A pupil in the temple of Qunayir
The Charyan Languages
During the period I'm mainly concerned with here, the 'three hundred years of the three hundred Kingdoms', the living members of the Charyan language family included the following languages:
Of course, any cultured Charyan would have had to know all of these languages to function in society. On the other hand, people generally conceived of these languages not as different languages per se, but as different styles and dialects. Northern, Southern and Eastern colloquial were termed dialects, and it often sufficed to know only one of them - Broian was seen as a distinct language, and generally imperfectly understood. The others were considered to be stylistic registers, even though there are many grammatical and lexical differences between them.
Of more ancient stages of the language family almost nothing is known. A later stage of Denden is known as Late Colloquial Charyan, is characterized as a predominantly mono-syllabic, complex pronominalizing tone language.
A street girl and Classical Charyan
Murxao was a girl of about twelve, born in one of the poor, eastern districts of Broi. There, the people spoke a dialect of Southern Colloquial, and that was the language she grew up with. Some of the neighbours were ethnic Matraians, and she played a lot with the children and picked up a decent smattering of Matraian, too. Most people in Andal grow up polyglot.
When she was ten her parents died. A few months later, she inherited a small plot of land in one of the market gardens near the Temple Mountain, where the emperor has his palace and all the important gods their temples. She began selling fruit to civil servants on their way to the palace, and there she 'learned to speak civilly', i.e. she learned some Denden. She didn't lose her cute eastern Broyan accent, though, and frequently used words the officials only knew from the poetic language Old Charyan.
In this part of town people spoke a very different dialect of Southern Charyan, with a lot of influence from Denden, which was also much in use, because in this quarter many officials from all parts of the country have their residence. Murxao readily adapted, though
A tumultuous time arrived when Waghdazyal Nothaz, the Slayer of the East, arrived with his troops in the capital to force the emperor either to pay his soldiers their pay, or to abdicate.
In the course of a skirmish with some drunken soldiers - who she couldn't understand at all, since they spoke an eastern dialect, Murxao ran into an ethnic Broyan boy, Dendir. With him, she explored the Broyan ghetto, and noticed that the people there spoke 'as if they were on the stage'. A small group of ethnic Broyans, descendant of the first settlers, still speak their ancestral language in daily life, although it is now almost exclusively used on the stage.
Further adventures made it necessary for Murxao to take refuge in a temple on Temple Mountain. She arrived at the temple of Qunayir, guided by the Goddess herself. Suddenly she found herself enrolled as an acolyte. The High Priestess Tala taught the acolytes the use of the written language - Archaic and Classical, and the former apple-selling street-girl learned her letters for the first time.
However, when she wanted to know what certain words meant, Tala couldn't do better than to repeat the word again - she didn't conceive of the written language and the language she daily spoke, as different languages. Picture the following conversation (in Denden):
Murxao: 'Tala zipurdam, tan harul art hen ga?' (High Priestess Tala, what's the meaning of harul?)
Tala: 'Murxao, harul harul ga!' (Murxao, harul is harul!)
Murxao:'xinni, Tala zipurdam, edo taujonir.' (I'm sorry High Priestess, Tala, I don't understand.)
Then suddenly, Murxao got a brainwave:
Murxao: 'Tala zipurdam, tan harul art tan Den'Matrai hen ga?' (High Priestess Tala, what's the meaning of harul in Matraian?)
Tala: 'Tan Den'matrai harul tan art qinne ga.' (In Matraian, the meaning of harul is qinne.
Murxao: 'Aya! Tan harul art char ga!' (Ah! the meaning of harul is 'gold'!)
Tala: 'Tauga! Tan harul art harul ga!' (No! The meaning of harul is harul !)
Anyway, Murxao now knew what was meant with harul, and she was on her way learning the civilized language. We'll leave them at this point.
text and illustrations © 1999 Boudewijn Rempt