animal. How weird is that?
 

leopard9

I'm still working on this TL and I had this random thought. The Mandinka have been keeping some type of written record since the time of Kebba when giant elands weren't tamed up until The Flowering Era where giant elands are apart of everyday life. Meaning that there will be concrete documentation on how the domestication of a large pack animal affects population size, the economy, gender roles, and warfare, something that before anthropologists have only been able to guess at. The historical documents of the Niger River region could be very valuable for that insight alone ITTL.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Top