Ethnic groups in Kiravia

Indokwé Coscivians
The Indokwé are an ethnic group of mixed Éorsan Coscivian and Aboriginal Kiravite ancestry that emerged in Asperidan during the Coscivian colonisation of the Western Highlands. Originally a small confederation of agricultural tribes, the Indokwé were subject to frequent attack by the Draili Empire, and readily allied with Kiravia against Drail in the Continental War. In the decades following the war, the Indokwé, now Kiravian citizens, readily adopted numerous Cosco-Kiravian technologies and customs, and allowed Coscivians to settle in their territory (which had been enlarged to include much depopulated Draili land), provided that they underwent initiation into the tribe.

In 211XX, the Grand Council petitioned the Federal Stanora to classify the Indokwé as Coscivians, which it did in the Indokwé Status Act of 211XY. Thereafter, the Indokwé became the largest voting bloc and the most politically influential community in Asperidan Territory.

The Indokwé continue to speak their ancestral language, which is written in the Coscivian script. In terms of religion, they are predominantly Archepiscopal.

The Indokwé are known for their high rate of service in the Kiravian armed forces, particularly the Air Corps, which is mainly a result of Kímosav Airbase and the Kiravian Army Air Corps Academy being located in their historic territory.

Kandem Coscivians
The Kandem are an important ethnic group within the Kiryaniv Coscivian cohort. Their homeland is the city of Evira and its environs in upstate Kiygrava, from whence many generations of Kandem pioneers have gone on to establish substantial Kandem communities in Arkvera (where they are the largest Coscivian group), north-central Kastera, northern Hiterna, Intravia, Vôtaska, Devalōmara, and [Roberta]; as well as parts of northern Etivéra and West Etivéra. The Kandem dialect of Kiravic has a long literary tradition, and is used as the preferred written form of Kiravic by many newspapers and educational institutions in heavily Kandem areas, and for administrative purposes by the Arkvera state government and many local governments in Kiygrava.

The Kandem have historically been associated with the Archepiscopal Church of Kiravia, which was born of a complicated (and still poorly understood) schism that separated the Archdiocese of Evira from the wider Coscivian Orthodox Church. Affiliation with the Archepiscopal Church is an important marker of Kandem identity, and Archepiscopal parishes form the nexi of many Kandem communities, though the denomination is multi-ethnic and a significant minority of Kandem remain Coscivian Orthodox or have converted to Roman Catholicism. Most Kandem also practice the Coscivian religions of Ruricanism or Iduanism to some extent.

Pine Swamp Coscivians
The Pine Swamp Coscivians are a socially insular and poorly-understood endogamous social group comprising some eight clans who traditionally inhabit poorly-drained pinelands and some coastal wetlands along the Eastern Seaboard of Great Kirav. Six of the eight clans live in South Niyaska, while the remaining two live in Trinatria. Each clan has a relationship with one of the other clans, with men from one moïetically-paired clans only marrying women from the other clan, and vice-versa.

The Pine Swamp Coscivians are thought to be primarily descended from early Taństan and mainland Akúvaric Coscivian colonists in Kiravia. Their language appears to be a Taństan-based creole or jargon which is not mutually intelligible with the traditional speech of neighbouring non-swamp Old Niyaskan families.

Sea Coscivians
The Sea Coscivians are a seafaring Coscivian ethnosocial group. Perhaps the most geographically dispersed of the Coscivian peoples, Sea Coscivians can be found in port cities across the Kiravian Federacy and other Coscivian countries, living permanently aboard ships in the world's oceans, and in any number of non-Coscivian countries the world over, where they have arrived as merchants and seamen. Though their ethnogenesis remains shrouded in mystery, Sea Coscivians as a distinct social group are most commonly thought to have arisen from guilds and mutual aid brotherhoods formed by merchant seamen in Éorsa during the Second Empire or Second Inter-Imperial Period. From the Third Empire onward, they contributed to the overseas expansion of Coscivian civilisation, the migrations to Ixnay, and later the establishment of the Kiravian maritime commercial and colonial network.

Traditionally, the Sea Coscivians speak Maritime Coscivian, a with vocabulary drawn mostly from the Coscivian languages of the Intheric Sea, that became a lingua franca among Coscivian sailors during the Postclassical Era. Although at that time Maritime Coscivian was used in ports all across Éorsa and the Coscivian colonies, and by sailors of all backgrounds, Sea Coscivians alone adopted it as their native language and today the language only survives among Sea Coscivians. Due to the dispersed and peripatetic disposition of its speech community, Maritime Coscivian as spoken by Sea Coscivians is an extremely fractured language with numerous dialects, often with very limited mutual intelligibility. The speech patterns of more traditional sea-dwelling or isolated island-dwelling Sea Coscivians can constitute distinctive micro-dialects and familects. Certain dialects - such as Dialect 12a spoken mainly among Clan Korellin in the Kilikas Sea - are regarded as more conservative, deviating comparatively little from what linguists believe was spoken by the Sea Coscivians who sailed with Kedhur Valēkas. Others, best exemplified by Dialect 46b of a particular neighbourhood in Mirśamur, Melian Isles, are highly divergent, exhibiting a much more synthetic morphology than most dialects and a lexicon replete with unique coinages and loans from Melote, Arabic, Latin, Pashto, Corummese, Rumeli, Angeline, and Punthite tongues. Although studies of the worldwide Sea Coscivian community are too difficult to carry out, surveys of Sea Coscivians living ashore in Kiravia show that almost all are bilingual or multilingual. Many Sea Cosivians today speak Kiravic Coscivian or Austral Coscivian as their native language, and some of these second-language speakers may have only a limited command of Maritime Coscivian.

Sea Coscivians have had mixed relations with other Coscivians and with non-Coscivian groups they encounter. Historically, settled port and coastal dwellers throughout the Coscivian world have been distrustful of Sea Coscivians as secretive and seemingly rootless drifters with a reputation for criminality and general unpleasantness. According to reports by governmental organisations and human rights NGOs, people of Sea Coscivian origin still face employment, housing, and other forms of discrimination. They have low levels of engagement with formal institutions such as labour unions, religious congregations, banks, and governments compared to other Coscivian groups, and according to a study funded by the government of Valtéra State, they are the tuva most heavily involved in the and face social problems arising from their reliance on unstable and thinly regulated employment.

The Sea Coscivians are a segmental ethnic group divided into clans and lineages, and like all Coscivian peoples they are patrilineal and patrilocal. Generally speaking, the extended family or dóntra important to most terrestrial Coscivians plays little to no role in Sea Coscivian society. Beyond the nuclear family level, Sea Coscivian kinship is frequently, with individuals and families becoming ritually initiated into clans and lineages into which they were not born, the latter being a rare approximation of in Coscivian civilisation. Clan and lineage ties, as well as marital ones and godparentage, form the backbone of social, political, and business networks in the Sea Coscivian community. However, the most important Sea Coscivian social institution is the impruv or "crew". Aboard a vessel inhabited or staffed entirely by Sea Coscivians, all adults or all adult males are members of the impruv, and the impruv elects a kirstuv ("council") who elect the captain for the duration of the voyage. Sea Coscivians employed as crewmen on an ordinary vessel form their own impruv (though without a captain and usually without a kirstuv) at the outset of the voyage, in which all Sea Coscivians aboard are obligated by custom to participate. In shore-dwelling communities, the impruv is a permanent body representing the entire Sea Coscivian population of a settlement or urban neighbourhood. A code of customary law called the Law of the Sea prescribes the basic rules for how impruya and kirstuya are to operate. How the Law of the Sea is remembered and interpreted varies only slightly across clans and regions, which has allowed Sea Coscivians of different backgrounds to quickly, easily form impruya as needed, and to avoid conflict between different families sharing a vessel or living in close proximity ashore.

Religion among the Sea Coscivians is diverse and usually syncretic. Sea Coscivians typically combine ancient Coscivian selenolatry or "Lunar Monotheism" and ancestor worship with aspects of institutional world religions (namely Christianity and/or Islam) and miscellaneous other traditions, some of which are unique to Sea Coscivians or can be traced back to ancient religions of the Intheric Basin. In the words of one Kiravian anthropologist, "At the first sign of an approaching storm, a Sea Coscivian far from shore may turn in the direction of the Moon, prostrate himself in the, and pray for the intercession of ." Modern Sea Coscivians mostly report themselves as Christians, Sarostivists, or Muslims, though in practice this can manifest anywhere from the orthodox Levantine Catholicism of the Alevord lineage based in Béyasar to the form of "Islam" practiced by a small group of boat-dwelling Sea Coscivians in the Sea of Istorya, reported to be simple Moon-worship with Islamic trappings. Catholicism is the most common Christian denomination among Sea Coscivians, and the veneration of is extremely popular. A few prominent Sea Coscivian groupings in the Kilikas region are Mercantile Reform Protestant. Rumeli Islam and Shafi'i Sunnism are the main Islamic schools of thought.

The settled Sea Coscivian population is almost entirely urban, concentrated in and around major ports. Valēka has the largest population of Sea Coscivians in Kiravia (and presumably the world), officially numbering over 72,000. Tolôn has the second-largest Sea Coscivian population, followed by Saar-Silverda, Béyasar, Destransar, and Portmór.

Sedhem Coscivians
The Sedhem are a North Coscivian ethnic group who have played a pivotal role in Coscivian-Kiravian history. The origins of the Sedhem as a distinct culture lie in the lowlands just beyond the southern end of the Northwestern Shield in Éorsa, where the ancestors of the Sedhem arrived as a primitive farming society and absorbed the autocthonous P'tar people. Over time, these early agricultural settlements developed into a tribal network linked by blood ties, a common dialect, and a shared group identity. By the XYth century, the Sedhem polity had evolved into a confederation of chiefdoms and became a tributary of the Second Coscivian Empire. It was during this period that Sedhem élites began to adopt elements of Imperial Coscivian literary and material culture, as well as the Læstorian religion that spread across Northern Éorsa, which they syncretised with their existing practices of and ancestor-worship. However, the flowering of Sedhem artistic and cultural life that followed came under strain towards the end of the century as the Sedhem confederation found itself at the intersection of the expanding kingdoms of Skāda, Venska, and Korska, which shared common North Coscivian cultural traits with the Sedhem but had adopted more sophisticated methods of warfare and social organisation from the Coscivian Empire to the south. [Became marginalised communities under "foreign rule", adopted (heterodox) Christianity more readily than neighbouring peoples, migrated in large numbers to the coasts to fidn work as sailors and fishermen]

[Valēkas, Tandhurin, etc. and the Coscivian exploration of Ixnay. Founding of Valēka, establishment of a new Sedhem homeland in Kiygrava]

Today, the ethnic Sedhem population is most heavily concentrated in upstate Kiygrava, which the state government continues to recognise as a Sedhem homeland. In this region, known as Inosedhēdan or simply Sedhēdan, the Sedhem enjoy wide-ranging cultural autonomy. The Sedhem language enjoys a privileged status as the primary language of local administration, education, and business; and there are a large number of periodicals and television and radio programmes in the area using the Sedhan Coscivian language. There are significant Sedhem populations in other parts of Kiygrava, although they are much less visible in the multi-ethnic milieu of contemporary Valēka, Trár, Vander, and Evira. [Political influence and party]

Outside of Kiygrava, Sedhem communities exist in Niyaska, eastern Etivéra, Arkvera, and the Punth colonies. Many Arnóriem and Candem Coscivians with long family histories on the island continent have Sedhem ancestry and surnames despite belonging to different ethnosocial groups and typically not speaking the Sedhan language.

Serradem Coscivians
The Serradem are a Coscivian ethnic group native to the Farravonian states of Cascada, Ilfenóra, and Metrea, as well as adjacent areas of Argévia and Venèra. Serradem heritage is rooted in the early Coscivian colonisation of Farravonia's central valleys and the concurrent missionary efforts led by the Society of Jesus in Farravonia. Serradem ethnic culture is the largest influence on the regional culture of Farravonia, and many Serradem customs have been adopted by Kiravians of other ethnic backgrounds who have migrated to the region over the centuries.

The Serradem trace their collective identity to the earliest Coscivians to settle in Farravonia's central valleys and the large number of Aboriginal Kiravites who converted to Catholicism during this period, though in reality the ethnic group has grown over the centuries through the assimilation of later waves of Coscivian immigrants. As such, there are many Serradem who have few or no ancestral links with the founding population. Most Serradem have varying degrees of Aboriginal admixture, with some (especially in certain localities) being of mostly Aboriginal descent and visibly Aboriginal in appearance.

The Serradem are overwhelmingly Catholic, with the vast majority worshipping according to the Coscivian Rite. Catholic religious observance and the Catholic intellectual, artistic, and educational traditions are central to Serradem culture. There are minorities among the Serradem who have converted to Reformed Orthodoxy and Eastern Orthodoxy. Serradem who convert to Coscivian Orthodoxy generally become integrated into the Azuriem ethnic group.

The Serradem Coscivian language is similar to certain registers of Kiravic Coscivian in many respects, but with substantial differences is vocabulary, and non-trivial differences in phonology, prosody, and grammar. Some of these differences are due to the influence of and various local Aboriginal languages. Most contemporary Serradem are bilingual in Kiravic, with many speaking both as their mother tongue. In Cascada, up to one-third of ethnic Serradem speak only Kiravic. However, intergenerational transmission of the Serradan language remains strong, and its use is vigorous in many areas, particularly rural areas and smaller cities and towns in the Rosary Belt where it is used as the primary language of everyday life. Serradan-language radio programming is available throughout Farravonia. Institutional support for the language is strongest in Ilfenóra, which publishes Serradan translations of all government documents and maintains many secondary schools using Serradan as the medium of instruction. There are a few small Catholic colleges in Ilfenóra that teach in Serradan, and the Government of Metrea has initiated a programme to introduce Serradan-language instruction in some community colleges. Many state universities and larger Catholic institutions in the region offer Serradan language and literature as a course of study.

As the largest and longest-established ethnic group in three important states, the Serradem are a politically influential demographic and are well-represented in Farravonian state governments and in federal politics. Because of their strong Catholic beliefs, Serradem are strong supporters of and  parties, and the Caritist Social Union relies on Serradem turnout to compete with the Shaftonist-Republican Alliance in Farravonian elections to the Federal Stanora. Many Serradem are also drawn to traditionalist conservative parties of a Catholic orientation affiliated with the Cadre of Right.

Trash Coscivians
The Trash Coscivians are a social category or ethnoclass of low-income Coscivian Kiravians who are viewed by other Coscivians as morally and intellectually deficient, undisciplined, and uncultured. Trash Coscivians are distinguished from other poor Coscivians, the riśgaxtya esakirdas or "poor with dignity", as being deficient in the standards of Coscivian society. Unlike most working-class and rural Coscivians, who generally are or claim to be grounded in traditional folk culture, Trash Coscivians are seen as lacking any connection to either traditional folk culture or to. They are also distinguished from individual Coscivians of poor character in that their "trashiness" is seen as collective and endemic.

Behaviours and characteristics associated with Trash Coscivians include illegitimacy, drinking vodka, eating, living in a or Kirosocialist-style apartment block, functional illiteracy, petty criminality, cheap Western-style attire and a flashy or gaudy style of dress, crass consumerism, promiscuity, watching , and throwing spent liquor bottles at people and/or passing cars.

It is impossible to determine or reliably estimate the population of Trash Coscivians, due to the subjective nature and negative implications of the label. Only 234 people reported their ethnosocial background as Trash Coscivian on the 21200 Kiravian Census, but this is not considered representative of the actual population. A study by anthropologists at the University of Belārus of twelve trailer parks and housing projects in Castera, Kiorgia, Etivéra, and Hiterna identified as Trash Coscivian communities by neighbouring Coscivians found that residents of these communities tend to identify as members of the dominant "regional Coscivian" ethnic group of the surrounding area (e.g. Arnóriem in coastal Castera, Kiorgiem in Kiorgia, Lærem in southeast Etivéra), even if their surnames reflected a different ethnic origin. Many also identified themselves as "Poor Coscivians". The study found that on average, people in these communities were considerably less knowledgeable about their own extended family, ethnic background, and genæalogy than non-Trash Coscivians with comparable incomes from the same areas.

Many poor Coscivians living in areas with large Trash Coscivian populations embrace Coscivian nationalist politics in order to avoid being seen as Trash Coscivians. Trash Coscivians are also a feature of Coscivian nationalist rhetoric, presented as a cautionary example of and, such as in Delegate Devar Hytriloden's (CNC - Hiterna) speech to the Federal Stanora in 21205, where he said "Deprived of our enlightened and exceptional culture, we will all be Trash Coscivians, and deprived of our Coscivian roots, we will become simply trash."

Xorsyakav Coscivians
The Xorsyakav Coscivians are an ethnic group living mainly in Central Kirav, with significant populations in Etivéra, Kaskada, Kiygrava, Devalōmara, and Atrassica. They are notable for their highly complex / language, which contains many ultra-conservative features thought to be inherited directly from Proto-Cosco-Adratic, as well as many unusual features for a Coscivian language, such as a large inventory of.

Salyar
The Salyar (Salyar: Сӑӑлярй) are a Finno-Ugric ethnic group living in Manaskan and neighbouring areas of southwestern Devalōmara. They are a traditional, agrarian, and patriarchial people who form a rather insular society. Descended from the Indari people of Rhuon Island, the ancestors of the Salyar migrated to their current location on the Great Kiravian mainland during the 20570s as part of the Ētrebiktor or settlement of the Kiravian interior.

The Salyar language is written in a Cyrillic orthography developed by the Kirosocialist government in 21144. According to the 21200 Kiravian Census, 98% of ethnic Salyar speak the language, and 76% are completely monolingual. About 20% of Salyar are fluent in Kiravic. Salyari is used as the medium of instruction in a number of primary and intermediate schools in Salyar-populated localities, and in two rural consolidated secondary schools in Manaskan. During Kirosocialism, a technical school offering courses taught in Salyar was established in Manaskan's County Lāgervan. Very few Salyar pursue higher education, with most remaining part of the traditional economy.

Unlike most Coscivian communities in their general vicinity, the Salyar do not believe in xolkriśgir, and have no objection to colour photography. They are strictly endogamous, and on the rare occasion that a Salyar chooses to marry outside of the group (usually to a Coscivian), that person is expelled from the community and usually adopted into their spouse's ethnic group.

Qódavans
The Qódava (Qódavan: Ӄўдафъа) are an Aboriginal Kiravite tribe currently living mainly in South-Central Great Kirav. They have a close linguistic and ancestral connexion to the Rifpito people. Numbering over four million, the Qódava are the third largest Aboriginal tribe by population. They are also among the best-organised politically.

The Qódava people were united under a single recognised political entity until 21148. Today, 91% of enrolled Qódava are citizens of the Qódavan Central Authority. Most of the remainder are citizens of the Traditional Qódava Nation, and a few hundred are citizens of the Rifpito Nation. This bi- (or tri-)furcation is a result of the 21148 Qódava Revolution, which occured when socialist partisans supported by the national Kirosocialist Party seized control of the tribal government, removing clan chiefs and local elders from the political system and instead establishing a single-party state. Qódava who refused to recognise the new government's legitimacy organised as the Traditional Qódava Nation, which was granted federal recognition after the end of Kirosocialism in 21176 by Prime Executive Kólsylvar. The Qódavan Central Authority retains its single-party system of government and ideological commitment to socialism in the present day.

Some 61% of ethnic Qódava and 73% of Qódava living on tribal territory are speakers of the Qódava language. 82% of Qódavan-speakers are literate in Qódava, as a result of aggressive literacy promotion and linguistic protectionism on the part of the tribal government.

About half of Qódava living on tribal lands adhere exclusively to their people's traditional religion. About one third adhere to Christianity (primarily the Discipular Church) and one fifth are Muslim (predominantly Sunni). Off-reservation, a greater number of Qódava are Coscivian Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, or Ibadhi Muslim.

Rhūniks
The Rhūniks are a small-numbered and mysterious people with obscure origins, though their own oral tradition places their ancestral homeland somewhere in the High Arctic. They speak a and adhere to the Arctic Orthodox Church. The federal subjects with the largest Rhūnik populations are Lataskia, West Rhuon, Kaskada, East Rhuon, Peśara, and Thýstara.

Kulukusi
The Kulukusi are a native Punthite ethnic group indigenous to southeast Varshan. In ancient Punth, the Kulukusi built a rather sophisticated civilisation with an advanced understanding of mathematics, astronomy, agronomy, and metallurgy, but saw their civilisation destroyed and territory conquered by the Varshani God-King Burusho IV, concluding a centuries-old conflict between the two peoples that was at least partially rooted in the religious differences between the Varshani worship of the Sun and the Kulukusi reverence for the Moon. Despite a genocidal campaign of mass slaughter, human sacrifice, and enslavement, the Kulukusi were able to survive as a distinct people by fleeing into the southern and south-eastern mountain regions that form the southern boundaries of modern Varshan. During the Bootleg Wars, the Kulukusi aided the Kiravian Army Rangers as guides, porters, orderlies, and auxiliaries in their fight against Varshan, finding common cause with the Coscivians who also have a long tradition of lunar rituals. In gratitude, the Kiravian and Azikorian governments have undertaken numerous programs to resettle the Kulukusi in their own territory.

Kulukusi-Kiravians are concentrated in a few select areas of the Kiravian Federacy, mostly in and around settlements built for them by the Kiravian government. The largest Kulukusi communities in Kiravia are found in South Ateranda, Intravia, Trinatria, and Kiygrava; with much smaller communities in Érskinsar, Rovaīon and Saar-Hūrivilnum, Cascada. In Kiygrava, the overwhelming majority of the Kulukusi population live in the mainland cantons of Valēka, clustered in a few where the border of Canova, Linthika, West Valēka, and North Valēka meet. There is also a Kulukusi neighbourhood in the Thortimur district of Imyara Island.

Like Azikorians, Kulukusi are considered "honorary Coscivians" for the purposes of migration and nationality law.

Notable Kulukusi-Kiravians include Isimi Kunama, a leading academic authority on the Varshani language and culture; Kopúsan Sukúluv (Kulukusi: Kopuusa Sukuulu), a member of the Intravian state legislature; and Lukyan Ilisapar (Kulukusi: Lukaani Iliisarapa) a foreign policy advisor to the Shaftonist-Republican Alliance.