CHAPTER 40- New Language- Trakuta.
August, 1538.
After the passing of the Basic Literacy Act, Rudra found himself with too many things to do at once. For the implementation of the education reforms, he had to help create a new script, establish local paper manufacturing, and set up a printing press.
He found himself fantasizing about the systems other people in similar positions to him seemed to have. How wonderful it would be if all his tasks were completed automatically. Sadly, such fantasies were meaningless, as he had work to do.
He wanted to complete the tasks in parallel. That way, he could be more efficient at managing them, while the people he instructs do the actual job. What he learned from the musket manufacturing and setting up factories for the Ether production was that, he should not try to do all the tasks himself, and learn to take help.
This was somewhat implemented while setting up the Royal Glass Works in Machilipatnam. His infrastructure minister took the lead while constructing it. Rudra only provided the necessary technology to the glass blowers he employed, and the funds to set up the workshop.
It was still in its construction phase, and only two of the glass furnaces had been set up, to start small-scale production. Many recruiters were sent throughout the kingdom to hire Glass blowers, and when the factory construction will be done by the end of the year, full-scale production would start.
Rudra was thankful that he did not need much time to produce notable improvements in glass making. There were many skilled glass makers available, who were using their skill to produce works of art even before he got involved.
With some improved tools, upgrades to the furnaces to make them run more efficiently, and a new easier production method of glass, the kingdom's glass makers will now produce glass a lot faster.
The only bottleneck was the availability of the glass blowers themselves. It was a relatively highly skilled job, aimed at producing decorative glass products for wealthy customers. The Glass Works plant requires a standardized product, produced as cheaply as possible.
It was difficult to get experienced professionals to join, and they had to suffice with apprentices as the main workers and the more experienced workers as supervisors. If the recruitment problem continued for a year or two, it would be better to start training new workers themselves.
In comparison, hiring and training workers for the brewery and the washing soda factory was a lot easier. There were a lot of people, who were interested in getting a job in a brewery to begin with, and for washing soda plant, they hired people who were interested in alchemy.
Both of them did require Rudra to personally teach the staff to fastrack the process, but the initial batch will take care of training them when the factories expand.
For the brewery, equipment manufacturing was even simpler, as they did not even require glass. Copper/bronze will do just fine for the fermenters and the distillery. After the initial market reaction to the first batches of the alcohol, expansion will be carried out.
Coal burners for the washing soda also did not require much expertise. The only problem was the exhaust gases. Rudra ordered for a tall exhaust chimney to be constructed, and the factories being outside the city limit, also helped the budding pollution problem.
Back to the problem at hand, the Basic Literacy Act required multiple interconnected things. For printing books, paper and the printing press needs to be solved. But for the printing press, a new local script compatible with it needs to be implemented.
Two of them needed to be done first. Paper production and the creation of the new script. The printing press is dependent on these two, so that took a backseat.
Paper production was comparatively an easier task, so Rudra decided to concentrate on creating a new script first. So, for that task, he invited some language experts to discuss that problem.
The language that is most used in the kingdom is called Telku. It sounded a lot like the Telugu language from the old timeline, but it was only about 50 to 60% words in common. It was enough to fool a casual viewer at first glance, but there were many key differences.
Telugu was not the only language that was changed. He found out that, Kannada, Malayalam, and Tamil were also replaced by languages known as Kannata, Malanam, and Tinumal. There were also changes in other languages from south and central India, but they were not as common in his kingdom as these three.
But strangely, not all languages were affected by this. Portuguese was the same, and so were Arabic and Parsi. He was surprised when he was able to understand those languages perfectly. He chalked it up to something to do with his old memories.
After searching for the reason why the languages were different, he found the answer in an old palm leaf manuscript, that was in a terrible shape in the kingdom's library. It was approximately from the late 9th century or early 10th century.
The manuscript was from the Rashtrakuta Dynasty and spoke of it. After further research, he found out what happened.
Sometime in the 9th century, during the reign of Amoghavarsha, the changes started to occur. In the original timeline, Rashtrakutas were hell-bent on trying to conquer north, to control Kannauj, but this changed in this timeline.
Instead of spreading north and competing with the already strong powers there, they focused on their backyard instead. Chalukyas and the Pallavas were the first to be conquered. On the Malabar coast, Cheras and Pandyas who were Vassals were annexed.
Chola kings, who regularly married into the nobility of Rashtrakutas to maintain alliances, were the ones to feel the entire might of the Dynasty. In a bid to conquer all of the south, Amoghavarsha attacked the closest of his allies, driving the Cholas to Sri Lanka.
All of this was connected to one man, whose name was now lost to history. By cross-examining the manuscripts, Rudra found out that, this man was very active in Amoghavarsha's court, and was responsible for the empire's focus on the south.
It was also under this man that the language reforms were introduced. A common language was mandated in the Empire. A new language, influenced by the existing languages in the kingdom was created. It combined languages such as Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, and even Marathi.
The language spread rapidly, under the influence of this man. Any opposition seemed to be put down by force, and it was especially apparent in the Tamil-speaking regions. They resisted the language changes the most, so they received the brunt of the Punishment.
This was the reason why all the current languages were messed up. Rudra was taught all the local languages before his second death, and he only realized it after the old memories kicked in.
Unfortunately, a common writing script was not properly introduced and the speakers of the old language used their familiar script, for their works. Still, as many people were illiterate, it did not seem like a major issue during that time.
What happened to that man from the Rastrakuta empire, he did not know, as all traces of his seemed erased, perhaps deliberately. But his changes did cause a lot of differences.
After the Rashtrakutas fell, there seemed to be an attempt to go back to the old languages, but it was not the same. The current languages, like Telku and Kannata, have more in common with each other than with their past selves.
Rudra was somewhat conflicted as he found out about all of this. This was further proof that this timeline had altered in the past, and he was not the only anomaly. Will he also be forgotten like that man from the Rashtrakuta dynasty, whose name was even forgotten?
'No!' he thought to himself. Even though the man was forgotten, his impact on the world survived. Rudra just had to make a big enough splash that, his name would not be lost in the Wheel of Time.
For his language problem, Rudra decided to take inspiration from that old language. He still has to create a new script, and all the new rules that come with it, but a language that can easily be spread also helps.
After more than a month of hard work, discussion with many experts, and consulting thousands of books from his memory library, the group came up with a new language, when they first set out to only change a script.
The language had a lot of commonality with the new native languages and was a spiritual successor to the Rashtrakuta language.
As the new native languages formed after Rashtrakutas had a lot in common with each other, the language created by Rudra and his team, was very easy for its speakers to learn, and only required minimum effort.
For the name of the new language, Rudra decided to pay homage to the Rashtrakutas, who made his work a lot easier. The language would be called, Trakuta, a word play on Rashtrakuta.
The language contained a lot of words from the existing local languages, with a completely new script, and a new set of grammar. The grammar was necessary, as the grammar in the old languages was the reason for them to be unprintable.
For Telugu alone, there are 25920 methods to write a single letter in a word. Because of the obnoxious grammar rules, every word has to account for the phonetic spelling, creating incredibly complex writing rules. The other local languages had a similar problem.
Think of every way you can pronounce a letter in English, and assign an alphabet to it. Then think of every compound sound, and assign an alphabet to it. That is what happens in some Indian Languages. While it created no room for mispronunciation, it made them incredibly cumbersome to be printed, especially without a digital printer.
Many Indian languages, such as Hindi, Telugu, and Kannada, are agglutinative, meaning that words are formed by adding prefixes, suffixes, and other affixes to roots. This leads to relatively longer words where each affix carries a specific meaning or grammatical function.
Phonetically, Trakuta sounded a lot like Telku and thus Telugu, copying its rhythmic structure. This was essential, as Carnatic music was dependent on this Rhythmic structure.
For the written part, a new script was devised, to make it easier to print and write. While it left some room for interpolation, it was a lot simpler to master.
By the end, Rudra became a leading expert in Linguistics, having created a language. The thirty-person team he worked with, which was composed of writers, poets, singers, and even a comedian, also became familiar with the language.
It did help that Trakuta was a very similar language to the local languages, to which those people belonged, but it was just dismissing their contributions to the creation of Trakuta if one did not acknowledge them.
The first work in Trakuta was not a literary work, but a dictionary. It compared words from Telku(Telugu), Kannata(Kannada), and Tinumal(Tamil), to the same words in Trakuta while at the same time providing the meaning. They came up with it to ease the transition of new and old learners into the language.
The dictionary was also essential for any printing operations. It served as a guide for the printers, making it possible to perform any corrections to the source.
While creating the language, he was very focused on the language and left most of his work to his council. But, After the creation of Trakuta, and before he moved on to the paper and printing press, A significant event had happened, that needed his attention.
A Portuguese fleet had shown up on the coast of Machilipatnam and had fired at the port.