Lexember 1 (December 5)

Welp, late start on Lexember. We'll see if I can catch up. Today's word is: lɔ̀píné.

Lɔ̀píné is a type of tree which evolved interesting traits to deal with the frequent forest fires in the hot, dry environment of the Garin subcontinent: its sap hardens with extreme heat, so while the outer bark is lost to the flames, the inner core gets protected by a tough flame retardant shell, which then cracks or wears away as the tree regrows its bark. Additionally, its seeds are tough and resistant to fire, and they are released as the bark burns off, whose ash makes for excellent fertilizer.

The unique nature of this tree landed it in many worship practices both among the middle Mintai empire and the relatively obscure Hotomasho, but more practically it was also the writing material of choice. The sap was mixed into a semi-hard wax, and the bark was coated in this wax to create a tablet. Glyphs were carved into the tablet, and the tablet was fired to harden the wax past the point of modification. The result was a fire-proof, water-proof, and mostly drop-proof medium, which no doubt was greatly useful to the sailing culture of the Hotomasho.

In fact, most of the written records remaining of the mysterious Hotomasho people are the so-called "taglets" used to label shipping containers with their contents. Here's a digitally enhanced scan of a rubbing of one, which labels 30 logs of lɔ̀píné:

Taglet labeling 30 logs of lɔ̀píné. The middle character is an ideogram meaning "lɔ̀píné log", followed by the rare decision to spell out the word. Catalogue EL263.

In the last few decades, a series of breakthrough analyses deduced the likely location of the Hotomasho people, much closer to the early Mintai empire than previously believed. Mintayen historians have many recovered documents now positively identified to be written in Hotomasho (previously relegated to "primitive Mintai" or regional variation), so great progress in studying the language and culture is sure to be around the corner.