Rethinking Merfolk

[Grim Portent]

I think you can actually get a fairly high population density with merfolk, it would just be very spotty and might be seasonal. Many aquatic ecosystems - especially relatively pristine ones that haven't been hacked to h*** and back by human activity (a major rarity these days, to the point that our very idea of the baseline is nebulous) are predator-mediated with a really high proportion of the vertebrate biomass being represented by fairly large-bodied predators such as sharks or pinnipeds. If a merfolk colony basically clears out all the sharks or seals and replaces them, you could have some pretty big colonies in highly fertile locations around islands or seamounts. Sea lions - which represent a reasonably close comparison in terms of probable nutrient requirements, congregate in large numbers at breeding colonies and haul-out locations. Merfolk could do something similar if they build underwater structures for protection - even simple stone and net enclosures would be useful for that purpose. So you'd have a sort of 'home-base' setup where though the population has a vast hunting range, the bulk of the people would live and sleep in a concentrated protected zone.

I actually googled reef shark population densities after my previous post. Considered editing it in, but got distracted. Thanks for reminding me.

Apparently grey reef sharks have a pop density of 20 per kilometre square according to current estimates. That's pretty good, but is only about 17500 merfolk in the GBR if we used such numbers. It's a good number, but far from huge.

I'd expect a fondness for locations with stiller water being available nearby, like the partially enclosed bays and inlets some fish use for spawning grounds. Somewhere to hide from storms, get away from larger predators and rear young without fear of currents sweeping them away before they can swim well.

I wonder how far a merfolk could feasibly roam in a day? Sharks are in the high tens of kilometres I think, which is a decent range for hunting in.

[Andrian]

Also remember that merfolk would be able to alter their environment to suit their own needs. Not only could they chase out other competing predators, but they might also be able to build artificial reefs and coves. If you need calm water for farming, I think it's reasonable to expect that they would figure out how to produce their own calm water. They might also figure out how to cultivate ecosystems that benefit them. If, for example, they learned how to make artificial reefs, they would essentially be inviting other species to live in those areas. Fish would use them as hiding places, corals could anchor to them, and eventually they might have something sustainable.

As for their range... I'm really not sure, to be honest. Perhaps it would be something between the daily range of a champion skin diver and a seal? As far as cross-section in the water, a diver with flippers on is about right, but merfolk would have the powerful muscles of a marine mammal propelling them. If merfolk have a roughly human-shaped head and torso, they wouldn't be as hydrodynamic as a seal, even if they adopted a similar swimming motion, which would limit their speed and range.

[Mechalich]

I actually googled reef shark population densities after my previous post. Considered editing it in, but got distracted. Thanks for reminding me.

Apparently grey reef sharks have a pop density of 20 per kilometre square according to current estimates. That's pretty good, but is only about 17500 merfolk in the GBR if we used such numbers. It's a good number, but far from huge.

I'd expect a fondness for locations with stiller water being available nearby, like the partially enclosed bays and inlets some fish use for spawning grounds. Somewhere to hide from storms, get away from larger predators and rear young without fear of currents sweeping them away before they can swim well.

I wonder how far a merfolk could feasibly roam in a day? Sharks are in the high tens of kilometres I think, which is a decent range for hunting in.

Hold on, the Great Barrier Reef has an area of 344,400 sq km. At 20 per sq km you'd have around 6.9 million. Anyway, the Grey Reef Shark is just one of a number of large-bodied shark species found in the Great Barrier Reef - just within the genus Carcharhinus you're looking at least ten other species with greater than 1.5m length resident in that area.

Sharks aren't the best comparison anyway, as with the exception of a small number of mostly pelagic large species (Great White, Shortfin Mako, etc.) they are ectothermic, and merfolk are presumably going to be endothermic mammals. I think Sea Lions or perhaps small dolphins are a better comparative marker. The Galapagos Sea Lion is a good benchmark species in my reckoning. It's in the right size range and is isolated in a single location that has been protected for a long time, meaning the population is probably only moderately depressed compared to pre-industrial norms due to overall reduced ocean productivity rather than direct fishing impact. That's a population of around 50,000 in the Galapagos, which you could argue might have been 75,000 historically. That's certainly enough to have a few merfolk towns and small cities in the shallow waters between the islands and one can imagine similar archipelagos with roughly equivalent setups (Hawaii, Fiji, etc.). In areas with larger amounts of contiguous shallow water and reef systems - Indonesia, Gulf of Mexico, Mediterranean, etc. - you could imagine merfolk kingdoms in the several million range.

The Mediterranean Sea, for example, is about 2.5 million sq. km. This is about the same size as Kazakhstan (2.7 million). Kazkhstan has a population density of 6.2 people per sq. km - with much of it's population in a similar lifestyle to the one merfolk would be utilizing. Still, that's obviously impacted by modern technology and therefore much too high. The population density of Mongolia (which is the least densely populated country in the world), is 1.7. I think you could reasonably posit merfolk at ~2. That would give you 5 million merfolk in the Med, which seems reasonable.

One thing I take from this exercise is that in highly fertile tropical and sub-tropical regions, especially island regions, the competition between humans and merfolk for resources would be intense. You probably wouldn't have human settlement on any small, reasonably isolated island chains because merfolk would murder anyone who tried to settle them. Larger island chains with both fertile terrestrial and aquatic resources - ex. The Philippines - would be fiercely contested.

[Landis963]

On Merfolk writing: would it not be feasible for merfolk to write on kelp leaves or other plant matter? Instead of scratching their records into shell or coral? Agreed that drying cephalopod skins to serve as vellum probably wouldn't work underwater.

[Mechalich]

On Merfolk writing: would it not be feasible for merfolk to write on kelp leaves or other plant matter? Instead of scratching their records into shell or coral? Agreed that drying cephalopod skins to serve as vellum probably wouldn't work underwater.

Kelp's not very durable. Actually, neither is papyrus or paper without fairly modern production methods, especially not when immersed in saltwater. Drying skins is still your best bet -assuming the merfolk can haul out onto beaches or even build rafts. Shark and ray skin is probably the best bet - especially rays, which might give you a fairly large flat surface without the need for extensive processing for just basic notes.

The trick is having something to write on them with, because you're going to have some trouble with inks in water (merfolk aren't the heptapods from Arrival, able to telekinetically write with their ink). Pencil works fine - if you can make pencils. With the right kind of graphite deposit you can just saw sticks of it off and use those as pencils (the British did this for centuries, apparently), but if you don't have the right kind of graphite deposit you have to make pencil 'lead' the hard way, which involves a forming press and high temperature baking. It might be possible for merfolk to manufacture grease pencils or crayons - which are hydrophobic and therefore effective underwater - using spermaceti wax harvested from sperm whales, as the process to purify it does not require any heating above ambient temperatures and therefore could potentially be done underwater.

Worth noting that, if merfolk are capable of trading with land-dwelling humans (or elves or whatever else is walking around your fantasy) the writing implement problem is fairly easy to solve using various types of pencils (graphite, charcoal, grease, wax) and crayons, especially since the merfolk can provide the raw materials in the form of whale oil.

[Grim Portent]

Another problem with any of the 'we could make this work' type soft materials is that none of them are intuitive underwater compared to carving on already available flat rocks and shells. Developing parchment makes sense when you have dried skins lying around from the butcher already, or when you have suitable fibrous plants in your environment, but underwater that's not really a thing, nor is ink or good quality graphite, you have to go to great lengths to produce them through trial and error. Scratching a rock with another rock is very obvious anywhere though.

I'm not even sure if they'd bother with writing at all to be honest, with a hard cap on their tech caused by the water I'm not sure what they'd want to write about that couldn't be better dealt with via the spoken word. Several human cultures never bothered with writing, preferring oral traditions to keep history and myth alive and sending messengers to inform people of things. Even today huge chunks of some countries can't read and write.

[Andrian]

I think a written language, or at least some kind of symbology, would be necessary (or at least useful) for things like signage. Also, mathematical symbology would be a great boon even to a largely illiterate population.

However, it occurs to me that, underwater, visual cues might not be as valuable as audible ones. I wonder if merfolk might set up anchored buoys with stuff attached that would clack to help them with navigation over long distances. The buoys would serve as landmarks.

[Grim Portent]

It might be more sensible for them to just be good innate navigators like a lot of sea creatures are. Able to find a breeding ground halfway across the world on childhood memory alone and instinct alone. Sea turtles, salmon and whales all do it on a regular basis.

Another thought though, how do merfolk catch fish? Do they use tools or do they have adaptations to catch them without tools? Are they weaving nets underwater as their basic strategy or do they sit in wait like a moray eel and snatch fish? Or do they chase them down? If they do either of the latter do they use their hands or teeth to catch them? Do they swallow food whole or tear it into chunks? Just how similar are they to humans compared to sea creatures?

Also, do they sleep on land or in water? If we're assuming mammals then there's precedent for both, and land seems more safe for them, but they could nap like sea otters floating in the ocean on their backs.

[Trekkin]

It occurs to me that we could have benthic mammals (and thus, volcano-powered merfolk industry) rather more easily than extant biology would have us believe.

Deep-diving cetaceans don't store oxygen in their lungs, they store it in their blood and myoglobin -- which, as with most natural biology, is messy and sufficient rather than optimal. It avoids precipitation by covering its surface in positive charges, which limits its packing density; there's also a lot of wasted space stabilizing the helices that doesn't do anything for the actual heme. Packing in more heme (six is possible, by my admittely permissive first-pass simulations) and having it oligomerize in both oxy and deoxy forms (ideally by using the oxygen in the oxy binding surface) would store much more oxygen per unit volume. One order of magnitude is a conservative estimate, although they'd need a compelling reason to evolve something so bizarre, along with a way to exhaust that much CO2 at pressure. Gills might work, and could concievably evolve from surface blood vessels; they can't pull in oxygen at all efficiently, but they can mitigate rising blood CO2 concentration between breaths. Since sperm whales can dive for 90 minutes, a more optimized whale might dive for 900 minutes.

Now, there's an economy of scale here, since the more volume you have the more oxygen you can store, and since they're already on the ocean floor, they needn't be very fast swimmers and can get very big as long as they're supported by water. They might even walk along the ocean floor; given the ability to sequester extremely salty fluids (their urine, perhaps) internally to give them slight negative bouyancy, they could go around grazing on tube worms and whale/large marine reptile falls and so forth (this would naturally need a much more volcanically active planet than our own, but they'd take very well to farming), which would even give them a reason to have hands. They don't necessarily need to be quadrupeds all the time to support their weight, so having a tail they could balance with and forelimbs to dig things out of narrow cracks would make more sense for them than for either terrestrial mammals or whales. Besides, if they're big enough they could stay under for a day or longer. They've got time.

So, in short, it's good-enough-for-gaming plausible to have what are essentially mammalian Kaiju walking around in the ocean depths, and they can have hands, much like how whales actually have hand bones; theirs are just covered in flipper rather than fingers. They'd have eyes, too, since they regularly travel to lit regions -- and they'd want to avoid glowing rock anyway. Hands, eyes, and limbic systems are all very helpful for the sorts of things we want merfolk to do industrially.

[Zorku]

It would be borderline impossible to preserve octopus skin underwater. It's very soft, rots quite quickly and would be nibbled to nothing by small fish and invertebrates. Not to mention if you tan it the chromatophores would stop working. Leather in general is a no go underwater.

Chromatophores work with tiny muscles that expand and contract their pigment pockets. These start firing randomly after the creature dies for a while.

The only way to force a chromatophore to work would be electrocution to the muscles that control the cells, which doesn't work underwater and wouldn't work on preserved tissue.

Cuttlefish or squid mantle is closer in texture to what would be needed, but would still degrade very fast and would need electrocution to change colour.

It would be far easier to just carve messages on large seashells or flat rocks.

I was thinking you'd make use of the various neurotoxins provided by jellyfish and underwater snails.

Leather rotting quickly is a much better strike against this, and should have been raised back when there were questions about access to leather armor.

Kelp's not very durable. Actually, neither is papyrus or paper without fairly modern production methods,

That's a shame. Egypt could have been really great if they had developed a system of writing in the ancient world...



Something about merfolk writing in crayon makes my inner child really happy though.

[daremetoidareyo]

There is some access to sun-drying of materials using buoys, which could also double as sea oyster farming along the tether lines.

Sea turtle shells are crazy hard and likely to preserve in use for at least a year before sea rot kicks in, and I'm sure that they can be cured with epoxies made from whale fat left on the sun drying bouys.

It occurs to me that writing doesn't necessarily get developed without a power imbalanced agricultural type of society with leisure timey types on the top of the social order and wage laborer types on the bottom.

Lets talk the defining feature of mammals: mammaries. Is breast feeding a trait that would be evolutionarily retained? Would breasts remain on the upper torso? If our merfolk aren't coral bound hunter gatherers, wouldn't they need different teeth for their uncooked fish heavy diet?

[Andrian]

It might be more sensible for them to just be good innate navigators like a lot of sea creatures are. Able to find a breeding ground halfway across the world on childhood memory alone and instinct alone. Sea turtles, salmon and whales all do it on a regular basis.

Another thought though, how do merfolk catch fish? Do they use tools or do they have adaptations to catch them without tools? Are they weaving nets underwater as their basic strategy or do they sit in wait like a moray eel and snatch fish? Or do they chase them down? If they do either of the latter do they use their hands or teeth to catch them? Do they swallow food whole or tear it into chunks? Just how similar are they to humans compared to sea creatures?

Also, do they sleep on land or in water? If we're assuming mammals then there's precedent for both, and land seems more safe for them, but they could nap like sea otters floating in the ocean on their backs.

Not sure about the sleeping question, but I think I have something to say about the other subjects.

Regarding navigation, I imagine that merfolk, like humans, would be a highly altricial species - that is, they have few hard-wired instincts and instead have a long period of brain development while they are interacting with their environment. You'll notice that humans have very long childhoods, and this is so that we can learn through experience. This makes us more adaptable than animals which rely on instinct for most things, though also more vulnerable as individuals during the early years of our lives. Our strong social bonds have enabled this prolonged childhood, as friends and family members protect us from harm during this period. I wonder if merfolk would be able to retain their neural plasticity while also having a strong innate ability for navigation. Perhaps they might evolve a way of detecting the earth's magnetic field, as migratory birds or sharks have? I know it's not a mammalian trait, but the fact that it's evolved independently in at least two widely-separated clades suggests that parallel evolution could occur again with the right selection pressures.

As to how merfolk catch fish, I think they would probably employ a number of methods. The video I linked in the OP points out that tridents are used in spear fishing, and I think this might be an appropriate method for merfolk to capture their prey. They might use nets, of course, but nets do pose a hazard to merfolk who choose to use them, as they might become entangled and drown. Even human divers with air supplies run this risk when dealing with nets, so I suspect that even opposable thumbs, high intelligence, and sharp implements might not be enough to totally eliminate this danger. However, as there are humans who get paid to dive while working nets, I would not be surprised to find that merfolk might take the risk if the reward was big enough. However, merfolk would definitely have to be careful when hunting, especially if using nets to capture large schools of fish, as this activity would tend to attract other large predators like sharks, dolphins, and possibly even larger whales.

As for how they eat... I'm really not sure. I imagine they would probably grasp the fish in their hands. Hands are awesome for holding things in place, allowing you to be picky about what parts of what you're eating you put in your mouth. Fish have all sorts of hard, pointy stabby bits in their bodies, and while many marine carnivores eat fish either whole or in large chunks, I imagine it can't be comfortable to have those bits jabbing or cutting into the inside of your throat. These are tool-users, and I imagine they would use tools to help them eat more efficiently. If they can haul out on the shore, it might be wise for them to do so before eating. That way cleaning the fish won't attract predators and scavengers that might come along and try to steal their meal or take a bite out of them.

Speaking of predators... I imagine that killer whales and merfolk would be ancestral enemies. Killer whales are smart, and would probably develop hunting strategies for feeding on merfolk, just as they've done with nearly everything else in the ocean from stingrays and sharks to massive baleen whales. Depending on the diet of the merfolk, they might also serve as competition for killer whales, giving both groups reasons to try and thin the others' numbers. If merfolk were able to develop advanced technology (or magic, which is just a kind of fantasy technology), they might be able to render themselves virtually immune to killer whale attacks, as humans have done with large terrestrial predators such as bears and big cats. There are still occasional deaths from such creatures (and these are more common in less-developed countries where the ecosystems haven't been completely destroyed), but they pose no threat to our species' survival. If stuck in the stone age, however, merfolk would have to constantly be on-guard against killer whales. Battles between the two species might well begin to resemble wars, with each side developing evolving tactics for dealing with their enemies and working in coordinated groups.

[Mechalich]

It occurs to me that writing doesn't necessarily get developed without a power imbalanced agricultural type of society with leisure timey types on the top of the social order and wage laborer types on the bottom.

I think the aquatic environment is different enough in terms of resource availability that you could get a division of labor and stratificiation without traditional agriculture. Pastoralist societies can have division of labor and those are closer to what merfolk might aspire to reach (actually pastoralist merfolk who herd whales is potentially viable straight-up if they're mobile enough). If merfolk do haul-out I think you could get division of labor in the form of the elites who control the extremely limited beach areas over the rest of the population forced to rent safe territory.

Lets talk the defining feature of mammals: mammaries. Is breast feeding a trait that would be evolutionarily retained? Would breasts remain on the upper torso? If our merfolk aren't coral bound hunter gatherers, wouldn't they need different teeth for their uncooked fish heavy diet?

Breast feeding is retained in whales, so there's no particular reason why it would not be retained in merfolk. It would admittedly be difficult for merfolk to give birth in water with anything like human labor difficulties, which supports the haul-out capable approach.

Variation in dentition is certainly possible, but unless merfolk are actively catching prey with their jaws - unlikely - I don't see a lot of huge modifications being necessary. Current human dentition is fully capable of consuming raw fish, shellfish, and other seafood. I think what would be more likely would be enhanced dental durability - perhaps more teeth in total in the anticipation of losses - given the likelihood of getting gritty sand mixed into meals.

[Zorku]

Fish have all sorts of hard, pointy stabby bits in their bodies, and while many marine carnivores eat fish either whole or in large chunks, I imagine it can't be comfortable to have those bits jabbing or cutting into the inside of your throat.

You make use of enough evolutionary terminology that I'm sure you're familiar with sticklebacks, but for the sake of everyone else: the saltwater varieties of this little fish have a number of spines that mostly sit well enough lengthwise while the fish is swimming, but when a larger fish comes along they flex and bring these spines into an outward facing position, so that there's this much bigger cross section where a lot of exposed spike is going to scratch at exposed throat tissue. This just about guarantees that the predator will cough them back up, so long as that cross section isn't a negligible fraction of the throat diameter. If you're familiar with the kind of muscle contractions involved in swallowing something, these spikes most likely make it extremely difficult to force a stickleback into your gut.

This clade of fish suffers a pretty distinct disadvantage any time it finds itself in murky freshwater pools however, because of things like dragonfly nymphs. Those muscular little jerks have this crazy jaw cannon that juts out and grabs onto a fish almost as big as they are, and then it starts to eat them much like some merfolk that have locked a fish down and simply chews into them from a non-sharp-bits angle. As best as anyone can tell the nymphs are able to snag the fish by these spines, and that is such a distinct disadvantage that evolution goes a little bit nuts and allows the fish to lose their entire pelvis, as that is an easier genetic change to make than more selectively removing the spines.

*I haven't followed up on any of this for like a decade now so prevailing opinions may have shifted.

[Andrian]

Zorku, I had not known about the term specifically, but I have been fishing before and have noted that many fish have the feature you describe, and understood its function as those slippery bastards are constantly flaring out those spiky death barbs when you're trying to get a solid grip on them to remove the hook from their mouths, and I imagine it would not be fun to get poked with one - especially on the inside of one's throat. I was in fact thinking of that sort of thing when I mentioned the sharp spiky bits.

To be honest, my understanding of evolution is merely that of an interested layperson. (Interesting story about how I became so, but as it would be off-topic and is related to hot-button issues that tend to get blood pressure boiling, we won't go into that here.) I understand the basic concepts of natural selection and mutation and how they work, as well as a few terms that I've picked up from documentaries and the like. However, I'm by no means an expert or a scholar on the subject, and what professional training I've actually had is in Philosophy and the mental health field.

Anyway, thank you for the explanation! It's one reason I think merfolk would prefer to eat with their hands rather than grabbing fish and tearing them to bits with their teeth or trying to swallow them whole. If merfolk have throats roughly the size of a human's (though hopefully they'd at least have adapted separate tubes for food and air like other marine mammals... seriously evolution, why couldn't that be a basal feature to mammals?), it would restrict them to VERY tiny fish, which, for such a large-bodied creature, would mean eating A LOT of those little fish. However, if they use hands and tools to hold the fish and cut them up into bite-sized pieces that don't contain hard, spiky bits, they could catch and eat much bigger fish and probably save a lot of energy when hunting.

[Zorku]

It's one reason I think merfolk would prefer to eat with their hands rather than grabbing fish and tearing them to bits with their teeth or trying to swallow them whole. If merfolk have throats roughly the size of a human's it would restrict them to VERY tiny fish, which, for such a large-bodied creature, would mean eating A LOT of those little fish. However, if they use hands and tools to hold the fish and cut them up into bite-sized pieces that don't contain hard, spiky bits, they could catch and eat much bigger fish and probably save a lot of energy when hunting.

Whether you think they can function with bronze or if they just have to sculpt new tools out of bone frequently, that still means they could soundly stick larger fish and the various large predators with some nasty barbed harpoons or similar spear-like items. This is a fairly different tactic to the typical engulf & swallow strategy that seems to be responsible for the spiny bits on your various fish, but it also dumps a lot of blood into the water. The Merfolk would need to either hunt in big enough groups to not be concerned with sharks (possible, depending on how they can stock up on tools,) or subdue their dying prey and quickly swim to a more secure location. Just snatching a fish with their hands and then biting into it would put a similar mess into the water, but as humans quickly learned, you can string a metal wire through the gills of fish and they're more effectively bound than a person in shackles. They could trash a bit like that, but they're not going to easily get away from a larger swimmer, and anything big can just be secured to rocks and the like to wear itself out.

And as I've mentioned before, there are lots of poisons available in the sea, so Merfolk could reasonably keep some bag full of toxic snails or whatnot and smear or force feed them to captive prey to paralyze or otherwise subdue them. This needs a suitable dose so that it doesn't go on to incapacitate the Merfolk after they eat it. If this toxin is common in their diet at low doses then they might become resistant to it, but they might also develop an allergy and become much more strongly affected. They'd probably have a few hiccups before they find an appropriate poison to use like this.

[Andrian]

On the subject of writing, I recently learned about the ancient Mesoamerican system of record-keeping known as Quifu, which I think might serve merfolk fairly well if they have access to cordage that won't degrade. The basic idea is that you have a long string, and attached to that string are other strings of various lengths with knots placed in different locations to represent certain kinds of information. Though we don't understand exactly how it worked, it seems like a fairly space-efficient way to store messages that doesn't involve paper or ink. Of course there's always the danger of tangling, but that could be overcome with careful storage methods. I think Merfolk might be able to use something similar, perhaps adding shells, coral, bone, small stones, or maybe even manufactured beads.

[Jackalias]

On the subject of writing, I recently learned about the ancient Mesoamerican system of record-keeping known as Quifu, which I think might serve merfolk fairly well if they have access to cordage that won't degrade. The basic idea is that you have a long string, and attached to that string are other strings of various lengths with knots placed in different locations to represent certain kinds of information. Though we don't understand exactly how it worked, it seems like a fairly space-efficient way to store messages that doesn't involve paper or ink. Of course there's always the danger of tangling, but that could be overcome with careful storage methods. I think Merfolk might be able to use something similar, perhaps adding shells, coral, bone, small stones, or maybe even manufactured beads.

Speaking of Mesoamerica the Aztecs created floating gardens called chinampas which could serve a serve as a form of food or dry land for merpeople.

[Jendekit]

Question I have due to working on my own aquatic setting: currency.

What besides gold (which doesn't corrode any faster underwater and is soft enough to not need forges to work) would be viable units of currency?

[Jackalias]

Question I have due to working on my own aquatic setting: currency.

What besides gold (which doesn't corrode any faster underwater and is soft enough to not need forges to work) would be viable units of currency?

Sand dollars, sea shells, bones, scales, colorful stones, any number of things really. And if they couldn't get a mint working they'd probably just use other countries currencies.

[Thorongil]

I don't know about a durable writing system/materials, but what about merfolk using oral tradition? Long before humans were writing our songs and tales down, people just memorized and recited them- that's how we got the Iliad and dozens of other ancient stories. With those big brains and air-breathing lungs, you've got language and memory, so it seems like there's a door wide open for Mer-Homer to emerge from.

No idea how tattooing works underwater, but if you're looking for a durable writing medium, maybe the merfolk themselves? And if inking doesn't work in salt water, maybe even scarring? I doubt they'd slice their arms up over, say, a grocery list. But lists of ancestors, metallurgic knowledge, astrological and/or oceanic current cycles, and stories could probably be recorded that way. Granted, it'll hurt like hell, but human cultures do scarring all the time.

[Andrian]

I don't know about a durable writing system/materials, but what about merfolk using oral tradition? Long before humans were writing our songs and tales down, people just memorized and recited them- that's how we got the Iliad and dozens of other ancient stories. With those big brains and air-breathing lungs, you've got language and memory, so it seems like there's a door wide open for Mer-Homer to emerge from.

No idea how tattooing works underwater, but if you're looking for a durable writing medium, maybe the merfolk themselves? And if inking doesn't work in salt water, maybe even scarring? I doubt they'd slice their arms up over, say, a grocery list. But lists of ancestors, metallurgic knowledge, astrological and/or oceanic current cycles, and stories could probably be recorded that way. Granted, it'll hurt like hell, but human cultures do scarring all the time.

Hey, I love that idea! It's super flavorful and would totally work! Maybe they could harvest octopi for ink and do their tattooing on land to avoid attracting predators.

[daremetoidareyo]

Hey, I love that idea! It's super flavorful and would totally work! Maybe they could harvest octopi for ink and do their tattooing on land to avoid attracting predators.

This will make funeral rights be complicated. If real info of value is scarified into tribe members, there will have to be an aspect of cultural inheritance of said info.

[Jackalias]

This will make funeral rights be complicated. If real info of value is scarified into tribe members, there will have to be an aspect of cultural inheritance of said info.

Maybe their funerary rights involve flaying the deceased.

[redwizard007]

Maybe their funerary rights involve flaying the deceased.

Flaying and preserving the skin would run into the deterioration issue again.

I absolutely love the idea of body "mutilation" being used as writing. This would be a great justification for advanced funeral practices rather than allowing the bodies to float/sink and be abandoned. Imagine an elaborate ritual of copying portions of text to heirs or favored students, before committing the deceased to the beyond.

Further, wizards, high priests and even advanced scholars could be so covered in "text" that they would be considered societal treasures. Protected, and possibly secluded away to prevent their secrets from being gleaned by the unworthy.

Really, this opens whole new avenues for developing an original culture.

[Thorongil]

Just a hunch, as I'm not at all well versed in writing systems or the evolution of languages, but I would guess that the problem of limited writing space (we only have so much living skin to work with) might predispose a culture towards a condensed writing system, with smaller symbols representing bigger ideas. So rather than a big alphabet with a bunch of prefixes and suffixes (looking at you, Ancient Greeks), maybe the merfolk writing system would more closely resemble hieroglyphics, cuneiform, petroglyphs, and other pictograms.

Alternatively (or perhaps in conjunction with the above idea), the priests and scholars might be encouraged to have lots of children in a culture that scars or tattoos its information, in order to pass on their accumulated knowledge and give the community more skin to work with in the next generation.

[Andrian]

I'd imagine something kinda like Chinese characters, where each character represents a word. Maybe their writing would condense even further, with each character representing multiple words or ideas. I imagine that written words would be considered to be very powerful.

[Thorongil]

I'd imagine something kinda like Chinese characters, where each character represents a word. Maybe their writing would condense even further, with each character representing multiple words or ideas. I imagine that written words would be considered to be very powerful.

Chinese, of course! Now you've got me wondering what proto-Chinese characters looked like...

from Wikipedia:

[Cluedrew]

No idea how tattooing works underwater, but if you're looking for a durable writing medium, maybe the merfolk themselves? And if inking doesn't work in salt water, maybe even scarring?

I spent the whole thread going "ballads" every time writing came up. Not only did you get that but you might have beaten it.

I like ballads still, they might have encoded every bit of knowledge you need into one or another songs. The ballads were designed to be memorized and apparently there still exists someone who can recite the entire Iliad from memory. If they can speak clearly underwater broadcasting this information may or may not be easy to do. I'm not sure what kind of range a human voice could get underwater.

Another, less exciting option might be to get something that rots lowly and copy it over. Which does require a certain amount of upkeep, might be worth it. They might also end up with a very efficient to write (as in time, as opposed to space for skin) system to allow that. Libraries could also be on land, or built up out of shallow water, so that the water is not a factor in preservation. In fact if they still have legs (aquatic monkeys) they could very well go on shore often, although likely not far from the water. Actually by many of the designs they will have to so they can sleep anyways, so they might has a significant part of their culture on the shore.

[Mechalich]

I spent the whole thread going "ballads" every time writing came up. Not only did you get that but you might have beaten it.

I like ballads still, they might have encoded every bit of knowledge you need into one or another songs. The ballads were designed to be memorized and apparently there still exists someone who can recite the entire Iliad from memory. If they can speak clearly underwater broadcasting this information may or may not be easy to do. I'm not sure what kind of range a human voice could get underwater.

Another, less exciting option might be to get something that rots lowly and copy it over. Which does require a certain amount of upkeep, might be worth it. They might also end up with a very efficient to write (as in time, as opposed to space for skin) system to allow that. Libraries could also be on land, or built up out of shallow water, so that the water is not a factor in preservation. In fact if they still have legs (aquatic monkeys) they could very well go on shore often, although likely not far from the water. Actually by many of the designs they will have to so they can sleep anyways, so they might has a significant part of their culture on the shore.

One thing about writing is that civilization uses it for several different things, and alternatives are not necessarily functional for all of those things. An extensive oral tradition, for example, handles the long-term preservation of the cultural mythos and moral structure. That's great, but it is not a solution to using writing for the day-to-day dissemination of information through a bureaucracy, doing math, or sending secure missives and so forth. So you'd want to supplement an oral tradition with something capable of handling short notes on a temporary basis. Letters cut into seaweed or scratched on wax tablets might suffice. Also, some form of underwater abacus seems like an important invention.