Rakastas, Ochalea & Myoshima (...and Makai!)
by Giulio CarolettiLet's start from the Rakastas. Like Giampaolo and Marco pointed out, we studied the Rakasta articles by Bruce Heard and concluded that there are two original breed of Rakastas, independent from each other: the Davanian Rakastas and the Skotharan Rakastas (the issue of Cestia is a minor one, at the moment). These two groups descend from the original Rakastan breeds (Cave Rakasta and Rakastodon Fatalis).
1) The Davanian Rakastas developed the Mystaran equivalent of the African populations of Nilo-Saharan language. Examples are the Simbasta, the Msongo and so on. This idea comes from the names of the Simbasta cultures and from the fact that their culture is modelled on the Real World's ones. This is the criteria used for all other correspondences we found, so I will not repeat it again for the other situations.
(Note: This leaves the Tanagoro to be equivalent just to the African of Niger-Kordofanian languages, like the Bantus, Swahili, Cameroon and so on.)
2) The Skotharan Rakastas developed the Mystaran equivalent of the populations of Austric language - the Thai, Viet, Polynesian, Malese, and in general the populations of South-Eastern Asia and Oceania (except the Papua and the Native Australians). An example are the Harimau-Belang Rakastas of Skothar.
Using the Skotharan Rakastas as Austrics, we have at least two interesting explanations of the origin of some Mystaran cultures that pose problems as to their ethnography and/or linguistic history:
a) It's important to note that we have at least one culture, the Myoshiman Rakastas, that resembles the Japanese culture. So I first tried to understand where the Japanese culture comes from.
Unfortunately, from the linguistic point of view there is no clear evidence of the origin of the Japanese language. One of the most acceptable solutions (that I chose because it is ok with what happens on Mystara) is to say that the Japanese are the result of the mix of Ural-Altaic populations with Austric populations.
Thus, to have a Japanese Rakastan culture, we just need to have the direct descendants of the original Skotharan Rakastas interact with the ancestors of the Ethengarians, or a related culture. Then, the Rakastas should be culturally (but IN NO WAY LINGUISTICALLY) influenced by a Mystaran-Chinese culture - this is needed to have the Myoshiman Rakastas writing in ideograms, as the Japanese ideograms are a reworking of the ancient Chinese ideograms, but the Japanese language has nothing to do with Chinese.
I would like to ask Marco and Giampaolo to work on this subject especially since they have written a tentative history of the Rakastas in Italian, and I would ask Andrew Theisen if he thinks that this Chinese influence could have been transmitted by the Pachydermions. It would be very useful to have the Pachydermions the Mystaran Sino-Tibetans. In this hypothesis, they could also have influenced the Tagh Rakastas of Skothar, that are essentially the Mystaran equivalent of Tibetans - and thus need to be associated in some way to the Ochaleans.
What if the Pachydermions contacted a minor Alphatian group, the Ochaleans, after their Landfall in BC 1000, because they were all followers of Koryis? Maybe they helped them to carve their own niche in Ochalea. I don't know, would it be possible? Anyway, I hope you will be able to find a way to conceal the linguistic needs with what has been written so far.
b) By the way, this could also explain why the Makai are culturally Polynesian. During the Rakastan migrations all over the surface world, a Skotharan Rakastan population of Polynesian language (still a part of the Austric linguistic supergroup, and thus it's ok!) conquers the Makai. Probably this happened before the rise of the Taymora. When the Taymora expands towards the lands of the Makai, the Rakasta invaders leave, but the Makai have absorbed traits of their culture, although they remain of Neathar ethnicity, preserving their racial stock as presented in the "Hollow World" boxed set.