Words and Whistles I

[Lani Stranger]

12th of Fall, 518AV

When Lani bounded down the hall towards the Sanikas Gates, she was very excited. This was her first time visiting Valtrrrik Imsun after their first meeting upon her entrance. He had said she could come and learn before he had even learned her caste, which made her hopeful that he would be a willing and enjoyable teacher. After all, the old man seemed just as curious about her as she was of him. He had said to only bring her knowledge of Kontinese and her history, but she felt as if she should bring him a gift. She had been in the communal city merely three days. She wasn’t quite settled in, but she had attended market day with a gift on her mind. Her interaction with him was so brief she could not be sure she had any idea what he might actually like as a gift, but she was assuming that he spent a lot of time studying like those in the Enclave and so might enjoy a nice cup of tea. At least he would not be opposed to it.

She had chosen a flowery lavender and green tea, thinking the light and energizing flavors would be nice. She was a normal person who didn’t covet the leafy drink, usually she bought whatever the blackest tea she could find was and boiled the Hai out of it before chugging it for whatever dregs of caffeine it was willing to give her. Her relationship with tea was not a love affair, but parasitical. Still, she imagined for a gift she ought to give something that seemed as if it had some semblance of taste to it, so she cradled the small sack of tea leaves in both hands. When she reached his personal dwelling at the end of the hall, the half-Chaktawe raised her hand to knock.

As soon as her knuckles rapped the hard wood, a chorus of twittering and squawks rang from inside, and within a few ticks the Inarta opened his door. At first he had the faint warm crinkle to his eyes that he always seemed to carry, but as he looked up her tall height and connected with her ebony ones, his face seemed to light up in surprise and then enjoyment.

“Hello! Lani Stranger! Greetings from the mother!” He trilled in Kontinese and Lani grinned at him.

“I hope you are well, Imsun.” She replied in Kontinese, offering a medium bow for the Avora, and the presenting him with her tea.

“Oh, you can call me Val, Lani. Everyone does.” He said in relaxed common, and then switched back to Nari. “Come in, come in. Don’t mind the birds.” The elderly man took the tea from her with a nod and hobbled into his dwelling, leaving the door open for her. She followed, readying to close the door behind her, when she heard him trill. “No need!” So she left it open.

Turning to the man’s dwelling, she assessed it. There were a few bird stands placed about, two of which were occupied with a snoozing owl and a falcon preening. Regardless, there seemed not to be much bird poop scattered about, and she immediately recognized that as well training, and marveled at it.

“I… like your birds.” She started in Nari, and then continued in common, unsure of how exactly to say it to the man. She heard him chuckle as he was bustling about in the kitchenette before moving over to the fire place and setting a kettle on the hook inside. He set two mugs down in front of them with tea strainers holding the leaves, and a small dwindling pot of honey.

[Lani Stranger]

”Would you like to know that in the Nari tongue?” Val asked in common, settling into the seat with an exaggerated motion and a sigh, like old men tended to do. Lani flashed a smile, grabbing the spine of the other chair tentatively, not sure how to ask in Nari if she could sit. ”Go on, sit down, we will be here a while.”

”Yes please,” Lani answered his earlier question, trying to speak in his language as much as possible. She dragged the chair out and took a nimble perch in it, keeping her ankles together and hands on her lap, as if ready to stand at any moment.

”Okay then, you’ll get far by complimenting people, so it is a good start. Do you know the word for birds?” He asked, leaning back in his chair while cupping his mug with both hands for warmth.

”Is it… ‘bird’?” She guessed, not feeling confident on the word being correct.

”Close, that is the singular form of the word, do you know what makes a word plural?” He asked, and she recognized that he was probing to try and see what level she was used to speaking in Nari. The half-Chaktawe feared she would disappoint him with how little she knew. She could hardly understand the language, let alone speak it.

”No.” She looked down sheepishly, expecting judgement and a short patience from the man, instead he harrumphed.

”You’re a little more new than I thought. I suspected you were at least intermediate, but it seems you’re more of a beginner.” Lani senses little disappointment in his accented common though, only an acceptance of the facts of her state of understanding. ”Okay, we can work with that. Well let’s start by giving you the ability to make things plural.” Val took a sip of his steaming tea, and then cleared his throat before speaking again. ”Making a noun, such as bird, plural would be as simple as adding the ‘s’ sound to the end. Bird, birds.”

”Bird, birds. Birds.” Lani repeated the word, tasting it in her mouth and making sure she said it correctly.

[Lani Stranger]

”Very good, now it does not apply to all nouns, some are pluralized a little differently, but I hardly thing you will come across those for now. And when we do get there, you will simply have to memorize them. Try it out with some other nouns.” Val said.

”Okay… um… Scribe, scribes. Book… Books? Books. Inkwell, Inkwells.” She tested out some of the other recent Nari words she had learned, mostly pertaining to her job. While she did so, Val stood up, stepping over to his desk and selecting a single parchment, a quill, and an inkwell. Lani watched him, but tried not to pause her practice, unsure how many more words she could think up. ”Chiet, Chiets. Avora, Avoras. Endal, Endals. Dek, Deks. Cuckoo-“

”Oh! No.” Val rushed to interrupt her. ”Don’t say that.”

”Say what?” Lani asked, suddenly concerned and embarrassed. She was repeating Nari words that she had learned since coming to the volcano, and had heard the name in reference to herself many times already.

”Cuckoo is an insult, a heavy insult, don’t repeat that. Where have you heard it?”

”Oh… umm, nowhere in particular.” In the market place, in the kitchens, in the stables… where haven’t I heard it? But she didn’t want Val to think she was stupid for not having realized what people had been calling her. For the most part they did it behind her back, not saying the word to her face, which should have been her first indicator. But when one was so focused on trying to understand any words, they sometimes forgot to listen to the intent of the words.

”Mhmm, well don’t repeat it.” Val said, not seemingly too concerned that she had already learned a swear. He placed the parchment down in front of them, and uncorked the inkwell before sitting back down again, and sipping his tea. Lani did the same and watched him, waiting until further instruction.

”Do you know our alphabet?” He asked, and she nodded, grateful she could at least show him that. Without hesitating, the foreigner began to rattle off the Nari alphabet. Val nodded along, sipping his tea with a slightly amused expression on his face.

”And how to say the numbers.” She added; glad to have at least learned some Nari in a formal-ish setting. She could really only count to one thousand, but she couldn't fathom a reason she would need more numbers than that. "And a few words I picked up from travelers when I was a kid."

”Good, then write down the nouns you know, and their plural form while you speak.” Her heart shrank a little, this would be less impressive, but she took the quill anyway, dipping it into the ink. She tapped the quill once to make sure it was good to go before setting it to the page and began writing. She repeated the words she had already said silently. It took her a few ticks longer than she would have liked, as she had to remember the strange spelling that the language used, but once she remembered and got the hang of it, she was doing better. Lani began listing the words she had mentioned earlier, not having enough vocabulary to get too many new words in.

”A-V-O-R-A.” Val interrupted her, reading her lettering upside down. She quickly crossed out the word and spelled it correctly below, pausing to review how to spell Endal in her mind before continuing, not wanting to be corrected again, in case it made her look bad. When she began writing words she had not already said, she spoke them out loud.

[Lani Stranger]

”Pinion, Pinions. Miza, Mizas.” That one is easy. She thought, the Nari word for Mizaswas pronounced slightly different, but still recognizably the same, so she assumed it would be spelled the same.

”Actually, we spell it different.” Val interjected, as if reading her mind. ”M-I-Z-A.” He spelled it for her, and she frowned, crossing it out and spelling it. It was similar, but it was spelled slightly different. Lani could tell that it had sounded different but she hadn't expected it to sound different. It was then that she realized it was technically the same word, just transcribed into the Nari alphabet so that it could be read and pronounced correctly. The Common Tongue spelling of the word would sound too different when sounded out in Nari, so although the word was meant to be the same, it was spelled differently. As she recognized it, she thought of the instances where this took place in Kontinese.

”Some words are just like common but with a Nari accent.” She muttered to herself, forgetting that she shouldn’t say some things to Val, but the old Inarta simply chuckled at her verbal recognition of the phenomena.

”I haven’t heard it that way, but I suppose that is a way to say it. Mostly words that were adopted from the Common tongue are that way. Like Miza and Lhavit.” Val contributed to her thought, and she looked up and smiled at him, happy that he had responded with cooperative humor instead of being offended or looking down on her observation. She was not very used to this man yet, but she had the sense he was a kind one. It was possible his curiosity played a large role in that, but Lani had little issues if it did. He seemed happy to teach, and she was eager to learn.

”L-H-A-V-I-T?” She spelled the word aloud before writing it, guessing at the Nari letters used based on the pronunciation. Val grinned and nodded.

”You’re catching on. You seem to have the hang of pluralizing words, and I don’t see any irregular nouns that you’ve come across, are there any words you have been curious about, but don’t know the Nari word for?” He asked then, taking a sip of his tea and leaning back in his chair, no longer reading her writing. Lani tapped the quill on the inside of the inkwell to make sure all the ink was off before setting it down, and inspecting her fingers for ink splotches while she thought. There were the small sensory freckles of her Chaktawe heritage, but so far no stains.

”Ummm, what are the giant birds called? I don't think we even have a name for those in Common? I've never seen them before.” She asked, knowing that Nari had a word she did not recognize for the large birds. She wondered if there was a common name for them, and if it was a bastardization of the actual name for the birds, and if it was insulting that she used the title.

”Ah yes, well they are native to The Reach, so I wouldn't expect you have. They don't much like to leave this volcano or our people. We call them ‘Wind Eagles’, but in Nari of course. So we use the word for ‘Wind’ first, and then ‘Eagle’. Wind Eagle.” Val walked her through the pronunciation, and she grinned, relaxing a little to know it probably wasn’t too offensive.

”Wind, Eagle. Wind Eagle.” She practiced the Nari words, and then picked up the quill again to write them down. ”Oh yeah, and ‘tea’. Is it pronounced tea?” She asked, having learned the new word on market day when purchasing Val’s gift.

”Yes, tea.” He spelled for her, and she scribbled it down. ”And ‘honey’ is honey, in case you were curious.” She wasn’t paying too much attention to his meaning, but scribbled down the translated word and it’s plural form anyway, before detecting the hinting note in his voice and looking up, grinning.

”Do you like honey? Should I bring honey next time?” She asked, squinting in fake suspicion at him. Val chuckled and nodded. Lani grinned, amused by the obvious display of an attempt at a less obvious request. She was more than happy to bring the old man gifts in exchange for his knowledge, she was eager to learn.

”I go through it so quickly, I try and get more on market days, but the more I get, the more I go through.” Lani grinned with him, enjoying the light hearted request and made a mental note of the preferance, she would surely bring it next time.

”I will remember that.” She said in common, and then recognized that was a phrase she often wanted to use, and did not know how to. ”How do you say ‘I will remember that’ in Nari?” She asked curiously and dipping her quill to prepare to write the answer.

[Lani Stranger]

”Umm, you aren’t quite to that sentence structure, but I will give you a phrase to memorize it. In Nari, it is: I will remember that.” He offered, pausing so she could repeat the words and write them down. She expected there to be various sentence structures that were different than what she was used to. She had never formally studied Kontinese, other than the times her mother taught her to write with the language, but since she had been raised speaking both the tongue of the Konti and of humans, she hadn't paid much attention to the variations in sentence structure. Instead she sort of naturally came to them, sometimes even mixing them up between languages. It occurred to her that having to think about the order of ones words before they were spoken would slow her down significantly, and that she was skating by by simply translating her Common word for word into Nari and not paying attention to the rules of the language.

”I will remember that.” She repeated, writing the words down on the paper, with a translation beneath them so she remembered what they were when she practiced. ”I will… hmmm. How do you spell remember?”

Val spelled it aloud for her, watching her writing. An idea seemed to occur to him, but he waited until she was finished, nodding at her spelling and then speaking. ”You should probably know how to say ‘How do you say’ and ‘How do you spell’ in Nari, it will be useful to help you learn new words.”

”But if I am asking someone out and about, I won’t have time to write it down.” She said, she didn’t counter learning the knowledge, but it was a habit for the mixed blood to question things, to get the most answers out. Yet, she realized what she was doing, and looked down again. ”Sorry, I do want to know that, yes please.”

”Easy enough, they are just phrases to memorize.” Val ignored her tiptoeing around etiquette, relieving her of the confrontation, and continued on. ”Write this down. To say ‘How do you say’ in common, you would say: How do you say, and then the word.” Val informed, and Lani set to scribbling.

Again, she spoke the words out loud as she wrote them, trying to pay attention to where the subject, object, and verb of the sentence was resting. ”So like, if I wanted to know how to say… bucket. I would say How do you say bucket? Just like that?” She asked, testing out the phrase. It felt weird to switch from the foreign Nari sounds to Common in a single sentence, but Val seemed to understand her just fine in either language.

”Precisely. I’m not sure if everyone will understand your common word for the thing, but if you are able to point to it or mime it, some will help you. I also expect to hear you ask it in Nari from now on, you can at least practice with me.” He smiled and then tapped the blank space below that phrase. ”Now to say ‘How do you spell’. It is very similar to ‘How do you say’, listen: How do you spell then, blank. The blank willl be whatever you are asking to spell.”

”How… do… you… spell…” She spoke the words slowly again while she wrote, and then nodded to herself. ”How do you spell.” She repeated in Nari before turning to Val to pose her question.

”So I can start with… How do you say and then use the common word or charades to ask what I am trying to find, and then once I get the Nari word for it, I can use the Nari word in the second phrase: How do you spell?” She asked for clarification, and Val nodded.

”And then when you learn what they tell you, you can say: I will remember that.” He looped the phrase back around, and Lani grinned. ”You’re on a good start to learning the language.” Val nodded, and took another sip of his tea, wrinkled lips spreading into a soft smile, which reminded Lani of the pride of an instructor, one of her favorite forms of pride to see in a person. She tried not to grin too much like an idiot, and tapped her quill on the inside of the inkwell once more, preparing to dip it again.

”Now, lets make sure you’ve written down all the nouns you know, and their plural form. If there are any others you need to know today, we can work on those. Otherwise, I might ask you to try and write down any new words you learn over the next tenday, and bring them to me. Or words that you would like to learn as well. Let’s continue.” Val said, leaning forward again in preparation of reading her Nari words upside down, and Lani dipped the quill, scraping it on the end of the inkwell to prepare to write again.

Note :

-0.02 pinions for tea

Word Count: 2,861

[Oresnya Cacao]

Grades!

Lani

Skills

● Hostessing +1
● Linguistics +5
● Logic +1
● Socialization +2
● Writing +3

Lores
● Socialization: Choosing an appropriate gift
● Linguistics: Switching between languages to get a point across
● Nari: Plural Nouns
● Nari Insult: Cuckoo
● Nari: Alphabet and Numbers
● Linguistics: Some words are the same between languages or universally
● Val Imsun: Kind and cooperative
● Nari Word: Wind Eagle
● Socialization: Picking up on subtle cues
● Nari Phrase: I will remember that.
● Linguistics: Nari sentence structure
● Nari Phrases: How do you say/spell...?
● Etiquette: Making an attempt in the local language
● Val Imsun: A proud instructor

Comments

As always, Lani, your writing is a pleasure to read, and your language threads always get me excited to attempt some of my own. I hope I didn't miss anything, but if you think there is something in this that could be added or changed, please let me know. I'll be happy to work with you on it. Thanks for the read.