Mutually Unintelligible
One of the major themes of my published novel, Inside Every Circle, is how we know things, and more importantly, what to do when you don’t know something and need to find out. A big part of that is communication, and a big part of that is mutual inteligibility, that is, I can understand you and you can understand me.
Inside Every Circle
For centuries, the Seven Cities have enjoyed peace and prosperity. Four strangers — a mute scribe, an orphaned prophetess, an elderly politician, and an egomaniacal autocrat — independently pursue glory, fame, and forbidden knowledge as they approach the end of the age. Will their increasingly intertwined paths lead to enduring peace or unspeakable horror?
In the novel, this often has to happen between people who do not share a language. So what happens when these characters have to get together to share stories and make plans? Complication is what.
The full book is available on Amazon in Kindle and Paperback now, at very reasonable prices. You can skip these excerpts and pick up your copy now.
In the meantime, please enjoy these scenes of characters struggling, sometimes comically, with the problem of incomprehensibility.
- Atnan, one of the protagonists, is mute and can only speak using a sign language mostly of his own devising. At home, he is well understood, but this becomes more an issue as he finds himself among strangers. He is a scribe, and writes two langauges well: His mother tongue, Fyrean, and the language of the nearby city-states, Kindhirak, also called “imperial”. He has a rudimentary grasp of a regional trade jargon called Bango.
- Barlas, Atnan’s friend, is a fisherman who speaks Fyrean well and Bango well enough to negotiate with costal traders. He doesn’t write at all, or speak imperial.
- Seolo, a refugee from a faraway land, speaks a language called Silgath, and is fluent in the Bango trade jargon — which she and her sisters learned as members of a foreign court.
In this scene, told from Atnan’s POV, he and Barlas encounter Selolo (pregnant) and her sisters for the first time on a road:
Faces peeked from behind a rocky berm, all black-haired women with golden brown faces and chapped red cheeks, dressed like hill-folk. Some wore scarves on their heads, others tall hats. One woman [Selolo] appeared pregnant. Another had her bow ready, arrow nocked and pointing downward.
“Mnak patkalach,” Barlas said.
“Shrap ka Hapak,” the archer replied.
Barlas whispered to Atnan, “If they don’t speak Hapak, they don’t match their clothes, eh?”
No, but she learned to say she doesn’t speak Hapak, so they must have come from there.
Atnan signed to Barlas: fingers tapping his mouth, then miming paddling a boat.
Barlas said, “Oh, trade jargon! Good idea.” Then to the woman, “Ke bango hay?” Can we trade?
“Hay-hay,” the pregnant woman replied. “De ya’oy ke bango.”
Barlas said in Fyrean, “They don’t want anything we — ”
Atnan indicated that he had heard.
“Heh, they probably don’t want to talk about the price of fish either, eh?” Barlas turned to the women and said, “Mana-suah, ke bamba. Ke laley Del … oloke’oy.” He supplemented his words liberally with hand gestures. If you please, we are good. We are from Del … travelers.
“Hay-hay. Ke bamba. Ke’a oloke’oy tanta,” the pregnant woman said. I understand. We are good. We are also travelers.
They continued back and forth like this while the other women milled around….
Later, they all seek shelter in an abandoned guardhouse. Selolo is inside, while Atnan (“the little one”) attempts to make friends. She does not at this point know their proper names. This is narrated from Selolo’s POV:
He [Atnan] pointed to himself, then to his mouth, then away. He gestured to her and the other sisters.
I suppose he only knows the trade signs, not the words.
She decided he was asking their names, which she took as a sign of goodwill — the bad ones didn’t bother. She pointed to each of her sisters in turn. “Kilími. Gwahália, Melinítri, Lepríthi, Yóli, Táripel, and Saragánthi.” She gestured to herself. “Selolo. Súmi, Shúrimel.” She signaled with open hands in his direction to indicate it was his turn.
He made signs toward himself, Owl-Can-Write, then toward his friend, Bear-Went-Fishing.
Owl and Bear? Such absurd names!
She wanted to giggle but forced her face into a more serious configuration instead. Hands together, she said, “Ke’ay,” us, then pulled one of them apart and said, “De’ey,” you.
He took a short hop backward.
She searched his face for any sign of dishonesty or displeasure. The strangeness of their faces made them difficult to read: long and dark, eyes too small, too round. The tall one had broad shoulders and long wavy black hair. He wasn’t quite as ugly — “Bear” was an apt description.
Kilími and Saragánthi had started a fire. The sisters had nothing left to cook, but the tall man shared food with them freely from his pack. That was also a good sign.
The young man in the doorway gestured to her round belly, then tapped his mouth and indicated a negative.
“Pakele, masu?” She didn’t know the words either, but “little one, inside” seemed close enough.
He gestured affirmatively then made several unintelligible signs that seemed to indicate genuine concern.
He was quite young, she thought. They might be brothers, Bear and Owl. They were helpful and kind, but that might be temporary. Her experience had taught her that men could be both kind and cruel by turns, sometimes simultaneously. She spied a necklace around his throat and gestured toward it, inviting him to speak.
Instead, he took it off and offered it to her to examine.
She didn’t take it. One person’s traveling courtesy might be another’s service rendered, and they could not afford to be indebted. As he held it out, her fingers brushed over the unknown letters on the shells. So straight, and not one connected to another!
“This, to you. Woman, no?” she asked.
Signing “mother,” he returned the necklace to his throat then pointed to the pathfinder around hers.
“Thirteen baskets.” She named the families of her people as she pointed to each bead along the main strand. His expression grew more confused as she went.
If they are strange to me, I must be just as strange to them.
Kilími overshadowed them both, speaking to her in Silgath. “Food’s ready. Can you walk?”
“Yes. My head was full of sticks before, but the water revived me. I was telling him about the pathfinder.”
“Don’t say too much.”
Later on, Selolo and all her sisters attempt to tell a story to Atnan and Barlas around a campfire:
“Selolo, a story,” Kilími said in jargon.
Even though she was tired, Selolo agreed. “Long ago, spirits walked down from the sky, shaped like birds, fishes, animals, and people. They walked down the big tree. A big yellow flower grew in the tallest branches, the sun. Little flowers grew all around, the stars.
“A big white flower grew in a low branch, the moon, most beautiful. The sun grew and died every day, but the moon lasted many days. It grew and grew, a bright round fruit. It gave seed-pods shaped like people that fell to the ground.
“Then Huma-Lapsala, the great spirit, most beautiful, picked up the people seeds. She put them in thirteen baskets, the families of all people. She turned out each basket on the mountains. The people fell into the valleys, where they still live.”
Her jargon was nowhere near sufficient to tell the story. She supplemented with gestures and repeated herself anytime Bear and Owl signaled a lack of understanding, which was often. The sisters prompted her with new ideas for how to say things when she was stuck.
The story may not have come through, but it served her purpose: to keep the strange men engaged, to remind them that she and her sisters were human beings with voices and personalities, deserving of respect.
“Our people. In boats,” Bear said. “Way back ago. In the sea. From the islands, past the sea.” There was silence for a moment. “Short story.”
“Short story,” Selolo agreed.
Owl dug underneath one of his many cloaks — they wore so many layers! — and produced what looked like a little clay pot.
“Music stone,” Bear said.
Their trade jargon truly was terrible.
Owl blew into the “music stone,” starting up a slow, sad tune and Bear sang along.
How awkward and primitive their language was, as though they were always out of breath, tongues cut in half, leaking air with every syllable. Still, the song was beautiful in its own way.
Later, Atnan attempts to return an artifact he’s found — a bundle of scrolls written in an ancient language he can’t read — to the regional imperial authority.
To distract himself, he read the scrolls by firelight, tracing his fingers over the characters. What were they? What did they say?
His finger rested on a tree bearing two oversized fruits. They could be sun and moon, like Selolo’s story. It seemed far-fetched, the idea these foreigners might be connected to the scrolls. Yet what connection should anyone have to them, not least himself?
He traced the tree again. What if the characters in the scrolls were like fruits, and he had been examining them without knowledge of what kind of tree they grew on or where it was planted? Wouldn’t that matter? The symbol for a “fishhook” could just as easily be a threshing knife, a bent arm, or something he had not yet imagined — or couldn’t.
I met this text as a stranger, the same way I met Selolo and her sisters. How vast the world is! Such a tiny pebble falls within my grasp, and every stranger holds a different pebble from a different side of the mountain.
He realized that during his time in Maur, everyone communicated with sign, at least some of the time. How odd it was, not to be the only one grunting and poking at the air!
It’s not surprising that understanding is difficult, but that it ever happens at all.
This was true of the scrolls as well. They certainly couldn’t point and sign. There was no jargon they could speak to him. What common ground did he have with these dusty old things? What shared context? All his reading and studying and he was still ill-equipped for the task. And why not? How can you pack for a journey when you don’t know where you’re going?
In the city, he attempts to return the scrolls to an official who speaks and reads only imperial.
He used one of the copper bits from his money bag to buy a skewer of smoked snails. It was different, but he wasn’t sure it was any good. He enjoyed the opportunity to listen to the merchant speak imperial, which was good because he needed the practice. Reading a foreign language and hearing it spoken turned out to be two very different things.
After some inquiry, Atnan found his way to the imperial official, a drowsy-faced man who agreed to see him for one of the coins in his purse.
“Who are you and what’s your business? On a feast day, no less!”
Atnan bowed and laid the satchel in front of the man, indicating the note he had attached:
I am Atnan, Scribe of Del. I am mute, but I can make signs of the trade jargon. I found these artifacts, which I believe are imperial property.
Annoyed, the official muttered to himself as he handed the note over to a subordinate to read aloud. At the end, he scoffed. “Last I heard, the scribe of Del was a fellow named Omrik — not dead is he?”
Atnan signed in the negative followed by the sign for father.
“I don’t know what that means.” The official waved his hands mockingly. “Well, if Omrik isn’t dead, he sent you. More’s the pity for him, stuck out on that rock pile.” The man waved toward the satchel. “Artifacts?” he huffed. “I saw you on the chance you were early to bring tribute — or late.” He hesitated, expectant.
Atnan bowed and tried to look respectful.
“Back to the rock pile, then!” The man kicked the satchel in his direction and followed it with, “Fyreans, dumb as they are ugly!”
Unable to return home (for reasons), Atnan presses on to the next nearest city, the capital of the Seven Cities. There, he meets some new friends:
- Zakinder and Glesimel are a married couple who live in the imperial capital city. They are farmers and vegetable-sellers. They both speak only imperial, and Glesimel has a rough knowledge of the imperial writing — just enough to keep a ledger, poorly.
The first time Atnan meets Zakinder and Glesimel, he has to figure out how to communicate with them.
The fruit-seller recognized him and shouted out as he passed. “Are you back for more moon-fruit, friend?”
Atnan hunkered down in front of the stall, a pile of limbs and satchels under his tent of a cloak. Pushing the heavy cloth back to free his arms, he dipped his head in thanks and bought two more melons.
“You left yesterday before we had much chance to talk,” the man said. “I see by your red hand that you’ve just arrived. All that luggage — are you are staying long?”
Atnan tapped the dot below his lip and signed that he didn’t talk much with anyone.
[n.b. — Atnan was given a beet-stained hand to signify that he was from out of town and a mute’s dot for obvious reasons at the gate when he arrived.]
“Oh, I see. I’m sorry, friend. We don’t get much of that around here.”
Undeterred, Atnan pulled a pen from his cloak and pressed some imperial writing into the skin of the melon as best he could.
“Ah, clever! My wife is the reader in the family.” The same woman from yesterday was helping another customer. He tapped her shoulder. “What’s that he’s writing?”
The woman craned around to look at the melon skin. “It says he’s mute, he’s from Del, and he’s here to make a delivery. Poor thing!”
“Del? Where in Radu’s big toe is that?”
“Up-coast, beyond Gwetlak.”
The man mused, “Never knew there was anything beyond Gwetlak.”
The woman finished her transaction and turned to face Atnan. “Ignore my husband. I try teaching him manners, but it never sticks. Zakinder you’ve met. I’m Glesimel, his wife. What is your name, friend? Does everyone where you come from make words with their hands? Or do they speak?”
Atnan flushed. He wrote his name, leaving off his parentage and the answer to her questions since he was running out of room on the fruit. His next purchase ought to be a slate of some kind. If few in the cities could read and fewer still could sign, he wondered if he wouldn’t ultimately need to hire an interpreter, which was desperately beyond his means, so perhaps his next step should be to find work.
The woman interrupted his chain of thought by repeating, “At-nan.”
Zakinder took another look at the melon skin. “Well, friend — Atnan — or however it’s pronounced — you’re a man of letters, aren’t you?”
Atnan affirmed.
- Shemulak and Mekvat are scholars in the imperial Academy, both men deeply learned in the history and languages of the Seven Cities, but to the extent that they are aware of Fyrean, they disdain it, and they are entirely ignorant of the costal trade jargon, Bango.
In this scene, Atnan first meets Shemulak, again attempting to do the right thing and return the scrolls to the archive. (For his trouble, he is arrested, of course.)
... a man [Shemulak] sat on a folding stool, reading a scroll, his blue dress and shaved head declaring him to be a scholar.
Atnan approached and bowed.
“Don’t bow to me,” the man said without looking up.
Atnan stood silently for a moment, then tapped the man on the shoulder and began to sign his name and business, but the man stared at him blankly.
“I don’t know any of that. Do you not speak Kindhir’s tongue?”
Atnan tapped his larynx and signed in the negative. He pulled out a slate, on which he had already written, “I am Atnan of Del, a mute. I have a package for the archives.”
Upon reading the message, the man stood, rolled up the scroll he was reading, tucked it into a pocket in his robe, and folded his seat against the wall. “Del you say? Follow me.”
Atnan hesitated, but the man insisted.
Don’t read this next part if you don’t want MAJOR SPOILERS.
You were warned.
Turn back now.
Near the climax of the story, all the principal characters — Atnan, the mute who only speaks sign but understands everyone; Barlas, the fisherman who only speaks Fyrean and jargon; Selolo, a foreign prophetess who speaks Silgath, jargon, and some broken Fyrean she has picked up from Barlas along the way; and Shemulak, a scholar, and Zakinder and Glesimel, two farmers, all of whom only speak the imperial language — all of them must gather and make a conspiratorial plan to use incense to awaken a slumbering beast in hopes of fending off the invading army. (Don’t worry, it makes sense in context.)
Atnan’s POV (which is good, because he can understand everyone!) —
Atnan ducked into the storage tunnel behind Shemulak and held the door open for the others. He pressed a finger to his lips to indicate they should be silent.
Once they were all inside, Atnan surveyed the worried faces and imagined all their unspoken questions. How would they be answered? Shemulak could only speak imperial, which Barlas and Selolo couldn’t understand. Zakinder and Glesimel had learned a few of his signs, but not nearly enough. He was the only one in the room who could understand everyone else, and the only one who couldn’t speak.
Their plan might not work after all.
Zakinder spoke first. “Say, what are we doing here anyway?”
Atnan indicated to Shemulak that he should inform Zakinder and Glesimel, and he would inform Barlas and Selolo....
Shemulak said, “We’re going to wake up Shigshag.” [n.b. — a gigantic turtle!]
Atnan signed the same.
“Wake him up?” Zakinder asked, and Glesimel added, “How?”
Selolo ran her fingers over the picture, “Basko tetele, basko ura.” Move the earth, move the sun.
Atnan signed affirmative.
Shemulak tapped the bronze censer. “We now know the potion Kindhir used to put the elder beasts to sleep, and I have knowledge of which plants should counteract it. I’ve already prepared several bundles. All we have to do is burn them.”
“Not in that!” Glesimel said.
“No, we must smuggle parcels of the incense in — ”
“Smuggle?” Zakinder said, intrigued.
Barlas and Selolo spoke in hushed tones among themselves. Atnan signed the plan as best he could.
Shemulak held up his hands for quiet. “I should tell you that the Prime Sage objected to this plan.” He paused. “Strenuously.”
“So we heard,” Zakinder said. “What are we talking about here? Some basic breaking and entering?”
“Breaking and exiting,” his wife corrected.
“Ah, well, it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve snuck out of the city,” Zakinder said. “The issue is getting back inside.”
Shemulak said, “There is a chance this won’t work at all, and an even better chance we end up dead or captured.”
Zakinder paused. “You … you aren’t planning a return trip, are you?”
Shemulak folded his hands. “Success or failure, we don’t know what will happen. Atnan and I had decided to do this alone, but any help is appreciated. You all saw the siege engines, the rams, the ladders. We heard what they did to Kusumnu, and how they treated our representatives. It’s only a matter of time before … ” He sighed. “If you want to leave, now is the time.”
“Ta’ana gango,” Selolo said. River of blood. “Te basko tetele.” You will move the earth.
“Hay-hay,” Barlas said.
Zakinder and Glesimel looked at one another tenderly.
“It’s been a good life, love,” Zakinder said.
“A very good life, husband.” Glesimel leaned forward so their foreheads touched. “I am not afraid to die, only of doing it apart from you.”
Shemulak distributed two small bundles of moss and sticks to each of them. He warned them not to breathe the smoke. “If it can wake an elder beast, I don’t know what it may do to you.”
I won’t spoil the rest! Suffice it to say that these aren’t the only passages where characters struggle to understand one another, or the situations they find themselves in, or the world around them. As Atnan said, it’s not surprising that understanding is difficult, but that it ever happens at all.
Inside Every Circle
For centuries, the Seven Cities have enjoyed peace and prosperity. Four strangers — a mute scribe, an orphaned prophetess, an elderly politician, and an egomaniacal autocrat — independently pursue glory, fame, and forbidden knowledge as they approach the end of the age. Will their increasingly intertwined paths lead to enduring peace or unspeakable horror?