The Old Script I

[Lani Stranger]

29th of Fall, 518AV

Lani had happened upon the scroll while dusting one day. Most of the books and scrolls within the Enclave did not get used with any regularity, but it was still important to keep the shelves dusted and clean to be able to spot and prevent mites before they damaged the work too much. She had been hanging dried herbs in the corners of the shelves, and one scroll had fallen open. Either time had undone it, or someone hadn’t put it back correctly.

Lani picked the parchment up, expecting to see the chicken scratch of Nari printed on the parchment, but instead saw interesting looping figures looking back up at her. Scrunching her brow, she leaned against the massive shelves of the enclave to steady herself on the ladder and read the scroll, confused on what language it was. Through her travels, Lani had been graces to see most of the languages. The fluid script of Kontinese, the familiar text of common… which perhaps could be related to the looped writing in the scroll she held. They both seemed to share the same alphabet, although she could not decide what it was saying. It was some sort of alphabet that was similar to common, but just off enough that it was hard to understand.

Lani didn’t have time to ponder over the text though, whatever language it was in, it was in the wrong section. Rolling the scroll back in her hands, she scaled down the ladder, following the shelving until she reached Kavisan’s desk. Only he wasn’t there. Lani glanced around the enclave, grip tight on the weird scroll, and wondered where Kavisan could be. Her ebony eyes fell to her desk momentarily and then flitted to the scroll in her hand. It wasn’t illegal if she simply copied down some of the words within the scroll? She knew someone who might know the language.

After a few ticks to decide, Lani swooped in on her temporary desk for the day, pulling a parchment and uncorking an inkwell. She dipped a quill and began copying down the script

Abase abast isikai. Nadert vinotl, nadert zapa.

For some reason Lani’s palms were sweaty. It was not illegal to copy down work that was open to the public, she was doing nothing wrong. But she got the feeling this scroll was misplaced, and that she shouldn’t be reading it, and so copying words from it seemed wrong, although technically were not. Abandoning the writing utensils, she straightened up, rolled the scroll in the odd language up once again, and began seriously looking for Kavisan, deciding to head towards the back room. It was nearly the end of the work day, surely he was doing something back there. But she only got halfway to the back rooms before she saw the Avora that ran the Enclave.

[Lani Stranger]

”Kavisan!” She whispered, turning sharply and entering the hall of shelves he stood in, reading something that he clearly didn’t intend to take too far from the shelf. ”Kavisan, I find a scroll.” She whispered in Nari, her common accent thick with the words. He didn’t look up at her, but when she approached, standing a respectful distance away, the shorter Inarta held up a finger, demanding she wait a chime.

Lani tried not to sigh or cross her arms while she waited, shifting her weight to one foot. She wanted to open the scroll and look at it, but for some reason it felt as if she shouldn’t do that in front of Kavisan. He could make her wait, but she could not make him wait.

After the librarian had finished reading his passage, he looked up at her. The usual unamused expression painted on his face as he waited for what she had to say. ”I find scroll, in…. language.” She attempted the words in Nari, before giving up and switching to common. Kavisan got short with her when she used common, but at least he understood her. ”There was a scroll in another language in the fiction section, I thought you would know where it goes.”

Lani extended one arm with the scroll, not stepping forward. But her reach was long enough that Kavisan did not have to either. He unraveled the scroll, peered at it for a few ticks, and then closed it. ”Thank you Lani, continue your work.”

The simple dismissal caught her off guard. She at least wanted to know what the language was, and for some reason half expected Kavisan to simply tell her. Still, she was going to try and get it out of him. ”What… language?” She whistled in Nari, hoping his mother tongue would appeal to him.

”Not common, nor Nari.” Kavisan said simply, tucking the scroll in the crook of his elbow, and moving past her. Whatever language it was, it was not even close to common, although they shared an alphabet. Whatever it was, it wasn’t meant to be common knowledge. Suddenly the script she had copied down drying open on her desk felt like it was burning in her mind. She followed Kavisan back to the scribe desks, corking the inkwell once more, and wiping the quill down. She set the single line on the parchment underneath a scratch paper she had used when copying, and then returned to her ladder where she was dusting. She wanted to ask Val what it was now, but she had to finish her shift and her work. Her curiosity could wait.

[Lani Stranger]

When Lani finished her shift at the Enclave, she didn’t even bother to stop by the Communal Kitchens to attempt to fill her stomach before going straight to Val Imsun’s dwellings. She tried not to look guilty as she walked, she was coveting stolen material, after all. It isn’t stolen, it is copied, and you gave Kavisan the original copy. She reminded herself. But the librarians unwillingness to tell her what the language was made the mixed blood feel as though it was forbidden somehow. But it was hard not to put a little more purpose in her stride, and take the stairs two at a time to reach the long corridor that lead to the Sanikas Gates, where Val lived.

She rapped her fist on his wooden door with the familiar tune of knock that notified him who she was. She heard the chorus of his birds announcing her arrival inside his dwelling, but it took him a little longer to come to the door. Lani counted out five ticks, and just as she was about to knock again, he opened the door.

“Lani! You’re early!” Val announced in Nari, genuine surprise lighting his face. She smiled at him, letting out a huff of tension, and then nodded.

”Hello Val.” She said in Nari with a warm smile, waiting for him to welcome her in. He nodded to her, stepped aside and held the door for the tall mixed blood. She ducked into his dwelling, immediately taking her usual seat at his table, near the fire. Lani still held her secret inside her Katinu, unwilling to be the first to bring it up, but not quite sure if she knew how to force Val to.

”I was just reading by the fire. It is beginning to get cooler. Were you working in the Stables today?” Val said, and Lani nodded, not really paying attention to his Nari, too focused on deciding how she was going to ask him.

”How are the horses faring with the weather?” Lani looked at him, confused about the question, as she hadn’t been following his Nari up until this point. Val noticed her confusion and quickly switched to Common, while he joined her at the table. ”You did work in the Stables today, didn’t you?”

”No, in the Enclave.” She answered him in common, and now it was Val’s turn to look at her, confused. She sighed, and pulled the parchment from her Katinu, beginning to speak in fast common with her excitement. ”I was dusting the shelves and setting out herbs for the mites, when I happened upon this scroll. It literally fell open into my hands, so I was reading it to see if I was getting any better at Nari. Except it wasn’t in Nari, but it was an alphabet that I recognized. Except I think I don’t recognize the language,” She unraveled the parchment, laying it on the table, and pointing to the first line. ”I haven’t seen this language before, and Kavisan wouldn’t tell me what it is. Do you recognize it? Can you speak it?”

[Lani Stranger]

Val peered at the single line she had copied down, taking it from her grasp, and a few chimes of silence echoed after her rushed and excited words as he read the text.. He didn’t answer her question, but she could tell by watching him read it that he knew it. He hrumphed to himself and then his sky-blue eyes focused back on Lani.

”We are born of faith. We share children, we share heritage… or legacy. Nader-Canoch leaves a lot up for interpretation, it is a simpler language.” Val read the scroll in common, making comments on it but Lani was focused on what he had said the language was.

”Nader Canoch?” She asked, unsure if she heard him correctly.

”Yes, it is rare, but not a secret, I wouldn’t know why Kavisan didn’t tell you about it.”

”It was probably because I was speaking common to him, he gets short with me when I don’t speak Nari. But I don’t know enough Nari to ask what I was trying to say.”

”What were you trying to ask him?” Val said, ready to provide her with the appropriate phrase for her to memorize.

”’What language is this?”

”Oh, that is simple, you just remember the grammatical order that I taught you.” Val tapped his temple and Lani realized she didn’t have any notes on her. ”In Nari that question would be: ’What language is this?’”

”What language is this?” She copied the phrase, slowing it down to make sure she accented the vowels and pronounced the words correctly.

”Very good, now you have a decision to make. Would you like to continue with your Nari today or would you like me to tell you more about Nader-Canoch?” The older Inarta stood, a twinkle in his sky-blue eyes suggested he already knew the answer. Lani turned to follow him with her gaze as he hobbled over to his desk, selecting a piece of parchment, an ink well, and a single quill.

”Nader-Canoch, please?” She asked, using the Nari word for please, happy to find that he would teach her.

[Lani Stranger]

”I am glad to find you enjoy the languages as much as I do, Chaktawe.” Val said, naming her by only half of her race, as he sometimes tended to do. For some reason he was encouraging her to speak Tawna, and so she expected his next words. ”If you have any interest in other languages, such as Tawna, or perhaps Tukant, you will come to me, correct?”

”It is a lot to try and learn two languages in a season, let alone three.” Lani chirped out her excuse. The truth was that she wanted to learn all the languages he could offer, but she was not sure how long she would be here, and how much he could teach her in that ambiguous amount of time.

”Okay, okay, clearly you are set on learning Nader-Canoch today. I suppose we must start with the alphabet. You say it is similar, but it is not actually the same.”

”Nader-Canoch has most of the consonant sounds you are used to, although they can be pronounced differently, so pay attention. Lani was scratching the letters and their pronunciations into the paper furiously as he talked. Val tended to talk slow enough that she had time to write her notes out while he spoke, but when he finished he still paused for her. She wrote down all that he was saying, but found herself focusing on the odd pronunciations of certain consonants that she was used to in Common. Djed, for example, was spelled differently than she had imagined. Of course whenever she heard the word she had heard the hard 'Z' that lead the word, and so assumed it was spelled 'Zed'. Lani had obviously not come across any written forms of this word, as finding a book that mentioned djed, let alone taught it, was merely a dream. Yet as Val taught her the consonants, she realized that the 'DJ' combination was actually what made the pronunciation of the word.

Lani also paid attention to the 'CH' combination, which sounded too much like a 'K', and the 'Q' which to her sounded exactly the same as the 'CH'. ”So there is no ‘J’ or ‘K’, ‘W’ or ‘X’?” Lani asked, noticing the lacking letters in her new alphabet.

”No, although you will see ‘K’ being used for ‘Q’ sometimes, I can't recall why. This is the language that Common and many others were based on, which is why you can recognize the alphabet a little bit, but it still not the same.” Val said, and Lani nodded, she took a moment to pronounce the 'CH' and 'Q' sounds out loud, trying to find the difference in them.

"You have to use the back of your throat for the 'CH' combination. Almost like you're coughing up flem, and then for the 'Q' it would be pronounced like the normal 'K'." Val tried to explain to her, hearing her odd pronunciations. It took her a frustrating two bells before she was able to differentiate the sounds, and as soon as she did so she realized how they were different.

"Oh, duh. Now I can see what you are talking about." Lani lightly tapped her forehead with the butt of her palm, and picked up her quill once more. Val chuckled at her obvious thick-headedness as she struggled with the pronunciation.

[Lani Stranger]

The moved on to the vowels afterward and Lani found she had an easier time with them, as they weren’t too far off from the language she was used to. It was only once Val mentioned Diphthongs that the mixed blood began to be confused once again, as she had never heard of the grammatical term before. "What are diphthongs?"

”Diphthongs are when two vowels are put together to create a different sound."

"Ohh, I've seen those before, in common. Like 'read' or 'weight'?" Lani asked for clarification, understanding that part of language now that it was pointed out to her, although she hadn't had a name for it before. She was scribbling down the vowels and their pronunciations while Val explained the timing of Diphthongs that was important. She was glad that she was able to flow smoother with this part of the alphabet and pronunciations.

”That seemed easier for you.” Val chirped in Nari, and Lani seemed to understand the quick comment without thinking too hard about it.

”I think I got the alphabet down.”

”That is because you just learned it, there is a hefty amount of grammar and vocabulary that you need to learn in order to properly understand the language. But we will not get there today. Today, I want to focus on the pronunciations. There are only so many words in the Nader-Canoch vocabulary, so the alphabet is really only used for pronunciation purposes, and that in itself will take you some time to get down.” Lani nodded, and then blew on her ink to try and encourage it to dry faster.

”Would you like me to read you the alphabet?”

”Yes, and feel the leisure to take it slowly, making sure you pronounce it correctly the first time. You don’t want to practice it wrong and then have to force yourself to unlearn something when you start progressing.” Lani rolled her eyes, but the Inarta hadn’t recognized the action, and she began reading the alphabet. Her finger followed the letters on the page as she spoke them, making sure she was sounding out the foreign consonants as she spoke. When she reached the ‘CH’ combination she formed her mouth around the fricative ‘K’, pulling the sound from the back of her throat. She forgot to pronounce ‘DJ’ combination correctly, but hurried to correct herself before Val could do so. He merely nodded at this correction with a small amused set to his lips as he listened. The old Inarta kept a steady nod up as she followed through the rest of the letters, until the end.

”Softer.” He commented on the last letter, which she was pronouncing too harshly as she was used to in common.

”Z.” She repeated the sound paying attention to how her tongue did not protrude so far forward to pronounce it, and attempting to note that for future reference to make sure she was pronouncing it right when Val was not there to correct her.

”Good.” Val nodded, and then she watched as he took the parchment from where it lay on the table, so that she could read her pronunciations. ”You seemed on top of correcting yourself and catching the mistakes, so try it again, without looking at your code.”

Lani didn’t bat an eye at the new challenge. The mixed blood had always had difficulty with over confidence, but in a situation like this, it was almost necessary. ”Easy.” She scoffed, and then started into the pronunciations. She flew through it this time, but again managed to mispronounce the last letter.

”Not bad, not bad. Remember softer on the ‘Z’ because ‘DJ’ has already produced a hard ‘Z’ sound.” Val reminded her, and still clutching the parchment. ”Now, the vowels and their diphthongs.” The amused smile that Val had showed that he knew they hadn’t gone over diphthongs, and was expecting her to know them anyway. Fair enough.

”But you didn’t go over the diphthongs with me.” Lani squinted at him, to see if he would crack and make it easier on her.

”I have faith in you. Djas kasai dalatl.” She sighed, but flipped her glossy black hair over her shoulder and glanced around Val’s apartment as if the pronunciations would be written on the wall. She began rattling off the vowels, feeling at least confident in them, and then paused. The diphthongs would have to fit the same mold, so the long sounds of the vowels would have to be shortened to accommodate. They hadn’t practiced them, but she took the knowledge he had told her and applied it, finding the diphthongs to be not terribly harder than the vowels.

”Good, you didn’t do too bad, but now listen to mine and repeat after me to make sure you are doing it correctly.” Val instructed, laying the parchment back down on the table. Lani immediately reached for it, dipping her quill and preparing to write down the diphthongs that followed. Together they went through the pronunciations of the vowels and diphthongs until even Val was starting to blend his vowels together.

[Lani Stranger]

”Now, in order to see if any of this has actually worked on you, we need to see if you can pronounce the lines that you copied down from the Enclave.” Val said, sliding the Enclave parchment towards her. Lani enjoyed learning the new language, although it was the first time she was learning a language formally, and starting with the alphabet as opposed to memorizing words and phrases in order to get by.

” Abase abast isikai. Nadert vinotl, nadert zapa.” She read the text, stressing the diphthongs and consonants that she had shown to have trouble in. As she read it, her eyes grazed over the ‘K’, noticing that it did not belong. ”This must be a later translation because it has the ‘K’ in it.” She noted out loud, turning the page so that Val could see as well. He nodded.

”It seems you are correct, but when you happen across a ‘K’, you should still pronounce it as a Nader-Canoch ‘Q’.”

”Right.” Lani nodded, glancing back at her haphazard notes. As far as she understood it they were the same thing, so Val’s words had been slightly confusing. She would have to rewrite them and organize them when she returned to her own apartment, but Lani didn’t mind this. The organization of the notes was pleasing to her, and she would add them to her growing stack of parchments that was making up her notes for everything.

”Now do I learn vocabulary?” She turned back to Val, excitement clear in her tone.

”No, now you memorize and memorize those sounds until you can read Nader-Canoch fluently without even understanding it. Once you have the proper pronunciations solid in your head, come back to me and I will teach you the vocabulary. Then you will have to memorize all the vocabulary before I will teach you how to form a sentence or verbs or adjectives. It is not an easy language to learn, I expect you will be in here for seasons before you can even somewhat understand it.”

”As long as you will have me, I will come. The languages you have to teach me fascinate me, and I haven’t got much better to do in my free time other than recite Nari and Nader-Canoch in my mirror.”

”Do you really do that?” The incredulous tone that the old Inarta took on made Lani concerned. Was it not okay to do that? Was it detrimental to her learning?

”Yes…” She answered honestly but hesitantly, trying to guage what his reaction was.

”Okay, well if that is all you do in your free time, I won’t argue you. It will probably work in your favor, actually.” Val chuckled to himself, and Lani decided to ignore whatever judgement he may have about her free time. He said it would help her studies, so she would continue to do it, who was it hurting.

”Thank you for teaching me about Nader-Canoch, Val.” She said, straightening her parchments and then giving him a grateful bow.

”Of course Lani, although I am running low on honey…” Lani laughed herself now, spooking the owl that rested on a bird perch in his apartments awake. It cooed at her to be more quiet, but she ignored it. Lani was dishing out a small fortune to feed Val’s honey habit, but because the old man asked nothing else for the language lessons, she was more than happy to do it.

”Of course, I will definitely bring you some next time, I just forgot to stop by my apartments today, I was so excited.”

”Ah, just like I was.” Val knocked the table once as a dismissal and then stood to go over to his owl, cooing something at it as if it understood her. She did not doubt the intelligence of his birds, but she didn’t think he could speak to them.

”Hopefully. Thank you again, Val.” She capped the inkwell and wiped off the quill, leaving them neatly on his table, and excusing herself from it. This was her cue to leave, and since they had finished up relatively early today, she hoped she could make it to the Communal Kitchens before the time for Chiet to eat was done. Then afterwards she would be right back at her table to copy the notes neatly by candlelight, which was to be the rest of her night, for sure.

[Oresnya Cacao]

Grades!

Lani

Skills

● Cleaning +2 XP
● Investigation +1 XP
● Linguistics +5 XP
● Organization +1 XP
● Socialization +1 XP
● Writing +2 XP

Lores
● Cleaning: Hanging herbs to prevent mites
● Linguistics: Identifying a new alphabet
● Linguistics: Comparing two languages (Common and Nader-Canoch)
● Nader-Canoch: Forbidden?
● A First Phrase: Abase abast isikai. Nadert vinotl, nadert zapa.
● Sanikas Gate: Val’s Home
● Abase abast isikai: We are born of faith
● Nader-Canoch: “Nadert” means “we share”
● Nader-Canoch: “Zapa” means “heritage” or “legacy”
● Nader-Canoch leaves a lot for interpretation
● Socialization: Using manners to get what you want
● Val Imsun: Passionate about language
● Nader-Canoch: The correct pronunciation of the alphabet
● Nader-Canoch: No K, J, W, or X
● Nader-Canoch: The base for many other languages
● Linguistics: Diphthongs combine two vowel sounds to make another
● Don’t forget tea and honey for lessons with Val

Comments

Well done, Lani. This is making me look forward to my own language threads. Not a whole lot skill wise for you, but I found what I could.

Don't forget to delete your request in the grading queue and let me know if you have any questions or comments regarding your grade. As always, I don’t think I will ever feel not new to grading, so if you’d like something rephrased or think I have missed something, then just let me know.