A biped encountered by Dominic Flandry shakes her head in disbelief… (I believe that the significance of head shaking varies even within Europe. In "A Tragedy of Errors," about human miscommunication, Anderson recognises that head shaking can mean yes, no or maybe.)
-copied from here.
(That biped encountered by Flandry is on the planet Talwin.)
"Cerdic gave the curious circular nod of his kind." (p. 250)
"Penda stroked his horns." (p. 258)
"Flandry gave as good an imitation of the Scothanian nod as his cervical vertebrae allowed." (p. 260)
"Nartheof shook his head." (p. 262)
"Torric wove his head about. He was no political sophisticate." (p. 263)
"Flandry raised forefingers to brows. He had developed the gesture as his version of the Scothanian touching of horns, to express surprise." (p. 264)
"He rubbed his horns." (p. 265)
"She tossed her head, her equivalent of a shrug." (p. 267)
I will scour the story to check whether I have missed any of these Scothanian gestures.
(Today was busy with an afternoon party stretching into the evening. One guy will fly back to Singapore tomorrow morning.)
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And a Ythrian's body language is expressed largely thru movements of his feathers. Which helps to explain why spoken Planha seems so curt and abrupt to non-Ythrians.
Ad astra and Happy New Year! Sean
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