abstract
| - When the Valeri were wiped out by the joKara in the Cleansing, the major Elaran culture of the planet was gone. The next numerous were the intellectually "backward" race that called themselves the del'shara (a Valerian term - del' meaning from, of the and shara meaning ashes - in reference to themselves following the Valeri). Millennia of time converted the name to Delsharan, and possibly lost the meaning as well. The Delsharans had some minor connections to the Valeri through language, art, literature, etc, but were by no means close to being their equals. They were much more easily subjugated by the joKara for dozens of millennia before they finally overthrew their overlord Wizard Princes c. KY 579 BGC. Finally free as a people for practically the first time, they had roughly a half a millennia before everything they were as a culture was destroyed in the Great Cataclysm. When the dust had settled, the Delsharans as a people ceased to exist. Broken and scattered, merely trying to survive, a "dark age" lasted for more than 2000 years. When recognizable civilizations re-emerged, the culture and language of the Delsharans had necessarily mutated and changed with a dependence on geographical locations and influences. Various nations now stood where the unified Delsharans had once existed, and the Valeri before them. The first nation of Elarans to successfully establish itself was the country of Koridan, with numerous others soon following. Languages were now sufficiently different, even though they all had roots in the Delsharan language (which in turn had its roots in Valerian). Not entirely forgetting their past, contemporary Elarans refer to the Delsharans as the Old Ones, and the language as the Old Tongue.
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