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The '''Areth''' are a people inhabiting the continents of [[Arophania]] and [[Marcasia]], and whose country, [[Arithia]], spans the two. While not all Areth live within the borders of modern-day Arithia and not all Arithians are ethnically Areth, the concept of [[Areth nationhood]] has always been closely tied to that of an [[Arithide]] state.

==Terms==

The name ''Areth'', while in common use even among the Areth, is not autonymous, instead being of [[Dethric language|Dethric]] origin. The name arose on contact with the [[Exploratory Delegations of the Lazeian Agia Dynasty|exploratory delegations]] of the [[Lazeian Empire]] during the [[Agia Dynasty]], which first arrived in [[Dethria]] in 260 BCE (Agia 65). It is said that due to differences in language, when the [[Dethrians]] approached the party that had disembarked from the [[fevoun]]s, enquired about their provenance and gleaned the reply that they had come from the "venerable realm of the Agia" (''ō alēmir lisogāros Agiarēthir''), all they could remember were the last three syllables ''arēthir'', whence derived the appellation. While the anecdote is most probably fictitious or a drastic oversimplification, ethnologists consider the name ''Areth'' almost certainly to have been derived from ''Agiarēthir''.

The Areth of old called themselves the ''iounai'' (sing. ''ither''), literally meaning "the I people". While it is as yet unclear regarding the origin of the name, the word gradually evolved two plurals, one being the original irregular ''iounai'', and the other the regularisation ''ethirai''. ''Ither'' has undergone a semantic broadening, catalysed by contact with the Dethrians, and its modern guise, ''iter'', means simply "person" today. While the fossilised regular [[classical plural]] ''ethirai'' also broadened to mean "peoples" as a collective noun, ''iounai'' shifted with the rise of nationalism to denote the Areth as a whole nation, ethnically speaking.

==History==

{{main|History of Arithia}}

===Origins===

Due to the ambiguity of archaeological evidence, the origins of the Areth are shrouded in doubt, and while the [[Origins of the Areth#Marcasian Theory of Origin|Marcasian Theory of Origin]] has gained widespread currency both in academic circles and among the general public, much of it relies on inference, deduction and intelligent hypothesis to fill in the gaps left by archaeology, or the deficiencies thereof.

According to the Marcasian Theory, the Areth first arose as a distinctive ethnicity ([[Arithide language|Arithide]]: ''kyteos'') as the sedentary, agricultural [[Erda culture]] along the lower reaches and delta of the river [[Or river|Or]], more than 6,000 years ago. The Erda were in turn descended ultimately from the hunter-gatherers who had settled in southwest [[Marcasia]] approximately 67,000 years ago. Hemmed in by the [[Chisthian Sea]] and the [[Iryagi]], the Erda peoples faced, from the beginning, very visible limits to the the land and its fertility, and such persistent population pressures led to successive waves of emigration, some northwards over the Iryagi into the Marcasian interior, but most were headed south across the Chisthian, the easier route by far for a fishing people. This so-called [[Southerly Movement]], by which the Areth came to settle in northeastern [[Arophania]], was once thought to have emptied their homeland in [[Erdia]] and attritionally established the settlements of the [[Nuroi culture|Nuroi]], [[Pisa culture|Pisa]] and [[Duvai culture|Duvai]] cultures along the way, but is now considered to have left a minority behind, who fled a flooding of the Or to establish the mentioned three successor cultures..

==Culture, customs and religion==

===Language===

===Names===

===Dress===

===Rites and rituals===

===Regional variation===

==Areth outside Arithia==

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[[Category: Ilethes]]
[[Category: Ethnography of Ilethes]]
[[Category: Peoples of Ilethes]]
[[Category: Arophania]]
[[Category: Marcasia]]