Talechaser ~ Incoherent

[annarti.livejournal.com]

Title~ E-nun-ci-ate
Author~ Annarti
Disclaimer~ Still mine
Notes~ Talechasing challenge from 29 September 06. I just had this image all through my French lecture today, of one of Nol's language tutors yelling 'E-NUN-CI-ATE' at him as clearly as humanly possible. Hence, fic XD I love the Raykinian language, I really do, but their accent is so very easy to mock X3

~ ~ ~

‘Tropical cyclone Sunati was seen by many to—’

‘For the love of Nisaaz, Highness, enunciate, please!’

‘I am!’

‘No, you’re not!’

Nolryn dropped his barely-begun speech and folded his arms, resting his weight on one hip with a short, irritated sigh.

Musha groaned and gripped her scalp with her fingernails, massaging the heels of her palms into her forehead. ‘Does the word even exist in the Raykinian language?’ she muttered, almost to herself. She sighed and dropped her hands into her lap, clearly trying not to wring them in frustration. ‘Your written papers are a joy to mark. An absolute joy! You have all the right grammar, vocabulary, sentence structures… Even conjugations, and they’re usually the most difficult part to teach to a Raykinian. Your writing is probably more fluent than a lot of Kazinians, but as soon as you start speaking, you sound like… like a peasant!’

The prince started back slightly, blinking against the fire he could feel rising in his eyes. ‘I’m trying my best,’ he argued. ‘There are just—’

‘E-nun-ci-ate.’

Nolryn narrowed his eyes and held a quiet growling sigh at the back of his throat. He debated reverting to his native tongue, just so she couldn’t pick him out on his pronunciation anymore, but he knew she would still interrupt. ‘There are too many sounds I’m not used to. There’s an S in just about every word, and it’s hard enough to just get that right without all the vowels and everything in the way.’

Musha sighed again, rubbing the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger. ‘That’s what a spoken language is, Highness. Sounds. The sounds you’re making still sound near enough to Raykinian that you may as well still be speaking Raykinian.’ She waved one hand dismissively. ‘Ignore the S; you can’t get that right anyway. The whole kingdom lisps, so Kazin will expect that and maybe partly forgive you. Laugh behind your back, certainly, but we’ve learnt to understand the Raykinian lisp. Flat and dead vowels, on the other hand, are impossible. Try again, but concentrate on the vowels.’

He gave a slight nod and lifted his paper again, running his eyes over the foreign squiggles and making the sounds in his head before he began. ‘Tropical cyclone Sunati—’

‘No!’

‘What?’

‘Sunati,’ Musha said slowly. ‘Soo-nah-tee. Not this Suh-nuh-tee you’re coming out with. See the difference? You’ve got barely any distinction between the first two syllables. Open your mouth more. Use your lips to talk, not just your tongue. Go on. Su-na-ti.’ She waved a hand out to him to imitate her.

Nolryn barely kept himself from rolling his eyes, instead trying to concentrate on the word as he repeated it, trying to copy Musha’s mouth movements.

The tutor pursed her lips and shook her head. ‘Watch my lips.’ She held one long, pale finger up to them as she pursed them into the shape for the first syllable. ‘Su. Look, the space left isn’t even big enough to fit my finger through. Su.’

Nolryn pursed his lips in the same way, holding one finger up to test the opening before he tried again. ‘Su-na-ti.’

Musha sighed critically and swung to her feet. She walked over to the prince, gripped his cheeks with one hand and squeezed his lips together. ‘Su,’ she emphasised, raising her eyebrows for him to copy.

Nolryn glared at her and yanked her arm away viciously. ‘I feel like I’m three years old again,’ he muttered, rubbing at where her sharp nails had scratched him.

‘Mmm, and your accent has barely improved in the decade and a half since.’

‘Oh for the love of… Thu!’ he almost shouted, flinging his arms in desperation and annoyance. ‘Thu! Is that good enough yet? Thu!’

Musha held out one hand horizontally and waggled it a bit. ‘Marginally better,’ she admitted. ‘Now for the ah, you have to open your mouth much more.’

‘Why are you suddenly so persistent on accent?’ Nolryn interrupted, folding his arms and frowning curiously. ‘I thought you said I was a lost cause in that department years ago.’

Musha nodded. ‘Call it wishful thinking,’ she said with a shrug. ‘It can’t be physically impossible for a Raykinian mouth to form more distinct vowel sounds.’ She shook her head with a rueful laugh. ‘And to think I imagined everyone at home was joking when they said Raykinian was easier to speak when drunk.’

Nolryn gave a lopsided grin. ‘My language was made to be spoken drunk.’

‘Mine, on the other hand, wasn’t. Come on.’

The prince shook his head. ‘You haven’t answered my question yet. Why the sudden emphasis on accent?’

‘As I’ve said, there’s little else to teach you. You’re near enough fluent in every aspect but pronunciation.’ Again the dismissive shrug. ‘I knew I’d have to come back to it sooner or later.’

‘I can spot when someone’s dodging a question, Musha.’ Nolryn folded his arms and set a flat look on her. ‘What do you know that I don’t?’

Musha returned him with a hard look of her own. ‘I know that Kazinians in Kazin are going to be far less forgiving than any you’ve met in Raykin, myself included.’

The prince blinked slowly and cocked one eyebrow. ‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning Majesty wants you to have a passable accent before he sends you up there with the Own.’

Both of Nolryn’s eyebrows shot up this time, and his eyes widened. ‘The Own?’

She covered her mouth with one hand to cough, but Nolryn could see the flash of a grin behind her fingers, despite her nationality. ‘Try to look surprised when he announces it to you. Sort of like that.’ She pointed at his baffled face, biting her bottom lip in a vain attempt to keep her grin hidden.

‘Wait, you’re not playing with me, are you? When did he mention this?’

‘Yesterday. He didn’t say anything more than the fact he was thinking about giving you the chance to challenge them, so don’t ask me anything more.’

Nolryn’s mind was racing. ‘You’re sure you’re not joking?’ he checked. ‘I mean… can I even do that? Challenge the Own, I mean. Has there ever been a crown prince in the Own before?’

Musha held up her hands defensively and shook her head. ‘I told you, don’t ask me anymore questions, especially not about Raykinian politics! I’m just here to teach you Kazinian.’

Nolryn grinned back at her. ‘If you’re right about this, I’ll pick you up a bottle of something while I’m up there.’

‘I’ll make a list,’ Musha said, winking candidly. ‘Now back to this gods-damned ah…’

Comments

[shanra.livejournal.com]

I read this right after my added pronunciation practice, so you can imagine how amused I was by the topic. *grins* Poor Nol.

I'd personally make his problems with the name/words a little more obvious, because as it stands, I was just wondering what on Earth he was doing wrong, but that could just be me. ^-~

Also a wee bit confused about the challenging, since I expected it to be about challenging the Kazinians, but that's really not a big problem. They know what they're talking about and as long as I understand what's happening somewhere down the line, I'd say it's perfectly fine not to elaborate on the matter instory. Wouldn't fit with it.

In any case. I liked it. Nol is lovely. (A drunk, from the sound of it, but lovely. ^-~) *musses his hair*

And... That's all I'm good for now, I'm afraid. But I enjoyed it muchly. 'twas fun!

[annarti.livejournal.com]

Ah~ yus, little backstory for the relative newbie to the world of Tsyllaes X3 I tend to write my minifics assuming that everyone knows the backstory behind it already, which is probably not the best way to go about things, but there you go XD;

Anyway. You already know about Raykin's lack of S or Z or any sounds like that, but they've also got a ridiculously mumbly language. When I type it, they've got the vowels as ah, eh, ih, oh, ooh as well as y and ae, but really there's not a whole lot of distinction between them all. Kinda like... you know how in the English language, there are often vowels that end up coming out as a generic kind of 'uh' sound. Like the 'e' in 'problem' or the 'a' in 'about'. Raykinians aren't quite that bad, but it's certainly getting there.

Kazin, by contrast, has very sharp, crisp sounds and very obvious distinctions between their vowels. Means that when a Raykinian's speaking Kazinian, they have to really think about each sound to make it clear enough to be understood =3

For the Own~ that's easy enough. Anyone who's Mithé and the Own's current General reckons is good enough gets to challenge the existing members for his/her own place in the Own. So Nol challenged the four archers, beat one of them, and took his place =3

Nol is lovely <3 Not a drunk, just Raykinian X3 They're very proud of their beer, those Raykinians =D

[shanra.livejournal.com]

That's the way I always see people go about it, so it can't be all that bad. ;)

That'd be a schwa, I'm reckoning. How nice of them to drop all their vowels. Makes me wonder, though, how do they distinguish between homonyms in spoken language?

Aaah. But what does that have to do with Kazin and speaking Kazinian? *is thick today/night*

*rolls eyes* He basically said as much himself. (Suffice to say on the subject of beer, we wouldn't get along ;p)

[annarti.livejournal.com]

They don't drop them entirely, they just... mumble X3 They'd distinguish homonyms the same way any language does, by the context the word's in.

Most missions with the King's Own tend to be on Kazinian soil, and being royalty and therefore more likely to speak with Kazinian royalty, Nol should really be able to speak the language pretty damn fluently X3 There's no convenient 'Common' language in Tsyllaes, like so many fantasy worlds have. Each kingdom has its own language, and they stick with it.

Beer is revolting. I dunno how they stand the stuff, but meh, each to his own =/

[shanra.livejournal.com]

Speaking as someone who mumbles a lot, people find it incredibly hard to understand you. Which fits better with the idea of altering Nol's spoken Kazinian to look wrong than anything to do with Raykinian, but never mind. I'm fairly certain that if they speak like that, they'll have learnt to understand one another. (And that they have plenty of words that look/sound NOTHING alike. Imagine having Kazinian vowels when all your language system has are 'a e o' and 'p b t d k'. >< Pa pe ta pa bo
I go)

Aaah. *nods* Thankees for the clarification. ^-^ (See? Absolutely no need to include the newbie questions in the snippet. That'd just bog it down and they'd know themselves anyway.)

*wholeheartedly agrees*

[shanra.livejournal.com]

*hates touch pads* I was not done with the example silliness!

"I go shopping with mum." Or, alternatively, "With go shopping I mum."

Or, "Pa and sister are(/Pa/I/With) strange(/story/family/time.)"