This chapter confirms an earlier combox suggestion about Merseian tailtips (see also Lafdigu) although it contradicts the attached image.
"Ydwyr's tailtip, peeking from beneath his robe, quivered, the single sign he gave of agitation." (p. 332)
"When he had blanked the screen, he sat for a long period, scowling, tailtip flogging the floor." (ibid.)
The chapter also presents a few words of Eriau with or without translations:
"rohadwann" (p. 330);
"'Shwai -'" (p. 332);
"'Haadoch?'" (p. 333);
"'Kraich...'" (p. 334).
See also:
Cultural influences: Vymezal's bugle call is an immemorial Merseian war song; his wife sings an Eriau lullaby to their daughter, Kossara: Dwynafor, dwynafor, odhal tiv.
-copied from here.
and:
Her mother sang her the Eriau lullaby, "'Dwynafor, dwynafor, odhal tiv'" (p. 401), although Kossara has no tail.
-copied from here.
However, we read very few words of Eriau in the Technic History.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And we see times when Flandry converses with Merseians and is understood to be using Eriau. But, of course it would not be practical for Anderson to invent enough Eriau for an entire conversation to be held in that language.
Well, a linguist and philologist like JRR Tolkien might have tried! Btw, his son and literary executor, Christopher Tolkien, has died recently, aged 95. Memory eternal!
Ad astra! Sean
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