The Reluctant King by L. Sprague de Camp

Author:L. Sprague de Camp [Camp, L. Sprague de]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Science Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780671877460
Google: g1AyhQjuz9UC
Amazon: B0006F8K2E
Publisher: Baen Books
Published: 1983-02-02T05:00:00+00:00

Next day, the west wind continued, blowing little cotton-wool clouds across the deep-blue sky. Zerlik still complained of headache but summoned enough strength to eat. Jorian, with a scarf tied around his head in piratical fashion in place of his lost hat, took the tiller. As he guided the Flying Fish, he quizzed Zerlik about the language of Penembei. After an hour of explanation, he clapped a hand to his forehead.

“Gods and goddesses!” he cried. “How do little Penembians ever master so complicated a tongue? I can understand having indicative, interrogative, imperative, conditional, and subjunctive moods; but when you add to those the optative, causative, dubitative, reportative, accelerative, narrative, continuative, and—”

“But of course, my good Jorian! That is why we deem our speech superior to all others, for one can say exactly what one means. Now, to go over the aorist perfect reportative of the verb ‘to sleep’ again. In Novarian you would say: ‘They say that I used to sleep’, but in Penembic we do all that with a single word—”

“A single word with fifty-three suffixes,” growled Jorian. Later he said: “Perhaps you’d better merely teach me common expressions, like ‘good morning’ and ‘how much?’ I used to think myself a fair linguist; but your grammar baffles me.”

“Ah, but once you learn the rules, you have but to follow them to speak correctly. There is none of those irregularities and exceptions that make your Novarian tongue so maddening.’

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