Monkhayu

From Almeopedia

Monkhayic

The Monkhayu [mon 'xa ju] are a Monkhayic people, now restricted to southwestern Dhekhnam.

Etymology: 'the great people', Caď. Moȟnaro, Ver. muhnar; Cuêzi Xavigō 'boar people'.

Ancient times

The Monkhayic peoples were the original inhabitants of Eretald. The invasion of the Cuzeian and Central peoples starting in -350 pushed them west into the Eärdur valley, north to the Mišicama littoral, and east across the Ctelm mountains into Sarnáe. The western group was soon assimilated into Cuzei; the northern group are known as the Meťaiun, and the eastern group is the Monkhayu.

The Monkhayu were numerous and determined enough to push Munkhâsh well past the Shkónoro (by -50). However, the Munkhâshi recovered the initiative and slowly advanced, reaching the mountains by 240. As is customary in a ktuvok empire, the newly conquered Monkhayu became the lowest class, subject to domination by all previous human subjects, any show of resistance punished by the killing of the rebels and their relatives. The ktuvoks also brought in great numbers of the chief Munkhâshi human ethnic group, the Eynleyni, to settle the Shkónoro valley.

The Monkhayu of the southwestern corner of Sarnáe and the Kešvare plateau-- difficult and poor mountain terrain-- were independent until about 380, when they were conquered as a preparation for the invasion of Eretald (440). They rebelled in 550, but were put down in a renewed Munkhâshi offensive by 575.

If Cuzei provided the initial defense of Eretald, the Central and Meťaiun states were the engine of its liberation, accomplished in 1024. The Monkhayu of the mountains sensed that the moment was right to rebel, and by 1150 they were independent. In the early 1500s, however, Munkhâsh reoccupied their lands, once again as a staging area for the invasion of Eretald.

Munkhâsh was defeated, but the Monkhayu now found themselves part of the empire of Caďinas, ruled by military governors. Caďinorian rule was not onerous, but they too colonized the Shkónoro valley. The end result was that the Monkhayu proper were restricted to the hills and mountains of the south.

Various conquerors

The Kešvare plateau was attractive to the nomads, who were beginning to use their military edge to harrass the agricultural states. The Sainor took over the plateau around 1900, and their relatives the Coruo occupied the entire Monkhayu area around 2200, though the Monkhayu were able to expel them within a few generations. In the 2500s, the Gelyet conquered them on their way to Sarnáe; this wave too passed within a century.

The new ktuvok empire of Dhekhnam conquered Sarnáe, reaching the Ctelm mountains definitively by 3120; almost as a warning, they occupied a third of the Monkhayu territory-- the richest portion, in the east, containing their only large town, Eteban. They gobbled up another third in 3280, and the remaining region in 3362.

Though their status is lowly, the Dhekhnami seem to slightly prefer them to the Sarnáeans, who they particularly disdain.

Language

Like Kebreni, Monkhayu has a morphology based on vowel interchange, vowel change, and infixing, rather than affixation, and a verbal system that does not inflect for person, but for aspect and politeness. Monkhayu is notable for continuing the ancient base 18 counting system.

It has borrowed heavily from its various conquerors, to the extent that only a few hundred cognates with Kebreni remain. Scholars had forgotten the relationship to the Meťaiun languages till it was rediscovered by Kebreni scholars in late medieval times.

Article begun by Exez, largely rewritten by Zompist