When the gods came to Mereldia, they found nothing but witless animals wandering around. Through breeding with those animals and millenia of teaching, the witless were lead out of their state of non-intelligence and gained sentience. Only those that were resembling the local god the most, were lead out of sentience though while the others remained witless. This way, only one species was made sentient in a land at a time.
As the gods were resolved from their lands, over three millenia has passed since they came to Mereldia. In this time, each of those gods had managed to bring at least one species in their respective land to sentience, while leaving all others in their witless state. The sentient mortals from then on had to rule themselves, which among others lead to the foundation of the oldest cities of Mereldia, Monabur and Nordberg.
More time passed and the sentients managed to reach world dominating powers. Due to seeing themselves on top, they started to regard the witless as livestock. The witless from then on were largely be used for the production and gaining of food and as productive livestock, being used to pull wagons or other heavy things.
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In the common language, the witless are refered to as "animals", while the sentient are refered to as "people". To call another sentient an animal, therefore would be a severe insult!
Witless and Sentient
Apart from the level of intelligence, there also are biological factors that differentiate the sentient from the witless. For one, there would be the most obvious feature: the eyes. When one looks at a witless, then the eyes vary a lot, still having their original natural look. For sentient though, it doesn't matter which species one looks at, because the eyes will always share a common feature. The sclera is visible, making the eyes more expressive. It is something the sentient inherited from the gods, who also have such sentient eyes.
The other difference between a witless and a sentient would be their eating habits. A witless has to stick to a specific schedule, being a herbivore, carnivore or omnivore. Sentients, ont he other hand, are all omnivorous. So a wolf would for example be able to eat vegetabels without a problem and a horse could eat meat.
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One can clearly keep a person apart from an animal by looking at their eyes. But also the clothign is a crucial thing to notice, since animals of course don't wear any clothing. But one should not solely rely on that, since sentient slaves also do not wear any clothing. But since they are seen as lowly as animals, the difference is not really that important, even though they are sentient.
a sentient horse's eye
a witless horse's eye
a sentient wolf's eye
a witless wolf's eye
a sentient cat's eye
a witless cat's eye