Saun 1, 716th Arc
Midday, the winding streets of central Ne’haer
Inali’s inability to speak fluent Common had hardly bothered her in Viden. Within the cold confines of the university libraries and laboratories, the Ancient Language reigned supreme. Other languages were rarely taught to students, though some linguistics scholars conversed in other tongues to better immerse themselves in their research. Inali had little need to speak to anyone and even less motivation to change the course of her studies to include Common. Knowledge was only valuable when one pursued it to the exclusion of all else- muddling your area of expertise lead to the dreaded ‘jack-of-all-trades’ syndrome. While humans bragged about having lives filled with such variety, this lack of focus was an anathema to her people.
Since she had arrived in Ne’haer, Inali had run into innumerable problems. The majority of these had stemmed from communication difficulties between herself and the citizens of Ne’haer. Acquiring her lodgings had taken two days as the Biqaj clerk struggled to make sense of her needs. Apparently “Room house Ne’haer” was a phrase that could be interpreted a number of ways.
Inali blushed at the memory as she continued walking the busy pathways of the harbor district. Lake Rea was a mass of Biqaj vessels and larger fishing trawlers. Along the edges of the sparkling water additional Biqaj and humans stacked crates along the shoreline, readying themselves to transfer hundreds of pounds of fish from the boats to the markets. Dockhands scurried across the piers like rats while older sailors bellowed instructions to the crews that sought to secure their vessels via mooring lines. Inali watched the action from a small section of the beach that was too close to the piers to see much foot traffic. Satisfied with her new research location, Inali sat on the muddy earth and opened her journal.
She entitled the first page: ‘Morphology of Common: Critical morphemes’. This was written in the flowing script of the Ancient Language, as the spelling and grammar of such a title in Common was well beyond her knowledge. From the pier a sailor yelled:
“Steady there, line er up straight now!”
Inali copied the first half of the sentence in a steady hand, thankful that Common and the Ancient Language shared the same alphabet. Each word was written on a separate line with her best guess at the spelling of the words listed:
Frowning at her jumbled list of words, Inali slowly broke the words into potential morphemes in an attempt to better classify the prefixes, suffixes, free morphemes, and bound morphemes. Inali decided to start at the top of the list with ‘Steady/steadee’. Could any aspects of the word stand on their own as a separate word? Sketching the word out into components, Inali sounded the word out slowly making sure to inflect both syllables as the sailor had done. The Eidisi's tongue stumbled on the word, twisting as she tried to mimic the unfamiliar sounds.
“Stead-y. Stead-y.”
She scribbled on her paper, wondering if ‘stead’ could be a free morpheme on its own. Could ‘ee’? She doubted it, but made sure to write it down to check against the dictionaries in the Academies.
Midday, the winding streets of central Ne’haer
Inali’s inability to speak fluent Common had hardly bothered her in Viden. Within the cold confines of the university libraries and laboratories, the Ancient Language reigned supreme. Other languages were rarely taught to students, though some linguistics scholars conversed in other tongues to better immerse themselves in their research. Inali had little need to speak to anyone and even less motivation to change the course of her studies to include Common. Knowledge was only valuable when one pursued it to the exclusion of all else- muddling your area of expertise lead to the dreaded ‘jack-of-all-trades’ syndrome. While humans bragged about having lives filled with such variety, this lack of focus was an anathema to her people.
Since she had arrived in Ne’haer, Inali had run into innumerable problems. The majority of these had stemmed from communication difficulties between herself and the citizens of Ne’haer. Acquiring her lodgings had taken two days as the Biqaj clerk struggled to make sense of her needs. Apparently “Room house Ne’haer” was a phrase that could be interpreted a number of ways.
Inali blushed at the memory as she continued walking the busy pathways of the harbor district. Lake Rea was a mass of Biqaj vessels and larger fishing trawlers. Along the edges of the sparkling water additional Biqaj and humans stacked crates along the shoreline, readying themselves to transfer hundreds of pounds of fish from the boats to the markets. Dockhands scurried across the piers like rats while older sailors bellowed instructions to the crews that sought to secure their vessels via mooring lines. Inali watched the action from a small section of the beach that was too close to the piers to see much foot traffic. Satisfied with her new research location, Inali sat on the muddy earth and opened her journal.
She entitled the first page: ‘Morphology of Common: Critical morphemes’. This was written in the flowing script of the Ancient Language, as the spelling and grammar of such a title in Common was well beyond her knowledge. From the pier a sailor yelled:
“Steady there, line er up straight now!”
Inali copied the first half of the sentence in a steady hand, thankful that Common and the Ancient Language shared the same alphabet. Each word was written on a separate line with her best guess at the spelling of the words listed:
Steady/steadee
thear/there/theyre/thair
line/lieyen
er/hur
thear/there/theyre/thair
line/lieyen
er/hur
Frowning at her jumbled list of words, Inali slowly broke the words into potential morphemes in an attempt to better classify the prefixes, suffixes, free morphemes, and bound morphemes. Inali decided to start at the top of the list with ‘Steady/steadee’. Could any aspects of the word stand on their own as a separate word? Sketching the word out into components, Inali sounded the word out slowly making sure to inflect both syllables as the sailor had done. The Eidisi's tongue stumbled on the word, twisting as she tried to mimic the unfamiliar sounds.
“Stead-y. Stead-y.”
She scribbled on her paper, wondering if ‘stead’ could be a free morpheme on its own. Could ‘ee’? She doubted it, but made sure to write it down to check against the dictionaries in the Academies.
