This article details the particularities of Underworld. For the background and behind-the-scenes details, please refer to Project Alicization 1/4.

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Summary

Underworld is the world created in Project Alicization 1/4 that is described in Alicization Arc.

Human Empire Society (Continued)

People's Names

The first sixteen people were given random katakana names. The subsequent naming was the parent's name changed slightly, until a point where a different tradition for naming took root and spread across all of the Human Empire and most of the Dark Territory. This system, much like many real-life names, reflects the parent's "wish" for the child. This is achieved by assigning each sound a specific meaning as follows. Repetitions mean a stronger desire for the trait.

|Sound | Meaning | Sound | Meaning|
|||
|Vowels | Sincerity | G | Bravery|
|J | Hardworking | K | Zeal|
|N | Benevolence | R | Beauty|
|S | Wit | T | Vitality|
|Y | Gentle | Z | Talented at Military Arts|

There are other traditions. For example, among the goblins, meaningful names like "Kosogi" (Scraper) may be used. The known families of the Dark Arts users name their children with just the initials in the ancient Darkness Script (English), eg. "D.I.L." that reads "dee-eye-el".

Commonly, people write the names down using katakana, too. Priests can transcribe the katakana names into a Holy Language alphabet, and write the anglicized version; thus, ユージオ becomes "Eugeo" instead of "Yūjio".

Languages

Common Tongue

The Common Tongue (汎用語 han'yōgo) is the main speaking and writing language throughout Underworld that is essentially a simplified Japanese with some borrowed words. Several accents exist as well.

The Sacred Tongue

The Sacred Tongue (神聖語, shinseigo) is English with some borrowed words. The commoners perceive it as a set of magic phrases beyond mortal ken, but those who study it for the Sacred Arts know what it all means. It is mostly spoken for the Sacred Arts chants and seen written in system windows. Some names also stem from it. It is written in either the Latin script or in katakana, whichever is more convenient.

The Axiom Church dogmatizes that the Sacred Tongue was given to Administrator by the three goddesses at the time of creation. The knowledge of its meaning is forbidden beyond the words used for the known rituals, so the common people do not have any dictionaries of it.

Calendar

Like the starting point, the Axiom Church-approved calendar's name is HEC, meaning Human Empire Calendar (人界歴 jinkai reki). As such, it begins around 70 years after the actual creation date. The days and months simply have numbers, and correspond to the Gregorian calendar.

Date Mapping

To map the HEC dates onto the real life calendar, one would need to make some calculations to account for the FLA changes, considering the known reference time points.

• Kirito arrives for his Rath part-time job sometime in between HEC 361-372 (June 26-28 IRL, Volume 9).
• Kirito's Fluctlight is damaged in an unexpected blackout on July 6, 14:07 JST IRL (Volume 14).
• FLA is set to 1.00 (real-time) on July 7, 0:00 JST IRL, which is HEC 380 month 11 day 8, 0:00. (Volume 16 Chapter 19 Parts 6-7).

Trivia

• Only the nobles and rich or famous citizens earn the right to have a family name, which is then written after the given name unlike Japanese names.
• Like Japan, Underworld measures in metric units that, however, have butchered pronunciations. E.g. meters are "meru", kilometers are "kiloru", centimeters are "sen", millimeters are "mil", liters are "lil", etc.
• Underworld pays in "shear".
• In Volume 9 Prologue II, Parts 1 and 3 it was stated that during that Friday to Sunday, Kazuto was in FullDive for his part-time job at Rath. According to Volume 10, Chapter 2, Part 1, that day was June 29, which the calender states it is a Monday.

References

• Underworld - Fan Wiki
• Sword Art Online Alicization Arc - Yen Press