Ghost Story

[Marian Hawke]

She rattles off eleven titles before she stops with a blush, wincing a little. "Sorry, you said ten, I know you said ten."

[Varric]

"Over achieving, I'm noticing." His tone is mild, amused even.

[Marian Hawke]

"I promised myself I'd read every book in the library. I'm only about halfway there. Well, sixty percent." In that whole vast library? Impressive.

[Varric]

Even if a full third (which is pretty pessimistic) of the books are ruined that's still some six, six and a half hundred or so books. That's pretty respectable. "They all I'm common?" he asks curiously.

[Marian Hawke]

"Nope! I had to learn Elven, Dwarven, Draconic, and Sylvan. I'm working on Infernal now, but some of the syntax is tricky." Of course, down in the village, it's probably around a 70% literacy rate in Common thanks to the local school, but maybe 40% read at a level that would qualify them to get into advanced education, and perhaps 25% read two different scripts. 

[Varric]

"Dwarven and Elven? Without a tutor?" He gives her another long look. "Which was the hardest, aside from Infernal?"

[Marian Hawke]

"Sylvan. But that's because the texts I wanted to read were written in Old Sylvish Script mostly, and the better dictionary I found used Elvish script instead. Learning Draconic helped a lot, because there was an index with Draconic characters to Sylvish side by side for a comparison of strokes."

[Varric]

That gets a frown from the dwarf. "Draconic and sylvan? That's a weird pick for the author," he mutters, nose wrinkling. "Sure, they're both arcanix-mortals, which implies a similar dissociation from standard mortal thinking, inasmuch as that exists given the wide array of cultures and religions that mould mental behavior, but they're in very different directions. There are a lot of similarities between High Faerie and dragons, but typical sylvian correlates to the Lesser Fae mindset, which is about as similar as fire and water to a true dragon's mindset. One of the elemental languages-- auran or terran-- would be a far better comparison."

[Marian Hawke]

"It was a pure script comparison -- the harsh, angular strokes of Draconic evoke the image of claws, but the more poetic, fluid strokes of Sylvan in some ways mimic the same forms and structures for similar sounds, indicating that the early creators of both scripts perhaps were making a derivative of some third, now lost script."

[Varric]

Varric snorts. "Books are out of date evidently; it was determined with fair certainty that draconic is based off of Celestial, with a helping of Abaddian influence. And Sylvian sure as the Hells isn't anything related to Abaddian, not with their focus on life and growing. Best theories at current is that Sylvian is a first source language, with some pushing for it being sourced from Ere'lyn and others pushing the theory that it was simply developed from base principals by the fae."

[Marian Hawke]

"Ah..." she says, looking a little disappointed. "Oh well. I guess it's just coincidence after all."

[Varric]

"No, no," Varric says with a shake of his head. "I mean, the conclusion is probably wrong, sure, but the observations are good. The style and form of a written language often does reflect the culture and mindset of the group that originated it." He smiles a little. "And of course, there's the Prima Lingua theory." 

[Marian Hawke]

"Primary... language?"

[Varric]

"One of those 'neat but how could we even begin to confirm it' theories," Varric explains with a smile. "That all languages come from a single language, directly or indirectly. Basically that the gods-- the Heptad specifically-- have their own language, which was lessened and simplified for each race as part of their creation."

[Marian Hawke]

"Can't you just ask the gods? Some kind of divination or something?"