Renshaw, Jonathan - The Awkening 01 - Dawn Of Wonder by Renshaw Jonathan

Author:Renshaw, Jonathan [Renshaw, Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jonathan Renshaw
Published: 2015-05-01T00:00:00+00:00

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On the academic side, the language classes were proving to be the most taxing as well as the most rewarding. Learning new words and interesting expressions was the rewarding part. The rest was worse than Dun’s circuits.

Orunean had the most muddled prepositions – you were at work, but in home and on class. Tenses were not defined by verbs, requiring constant use of adverbs of time. And then there were the idioms – and Orunean was infested with them – that crashed heedless through all rules of grammar with meanings that simply had to be memorised. Some were explainable – to buy a flecked horse meant to invest in something that was going to change, associated with the fact that grey flecks tend to diminish with time. But often the meanings were lost. Not even Giddard knew why switching gloves meant avoiding the question.

They now had two foreign languages – Orunean and Fenn. The latter was considered a priority due to the current threat. Fenn, while simpler in tenses, had come with the curse of noun genders. Peashot’s frustration grew daily.

“It’s to do with an old division of labour,” Aedan said, explaining what Peashot had slept through in one of the classes. “It’s not about things being boy or girl, it’s about which gender was responsible for them. That’s all that ‘av’ and ‘el’ show you.”

“And no,” said Liru, pre-empting the obvious retort, “you cannot just leave them all off.”

Aedan resumed. “Fenn women do most of the cooking, so kitchenware is mostly female, and men look after the livestock, so the animals are mostly male. Except goats, chickens and donkeys – I’m not sure why they are different.”

“So all cattle are male, even the females?”

“Unless you specify that it’s a cow – in that case it’s female.”

“So then … females are cows! Maybe they aren’t so stupid. Ouch!”

“You did not know that cows kick?” Liru said, her face betraying not even a hint of humour.

“What bothers me more,” said Aedan, “is that the language has no plurals. I know you work them out by the context, but imagine the watchman: ‘Help help! The wall is being overrun by a soldier!’ That might not get the right response.”

“It would be better,” said Liru, “than Peashot asking a father for his youngest cow’s hand in marriage.”

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