Anatomical influences

The Baaz are a species of large, humanoid avians with a unique physiology that deeply influences their communication style. Although they have almost-human faces, their lips are less mobile and less soft than those of humans, limiting their ability to produce certain labial sounds like “b,” “p,” “f,” and “v.” This is partially offset by a greater range of pitch that humans cannot match.

Sharp-eyed and highly observant, the Baaz naturally integrate visual cues into communication, supported by their highly dexterous long fingered hands. This anatomical structure has shaped a language system that is inherently bimodal, where approximately 70% of communication is vocal and 30% is gestural, blending sounds with physical expression to form a complete linguistic experience.

Blending Vocals with Gestures

In Baaz speech, vocals take on the heavy lifting for conveying the core components of language, such as nouns and adjectives. They also express tense and aspect through tonal inflections, with pitch and rhythm modifying meaning in nuanced ways.

This vocal stream, while dominant, is incomplete without the gestural layer. Gestures, often made using their dexterous hands or subtle wing movements, are responsible for carrying key grammatical elements like verbs, pronouns, prepositions, and adverbs. For example, while a Baaz might vocalize “sky” and “dark,” they would simultaneously gesture “we” and “fly across” to complete the idea. Spoken and gestural elements are not optional but form a complementary system, meaning neither can fully express the intended message in isolation.

Interwoven Writing Script

To capture their dual-modality language in written form, the Baaz developed a bimodal script composed of two distinct but integrated alphabets. The first is a phonic alphabet designed to transcribe the spoken aspects of their language, handling nouns, adjectives, and tonal markers. The second is a gestural alphabet crafted to represent the gesture-based vocabulary, including verbs, prepositions, pronouns, and adverbs.

These two alphabets are written seamlessly within the same sentence structure, resulting in hybrid texts where both types of symbols follow a linear flow. Readers “switch modes” naturally as they move through a sentence, much like how they would during speech and gesture. This dual script allows the Baaz to fully represent both vocal and gestural components of their language on paper, reflecting the unique rhythm of their communication.

Cultural Implications

Amongst the Baaz, communication requires complete attention. Therefore, Baaz often begin with a whistle when initiating dialogue. When one Baaz talks, the others stay absolutely still and focus on the speaker, waiting for them to finish before even nodding their agreement. The only worse mannerism than talking over the speaker is to turn your eyes away from one who is talking. Thus, even when bowing, they expect their subordinates to maintain eye contact.

The Baazian language also varies slightly across regions and situations. For example, in formal settings, words are more enunciated and the gestures are more elaborate. Meanwhile in informal settings, words tend to be shorter and gestures less pronounced, relying on both visual and vocal shorthand as well as trusting the listener to fill in the blanks for skipped words and gestures.

Integration with other races

For most humans, keeping up with Baazian speech would be a very difficult task, especially since many of the gestures are too quick for humans to fully register in rapid succession. This is precisely why the Kaw found great success as the administrative arm for Baaz nobility.

The Kaw are also avians blessed with similar perceptive powers but also completely human faces and unhindered speech. Thus, while their own language is fully vocal, they can learn the languages of the humans and the Baaz.

There are three main languages in Cheelia: Baazian, Kawese and the Common Tongue (language of the humans). The Kaw are usually fluent in all three.

Their efforts have allowed the ruling Baaz to keep their own language as the official language of the nation, but this has also led the exclusion of humans from most government positions despite the abolishment of segregation laws.

Cheelia used to be a Monarchy when the Baaz lived on one large floating island. From here they govern all of Cheelia below with an iron talon. However, when the Doom shattered their homeland into dozens of smaller islands (hundreds if you count the tiny uninhabited ones), the power was no longer centralized.

Initially, there was great infighting among the surviving Baaz families. They clung to their fractured floating islands and squabbled over the land below, even breaking out into open war. Eventually, cooperation emerged and the Council of the Ascended was formed, where each House was given a permanent seat. The tithe from the lands was pooled (as it did in the Monarchy days) but it was distributed among all the Baaz families in a relatively more fair system (the definition of fair would evolve over centuries though). From this, a new system of governing the different lands emerged: taking turns.

Each year, new governors for all the rural settlements were appointed, with a round-robin system among the Baaz families, that function similar to upper Nobility even in the new system. Meanwhile, the Council of Ascended decided on matters affecting the entire nation with popular votes. This system ensures every House has to serve the nation and thus earn their share of the tithe and other revenue.

After the doom, the Baaz had been keenly aware of the frailty of their power and that if they do not stand united as a race, the other races would usurp them. Yet, there is considerable distrust among them, thus agreeing to appoint a singular Monarch from them is out of the question. Therefore, the key priority they based the new systems of power on is the prevention of accumulation of power in one place. With rotating governors, power is shared and power is ephemeral.

While this new system worked well in rural settlements, it eventually proved problematic in urban cities. Here, the rotating Baaz governors were not getting their grip on power but the Kaw officials that reported to them had begun amassing influence and control over time. Thus change was needed.

Eventually, the modern system emerged in which city states are governed by a rotating council. The members are appointed each year by a lottery: 5 Baaz from the Ascended Lands, 5 Kaw from the Ascended Lands and 5 Kaw locals. The rotation ensures power can’t be amassed by anyone, the large size of the council keeps enough peer pressure to do the right thing and the mix of both local and federal representation equips the council to cater to wider range of problems. The system doesn’t let anyone be a career politician because no one can know when they will be in council.

Furthermore, the council holds most of its sessions in public, and any male citizens who show up may be asked for opinion or called upon to vote on proposals, this ensures the effect of local representation and also leads to locals banding together to lobby for certain issues.
This system prevents corruption (harder to bribe so many people), prevents accumulation of power and keeps citizens more engaged with the political system because they all get a say.