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This essay '''On the Relationship between Olgish and Soskish Culture''' explores the joint history of Olgs and Sosks from their first encounters up until the foundation of Lécaron. It seeks to explain the role each nation played in the formation of the other and how, ultimately, the Soskish language would surpass Cëlacian in popularity and become the official tongue of the Empire.

===Introduction: The Kingdoms of the early Bronze Age===
During what is usually termed the ‘Age of Longing’ in Olgish writings, the habitat of the Ortûlékians was largely restricted to the narrow strip of land reaching from the fens of the Nellac westward across the plain of Ortûlék into the moorland around the basin of Talis and south toward the source of the Brethan. This area, identical to the Almenland of Aribelian historiography, was shared among Olgs, Genes, and Auls, with the latter inhabiting the more fertile farmlands to the east, the Genes dwelling in the open lands to the west, and Olgs occupying the motherland around Ortûlék and perhaps already the banks of the Cëlac northward to the point where it emerges from the mountains near the ancient trading city of Lágon; it might well have been in this time that they acquired their ethnonym, ''olgi'' ‘the skilful ones’, for their early metal workings. To the southwest of the lands dwelled the Noldorinians, a mysterious, little-mentioned people only known from sparse references in the old Olgish writings and few, incomplete stone carvings in their lost language, which reveal not much about their culture except that they seem to have been not too distant relatives of the Ortûlékians themselves and that they were among the first sheep-breeders of Belkondíl.

The lands to the East, most of what later became known as the Edhennín, Morineb, and Corbin, were part of a loose union of Western Soskish Kingdoms, still nominally dependent of Nishûnâc and closely tied to their Thárian relatives of Oakshire and the slowly expanding Eastern Sosks, who would later come to found the Kingdom of Môredh in the plains east of the Great River. Their culture was a rider culture, herding cattle and sheep in the vast heathlands stretching along the Gulf of Iiljak and southward to the shores of the Timesthe; but they were also traders, bringing gold and copper west from the Reknayan mines and trading it for wool, tools, and artwork of Belkondíl. And even though little credit is given to them in the Olgish writings of later days, it can without a doubt be said that they were among the most driving nations of early Belkondíl, and many cities still standing in the time of the Empire can be traced back to their foundations.

===The Olgs expand into Soskish space===
By the time the Olgs began expanding south beyond Kali-Tonin by the beginning of the 21st century B.E.B., the city of Soskilón was already a flourishing centre of trade. It is not known how first interactions between the resident Sosks and the arriving Olgs were undertaken, but it is likely that the newcomers first appeared submissive, as craftsmen, artisans, and auxiliary workers. Olgish society, however, had always been a contentious one, shown not the least by the fact that by the end of the very same century, internal tensions between the Olgish clans reached a point at which territorial expansion was not only the logical consequence but simply unavoidable. A considerably warped account of these events is given in the Lonsorigi under the label of the ‘First War and the Parting of the Peoples’, portraying the Olgs as reigning supreme in Belkondíl, with a split between the clans of the Cëlac and those of the Brethan already present and the lands of the Auls and Genes reduced to minor occupancies along the coast and the Ilathw River, respectively.

Where the account seems to be right is the fact that Genes as well as Auls were driven from their homelands and would come to occupy new areas outside of the classical bounds of Belkondíl. While peaceful emigrations away from the immense Kingdom of the Olgs in the Lonsorigi, these are more likely to have been violent expulsions, presumably over multiple generations, leading to the eventual deportation of the native peoples and the vacation of their lands for the expanding Olgish warlords. Thus, the Auls were driven to the east, presumably living as vassals of the Sosks in the area west of the Besokian Woods; the Noldorinians were pushed further and further southwest until all that remained of their lands was the small peninsular west of the Harking Hills still bearing their name; the Genes moved north, past the Ilathw and into the Ilgarian Forest, coming into contact with the Geranians and, many centuries later, the invading Kattasi, which might have left the most lasting impression on their culture, before migrating further north and becoming the Aribelians known in later days.

No mention is made of the Sosks in the Legends; not until Elodin brings doom upon Orinion in a much later age, when Olgish-Soskish cohabitance is as assumed as the disfavour of the former for the latter. It seems they were engaged in combat from the beginning of the conflict, be it as allies, auxiliaries, or enemies of the Olgs, but by the end of the expansion process, they had most likely been forced to surrender their ground. The legends speak of an unlawful revelation of the secrets of magic to all of the Olgish people; it seems that indeed a societal shift was taking place around the same time the Olgs began their occupation of the areas they would hold sway over for the following millennia. The formerly very local, agriculture-based society began adopting a more mobile way of life, herding and warring not on foot but on horseback and acquiring many qualities later dubbed typically Olgish but originally and until this point exclusive to the Sosks.

Now faced with an equal adversary, the Soskish dominion over eastern Belkondíl was soon to dwindle, and by the end of the 18th century B.E.B., only Oakshire remained independent of Olgish rule. It is well possible that the united kingdom under the stewardship of Lágon was formed around this time as the Lonsorigi portray it; but even if this union existed, it was never a firm one. The Olgish clans largely retained their independence and cultural differences, and with the expansion into new territories, new sub- and para-nationalities began to emerge, those of the Brethanian and Cëlacian Olgs in their opposing river valleys, that of the Corbians in the forests of the south, and, with Dárin’s conquest of the Ilathw half a millennium later, that of the Wertians of Geran.

The Sosks were present in each of these countries, as traders, soldiers, craftsmen, artists, and politicians, and so was their emerging Belkondílian dialect; but they remained a minority in most of the western half of Belkondíl, always second to the Olgs and, in effect, looked down upon. The situation in the eastern shires was different; here, Sosks had always been the majority of the population, and even though the recent conquests had replaced their own ruling class with a foreign one, their culture and way of life remained unchanged, and while their rulers adhered to the laws and the imposed Koine dialect of Lágon and Ortûlék, respectively, Old Western Soskish is likely to have been the most widely spoken and well-known language in these areas.

===The Sosks and Olgs side by side during their conquests===
This cultural co-existence seems to have persisted over the centuries. All major Olgish conquests, the settlement of the western Reknaya, the occupation of Geran, the founding of the Northwestern Colonies, and even the deceptively named great Olgish Expansion into Seligon, were to a significant part undertaken by Sosks, merchants and soldiers anticipating or serving the Olgish elite or commoners fleeing discrimination and disdain in their shared homeland. Soskish traders, explorers, and arbitrators were oftentimes the ones to enter communication with foreign cultures and civilizations. The Reknayan conquest, said to have arisen from commercial rather than political grounds, was preceded by centuries of trade and cultural exchange, led by the Soskish traders travelling the mountains and highlands north of Belkondíl; the first communications between the soon-to-be conquerors of Seligon and the yet-in-power Fenedic Empire were conducted almost entirely in Classical Western Soskish; and, most famously, the devastating Aribelian Wars and the proceeding founding of the Colonies were rooted in the unquenchable thirst for exploration and interest in Aribelian culture found among the Soskish bourgeoisie of the pre-Imperial era, most of all the legendary merchant, mathematician, and poet, Mîlin of Glirtes.

Their very foundation laid upon this mediating nation, it does hardly come as a surprise that when conversation was required between the native populations of these lands and their foreign occupants, it was most often conducted not in Olgish but in Soskish, and especially the Seligonian kingdoms were known to have early on adopted this lingua franca as their main, and eventually only, spoken language. So while none of their kingdoms persisted, the Belkondílian realms of the Western Sosks falling to the Olgs long before the dawn of history, Oakshire and the Thárian lands eventually subsumed by the lords of Nerrid, and Môredh, after the death of Ul-Gâmekh and the Sacking of Arekh, overrun by the Mikoshi, the Sosks persisted as a driving cultural and social force throughout the history of Elondor. The dialects descended from the language of the Western Sosks were spoken by the lower classes of almost all Olgish-ruled countries and, later, provinces, save the west of Belkondíl, where the Olgs were still the demographic majority; and by the time Ésôrin the Wise declares Soskish the official language of Lécaron, all but the population of those areas, the oldest houses of nobility, and the clergy of both churches of the Olgish faith had accepted Soskish as their everyday language, explaining the fast success of this decree and the almost seamless conversion from a nationalist Olgish to a Soskish-speaking Empire.