Capture Airawa first-contact slice

docs/roadmap.md

@@ -8,9 +8,11 @@
   lowering.
 - Decide the first language-project state format after the interlingua boundary
   is clear.
-- Build a hand-authored toy language project before automating generation.
+- Build a hand-authored toy language-project slice before automating
-- Use Rust to Dust as the first proving ground while keeping Weksa
+  generation.
-  setting-neutral.
+- Use Zyphos / Eusocial Interbeing as the current higher-priority proving
+  ground while keeping Weksa setting-neutral. Rust to Dust remains an earlier
+  pressure surface, not the active default.
 
 ## First Prototype
 
@@ -22,6 +24,8 @@
   values with the AquaSynth-owned learned encoder.
 - Preserve the first lowering proof as fixture data under
   `examples/english-lowering/`.
+- Preserve the Airawa first-contact slice as a hand-authored language-project
+  pressure note before attempting full alien-language translation.
 - Parse or load one language project definition.
 - Accept a Weksa interlingua packet.
 - Render glossed output through grammar, morphology, phonology, and diachrony.

settings/eusocial-interbeing/README.md

@@ -85,3 +85,8 @@ language project can explain the ontology and form.
 
 See [Language Design Pressure](./language-design.md) for the first Weksa-facing
 ontology map.
+
+See [Airawa First-Contact Slice](./airawa-first-contact-slice.md) for the
+current room consensus on strong Airawa sound, introduction vocabulary,
+permission-bound dialogue, and why the first chieftain/visitor scene should not
+be translated as direct English substitution.

settings/eusocial-interbeing/airawa-first-contact-slice.md

@@ -0,0 +1,100 @@
+# Airawa First-Contact Slice
+
+This slice records the room consensus from the first Airawa introduction
+conversation. It is not a full language project yet. It is a durable pressure
+note for the first hand-authored Airawa language-project seed.
+
+## Consensus
+
+Airawa should sound strong and imposing without becoming decorative noise. The
+sound should feel deliberate, clipped, and socially heavy: hard stops, closed
+syllables, dorsal/coronal pressure, and forms that can land like claims rather
+than flow like scenery.
+
+The first vocabulary should not begin with random nature nouns. Airawa's first
+usable words should live where Airawa society puts pressure on speech:
+
+- identity and standing
+- formal naming
+- hearth or origin affiliation
+- approach permission
+- border-right and access
+- peace claim
+- obligation or sworn bond
+- gratitude as acknowledged debt
+- memory-line or lineage record
+- witness, authority, guest, guard, warrior, hunter, elder
+- mother-tree access, nutrient gift, surplus, taboo, and delivery through an
+  authorized intermediary
+
+The language should enter use through social mechanics: who may approach, who
+may answer, what cannot be asked directly, what must be witnessed, and what
+obligation is created by accepting a gift.
+
+## Translation Boundary
+
+The proposed chieftain/visitor scene is a good first test case, but it should
+not be translated by substituting English words one by one. A full Airawa
+rendering is blocked until the project owns at least:
+
+- a starter lexicon for rank, kinship, place, trade, gift, access, and danger;
+- a permission model for outsider, host, witness, elder, guard, warrior, and
+  mother-tree access;
+- grammar for questions, offers, refusals, permission, obligation, honor, and
+  temporal appointment;
+- a way to distinguish direct speech to a mother-tree from authorized delivery
+  to it;
+- a rule for whether scars are bodily evidence, honor claims, debt markers, or
+  warrior-status signals.
+
+Until those are owned, Weksa may produce provisional glosses or placeholder
+packets, but not claim a clean full Airawa translation.
+
+## Provisional Seed Evidence
+
+These forms came from chat and are useful as pressure evidence. They are not
+canon until a language-project state explains their morphology, phonology,
+grammar, and allowed usage.
+
+| Form | Provisional role |
+| --- | --- |
+| `atar` | I am / I stand as |
+| `sakar` | you are |
+| `qatar` | formal name / name formally |
+| `daruq` | hearth-origin |
+| `tazek` | may I approach? |
+| `kazhar` | I come in peace |
+| `qerath` | obligation / sworn bond |
+| `sherek` | gratitude acknowledged |
+| `ramat` | memory-line / lineage record |
+| `karuq` | border-right / approach-right |
+| `thaleq` | witness |
+| `taruq` | right / authority |
+| `vezhar` | guest under peace |
+| `Kaleth` | sample host/chieftain name |
+| `Serak` | sample visitor/apprentice-warrior name |
+
+Useful sample frames, still provisional:
+
+- `Atar qatar Serak.` -- "I stand as formally named Serak."
+- `Atar daruq ...` -- "I stand from hearth-origin ..."
+- `Tazek karuq?` -- "May I approach / claim approach-right?"
+- `Kazhar.` -- "I come in peace."
+- `Sakar vezhar.` -- "You are guest under peace."
+
+## First Scene Target
+
+The first Airawa scene should be a narrow dialogue with speaker locks:
+
+- host or chieftain asks the outsider's purpose;
+- outsider gives name, origin, status, peaceful intent, and nutrient-gift offer;
+- host refuses direct mother-tree access but accepts intermediary delivery;
+- visitor acknowledges gratitude/debt;
+- host marks witnessed warrior promise and offers training;
+- visitor accepts honor and names the scar as evidence;
+- host appoints a sunrise return.
+
+This scene is valuable because it forces the language to decide what owns
+access, obligation, witness, honor, and bodily proof. That is the machine worth
+building. The word list is only the ash it leaves on the table.
+

settings/eusocial-interbeing/language-design.md

@@ -34,11 +34,18 @@ Airawa language work must account for:
 - disconnected tree networks that survived by severing themselves from saturated
   substrate
 - imperial labels versus native nation-scale interbeing names
+- first-contact speech as social mechanics: approach permission, host authority,
+  witness, obligation, gift delivery, taboo access, and accepted guest status
 
 The Airawa Empire should not be named like a normal state with wet nouns glued
 on. It is an artificial quarter-continent clausiform exception imposed through
 biological-memetic control.
 
+The first Airawa dialogue target is not a generic greeting. It is a
+chieftain/visitor exchange around mother-tree access, nutrient surplus, guest
+rights, witnessed warrior promise, and honorable scar evidence. See
+[Airawa First-Contact Slice](./airawa-first-contact-slice.md).
+
 ### Provisional Airawa Phonology Notes
 
 Airawa phonology is not finalized, but the current design pressure distinguishes
@@ -56,6 +63,13 @@ Provisional tendencies:
 - avoid making native Airawa names read like smooth Sa'auei'a route names unless
   the form is explicitly a loan, exonym, or cross-continental register.
 
+The current room consensus pushes this further for introductory speech: Airawa
+should sound strong and imposing through deliberate hard edges, clipped or
+closed syllables, prominent `k/g/q/t/d`, textured `s/z/sh/zh`, and heavy stress
+on socially important forms. The point is not harshness for its own sake. The
+point is that claims, permissions, borders, and obligations should land with
+weight.
+
 Current scratch name: **Druzkai**, with trilled `r` and `z` pronounced as a
 voiced postalveolar fricative /zh/ [ʒ]. The name is being considered for a
 Zyphos Face drawn from a non-imperial Airawa archival/fungal-road tradition: an

state/map.yaml

@@ -182,6 +182,14 @@ accepted_design:
     inhabitant-language names derived from speaker ontology, register,
     phonology, morphology, diachrony, and setting context rather than direct
     English label translation.
+  - Airawa first-contact work should begin with social mechanics rather than
+    scenery vocabulary: identity, formal naming, origin, approach permission,
+    border-right, peace claim, obligation, gratitude/debt, witness, authority,
+    guest status, mother-tree access, nutrient gift, and taboo delivery.
+  - The current Airawa starter forms are provisional seed evidence, not canon.
+    They must be promoted through a language-project state that explains their
+    morphology, phonology, grammar, and allowed usage before Weksa claims clean
+    full translation.
 
 open_questions:
   - Which implementation language best serves the first usable engine?
@@ -200,6 +208,10 @@ open_questions:
     collapsing them into one universal language?
   - Which Zyphos language project should be first: Airawa, imperial Airawa,
     Sa'auei'a, or a narrow naming-brief interlingua?
+  - What is the minimal Airawa starter lexicon and permission model needed to
+    translate the first chieftain/visitor/mother-tree scene honestly?
+  - How should Airawa encode honorable scars: bodily evidence, honor claim, debt
+    marker, warrior-status signal, or a split among those meanings?
   - What Weksa naming brief schema best serves nation-scale interbeings,
     ecological memory networks, and mobile family-unit civilizations?
   - Which interlingua fields should be promoted from namespaced extensions after
@@ -223,6 +235,9 @@ landed_baseline:
   - Rust to Dust setting documentation skeleton.
   - Eusocial Interbeing naming surface at settings/eusocial-interbeing.
   - Zyphos language-design pressure note.
+  - Airawa first-contact slice recording room consensus on strong sound,
+    introduction vocabulary, permission-bound dialogue, and the boundary against
+    direct English-to-Airawa substitution.
   - Draft Weksa interlingua standard and packet schema receipt.
   - Draft flavored-English lowering contract.
   - Nibu lowering target note.

state/scratch.md

@@ -17,4 +17,7 @@ rendering structured meaning through an alien ontology and language pipeline.
 - Keep Eusocial Interbeing naming work as a setting surface until a real
   language-project state format exists. Do not mint durable names by translating
   English labels; decompose meaning and speaker ontology first.
+- Airawa first-contact work now has a durable slice note. Next useful step is a
+  starter lexicon plus permission model for the chieftain/visitor/mother-tree
+  scene before any full Airawa translation.
 - Evaluate implementation language after the data model is clearer.