10 Spring 520
Having passed the journey to his class, Moritz headed inside along with several other children roughly his size. Some looked a bit younger, some a bit older, but all were there for some basics of writing and therefore reading.
Or as Mortiz liked to call it, learning his letters.
His teacher for today was instructor Priya, a small woman with pale skin and pale (silver) hair, with odd adorning on her skin that reminded Moritz of a fish he had seen once. Besides this she was nice, and happy, and excited in all of her lessons.
Taking his place with the other students in their small desks, Moritz saw that there was a large board at the front of the room, along with smaller ones on each table. There was also a set of small white sticks, similar to the one he saw the instructor holding.
"Now today class, we will be going over the basics of writing and reading. For starters, I will go through each letter and copy it down. I want each of you to repeat the letter as best you can on your board, and say the letter back to me together."
Heading to the front of the class Priya wrote a single symbol which looked like an odd house. Next to it was a wheel with a rod stuck to it.
"This is A, say A. A or ah! This is the upper case A, and the lower case. A as in Apple."
Moritz copied the letter down as best he could, though it was not as easy as the womans smooth flowing grace as she wrote.
"This is B, say B. B or buh, as in bird." Once more Moritz said the sounds out loud with the class, and copied them down as best he could.
"If you run out of space, use the other side, or grab another board. But try to write small enough to fit them all. There are twenty six letters in the common tongue. Have you all had your math lesson? Oh dear... Well just do your best to fit them all."
"C, C or ch, as in cat. Does anyone have a cat?" Moritz raised his hand with a few other children, and repeated the sounds. Then he carefully wrote out the letters. This one was easier, as both were the same just of a different size.
"D, D or duh, as in dog. Another pet many have." As they continued Moritz understood the intent, or was beginning to. Each sound he spoke was written down as a certain letter. And so if you strung the sounds together, it would make words that were spoken. Only, it was written words rather than ones out loud. It was certainly a concept he knew in theory, but he had not understood till then. And all the signs about town, and the words on papers, and things... So many words being spoken without sound all about him, everywhere he went. It was like a new language, albeit by a written form of one he already knew, but still a knew way to convey himself and understand others. Quite a thing.
WC: 529