So a long while ago there was some talk about how barebones Exalted's approach to language and its role in society tends to be, with Autochthonia being especially single-note due to the demands of attempted-monoculture, so I took it upon myself to try and sort things out in some interesting way. I'm no linguist, but hopefully this adds some much needed additional texture to things!
---
Autochthonia and the Language of Machines:
Though it derives heavily out of Old Realm roots, the Autochthonian dialect shows the scars of almost five millennia of iterative advancement. With new technologies and discoveries ushered in from the Great Maker's internal landscape, existing words, terms and phrases dating from the First Realm of Creation needed to be adjusted or redefined to suit changing social and environmental circumstances. Yet this progress has not come without a measure of censure for seeking to so frivolously meddle with the divine tongue of the Maker's design and machines of his invention. Pervasive desires to conform all member-nations of the Octet to a single means of expression under the onus of shared faith and community, set against differing cultural values and class tensions has split the modern vernacular along tiers of complexity and adherence to the "sanctity" of Old Realm parlance. What can be termed 'Autochthonian' as a result broadly divides into three overlapping categories of increasing prominence among native speakers: Devout, Standard and Tones.
Aging Foundations:
As the least valued by the populace at large, Old Realm has primarily become a liturgical language and script, currently known, read and spoken only by the Tripartite elites in a functional capacity as those who deal with the oldest archival records and supernatural forces which guide Octet society and the larger world around it. Usage is highly formalized in the public sphere, often in the form of pithy quotes or parables lifted from the older Tomes of the Great Maker during sermons or brandished as ceremonial koans at civic assemblies. On the whole, the original meanings are long since lost as the constituent concepts fell out of common knowledge or relevance, but there still remains a certain high-thinking romanticism to speaking grandly of the contextless unknowable, like navigating by an unseen horizon or seasonal harvests under the transits of celestial bodies.
Orators of the Theomachracy are the only members of the higher classes trained in Old Realm with any degree of fluency for this reason, as the administrative Olgotary largely askew the impassioned writ of religious doctrine, and the Sodalities need only specific ritual words or phrases of power to conduct necessary maintenance practices and realignment tasks. Which means while Old Realm can articulate the name "Autochthon," and the word "primordial" exists to encompass his nature, the Great Maker is traditionally never represented as either one out of respect for his vaunted station. The Theomachracy decrees his being is too vast, too wildly varied that he could be dismissively spoken of as a cohesive "everything which is," except as a form of divine pluralism. One would sooner call water a close relative for fire, simply for existing as shared elements within his mechanical shell.
Similarly "Autochthonia" is not a title which appears anywhere within the oldest texts or common liturgical usage to denote the Realm of Brass and Shadow. The closest inclusive name spanning what territories would become the Octet nations, the disparate Reaches and dangerous polar systems of the Farthest Spans, was first spoken by the Divine Ministers at the world's inception, inviting the beleaguered mortal refugees into what roughly translates to be "the Maker's sanctuary." When this solace, which the King of All Craftsmen founded within himself and then bestowed to his faithful, absolutely must be encapsulated into a core idea, the most tactful summary of 'Sanctuary' is used to describe the protective benevolence of the primordial's current arrangement of form.
When it falls upon the clerics to make an appeal to the agents of the Divine Ministers, the request is formulated together one piece at a time to execute the proper inflections and pronunciation of holy syntax. These prayers can take days or weeks to compose in full, calling in trained interpreters and diplomats when more nuance is required, owed a special kind of reverence as literally imparting a message in the word of the subgods. On the chance a reply comes to one of these blunt and utilitarian prayers, either as a prophetic vision or firsthand visitation of a spiritual messenger, the Old Realm response received becomes recorded by all those in attendance and poured over at-length, to tease out all possible meanings issued from the divine will.
The Will and the Way:
When speaking the Devout tongue of Autochthonian, all notions, concepts and entities are explained at-length in objective detail using the equivalent Old Realm adaptations without complex jargon or slang, taking on a legalistic and educational bearing best suited to a lecture hall, courtroom or international negotiation. Among all other languages spoken within Sanctuary, Devout carries the most reverent and respectful approach, permitted to be florid and ornate when applicable to best encompass the Great Maker's majesty, expertise and dogma. Technical specifications are recounted like hymns, and tensions frequently rise between the Sodalts and Theomachracy clerics when the latest innovations require the historic blueprints undergo revision to keep current with an advancing way of life.
Unique or strange ideas and technologies are elaborated on as though the listener were being introduced to it for the first time, such as the pneumatic tram lines which underpin major civic arteries defined as "a fluid-driven rail-link transport container network," causing even the simplest requests to be verbose litanies of features and descriptions before the intended subject is ever addressed. Contracts and social law are also codified in Devout for its natural legalese, leading it to be regarded by the Populat as "the Language of Rules" and aped as a means of adding an additional air of formality and respectfulness to speech when addressing both spiritual matters and members of higher social classes.
Directed towards the divine and mechanical systems less than about mortal activities, Devout Autochthonian holds no pronouns to distinguish between entities and instead the speaker relates to generalized groups of objects or positions of social rank collectively before focusing downward. This is not simply right and proper, but theologically correct, as the Great Maker's distinction lies not in strength, but his nature of containing boundless multitudes. There is no higher power than Autochthon within his self-made world, and every god below him is a mere facet of his unimpeachable divinity. So as above in the hierarchy of souls, all things below are facets of a greater classification.
Every wrench named is an axiom for all wrenches, to be used and understood in the fashion of the ideal wrench, and each worker is born a worker foremost, to live as a worker and pass into the Radiant Amphora as a worker before any distinctiveness in age, biology or education and skill come into question. While cold and detached from the essential value of individuals under the Great Maker's estimation of worth, Devout decrees there is neither male nor female, old or young, national citizenship or ethnicity, simply classification of specialized role and measurable capabilities to fulfill that role.
Adages are issued as societal standards to be upheld, instructions given become universal applications, and orders are spoken as intended for entire crews to follow. As a result, the focus on a "we" or "all of you" makes it clear when any request would be foolish or unreasonable, in how it could not be asked of every single member of the mentioned group equally. Personal names are denoted after occupation or rank only for the sake of specificity, and referring to the self, in the form of "I," simply requires not including any external entity or object. Having spoken at all implies the speaker has chosen to present herself as an authority by default, social etiquette which strictly encourages dutiful silence in those lacking knowledgeable decisiveness for the situation.
Assembly-Line Dancing:
As a contrast to the lengthy expositions of administration and religious value, Standard Autochthonian is the clipped and informal language used by the majority of the Octet in everyday life. Commonly called "Shoptok," it is derived out of Devout but features an abundance of shorthand jargon, specialized workplace vocabulary and sound-symbolic words to fill in the absence of eloquence with pragmatic utility. Like an abridged textbook, Shoptok thrives entirely on conveying ideas and duties rapidly and unadorned by excessive or ambiguous messaging, yet allowing enough nuance in expression to illustrate minor differences between work methods or directives.
Truncated or compound words and titles are the norm, with tools and machines broadly labelled by identical functions than features or design, easily articulating orders or advice even in the dense and loud confines of the factory floor. Especially exotic machines are referred to entirely by the closest vocal approximation of the sounds made during operation, which extends to include routines like ritual purification or hearing protection needing to be performed beyond simple operation and upkeep. Similar exclamations are also inserted to express things which do not make any noise at all, such as alongside commonly pantomimed gestures, emotions and psychological states, usually in rhythmic barks of nonverbal sounds. The use of protective or ceremonial face and body coverings, loud industrial noise and obscuring light or smoke can obliterate the nuances of vocal pitch and inflection, gesture and facial expression across long distances, leaving volume and audible signaling as the sole means for transmitting a message properly.
Implementing the practice quickly reflected back onto analysis of historical and theological texts, where old records and the parables within the Tome of the Great Maker were originally written without such extraneous emotive details, preferring to focus on events, conclusions and necessary statistics. The effect was profound, such that the prevailing majority of performance arts and stagecraft within the Octet now involve interweaving and interpreting these texts in new forms, continually re-imagining or injecting the traditional stories with missing emotional contexts to humanize and enliven the material for modern generations of audiences. Some popular forms of interpretative theatre exclude anyother spoken language, describing ancient tragedies and thrillers silently through the use of nonverbal spoken-emotions, emphasized through dramatic lighting or costuming effects alongside the physical acting. The audience is compelled to invest themselves into the characters exaggerated feats and passions, tracing the plot of the narrative conveyed through human feeling rather than informed of it through dialogue.
For all this variety in self-expression, Shoptok is regularly overseen by Tripartite linguists to scrutinize, update and adapt the modern lexicon so that the overall meanings and intent behind vital instructions remain clear and timeless. Because regardless of age or underlying context, Shoptok vocabulary is primarily used for imparting those directions through pictographic signage and safety glyphs which pervade all throughout the eight nations. When a word or idea is deemed necessary for public consumption as to be folded into the established terminology, it is also given a contextually-distinctive glyph inspired by its closest similar concepts, so simple exposure is all that is needed for drawing equivalence and understanding.
A sincere effort is made on behalf of the Tripartite to rarely mete out significant alterations to Shoptok canon, often even the most minor clerical revisions progressing slowly across generations. But this conservative oversight has purpose, to help insure the unbroken line of continuity remains strong between old standards practiced by experienced shift-chiefs, and the streamlined and modern training issued to a journeyman aide freshly entering the workforce. Weeding out potential conflicts and incongruities in terminology or glyph legibility is for the scholarly elites to debate until it passes final muster, since no single word alone is worth distracting manufactory work crews from engaging with more immediately valuable labors to troubleshoot through seemingly unparsable orders.
Street Conformance:
While the populace within the Octet run the gamut between Devout and Shoptok during daily activities, alternating as social needs and work requirements demand, the use of Tone is where the real culture underlying Autochthonia emerges. Likened to a provincial accent, Tone-speaking is the nonconformist slang, neologisms, traditional jargon, and corruptions of Shoptok that indelibly form outside of designated workspaces. Each nation, city and even neighborhood carries its own Tone, reflecting the values and interests of its people, varying from the rigorous plethora of terms used within Yugash to respectfully note blood-parentage and close familial relationships, the hierarchical rank-structure within Estasia's Militate class, to the sprawling merchant's cant of Claslat to support the trade of glot currency for personal services.
Though the vocabulary of glyph signage may be limited, Tones typically attribute other meanings, leaving foreign visitors baffled at the nonsensical word-salad like "bathroom-freight-danger" or "temple-flammable-crossing gate" splashed without care along barracks walls and personal effects. Oftentimes Tone manifests simply as a form of local fashion, such as the improvised "Ottish" circling around the higher ranks of the Yugashan leadership as the plans for Project Razor reach the final stages. Old Realm script fragments and idioms pulled from archival records which once peppered organizational meetings have begun to filter down and capture the imaginations of administrative staff, who now promote reintroduction of these intangibles to state discourse as inspirational buzzwords.
Some forms of Tone exist entirely to ease workloads in ways not taught by Tripartite educational models, comprising helpful mnemonics for quick memorization, modified glyphs to familiarize new or reassigned workers with arrays of exceedingly similar subjects, and serve as translation or conversion guides. Sometimes these ad-hoc lesson plans catch the ear of a clever Tripartite member, leading to its proposal and eventual integration into Shoptok and common educational doctrine, but this becomes more of a rarity as social tensions rise and the state vies against the Populat over which body has a more thorough understanding of what its people need to function optimally.
Officially the use of informal Tone or unauthorized glyph modifications within the workplace is severely frowned upon by the Tripartite as vulgar, subject to censure by a presiding authority for disruption, and risk of corrective inquiry by Olgotary functionaries for continued misbehavior and "uncalled-for trouble-making." Such is the social pressure felt that some especially insular communities, like the infamously secretive nation of Kamak or the traditionalist faith-sects of Sova, reserve some forms of Tone exclusively for barracks life among peers, unheard anywhere else. In practice however, enforcement of these minor breaches of Tripartite mandate are minimal at best, as there is no living person in all of the Octet who does not speak some form of provincial, societal or clandestine Tone when she must leave her work behind.
