HUKAT, A TRAVELLER'S ACCOUNT

LANGUAGES OF THE DOMINION

HUKAT, A TRAVELLER’S ACCOUNT

“Hukat”, they call it. I was told by Chase (spelt Sha-Se, written as XSE), their medical officer, that it would be better this way, if I learned it and fast. If I ever wanted to complete my mission with Ayrio.

I’m still struggling with old Marsi, so I don’t even fully understand what Chase tells me half of the time, but, whatever this strange human, or Chelok language is, it is close enough to what I know to be useful. From what I understand, it's an old liturgical language of “my people”. He is rather surprised that I don’t know it nor hukat. Apparently a second-language to many of my kind.

I explained to him I am not Chelok. Though he very patiently nods at it, I know he is humoring me. Mind you, for a Specter, he is quite of a strong will and humor.

I’ve been his shadow since I’ve been forcefully “invited” to this settlement by his people. He’s the oldest among them, but repairs and spare parts have kept him good as new for almost a century.

There is something deeper about the language I still can't quite grasp. The spelling rules I can learn. Which syllables take stress, when to write K or Q, those are merely habits. The speech itself is another matter entirely. It seems their faces and nasal structure echo and blow some air in ways my flat, human, face cannot. So I’m left to fare with this strange idiom with whatever mother-nature has bestowed upon me.

Chase told me that I shouldn’t be afraid of not being able to say it. It’s a well known fact that Chelok, I mean, Humans, can’t really do it. So it is okay as long as I get the syllables right, I will be understood.

I at least learned how to read well. Well, spelling out loud I mean.

Just enough that through some educated guesswork, most words reveal themselves before me. The base roots are pretty simple, but the more specific a word gets, the concept behind a word becomes more abstract. The ancients had words for water, rock, and silver - but they couldn’t ever foresee something like gasoline or computer screens. Which they call, if translated literally from the compound words, “fastwater” and “bright canvas”, which sounds crude when worded like that, but I personally find it quite helpful for my hoku education.

It took me embarrassingly long to realize the letters weren't merely letters. Each one used to mean something before it became part of the writing system. Not every word still uses those meanings literally, but enough do that you begin to notice patterns. Two symbols together often suggest a broader idea, four or five may describe something surprisingly specific. Sometimes I can guess an unfamiliar word simply by recognizing two of its older roots.

The letters for “ground” (D, de) plus “measure” (G, gue) together make the word “short” (DG, dege). As if you are physically measuring the distance from the ground up.

Which is deceitfully simple to grasp at first. Until you arrive at something like “nation” (ZAEXOKU, zaaexoku). It is, simultaneously, wonderful for my education and terrible for my sanity, very stackable in the way it produces words from simpler concepts.

I still have some difficulty figuring out what parts of words are the actual roots and which are descriptors or specifiers. I'll word it like that. Though the order of the compoundings seems rather consistent most of the time.

And don’t get me started on valency, placeness, intensity, and verb direction. Heavens, what a nightmare.

The hoku. Perhaps safer to say, these hoku, in my current ignorance. Refer to MOST concepts in what Chase has explained to me as “positive” or “affirmative” direction. Which, as far as I could research from old magazines and books and even an old hard-cover dictionary, means that ABOUT HALF of the words in this god-forsaken tongue don’t formally exist anywhere.

Sure, they ARE USED, in writing, and speech. But they don’t exist the same way it exists in Marsi, Anglis, or Franque, or even Latin for all I know. Every verb seems convinced reality comes in directions.

"Flow" (FXF, fixafi) exists.

"Not flowing" (MVFXF, mevifixafi) exists.

"Reverse flow" (MNFXF, mnefixafi) also exists.

Same word, three completely different verbs. To go, to go nowhere, and to return.

Apparently every action wants to know who's doing it, who's receiving it, and whether either of them ought to exist in the sentence at all. Chase called it Valency. The Hoku seem perfectly comfortable with this arrangement. I am not.

Then comes what Chase calls Placeness. A thing isn't merely a thing. It's also somewhere, becoming somewhere, belonging somewhere, or existing in some state I still haven't figured out. Which I think gives the language some poetic liberty, but also makes me look either uneducated or insane when trying to speak, alongside grammatical genders and imperatives.

I find Intensity, alongside direction, the most important part of the language in the sense that it produces more words with recognizable meanings at a glance. In crude terms, it's how large your subject is.

Think of “animal” (QIUK, qiuko).

A very small animal, such as a vermin or small bug is a qiukegi (KIUKEGI), but a large beast is an aaqiuko (AAQIUK), while a mythical monster is a qiukosage (QIUKSG).

I won’t even delve into derivational morphology and determinant articles because even though my notes are still incomplete, after almost a year among them, it seems pretty standard to them, of course it is. But they often get the memo when I say “drink”, “eat”, “you” or “us” anyway. Some gestures and mime often help bridging the gap, they seem to do the same to me when speaking.

I must admit that, because learning hukat seems more convenient for me at the time, it is beginning to be an intuitive bridge between Titan and whatever is this Chelok language. By simply looking at the way the Hoku translates these strange words.

I can’t wait for you to have a crack at it, Galileo. I’m sure you and Chase would do well with one another, and hopefully, give me some subtitles in my helmet visor soon.

The big day is tomorrow. I’ll see you in the desert, my friend.

Ian, sol 181, whatever year you reckon it to be