The Precursors of Toruangi - Episode 1

The Mind is Like a House.

It was a warm, moderately windy day. The Kailan plateau dropped into the vast forest spread far beyond the horizon, with the Asta mountain chain powerfully looming to the west. At the edge of the plateau in the lotus position sat Lotian - a 19-year-old youth of the Toruangi clan living on the Kailan. The wind tugged at his long, black hair and brushed across his bluish skin - an appearance typical to Toruangi.

Lotian was meditating - his thoughts departing his mind with the quiet grace of a leaf letting go, carried by the wind from the trees at the cliff’s edge into the vastness beneath the Kailan. Among Toruangi, it is known that letting go of your thoughts creates the space for new ones, and every member of the clan is taught meditation from an early age. Elder Masuhan would say that our mind is like a house. We, the house owners and keepers, have the responsibility to clean it from the dust and old, weak furniture. Then we have space in the house and can place new, better furnishings in it.

Lotian meditated for hours - and didn’t notice as the sun, that bathes the land in its bluish hue, had started to set. Its descent bled the sky through unseen prisms, scattering the blue radiance into a gradient of deep indigo and pale silver. The horizon took on a subtle warmth of faint violet and green - colors born when the denser air at the edge bent and filtered the light more harshly. To the Toruangi, it was the daily hymn of the heavens, a changing of robes. The plateau and forest drank this twilight glow, until earth and sky alike seemed woven of dusk itself. As the land was descending into darkness, a loud, fluting cry embraced the twilight - the call of a taraya, a majestic hunter bird of the night, declaring the start of its hunt. Only now was Lotian awakened from his meditation; it was time to return to the village.

For the readers who desire to learn the tongue of Toruangi, below is the short language reference.

Toruangi Language Reference

Pluralization

• Add “i” to the end of a noun to indicate plural:

  • Ang → person

  • Angi → people

• If a noun ends with a vowel, add “yi” instead of “i”:

  • Taraya → Taraya bird (singular)

  • Tarayayi → many Taraya birds

Word Construction

• Nouns can be combined with other nouns or descriptors to form compound words, creating new terms that reflect logical relationships:

  • Toru → the river Toru

  • Toruangi → people of the river Toru (Toru + Ang + i = Toru people)

  • Hol → home

  • Holi → homes

  • Toruholi → homes of the river Toru (Toru + Hol + i = “Toru homes”)

• This modular approach allows any base noun to be extended with additional elements to create meaningful, context-specific terms.

Pronunciation Guide (IPA Reference)

The Toruangi language is written phonetically, with each letter corresponding directly to a sound. Stress usually falls on the penultimate syllable, unless otherwise noted.

Vowels

• a → [a] (as in father)

• e → [ɛ] (as in bed)

• i → [i] (as in machine)

• o → [o] (as in fort)

• u → [u] (as in rule)

Consonants

• p → [p] (as in spin)

• t → [t] (as in stop)

• k → [k] (as in skill)

• b → [b] (as in bat)

• d → [d] (as in dog)

• g → [ɡ] (as in go)

• m → [m] (as in man)

• n → [n] (as in net)

• ng → [ŋ] (as in sing; may appear word-initially, e.g., ngara [ŋara])

• s → [s] (as in see)

• h → [h] (as in hat)

• l → [l] (as in leaf)

• r → [ɾ] (a tapped/flapped r, as in Spanish pero)

Diphthongs

• ay / ai → [aɪ] (as in time)

• au → [aʊ] (as in cow)

• ei → [ɛɪ] (as in say)