Homo antiquus
(Homo antiquus and the associated languages and cultures exist in the conworld devised by MacKenzie Rohlfing and is the intellectual property thereof)
Homo antiquus is the general taxonomic term applied to a group of commonly-derived human races who originated somewhere outside the Local Group of the Milky Way galaxy and possibly even outside of the Virgo Supercluster. They are genetically compatible with Homo sapiens and virtually indistinguishable from their terrestrial cousins, apart from certain secondary characteristics such as eye coloration and physical/mental capabilities.
History
All the Homo antiquus races derive from a common ancestry. At a point in their common development, a cataclysmic event known as the Sundering took place, causing the division into the extant three sub-races: the Calleronians, the Cironeans, the Rhosans, as well as a purely conjectural race called the Dark Opwajwa whose existence has yet to be definitively proven. Of these four, the most populous and dominant race is that of the Cironeans.
Opwajwa is the name given in the Cironean language to the original Homo antiquus race and literally means "Ancient Ones." In their own language, Redhrácic, they were ár Eíferi, literally "the people of Eífe."
Origins
It is not known whether the original Opwajwa home world survives or whether it was destroyed in the Sundering. It was called by it's inhabitants Tháladán, or the "Garden World"; in Cironean, it is called Chulastrone.
The rise of the Opwajwa and their history up to the end of The Darkening is recorded by the Cironean Joivar in the Shóredó Gazoi, the Song of Hope, a collection of hymns to Aive (the Cironean form of Eífe) and lays to the first generations of the Opwajwa, the "ancient heroes" who fought evil in the Sundering and preserved "the loyal remnant" who became the Cironeans.
Cosmology
Redhrácic and its successor tongues all have a complex structure of cognates denoting existance. An Opwajwa could state the fact of his existence or life by using the verb esnit - e.g., Sá úrdhú esnitmúsásh, I exist/live to serve. This would be an abnormal utterance in normal conversation and was mainly a ritual verb used in prayers. More common were the "alpha" and "beta" copulae. These reflect a bisection of the terrestrial to be into extrinsic and intrinsic aspects, respectively. Thus, one would say Sá tháladúr mánipethásád (I had been a gardener) since being a gardener is not integral to one's essence; however, one would say Sá áden mónepethaesád (I am a man) because gender is an essential characteristic.
However, Redhrácic languages also have a verb that describes an "act of existence" in dramatically different terms. Mán and món are effectively aspectual verbs of the more comprehensive conceptual esnit. These three verbs are applicable to any noun in the language but one. This exceptional noun is a cognate derived from a verb: eífe; it is incapable of direct translation, although through a roundabout method a definition can be obtained. Eífe is descriptive of an act of existence, but one that is unbounded in either direction - an eternal existence. More than that, though, one must understand eífe as meaning "to exist eternally, and therefore uncatalytically; and in such a way as to call forth into existence other things." Therefore, a very simple definition might read thus: "to be, uncaused, that from which ω comes to be where ω is the unboundable set of all things that exist." The only noun to which this verb is applicable is in fact derived from the verb and in its base form is identical to the verb's infinitive form: Eífe. While one could define the proper noun Eífe as analogous to the English word God or the various terrestrial parallels, these stand in relation to Eífe in much the same way as the Hebrew term Adonai or its parallels relate to the Tetragrammaton.
