Ya-Kela, the leader of the group of Azkashi, has:
"...a representation of the galaxy tattooed on his forehead." (VII, p. 49)
Hugh Valland deduces that:
"'...they waited for the galaxy to rise; it's a god or whatnot to them, and then they felt safer against our mana.'" (ibid.)
Omnicompetent Valland uses his omnisonor for Azkashi sounds that human beings cannot utter. (He has also been "'...several kinds of engineer, now and then...'" (VII, p. 47), the best possible man to have in an emergency.)
Meanwhile, ya-Kela reserves judgment. Ya-Valland seems to have claimed "...to be the emissary of God.'" (VIII, p. 52) yet he has "...curious weaknesses." (ibid.)
Is communication really proceeding as well as is hoped?
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I thought the hesitation or uncertainty felt by Ya-Kela, the One of the Pack, was a realistic touch by Anderson. Meant to indicate communication between two different species will not be that easy.
Sean
Given how prone to misunderstandings humans speaking different languages are... even closely related languages...
Consider the English world "knight". To us it means a warrior at the bottom end of the nobility; the equivalent in most European languages originated in words meaning "cavalryman" -- chevalier, caballero, Ritter.
But in the other Germanic languages, "knecht" and equivalent cognates mean "servant".
Both are descendants of a word which originally meant "follower, retainer", and then developed into two divergent streams, one in England and the other on the Continent.
Then throw in two totally unrelated languages spoken by different species, and the possibility of misunderstanding increases exponentially.
Ya-Kela is being extraordinarily wise.
Oh, and by the way -- consider Ya-Kela, chief of the wolfish aliens, and Akela, the leader of the pack of wolves who adopt Mowgli in THE JUNGLE BOOK, by Kipling!
Dear Mr. Stirling,
I agree. Heck, people speaking the SAME language can still misunderstand each other. Everything ranging from local dialects to people of different social classes having different ways of speaking, etc.
Dang! I wish I had thought of the analogy to Kipling's wolf pack and Akela. Pretty good odds Poul Anderson had exactly that in mind while writing WORLD WITHOUT STARS!
Sean
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