Library Learning

by **Yisanareysin** on December 1st, 2016, 5:10 pm

20th of Winter, 516 AV

Rey stood before the sunken conundrum once again, his eyes roaming over the wall of rippling water. This place always gave Rey mixed feelings. On one hand, a library, filled to the brim with books overflowing with knowledge and learning, this bastion of Eyris's grace, was a blissful haven for one such as himself, who craved information with every fiber of his being.

On the other hand, his attempts to absorb the contents of every book in this place was stymied by one slight, unfortunate detail.

Rey was absolute shyke at reading. It wasn't his fault, of course. Snake tongue didn't have a written form, and Arumenic hadn't been a major part of his education. So reading in the common tongue, which most of these books were written in, was often a struggle. Rey had made some headway over the years he'd been in Alvadas, and could comprehend many of the simpler books, but the ones he really wanted, the most interesting books seemed to be written in more complex common. The flowery script some of them used hardly helped either.

Rey was here today to remedy that. He'd read books to learn other facts and skills before, but he'd never read books specifically to learn how to read before. He glanced down at the journal in his hand. And write, he amended. He might as well practice writing while he was here.

Stepping forward, Rey pushed through the wall of water, and took a deep breath as gills flared open at his sides. Pushing off from the ground, Rey propelled himself through the water, his movements still awkward after all this time in the library. Half swimming, half bouncing, he made his way over to the base of the nearest shelf.

It was a little too much to say that he really understood the shelving system, but Rey figured he had at least a rough idea of which subjects were where. Assuming that they hadn't rearranged it again, which was unfortunately plausible. Glancing at the nearest shelf, he squinted at the book titles.

This self looked to be filled with sailing texts. What about on top?

Pushing himself upwards, Rey flailed his arms around until he started sinking again, then reached out to grab ahold of the shelf. Glancing around to check that there were no librarians nearby, Rey began to climb diagonally, using the shelves as hand and footholds, shuffling along the edges, stopping every once in a while to check the book subjects.

Knot tying. Nope. Personal accounts. Nope. Fifteen books that looked identical, except each had a different language on the cover. Rey frowned at them. Probably not.

Sighing, Rey turned to swim to another shelf. This could take a while.

Snake Tongue : Common : Arumenic

by **Yisanareysin** on January 11th, 2017, 5:23 am

More than a few shelves later, Rey finally found a book that looked like something he might find useful. Trouble was, the book was in Arumenic, a language Rey was even worse at than Common. Still, those were definitely the words for "Common Tongue" and "Learn". Although it might be "Teach", actually? Either ways, it meant he was in the right section.

A glance at the books in his immediate vicinity revealed they were all in different languages. A quick flip through them revealed that yes, all of them seemed to include some very basic common. Reaching up, Rey began to climb the shelves, scanning each one for a title written in Common.

The majority, unfortunately, were in languages Rey had never seen before. Some of them, Rey wouldn't have guessed were languages, were it not for the fact that they were written in these books. Even supported by the water, Rey could feel his arms start to ache from climbing. Still, Rey persevered, searching for that glimpse of common...

There.

Reaching out, Rey plucked the book from the shelf. "Bond of the Common Tongue". Glancing through, he grinned. It was written all through in common, thank Eyris. Twisting in the water, he pushed off, kicking and half paddling with one hand while the other held the book close to him. It was awkward going, but that described his every attempt to swim, really.

He'd get better at it someday. Maybe he should go take a dip in the mini Suvan. Did dogs like water? Maybe Sable would also want to take a swim. He'd stop by Impawsible Pets later and ask

Floating down to an empty table, Rey pulled out a chair, and settled in to read.

Snake Tongue : Common : Arumenic

by **Yisanareysin** on August 5th, 2017, 7:48 am

I had never thought much about learning a new ???? as an adult until I met ????.

This was not a particularly fantastic start. Sighing, Rey pulled his journal from his pack, and flipped to a new page to copy down the words he didn't know.

I'd learned common at my mother's ????, and never needed anything else. But ????, she was a ???? born and ????, and ???? no ???? but those of her ????. When we bonded, I took it ???? myself to teach her the common tongue.

Eyris save him. Sighing heavily, Rey skipped forward, skimming for what looked like an easy sentence. Fortunately for him, past the first handful of pages, which seemed to be an introduction of sorts, the book seemed to alternate between chunks of text, and short, simple sentences, along with what seemed to be simple definitions.

If he had to guess, it seemed this book was less intended to help someone like Rey learn common, and more to help a fluent speaker or reader teach others. Inconvenient, but it'd do for now. He focused on one of the examples.

I am living in Syliras.

Closing the book, he wrote the sentence down, before flipping it back open to check. Correcting his mistake, he moved on.

I came here to see you.

He wrote the sentence down, then jumped (as much as he could underwater) when a voice sounded by his ear.

"That's 'came', with an 'a', not 'come'. "

Turning, he found himself face to face with a sheepish looking young woman.

"Sorry for butting in. You looked confused there so I figured I might be able to help." At Rey's baffled look, she gestured towards a symbol on her shirt. "I'm an assistant librarian here. I thought- I mean I just, you know, you looked"

The woman trailed off into awkward spluttering, and Rey found himself frantically backtracking to save them both the embarrassment.

"Why is not come?"

"Oh, that's because come is the present tense, while came is the past tense."

Rey stared blankly at her, and she sighed.

"This is going to take a while."

Snake Tongue | Common | Arumenic

by **Yisanareysin** on August 5th, 2017, 8:16 am

"-so then you'd use past tense, so people know when it happened. Come is sort of a weird word, because there's some places where you can use it in the past tense, but I think you don't need to worry about that for now."

Rey nodded slowly, trying to digest the explanation. "Is strange idea. In ssn-" Rey caught himself before he could say snake tongue "in my language, words is- are the same then and now. Can still understand."

The woman nodded understandingly. "Well, common's easy enough to pick up. Half of learning a language is being around people who speak it, right? I-" she hesitated, seeming to realize how long she'd spent explaining tenses to a perfect stranger. "I'm Millie, by the way. I don't think I told you my name before i started yakking on and on." She smiled sheepishly again.

"Rey." He told her in return, considering. This book was intended to be used by a teacher. And this Millie had proven quite enthusiastic about the finer details of the common tongue.

"I should, uh, probably go and leave you be."

Rey nodded slowly, gathering his djed under his tongue. He could his heartbeat in his ears as he coloured his words with hypnotism, implanting a suggestion in her mind. "Oh. Well, have been very helpful. Was not doing very well alone."

He seems like he could use some help.

He let the magic fade, feeling phantom trickles along the back of his throat. His magic was as much sensation as scent now, and Rey wasn't sure how to feel about that. Still, that was a concern for another day. Right now, he simply looked down at his books, affecting a disappointed look.

He felt her hover behind him for a moment, before she spoke up. "I mean, if you're still here in a bell or so, I get off work soon. I, uh. You seem nice, and well, I could try and help you a bit?"

Rey looked up at that, and smiled at her. A bell? Well, he had time today. With a brief smile back, she pushed off, and swam away. Perhaps today would be a bit more productive than he had expected.

Snake Tongue | Common | Arumenic

by **Yisanareysin** on August 7th, 2017, 8:38 am

With a bell to spare, Rey returned to his book. Skimming over it, it seemed like it was divided into sections, some more incomprehensible than others. But there was one section with a series of very short, simple stories, and more importantly, a list of words and definitions under each.

Reading over these short stories, Rey found he understood more than he had expected to, but less than he would like. The work of reading through each story, and puzzling through its meaning was surprisingly engrossing, and a bell quickly passed without Rey noticing.

This time, Millie had the sense to wait until Rey was finished with his passage entailing the trials of a Zeltivan fisherman to announce herself.

"How goes it?"

Rey hummed thoughtfully as she seated herself next to him. "Iss not going badly, at least."

"Well, that's good. So, well, I'm not really a teacher or anything, so I figured if you wanted, we could just talk, and I could explain as we go? Or, uh, did you want to work on-" she gestured vaguely at the book in his hand.

"Jusst talking will be good." He smiled at her, feigning gratefulness. "Thank you for this." She laughed awkwardly.

"Well, I won't pretend I don't have a bit of an ulterior motive for this. I've always loved learning new languages, and I've never met someone who speaks-" she hesitated, then lowered her voice slightly "snake tongue before. That... is what you speak, right?"

There was a moment where Rey seriously considered denying it, even now after all these years in Alvadas. The habit of hiding was ingrained in him still, after some uncomfortable encounters in Zeltiva and Sunberth. Still, Rey nodded in response. No reward without risk.

"I knew it! Well, I was hoping that, basically, you could answer a few questions, and I could help you with your common as you go?"

Rey nodded, visibly bemused. If nothing else, this was bound to be interesting.

Snake Tongue | Common | Arumenic

by **Yisanareysin** on August 9th, 2017, 11:27 am

"Great!" Millie pulled a notebook out from Eyris knew where. "So you mentioned your language has no tenses?"

"Think sso? If I understand what you said then yes. All words for actions"

"Verbs."

"Yess, verbs. Word is- The word is the ssame even at different times."

"Fascinating." She said, jotting down notes without looking. Watching her, Rey found himself envious of the ease with which she wrote, words spilling from her mind to the page without all of the hassle Rey had to deal with. "How do you tell, then? Just from context?"

"Context?" Rey parroted, puzzled.

"Context." Scratching out the word, she showed him how it was written. "Context is sort of.. what surrounds something. Not the physical surroundings, but the meaning surrounding it, that makes it make sense. In this case, I mean, do you have to just guess from the rest of the sentence and conversation?"

"Oh. Yess. Just say "was running" or "will running" or "is running", is the way you say it?"

Millie nodded as she wrote, mumbling under her breath. "Makes sense. Your language is an interesting one. Seems very... in the moment, perhaps? Very contextual."

Rey gave her a questioning look. "Well, the lack of tenses, and also, I've noticed you don't tend to use subjects very much. I assume that's another thing that common makes explicit that Snake doesn't?"

"Not... certain what you mean by thiss."

She nodded, and set her quill down. "Hmm, this is a bit tricky. When you construct- when you write or speak a sentence, it's always directed at someone or something, right?"

Rey started to nod, then thought better of it, and shook his head.

"Well, a sentence like, "I like languages" has myself as a subject, right? Because it's about what I like. You still with me? Good. In common, we usually say in the sentence what the subject is. The word 'I', in my example. 'We', 'it', 'he', 'she', 'they', 'you', you get the idea. You tend to drop those, and I figured your language doesn't use them."

He thought it through for a moment, constructing sentences in his head. It hadn't occurred to him before, but Common did seem to have far more of these "subjects" than Snake did.

"Ssuppose so."

"See, like that right there. A native speaker would have said 'I suppose so', but you just drop it. Honestly, aside from that, and the-" she made a hand motion that somehow managed to convey the idea of hissing "your common isn't bad. You've got the vocabulary down pat."

"Vo...cablury?"

"Alright, most of it. "

Snake Tongue | Common | Arumenic

by **Yisanareysin** on August 9th, 2017, 5:44 pm

"Alright, what's your name? Yeah, I know you've already told me, but just humour me."

"Name is-" Rey caught himself, realizing what she was trying to do. "My name.. my?" She nodded encouragingly. "My name iss Reysin. "

"What's your full name?"

"Fu- My full name iss Yisanareysin." That drew a frown from Millie.

"Wait, you go by your last name? Like, your family name?" Rey grinned. He'd had the same confusion learning Common and Arumenic, but in reverse.

"No, is not- it is? It's?"

"It's. That's a contraction, so it's is short for it is." Rey nodded.

"It'ss not a 'family name'. Humans have one name for self and one name for family-"

"Their family."

"Their family, yess? Dhani have no family names. Yisana iss my mother. Name- She name?" That sounded wrong. "Her name iss Varisoyisana, and her mother iss Ssyniavariso. Iss always the motherss name, before your name."

Millie was already scribbling furiously by the time Rey finished his halting explanation. "Fascinating. I'd heard the Dhani were a matriarchal culture, but it hadn't occurred to me that even something as simple as your names would reflect that. So you can only keep track of who shares the same mother, not of entire families?"

Eyris, who was teaching who here? "Sharing ssame mother"

"The same mother."

"Sharing the ssame mother is same- is the ssame as being family. Too few vipers to go far back like humans do."

"There are too few, and that... makes sense, in a way. You do tend to be more long lived, don't you?"

"Yes. We- If we go so far back, we all will use Ssiku's name, all be one family."

Millie nodded thoughtfully. "Well, anthropology aside, I think you've gotten a pretty good idea of where you need to improve your common. Now, the boring part: practice." She grinned, a little wolfishly, and pulled what looked to be the contents of an entire shelf out onto the table "I hope you didn't have anything planned for the rest of the day, because I found a stack of children's books for you to read through."

Rey eyed the stack apprehensively, and sighed. This was going to be a very strange day.

Snake Tongue | Common | Arumenic

by **Yisanareysin** on August 9th, 2017, 5:55 pm

The ssssssnake hassss your gradesssss...

Reysin

Skills

Lores

Don't forget to delete your post in the grading queue, and if you have any questions or concerns, feel free to PM me about your grade!

Solo Library Learning