Maldives: corals, atolls and soil formation

Soil is a complex living system. "It's the porous interface between sky, plants and rock that transmits and transforms flows of material, energy and organisms".¹ We depend on the processes that take place in the soil and the resources that result from them. Have you ever wondered where you stand? What kind of ground is under your feet and what is going on down there?

Soil is commonly formed from geological material and tectonic forces, but in the atolls there is an additional factor: corals. "The atolls are formed when coral growth produces a fringing reef around each volcanic landmass. As the reef grows taller the land subsides until the volcano disappears completely. Only the reef is left, encircling a lagoon of water where the volcano used to be. This reef continues to grow and the higher parts eventually become islands".²

🇲🇻 Maldives is an island country. More specifically, a chain of small coral islands in the Indian Ocean. It consists of approximately 1,190 coral islands grouped in a double chain of 26 atolls. More than 250 species of corals have been recorded in Maldivian waters. The most common genus is the Acropora, and it can take any number of forms, ranging from flat plates to round brain-like structures. In the Maldives, coral is the backbone of the marine ecosystem and the base ingredient for soil formation:

"Coral islands created by accretion have developed from rubbly reef rock broken off from the reef by storms and waves and mixed with finer reef detritus. The exceptional conditions of cyclonic storms are sometimes sufficient to create reef-top shoals in a single event. Other material accumulates by more regular methods such as normal currents and wave action. Beaches develop around the shoal, and wind may heap up the lighter, finer material into dunes. Rainwater can now reach all this material, which, being almost entirely of calcium carbonate, is readily dissolved by it, and the dissolved lime is redeposited around the loose material, cementing it together. The newly formed land is soon colonized by plants and animals, which also contribute their own remains to the island, helping soil to develop. Many of the reef islands in the central and southern Pacific and of the Maldive Islands in the Indian Ocean originated in this way".³

Coral reefs are the home to countless marine species but it is also "a very fragile creature that is susceptible to the slightest change in environment. Coral dies when the water temperature changes or when the mineral content is affected by the dumping of wastes".⁴ The coral reefs of the Maldives have suffered due to sea-temperature warming; it is said that more than 60% of the country's coral reefs have been hit by bleaching.⁵

Dhivehi language and Thaana script

In Maldives the official and common language is Dhivehi:

Dhivehi is losest to Elu (AY-loo), an ancient form of Sinhalese, the language of Sri Lanka. However, it has also borrowed words from Hindi, Arabic, English and Bengali. Some language experst believe that the Maldiviands first spoke Dhivehi as a form of secret code. As the ancient Maldiviands traded mostly with Sri Lankans, they had to modify Sinhalese words or use them with different meanings so that the Sri Lankans would not understant what they were saying among themselves. (...) Dhivehi is a class-concious language. There are three classes. The highest level is used to address members of the upper class and on tv and radio. The second level, which is less formal, is adopted to show respect for elders or to talk to goverment officials and strangers. Most Maldivians use informal Dhivehi, the third level, in everyday life.

Dhivehi is written with a script called Thaana (Tarnah). This script was invented by the national hero Mohammed Thakurufaanu in the 16th century after he threw the Portuguese out of the country. Thaana consist of 24 letters, of which the first nine are forms of Arabic numerals. Vowels are written above the letters in the form of dashes. Thaana is written from right to left, which is similar to arabic script.⁶

Although it seems like "Maldives does not have much of a literary tradition, it does have a rich oral tradition of myths and folk legends, but it is only recently that local folk tales have been published in Dhivehi and English".⁷ A great example of this is the book Folk Tales of the Maldives by Xavier Romero-Frias that can be found here.

In the Unicode standard, the Thaana script takes the U+0780..U+07BF block range. It has 64 code points and 50 assigned characters. It is possible to find a good number of open fonts to use the Thaana script in the Thaana Type Foundry.

Muraka (މުރަކަ)

This generative token is inspired by corals (surprise!). Learning about the way it grows, the shapes and textures it forms and the big role it plays in marine ecosystems and coastal settlements really amazed me. My starting point:

- A question: can coral grow from the Thaana script? In some parts of the world, living beings are part of the language. For me, this is one of the best ways to connect with the different ecosystems we inhabit.

- Randomness: to form strings. I chose shape over meaning, mainly because right now I am not fluent in the Maldivian language. Although I would very much like to learn it, the shapes of its letters also captivated me.

- Shapes: from the Acropora coral, specifically the flat shape of the Acropora hyacinthus, and the brain-like texture present in other coral genus such as the Diploria.

The result is an interactive patch made in cables.gl that creates different conditions for shiny corals to grow ✨. Variables include:

- A Thaana string-seed made from 4 random characters.

- A Reaction Diffusion System with different input values.

- A color palette.

- Water density (post-processing fog).

Growing a "real" coral

The generative token is a rather poetic answer to the already poetic question can coral grow from the Thaana script? But I definitely think something more concrete can be done. This is why 25% of the total sales of the token will be used to adopt coral fragments. This is one of the ways in which the company Reefscapers seeks to create community coral frames to restore coral reefs in the Maldives. This way, the fx(hash) community can have a direct participation in the conservation of an endangered ecosystem 🪸.

References:

1: Steve Banwart, Domesticating Soil in Earths's Critical Zone, 2020.

2, 4, 6 and 7: Roseline NgCheong-Lum, Cultures of the World: Maldives, 2011.

3: Encyclopædia Britannica, coral island.

5: The Guardian, 2016.