Republic of Evdonia Ministry of Rural Development, Linguistics Division

Created Wednesday 05 June 2024

Inspired by a silly little few paragraphs I wrote while trying to document an esoteric language:

  Thank you for picking up your copy of the Colonist's Field Guide to the [language] language, issued by the Evdonian Ministry for Rural Development, Linguistics Division!

  We hope this book will help you make better and more meaningful friendships with your [language]-speaking comrades, and help make your time with them something they cherish as well.

  Please note that the culture of those who speak [language] is quite different to our own.

And this glossary definition

  division policy, department policy; probably a noun or adjective - I need an excuse for this, and I don’t have one, so I’m going to pretend that I’m working for the Evdonian Ministry of Rural Development, Linguistics Division. There is no such Ministry, and there is no such Division within that Ministry. When it’s Division policy to X, Y, or Z, it is the policy of the authors of this document. The Division is just me/us.

So... let's make it real, kinda.

Rural Dev: Linguistics is not like EPF - it doesn't have a fixed canonical timeline, except that it exists in an unspecified location (possibly the same as the Evdonia of EPF) and has policies which are essentially fixed org-wide.

Rural Dev: Linguistics issues Division Field Guides (formerly Colonist's Field Guides) to people visiting or moving to territories where a language is spoken.

Rural Dev: Linguistics isn't real, but the work it does in terms of documenting languages is. All Division Field Guides publicly released by Rural Dev: Linguistics will be based on the best available information about the language, whether obtained publicly or by interviews with its speakers.

Division policies
Linguistic entities given entity numbers by this Division