I'm reading lore on the Akaviri because I might want to make a character based on them, but all I see so far is that the Akaviri continent is devoid of mer and holds only beast folk. Are the Akaviri or tamriel's history men? If so which would be closer to them now, redguard or imperial?

I don't know if I misread the OP, but Akavir has no humans. It does have vampire snakes, tiger dragons, snow demons and monkey men, but no humans.
Redguards came to Tamriel from Yokuda, and Imperials are descendants of the Nede.

Quote from uesp: .^ The meaning of term "eaten" as given from what is known of the land of Akavir is not clear. Although description of the "vampiric" Tsaesci might suggest literal meaning, it could be a metaphor for being subdued. In Mysterious Akavir by anonymous writer, the Tsaesci are told to have "tried to eat all the Dragons. They managed to enslave the Red Dragons, but the black ones had fled to (then) Po Tun". Also, the Akaviri Diary Translation of an Akaviri messenger states that during his journey to deliver orders to Fort Pale Pass he met another Akaviri messenger, stating that his leg had been badly hurt by wolves. As the Tsaesci are described as beings with humanoid upper body and snake lower bodies, to being entirely snake-like, this statement would suggest that men indeed continued to live in Akavir, even if they were enslaved by the Tsaesci. The Akaviri-made Alduin's Wall shows members of the Dragonguard appearing to be human-looking.

Interesting, indeed, thank you for that text. I'm also interested in knowing what those men would look like.

My Nord femme has Kamal blood running through her veins

If you played oblivion, you got a quest where you had to go to pale pass and explore that very fortress. You find the corpses of the messengers and they are human skeletons. Then when you get to the fortress, you are faced with the ghosts of the Akaviri defenders of the fort and they are human, imperial by how they looked

There was a thread on this in the lore forum recently. Apparently MK said that the Tsaesci were supposed to be reptilian and were only represented as humanoid in Oblivion due to technical reasons. In 2920, Versidue Shae is said to have reptilian, yellow skin and to have a hissing voice, but otherwise no description that I can recall.

no it has no humans , you wont be able to roleplay that...

anyway , how on earth would you do it

i think eroionet ( the land in-between tamriel and akavari) may have mer though.

No-one actually knows what the Tsaesci look like: they might have legs. Read http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:2920,_Morning_Star_(v1) for a description of a fight with one.

Esroniet, an Imperial province located between Tamriel and Akavir, is inhabited by men, probably related to the Kothringi. Make a character with golden skin and non-pointy ears (i.e. a Redguard, but mess around with the complexion slider a bit) and you can roleplay as them quite easily. There's almost no lore about them, though, other than a single name: Bashomon.

What is bashomon?

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Report:_Disaster_at_Ionith

Prince Bashomon was apparently the leader of a kingdom/region called Esroniet, located somewhere between Tamriel and Akavir. Uriel Septim V utilized this island then as a base for the Imp Navy.

lizards