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New and improved Traveler's Jhabber with a corresponding Traveler's Sign chart as an added bonus. Since half the main cast of Threshold People sign fluently (and one signs exclusively) and Earth plays no part in the universe I've made, I have to make that language from scratch too! Some worldbuilding tidbits under the read more.

Traveler's Jhabber is the official Universal Language of the LIPA (Laurelai Inter-Planetary Alliance), and anyone going through flight certification, from pilots to engineers to diplomats, is required to learn it. Traveler's Sign came a bit later and was also added to the required curriculum, though, unfortunately, most people stop using it once out of the academy unless it serves a practical purpose for them.

Logograms are exclusively for the written form of Traveler's Jhabber. You'll always find a logogram of one of the alien species directly next to proper nouns so you can keep track of who is what, who owns what, and where it all came from. The language-identifying logograms are used less frequently in everyday texts.

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An Amora Maran riding on the back of one of Frontier's ungulates, the plains irullo. Due to the huge amount of stress sitting upright can put on a Maran spine, their saddles are styled in a quadrupedal manner to maximize comfort.

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The most displeased, crunchiest man alive.

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Being the first non-native individual allowed into Aodilea in several centuries, Thu has spent the past five years cataloging the life and culture of the Audi to (with permission) show to colleagues on the outside. Sometimes they're not exactly up to professional standards, but not everything has to be business.

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Quadrupedal locomotion of mahl and marans.

Marans can walk bipedally, but it sacrifices both speed and comfort since the upright position causes a great amount of strain on their extra-long weasel spine.

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A quick spread on everyone's overall language proficiency.

Traveler's Jhabber and Classic Jhabber are essentially the same language, just different dialects. While vocabulary, grammar, and spelling are different, an individual who speaks Classic could clearly understand Traveler's and vice-versa as long as they have the patience to decipher each other's thick accents.

Tawleng is the official spoken language of the Sulengouti, which features high amounts of gesticulation. Thu's in training to serve as their inter-species ambassador during the plot of Threshold People.

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Portrait of two Sulengouti on the surface of their dying planet, Tinus.

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Where did Thu get that scar?

Thu generally likes to keep an aura of distant professionalism, but that doesn't stop her from messing with people from time to time.

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The remainder of the primary cast of my story, Threshold People. Featuring a weaselly engineer, a person who's seen too much, and Corrin's omi (sire parent).

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To date, the Mahl are the only species in the Laurelai Galaxy that utilize organic hybrid technology of any kind. Due to organic tech being a massive resource sink that requires a lot of time and patience to develop, it's understandably very unpopular. However, the Mahl find value in organic tech. This ranges from being a safer alternative to long-distance space travel to simple aesthetic appeal.

Mahl relationships with their tech is similar to an owner's relationship with their pets. Understandable, considering it would take over a decade of diligent care to grow organic components similar in size to the one shown above.

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Von's a Parsi hybrid mixed with a non-mammalian species and is considered a statistical impossibilitiy, which is something he's been reminded of his whole life. The only way he managed to survive into adulthood was people intervening, though, unfortunately, this wasn't always done with his best interests in mind.

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All of Laurelai's predominant languages in one handy graphic!

Travelers Jhabber is the 'standard' (or 'universal') language for all those who do authorized interplanetary space travel. It helps in having a common tongue between multiple species.

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Tenekaster is main metropolitan city in the LIPA Zone, which sits at the Frontier/Aodelia border.

Valatsïn became the first Audi to have a permanent residence there, making her pretty famous. They had to switch to terrestrial biology for the sake of convenience, but the Aodelian ocean is where her heart always lies. You can't separate an Audi from the ocean all life was born from!

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Places an offering a babies onto the table as I've been preoccupied with writing Threshold People for the past few weeks.

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saw something about hybrids? 👀 what's that about?

Parsi humans are the only species that seem to have any ability to hybridize with other species, but it's such a statistical miracle that a hybrid fetus would make it to term without self-aborting due to incompatible genetic features. More often then not the human egg just self-destructs on its own before any sort of fetal development begins in the first place. Needless to say, hybrids are extremely rare (think like a 1 in 10,000,000 chance of being viable), and each one has very unique medical issues that make finding specialized care very difficult even with Persis' incredibly robust healthcare system. No two hybrids are the same even if they share the same parent species combination.

I'll take the time to get into the medical disaster that is Von at a later date, because that dude's a mess.

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Anonymous asked: can we see some stuff about the planets you've introduced so far?

While I do have maps for the Maran homeworld and the Mahl twin planets, I'll just do Frontier for now since it's the most relevant due to it being the setting for Threshold People.

Frontier has a supercontinent with only two distinct countries, Frontier and Aodilea. Aodilea is purely Audi country, and due to the exceptionally small population they only inhabit the east and west coasts. Everything in between is wild country. For Frontier, it's been pimarily used as a home for displaced Marans affected by the 80-year war on Mara. Humans and Mahl have a place in the LIPA Zone, but Marans have the highest population overall.

Fun facts about the World Flag:

Only Frontier is technically part of the Laurelai Inter-Planetary Alliance. Partnerships with the Audi are still ongoing.

The inner seal is a mixture of the three Maran subspecies' main lines of commerce. The forging clamp represents the Cosí, the two needles represents the Èlais, and the closed mussel shell represents the Ysk. The white circle reperents the Amora, who consider themselves ghost children of Mara itself.

The flag is considered the first real symbol of collective peace and representation between the Maran subspecies, having an official truce in place nearly fifteen years sooner then Mara.

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Anonymous asked: In your "Threshold People" post, it said Thu was "Parsi (human)". Is this an alternate name for Earth humans or is she something completely different?

Persis is a separate planet from Earth all together! While Parsi (the name of their people) are humanoids evolved from primate ancestors, they have no relation to Earth-based humans. If you want a meta answer, I wanted humans but the freedom to make a planet from scratch. Thu's specifically from southern Baskan.

Fun facts about the World Flag:

Each line on the outer circle represents each country of Persis, with the color coordinating with which continent the country is in.

The black triangles emitting from the central emblem represent each planet Persis has colonised or immigrated into (Mara and Frontier on the bottom two, Roawei on the top)

The four 'comets' represent the alien species that have immigrated onto Persis (Cosí, Ysk, and Èlais Marans and Mahl collectively)

Only planets part of the Laurelai Inter-Planetary Alliance (LIPA) have official world flags. As of present, there's only four.