A description of Rodentèrra:
Rodentèrra, the world of rodents, came to light on
December 26, 2013 as an idea that lingered in my mind for a few months — it was first named on
September 14, 2014.
November 16, 2011 —
Rodentèrra Creation Day — is only a
pro forma gesture, as the Buonavallese language (back then simply known as
Romanz) first appeared in datable notes on that day. And as the language needed a place, and the world was slowly conceived, this date was extended to encompass all subsequent creations linked to the language of the Ladroman people.
Originally, Rodentèrra was meant to be a planet with multiple fully-sentient species, each major language group being spoken by a different species. This plan was abandoned in favour of a more diverse setting in terms of sentience, rather than multiple human-like species.
Speaking of humans, or indeed primates in general, there are none native to Rodentèrra: The native fauna reaches up to marsupial mammals and the now (partly) sentient placentals were brought to Rodentèrra by spacecraft over four million years ago, in the year 2193 AD: These include
canines,
aves and
felines as the less-sapient species and
chinchillas as the most human-like species to receive the crown from the humans.
One less pointed out feature is the closeness to Earthly history, and a slightly parodistic approach – at times, anthropo-critical.
The current geographical makeup consists of two continents,
Taèna (corresponding to Europe) and
Magellania (corresponding to America); neither continent has been visualised on a map.
From a political point of view, Magellania is the home of the
Magellanian Confederate States, in part a former colony of the Wínlandisc Kingdom, nowadays a melting pot of ethnicities and the last stop of diasporas from all over the world. There is also a native population, previously decimated, but now celebrated.
Taèna is divided between many different ethnicities into different countries.
The first one to appear was the
Ladroman Republic (encompassing the whole western peninsula), along with
Saselvania (in the North-East) and the
Republic of Argemont (in the South-East) – with Romance languages as their official languages.
These languages descend from the Vulgar Latin spoken in the areas — Latin remained the official language until the early modern era, and, in the Latin League, it still is used today.
To the North-East of Saselvania lies the
Alanic Kingdom, a constitutional monarchy, which shares its borders with the
Federal Republic Taulkenland in the south.
These two countries can trace back their official languages to Gothic — and so do the two kingdoms of
Wínland and
Nurthelk, situated on an island, Wínland, far west of Saselvania. These countries also have a union: The
Gothic League.
Wínland is neighboured by four islands inhabited by speakers of Celtic languages, which originally come from what is now Saselvania and the west of Wínland – these Celtic tongues are descendants of
Calatean, a language virtually identical with our extinct
Gaulish.
Going back to the mainland, and going even further east, we find Slavic languages, and Slavic countries:
The People's Republic of Gniezdania is one of them. And their language, as those of the neighbours further in the south-east and north-east, is derived from Old Church Slavonic, which is still used in international communication within the
Slavic Union.
To the East of the Gniezdanian border, we find the
Ruthian Federation, the (more or less) liberal-democratic successor to the
Ruthian Federative Communist Soviet Republic (RFCSR), a part of the
Union of Communist Soviet Republics (UCSR) until fairly recently.
These folks speak
Ruthian, also a descendant of OCS, and they have their own alphabet, which is derived from the Laconian alphabet.
In the south, there is
Laconia, inhabited by speakers of Doric Greek. These gave Taèna its name and they were the earliest people of modern culture in that region.
As Rodentèrra still offers many opportunities to be flashed out, there is even more to discover in the next years than just the places and nations mentioned above!
Edit: Added 2016–08–23: Ruthian Federation
Added 2016-12-04: The Calatean language, unnamed descendants
Added 2017-31-05: The island of Vifernia and the Vifernian Republic – where the fictional school of the Henry Portman series is located!