Kindle Direct Publishing vs the Deseret Alphabet

CreateSpace was long my go-to site for print-on-demand publishing. I started off with Lulu but found them unsatisfactory for reasons I no longer remember. CreateSpace was perfect.

CreateSpace was owned by Amazon. They recently opted to either fold it into or turn it into Kindle Direct Publishing. That per se is not an issue.

The KDP set-up process is actually a little more streamlined and easier than CreateSpace's had been. So far so good.

The format check for KDP is live. With CreateSpace, you submitted your cover and internal files for inspection and waited up to a day for the results. This is nice.

Once the inspection was passed, you could then and can now order proof copies. No changes there.

The problem is that KDP does a detailed content check after all that. That can take days. They will also reject books because of problems that occur. They count blank pages. They check page numbers. That could be a bit awkward under some circumstances. Worst of all, they check the printed book's title with what you called it at set-up. That has been causing no end of grief.

The project's title (including subtitle) is, say, The Divine Comedy (Deseret Alphabet Edition). Perfect for trying to find it on Amazon or other booksellers.

The cover has both that title and 𐐜 𐐔𐐮𐑂𐐴𐑌 𐐗𐐪𐑋𐐲𐐼𐐨. So far so good.

The title page, however, simply has 𐐜 𐐔𐐮𐑂𐐴𐑌 𐐗𐐪𐑋𐐲𐐼𐐨, and now we have a problem. I get an email back from them saying that the language of the title page and the language of the project's name do not match. (Strictly speaking, the script of the project title and the title page don't match, but we'll let that slide.) This bugs me. For me, the title page is intended to be a reproduction of the original's title page, just in a different script. Now I need to have both scripts present on the title page.

Even worse, the script of the spine and the project title don't match. Now I'm getting really annoyed, because I have to have both on the spine now, or just the Latin title and that's even worse.

Even worser worse, I haven't completed the final round of their review and therefore don't know if there is something else I'm missing, because their error report is a little on the vague side by simply saying that something is wrong then pointing you to their instructions, viz.:

Book details

Make sure the information in your interior and cover files exactly matches the book details (e.g., title, author name, ISBN, language) you entered during title setup. 

1. Compare the book details you entered with the information in your manuscript an on your cover. Be sure to check all locations where book details appear (e.g., copyright page, headers, etc.).
2. Correct any differences, including minor ones (e.g., author name John T. Smith entered in book details and J.T. Smith on the title page).
3. Be sure to check all locations where book details appear (e.g., copyright page, headers, etc.).
4. Update your book details or upload your revised file to KDP.

Check all locations? Headers‽‽ My headers usually have something like author name/chapter title. That won't match. In the hypothetical case we're considering, I have book title/canto number (as in Hell/Canto I). Are they going to ding me for that? Can't they just tell me where they want something different and keep me from having to double-guess?

So that's where I am with Dante. I keep adding the Latin title in more and more places and every time they say that something is wrong. I'm down to the spine. If that's not enough, I don't know what to do.
Maybe go back to Lulu.

A Deseret Ee-ay-ah-aw-ary

One of the more minor challenges I faced when writing up the original proposal to add the Deseret Alphabet to the Unicode standard was that every character in Unicode has to have a unique identifier. They have to be written with upper-case ASCII letters, spaces, digits, hyphens, and nothing else. (It's a bit more complex than that; see http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr31/ for all the gory details.) Identifiers can be descriptive (as in “LATIN CAPITAL LETTER M” for M, or “GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA WITH DASIA AND VARIA AND PROSGEGRAMMENI” for ᾛ) or arbitrary (as in CJK UNIFIED IDEOGRAPH-4E95 for 井). They can be misspelled (as in “PRESENTATION FORM FOR VERTICAL RIGHT WHITE LENTICULAR BRAKCET” for ︘). The two things they absolutely must be are unique and stable. 

This strikes many people as odd. Why can’t something obviously wrong be fixed? The reason is straightforward: character identifiers aren’t meant for end-users. Rather, they’re intended largely for documentation of other standards and specifications. These things can go unchanged for decades—which is practically forever in computer years—and still be in force. As such, it can be more difficult to implement a specification from 2000 if a Unicode character it references changed its name in 2001. The Unicode Technical Committee learned this the hard way.

As for end users and UIs, they can call things whatever they want. Unicode doesn’t care. Much.

By and large, if the people who actually use a particular character have a standard name they like to use for it, that usually provides a good basis for its identifier. 

Now, in the case of the Deseret Alphabet, going by the charts published in the 1860s, there are some wrinkles. 

The charts start off with six letters which are labeled “Long Sounds”: 𐐀 𐐁 𐐂 𐐃 𐐄 𐐅. These are given the names “e (as in eat)”, “a (as in ate)”, “ah (as in art)”, “aw (as in aught)”, “o (as in oat),” and “oo (as in ooze),” respectively. With one glaring exception, this isn’t too bad. Standard English doesn’t have a word that sounds like “oot,” but otherwise using common words formed by adding a -t sound to the vowel is pretty good. The one problem—and it is a big one—is “art.”

Note to publishers of English phonetic charts: Never illustrate the pronunciation of a vowel by pairing it up with an R. Seriously. Don’t do it. Not only does the English R sound seriously screw up any vowel it happens to follow, but English dialects vary wildly as to when they pronounce an R and when they drop it. I’m going to go out on a limb here, but I’m willing to bet that the New England English of Noah Webster, Brigham Young, Orson Pratt and pals—and George D. Watt’s Manchester English—were non-rhotic and dropped the R in “art.” My Utah English is rhotic and leaves it in.

The next six letters are marked as “Short Sounds of the above:” 𐐆, 𐐇, 𐐈, 𐐉, 𐐊, and 𐐋. They are not given names, but the sounds are marked as “as in it,” “as in et,” “as in at,” “as in ot,” “as in ut,” and “as in book.” Things are starting to look a little weird here. Not only are we dropping our attempts at using real words to illustrate the sounds, but some of the parallels don’t make sense. In modern English the vowel of “it” is not the short form of the vowel in “eat.”

The villain here is the Great Vowel Shift, which, over a comparatively short period of time, shuffled some of the vowel sounds in English.  Prior to the Great Vowel Shift, the long-I sound was indeed the vowel now in “eat,” as is true in most Indo-European languages other than English (and the IPA). The vowel arrangement of the Deseret Alphabet is based on the work of Sir Isaac Pitman, and it’s Pitman who is responsible for doing something which makes sense in terms of general linguistics instead of modern English phonetics. 

We won’t even touch the nasty issue of what sound 𐐉 is intended to represent. 

When naming these twelve letters, I opted to give them names which emphasize the parallel structure, which meant using names that make more sense for the short vowels than the long ones. As a result we have LONG I, LONG E, LONG A, LONG AH, LONG O, LONG OO, SHORT I, SHORT E, SHORT A, SHORT AH, SHORT O, and SHORT OO. Not the best job possible, I freely admit. I would do it differently now.

The remaining twenty-six letters do not have their organization explained, although they do have a logical order and are given names. 

First are two diphthongs (𐐌, 𐐍), named “i (as in ice),” and “ow (as in owl).” They ended up as AY and OW, just to make the sounds a bit clearer, although DESERET CAPITAL LETTER I AS IN ICE would have been a legal Unicode identifier. 

(In a forty-letter version of the Deseret Alphabet, the letters 𐐦 [OI] and 𐐧 [EW], being diphthongs, would presumably be grouped with these two.)

Next are two semivowels, 𐐎, and 𐐏, named “woo” and “ye” respectively without examples. It’s pretty clear what sounds they’re for; however, why I changed them to WU and YEE is not at all clear. I suppose WU is because that’s the standard spelling these days for the Mandarin pronunciation of Chinese surnames like 吳 and 伍. I have weird priorities sometimes. YEE is probably to make it clear that this is pronounced like the pronoun, with which ye are all familiar; but YE would have done that, too. 

Note that YEE originally came before WU. Apparently it was changed at the behest of Brigham Young, who couldn’t conceive of a reason for them not to be in the same order as their Latin counterparts. 

Then comes 𐐐, which is sui generis, sound-wise. The charts say its name is “h,” but does that mean we should pronounce the name “aitch,” as we are wont to do? I’ll get back to that. In the meantime, the Unicode name is H.

Next come eight “stops.” I have to use quotes here, because modern phoneticians do not classify two of them as stops. The name “stop” comes from the fact that pronouncing them involves completely blocking the airflow.

The first four stops (𐐑, 𐐒, 𐐓, and 𐐔) are named “p,” “b,” “t,” and “d,” with no examples given. It’s not unreasonable to assume that the Deseret names for these letters are the same as the English names of their Latin counterparts. There’s corroboration for that assumption, too. Remember, Deseret has the (stupid) spelling convention that if a word is pronounced the same as a particular letter’s name, that letter can be used for the whole word. I know that using 𐐒 for be (as in “to or not to, that is the question”) and bee (as in Apis mellifera) is attested in printed materials. I’m pretty sure that 𐐓 for tea (as in “a drink with jam and”) is attested. There is a non-zero probability that 𐐑 for pea (as in “eating with a knife”) is out there somewhere in 19th century materials, but I won’t hold my breath for pee (as in “I really need to”), if you see what I mean. 

The next two letters are the stops-that-aren’t, 𐐕, and 𐐖, called “che (as in cheese),” and “g.” The latter isn’t given an example, but it’s used for the J in, well, “John,” and the Latin letter G has the English name  /ˈdʒiː/, so I think that it’s clear what’s intended. This is, I should point out, also analogous to the names of the preceding four letters. 

These six in Unicode are accordingly named PEE, TEE, BEE, DEE, CHEE, and JEE. 

The final two stops using a different naming convention. They’re called “k” and “ga as in gate.” The Latin equivalent of the former has the English name /ˈkeɪ/, which rhymes with /ˈgeɪ/, and that starts out the word “gate.” It would be nice if we had an attestation of 𐐘 for gay (as in “don we now our apparel” or “LGBT”), but we don’t that I know of, and that’s rather a pity.

In Unicode, these are KAY and GAY.

Note that these eight letters are organized into pairs, depending on where the airflow is blocked (by the lips, by the front teeth, and so on), moving from the front of the mouth backwards. Each pair consists of an unvoiced member (pronounced without the vocal cords vibrating) and a voiced member (pronounced with vocal cord vibrations). You can tell the difference between unvoiced and voice consonants if you hold your fingers on your larynx while you speak. 

The eight following letters (𐐙, 𐐚, 𐐛, 𐐜, 𐐝, 𐐞, 𐐟, and 𐐠) are fricatives. They are organized like the stops, by point of articulation (front to back) and in unvoiced/voiced pairs. Fricatives are articulated by forcing the air through a narrow opening rather than stopping it completely. The first and third pair are given names (“f,” “v,” “s,” “z”). The second and fourth pair are given examples, too: “eth (as in thigh),” “the (as in thy),” “esh (as in flesh),” and “zhe (as in vision).” I’m aware of only one of these eight letters being used for a word—or, rather, for two words. 𐐜 is used both for the (the definite article) and thee (the archaic second person singular pronoun).  The former, of course, can be pronounced the same way as the latter even though it usually isn’t—but remember that in the 19th century, Deseret spellings were for the “full” pronunciations of words, the ones we use when speaking very slowly and clearly. 

If we assume that the four with one-letter names have Deseret names like the English names of their Latin counterparts, we get the pattern used by Unicode: EF, VEE, ETH, THEE, ES, ZEE, ESH, ZHEE.

Five letters left. The first two (𐐡 and 𐐢) are termed liquids, and are named “ur (as in burn),” and “l.” It would be nice if there were an attestation of the former being used by itself to write the name of Abraham’s home town; I suppose that might be buried in the Church archives somewhere. I certainly neglected to do it myself when I transcribed the Pearl of Great Price and Old Testament. I have also not used 𐐏 for ye as I should. I hope there aren’t any others. 

The two liquids ended up in Unicode as ER and EL. 

Finally, we have three nasals 𐐣, 𐐤, and 𐐥, consonants pronounced with the unstinted coöperation of the nose, said to be “m,” “n,” and “eng (as in length).” Unicode calls them EM, EN, and ENG. 

All-in-all, then we have:

Fourteen letters with a one-letter name and no sound exemplar.

Four letters with a one-letter name and sound exemplar. 

Two letters with a multi-letter name and no sound exemplar.

Twelve letters with a multi-letter name and sound exemplars.

Six letters with no name at all but sound exemplars. These are all the short vowels, and it is likely that the intention is that, like the long vowels, their name is the sound they make. 

For thirteen of the fourteen letters with one-letter names and no sound exemplar, it is possible to infer from other evidence that the name is intended to be the same as the English name of the corresponding Latin letter. The exception is 𐐐, which is given the name “h.” So, what to do here?

If we make an exception to the pattern and assume that its Deseret name is not the English name of its Latin counterpart—what is its name?

If we follow the pattern and call it /ˈeɪtʃ/, then it is the only letter in the Deseret alphabet whose name does not contain the sound it makes. That might seem disastrously bad until one remembers that it its Latin counterpart has that property, too, and is also unique in so doing.

The most obvious thing is to call it /ˈeɪtʃ/ and live with the weirdness. (Not that we really have to. We don’t have to be bound by the hoary ways of our long-dead ancestors. We can call it whatever we want: “What-you-may-call-um,” or “What-was-his-name,” or maybe “Thing-um-a-jig.” If we want to be rude, we could even resort to epithets like “Candle-ends,” or even—dare we say it?—“Toasted-cheese.” Personally, I like the sound of the name “Huh”. )

There is, fortunately, one other solution. Just as some people call the last letter of the standard English alphabet /ˈziː/ and some call it /ˈzɛd/, there are places where the eighth letter is called /ˈheɪtʃ/, such as Ireland and Newfoundland. Most Australians call it /ˈheɪtʃ/, too. (I don’t know about New Zealand.)

Well, let’s follow the Irish for once, say I. After all, Michael Everson is Irish. Besides, I’m still mulling over the idea of moving to Newfoundland two years later. /ˈheɪtʃ/ it is.

So there you have it: thirty-eight letters, thirty-eight names: 

/ˈiː/, /ˈeɪ/, /ˈɑ/, /ˈɔ/, /ˈoʊ/, /ˈuː/,

/ˈɪ/, /ˈɛ/, /ˈæ/, /ˈɒ/, /ˈʌ/, /ˈʊ/, 

/ˈaɪ/, /ˈaʊ/, /ˈwuː/, /ˈjiː/, /ˈheɪtʃ/,

/ˈpiː/, /ˈbiː/, /ˈtiː/, /ˈdiː/, /ˈtʃiː/, /ˈdʒiː/, /ˈkeɪ/, /ˈgeɪ/,

/ˈɛf/, /ˈviː/, /ˈɛθ/, /ˈðiː/, /ˈɛs/, /ˈziː/, /ˈɛʃ/, /ˈʒiː/, 

/ˈʌr/, /ˈɛl/, /ˈɛm/, /ˈɛn/, /ˈɛŋ/

Oh, and what about an actual abecedary? Well, it depends on your definition there. Some dictionaries say that it’s just a written-out list of the letters of the alphabet. Others say that it can be used for an alphabet book or primer. You know, ‘“A’ is for Apple” through “‘Z’ is for Zizzer-Zazzer-Zuzz,” that sort of thing. The former is easy enough. How about the latter?

Well, funny you should ask. It turns out that such a thing isn’t possible. 

First of all, there’s the letter 𐐉. The simple fact of the matter is that it doesn’t occur in modern Utah English at all. It’s just not a sound we make. Ever. I can’t even say it without some effort, and even then, I’m not sure I’m doing it correctly. 

Now, strictly speaking, we don’t distinguish 𐐂 from 𐐃, either, so one or the other of those should go. The difference, though, is that the dictionaries I use for reference do make the distinction between 𐐂 and 𐐃. A number of dialects east of the Mississippi still have not undergone the cot-caught merger. (Or the caught-cot merger, if you prefer.) None of my dictionaries, however—none at all—use 𐐉 anywhere. It’s just that rare nowadays in American English. The father-bother merger is all-but complete.

Beyond that, there are three problematic letters: 𐐋, 𐐠, and 𐐥. None of these occur in native English words in initial position. 𐐋 doesn’t seem to occur in final position, either. That rather puts a damper on things. Still, it isn’t an insuperable problem. I have seen alphabet books unwilling to use either “X-ray” or “xylophone” for X; and as for “Xerxes,” that’s a rather obscure reference for preschoolers these days. (“Xerxy, Perxy, Turxy, Xerxy, Linxy, lurxy, Great King Xerxes!” Thank you, Edward Lear.) The solution is to use a word with an X in the middle, something like, “X is for existential crisis.” It’s clumsy, but it works, and it gives us the option of “𐐋 is for book,” “𐐠 is for beige,” and “𐐥 is for sing.” 

I may some day write an actual abecedarium for the Deseret Alphabet. Meanwhile, I give you, the Deseret Alphabet Song:

𐐀, 𐐁, 𐐂, 𐐃, 𐐄, 𐐅, 𐐆,

𐐇, 𐐈, 𐐉, 𐐊, 𐐋, 𐐌, 𐐍, 

𐐎, 𐐏, 𐐐, 𐐑, 𐐒, 𐐓, 𐐔, 

𐐕, 𐐖, 𐐗, 𐐘, 𐐙, 𐐚, 𐐛, 

𐐜, 𐐝, 𐐞, 𐐟, 𐐠, 𐐡, 𐐢, 

𐐣, 𐐤, 𐐥—that’s how we spell.  

The music is Twelve Variations on “Ah vous dirai-je, Maman”, K. 265/300e, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and we even arranged for his corpse to be playing the harpsichord. (We spared no expense.) The singer is Hatsune Miku, the Japanese superstar. She has some trouble with English vowels, but otherwise we’re pleased with her performance. (For those who find her usual outfit immodest—we’re disappointed in that, too, and wish we could have convinced her to wear something more appropriate, like a longer skirt. She’s a sweet kid, though.)

Happy Public Domain Day!

Over the course of my lifetime, copyright law in the United States has undergone a complex evolution. Overall, this has meant that works effectively stopped entering the public domain. In 1979, everything published in the United States in 1921 or earlier was in the public domain. As 31 December 2018, the public domain had grown by exactly one year.

Large corporations, most notably Disney, fought for the last copyright extension back in 1998. Over the past few years, there have been some fears that they'd try for another extension. They didn't. As of today, therefore, anything published in the United States in 1923 is now in the public domain. From now on, each January 1st, another year of material will be available.

More details on what's been going on and what will happen next are available here.

Naturally, since the Deseret Alphabet Classics series has the public domain as its life-blood, this makes a difference to me. As of yesterday, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Case for Spirit Photography was beyond the pale and unavailable for transliteration without express permission. Today it's not. (I know we have all been anxious to read it in the Deseret Alphabet.)

In practice, I don't know that I'll attempt anything published in 1923 over the course of the coming year. Ultimately that's not the point. The purpose of copyright law, as stated in the US Constitution, is "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries" (Article I, Section 8). There has been wide-spread feeling that indefinitely long copyrights stifles creativity, rather than encouraging it. Creativity has made one small step forward today. It's "Happy Birthday" all over again.

Deep in Dante, Behind on XKCD. Also Twitter. Also Also Bumper Stickers

Unfortunately, personal matters have greatly affected my ability to spend time on Deseret Alphabet projects this past year or so. As a result, I've got more than one backlog.

First of all, transcriptions of books are backlogged. I've got several irons in this fire right now:

• Longfellow's translation of Dante's Divine Comedy
• The Rape of the Lock and The Dunciad by Alexander Pope
• The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Given Dante's length, I'm working on that simultaneously with (at the moment) The Rape of the Lock and The Dunciad. So far as Dante is concerned, I'm fifteen cantos into the Purgatorio, so coming up on half-way. Both “The Rape of the Lock” and “The Dunciad” are short, so I’m most likely going to get to Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography within a couple of weeks.

As always, suggestions are welcome. Works have to be in the public domain with an on-line source available; this is why I'm not using the excellent Folger Shakespeare Library’s excellent texts for the Shakespeare I've done. Shakespeare is in the public domain; the Folger Shakespeare is not. 

I do prefer not to do translations, unless the translation is considered an exceptional work in English as well as in the original language. Longfellow’s Dante is a borderline example of that. Edward FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám would be another, or Pope’s Homer.

On the XKCD front, I'm very far behind—about seven months, actually. (Technically, I'm further behind than that, as there are the first 657 that haven't been covered, and that is something like four or five years.) I've started catching up, but it's going to be a long time before I'm fully there. Because I'm so far behind, I'm more likely than usual to skip complicated strips.

In order to expedite letting people know of new transcriptions, I've set up a Twitter account for announcing them. The handle is @DeseretAlphabet. It might be asked why I don't go on Facebook and use the Facebook group for the Deseret Alphabet to make announcements. I refuse to do Facebook. There are reasons for that. I won't say more.

Finally, I've been reminded that I've got two bumper stickers up on Zazzle for people interested in that sort of thing. They are:

• In Our Lovely 𐐔𐐯𐑆𐐲𐑉𐐯𐐻
• 𐐐𐐫𐑌𐐿 𐐮𐑁 𐐷𐐭 𐐿𐐰𐑌 𐑉𐐨𐐼 𐑄𐐮𐑆

So far, nobody has honked.

A Story for Christmas

𐐜 𐐘𐐮𐑁𐐻 𐐲𐑂 𐑄 𐐣𐐩𐐾𐐴

𐐺𐐴 𐐄. 𐐐𐐯𐑌𐑉𐐨

𐐎𐐲𐑌 𐐼𐐫𐑊𐐲𐑉 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐐩𐐻𐐨-𐑅𐐯𐑂𐐲𐑌 𐑅𐐯𐑌𐐻𐑅. 𐐜𐐰𐐻 𐐶𐐲𐑆 𐐫𐑊. 𐐈𐑌𐐼 𐑅𐐮𐐿𐑅𐐻𐐨 𐑅𐐯𐑌𐐻𐑅 𐐲𐑂 𐐮𐐻 𐐶𐐲𐑆 𐐮𐑌 𐐹𐐯𐑌𐐨𐑆. 𐐑𐐯𐑌𐐨𐑆 𐑅𐐩𐑂𐐼 𐐶𐐲𐑌 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐐻𐐭 𐐰𐐻 𐐪 𐐻𐐴𐑋 𐐺𐐴 𐐺𐐳𐑊𐐼𐐬𐑆𐐮𐑍 𐑄 𐑀𐑉𐐬𐑅𐐲𐑉 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑄 𐑂𐐯𐐾𐐻𐐲𐐺𐐲𐑊 𐑋𐐰𐑌 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑄 𐐺𐐳𐐽𐐲𐑉 𐐲𐑌𐐻𐐮𐑊 𐐶𐐲𐑌’𐑆 𐐽𐐨𐐿𐑅 𐐺𐐲𐑉𐑌𐐼 𐐶𐐮𐑄 𐑄 𐑅𐐴𐑊𐐲𐑌𐐻 𐐮𐑋𐐹𐐷𐐭𐐻𐐩𐑇𐐲𐑌 𐐲𐑂 𐐹𐐪𐑉𐑅𐐮𐑋𐐬𐑌𐐨 𐑄𐐰𐐻 𐑅𐐲𐐽 𐐿𐑊𐐬𐑅 𐐼𐐨𐑊𐐮𐑍 𐐮𐑋𐐹𐑊𐐴𐐼. 𐐛𐑉𐐨 𐐻𐐴𐑋𐑆 𐐔𐐯𐑊𐐲 𐐿𐐵𐑌𐐻𐐲𐐼 𐐮𐐻. 𐐎𐐲𐑌 𐐼𐐫𐑊𐐲𐑉 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐐩𐐻𐐨-𐑅𐐯𐑂𐐲𐑌 𐑅𐐯𐑌𐐻𐑅. 𐐈𐑌𐐼 𐑄 𐑌𐐯𐐿𐑅𐐻 𐐼𐐩 𐐶𐐳𐐼 𐐺 𐐗𐑉𐐮𐑅𐑋𐐲𐑅.

𐐜𐐯𐑉 𐐶𐐲𐑆 𐐿𐑊𐐮𐑉𐑊𐐨 𐑌𐐲𐑃𐐮𐑍 𐐻𐐭 𐐼𐐭 𐐺𐐲𐐻 𐑁𐑊𐐪𐐹 𐐼𐐵𐑌 𐐫𐑌 𐑄 𐑇𐐰𐐺𐐨 𐑊𐐮𐐻𐐲𐑊 𐐿𐐵𐐽 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐐸𐐵𐑊. 𐐝𐐬 𐐔𐐯𐑊𐐲 𐐼𐐮𐐼 𐐮𐐻. 𐐐𐐶𐐮𐐽 𐐮𐑌𐑅𐐻𐐮𐑀𐐩𐐻𐑅 𐑄 𐑋𐐫𐑉𐐲𐑊 𐑉𐐲𐑁𐑊𐐯𐐿𐑇𐐲𐑌 𐑄𐐰𐐻 𐑊𐐴𐑁 𐐮𐑆 𐑋𐐩𐐼 𐐲𐐹 𐐲𐑂 𐑅𐐪𐐺𐑆, 𐑅𐑌𐐮𐑁𐐲𐑊𐑆, 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑅𐑋𐐴𐑊𐑆, 𐐶𐐮𐑄 𐑅𐑌𐐮𐑁𐐲𐑊𐑆 𐐹𐑉𐐲𐐼𐐪𐑋𐐮𐑌𐐩𐐻𐐮𐑍.

𐐐𐐶𐐴𐑊 𐑄 𐑋𐐮𐑅𐐻𐑉𐐲𐑅 𐐲𐑂 𐑄 𐐸𐐬𐑋 𐐮𐑆 𐑀𐑉𐐰𐐾𐐭𐐲𐑊𐐨 𐑅𐐲𐐺𐑅𐐴𐐼𐐮𐑍 𐑁𐑉𐐲𐑋 𐑄 𐑁𐐲𐑉𐑅𐐻 𐑅𐐻𐐩𐐾 𐐻𐐭 𐑄 𐑅𐐯𐐿𐐲𐑌𐐼, 𐐻𐐩𐐿 𐐪 𐑊𐐳𐐿 𐐰𐐻 𐑄 𐐸𐐬𐑋. 𐐂 𐑁𐐲𐑉𐑌𐐮𐑇𐐻 𐑁𐑊𐐰𐐻 𐐰𐐻 $8 𐐹𐐲𐑉 𐐶𐐨𐐿. 𐐆𐐻 𐐼𐐮𐐼 𐑌𐐪𐐻 𐐮𐑀𐑆𐐰𐐿𐐻𐑊𐐨 𐐺𐐯𐑀𐐲𐑉 𐐼𐐲𐑅𐐿𐑉𐐮𐐹𐑇𐐲𐑌, 𐐺𐐲𐐻 𐐮𐐻 𐑅𐐲𐑉𐐻𐐲𐑌𐑊𐐨 𐐸𐐰𐐼 𐑄𐐰𐐻 𐐶𐐲𐑉𐐼 𐐫𐑌 𐑄 𐑊𐐳𐐿𐐵𐐻 𐑁𐐫𐑉 𐑄 𐑋𐐯𐑌𐐼𐐮𐐿𐐲𐑌𐑅𐐨 𐑅𐐿𐐶𐐪𐐼.

𐐆𐑌 𐑄 𐑂𐐯𐑅𐐻𐐮𐐺𐐷𐐭𐑊 𐐺𐐲𐑊𐐬 𐐶𐐲𐑆 𐐪 𐑊𐐯𐐻𐐲𐑉-𐐺𐐪𐐿𐑅 𐐮𐑌𐐻𐐭 𐐸𐐶𐐮𐐽 𐑌𐐬 𐑊𐐯𐐻𐐲𐑉 𐐶𐐳𐐼 𐑀𐐬, 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐐰𐑌 𐐮𐑊𐐯𐐿𐐻𐑉𐐮𐐿 𐐺𐐲𐐻𐐲𐑌 𐑁𐑉𐐲𐑋 𐐸𐐶𐐮𐐽 𐑌𐐬 𐑋𐐫𐑉𐐻𐐲𐑊 𐑁𐐮𐑍𐑀𐐲𐑉 𐐿𐐳𐐼 𐐿𐐬𐐿𐑅 𐐪 𐑉𐐮𐑍. 𐐃𐑊𐑅𐐬 𐐰𐐹𐐲𐑉𐐻𐐩𐑌𐐮𐑍 𐑄𐐯𐑉𐐲𐑌𐐻𐐭 𐐶𐐲𐑆 𐐪 𐐿𐐪𐑉𐐼 𐐺𐐯𐑉𐐮𐑍 𐑄 𐑌𐐩𐑋 “𐐣𐑉. 𐐖𐐩𐑋𐑆 𐐔𐐮𐑊𐐮𐑍𐐸𐐰𐑋 𐐏𐐲𐑍.”

𐐜 “𐐔𐐮𐑊𐐮𐑍𐐸𐐰𐑋” 𐐸𐐰𐐼 𐐺𐐮𐑌 𐑁𐑊𐐲𐑍 𐐻𐐭 𐑄 𐐺𐑉𐐨𐑆 𐐼𐐳𐑉𐐮𐑍 𐐪 𐑁𐐫𐑉𐑋𐐲𐑉 𐐹𐐮𐑉𐐨𐐲𐐼 𐐲𐑂 𐐹𐑉𐐪𐑅𐐹𐐯𐑉𐐮𐐻𐐨 𐐸𐐶𐐯𐑌 𐐮𐐻𐑅 𐐹𐐲𐑆𐐯𐑅𐐲𐑉 𐐶𐐲𐑆 𐐺𐐨𐐮𐑍 𐐹𐐩𐐼 $30 𐐹𐐲𐑉 𐐶𐐨𐐿. 𐐤𐐵, 𐐸𐐶𐐯𐑌 𐑄 𐐮𐑌𐐿𐐲𐑋 𐐶𐐲𐑆 𐑇𐑉𐐲𐑍𐐿 𐐻𐐭 $20, 𐑄 𐑊𐐯𐐻𐐲𐑉𐑆 𐐲𐑂 “𐐔𐐮𐑊𐐮𐑍𐐸𐐰𐑋” 𐑊𐐳𐐿𐐻 𐐺𐑊𐐲𐑉𐐼, 𐐰𐑆 𐑄𐐬 𐑄𐐩 𐐶𐐲𐑉 𐑃𐐮𐑍𐐿𐐮𐑍 𐑅𐐮𐑉𐐨𐐲𐑅𐑊𐐨 𐐲𐑂 𐐿𐐪𐑌𐐻𐑉𐐰𐐿𐐻𐐮𐑍 𐐻𐐭 𐐪 𐑋𐐪𐐼𐐲𐑅𐐻 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐐲𐑌𐐲𐑅𐐭𐑋𐐮𐑍 𐐔. 𐐒𐐲𐐻 𐐸𐐶𐐯𐑌𐐯𐑂𐐲𐑉 𐐣𐑉. 𐐖𐐩𐑋𐑆 𐐔𐐮𐑊𐐮𐑍𐐸𐐰𐑋 𐐏𐐲𐑍 𐐿𐐩𐑋 𐐸𐐬𐑋 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑉𐐨𐐽𐐻 𐐸𐐮𐑆 𐑁𐑊𐐰𐐻 𐐲𐐺𐐲𐑂 𐐸𐐨 𐐶𐐲𐑆 𐐿𐐫𐑊𐐼 “𐐖𐐮𐑋” 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑀𐑉𐐩𐐻𐑊𐐨 𐐸𐐲𐑀𐐼 𐐺𐐴 𐐣𐑉𐑅. 𐐖𐐩𐑋𐑆 𐐔𐐮𐑊𐐮𐑍𐐸𐐰𐑋 𐐏𐐲𐑍, 𐐫𐑊𐑉𐐯𐐼𐐨 𐐮𐑌𐐻𐑉𐐲𐐼𐐭𐑅𐐻 𐐻𐐭 𐐷𐐭 𐐰𐑆 𐐔𐐯𐑊𐐲. 𐐐𐐶𐐮𐐽 𐐮𐑆 𐐫𐑊 𐑂𐐯𐑉𐐨 𐑀𐐳𐐼.

𐐔𐐯𐑊𐐲 𐑁𐐮𐑌𐐮𐑇𐐻 𐐸𐐲𐑉 𐐿𐑉𐐴 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐐲𐐻𐐯𐑌𐐼𐐲𐐼 𐐻𐐭 𐐸𐐲𐑉 𐐽𐐨𐐿𐑅 𐐶𐐮𐑄 𐑄 𐐹𐐵𐐼𐐲𐑉 𐑉𐐰𐑀. 𐐟𐐨 𐑅𐐻𐐳𐐼 𐐺𐐴 𐑄 𐐶𐐮𐑌𐐼𐐬 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑊𐐳𐐿𐐻 𐐵𐐻 𐐼𐐲𐑊𐐨 𐐰𐐻 𐐪 𐑀𐑉𐐩 𐐿𐐰𐐻 𐐶𐐫𐐿𐐮𐑍 𐐪 𐑀𐑉𐐩 𐑁𐐯𐑌𐑅 𐐮𐑌 𐐪 𐑀𐑉𐐩 𐐺𐐰𐐿𐐷𐐪𐑉𐐼. 𐐓𐐲𐑋𐐪𐑉𐐬 𐐶𐐳𐐼 𐐺 𐐗𐑉𐐮𐑅𐑋𐐲𐑅 𐐔𐐩, 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑇𐐨 𐐸𐐰𐐼 𐐬𐑌𐑊𐐨 $1.87 𐐶𐐮𐑄 𐐸𐐶𐐮𐐽 𐐻𐐭 𐐺𐐴 𐐖𐐮𐑋 𐐪 𐐹𐑉𐐯𐑆𐐲𐑌𐐻. 𐐟𐐨 𐐸𐐰𐐼 𐐺𐐮𐑌 𐑅𐐩𐑂𐐮𐑍 𐐯𐑂𐑉𐐨 𐐹𐐯𐑌𐐨 𐑇𐐨 𐐿𐐳𐐼 𐑁𐐫𐑉 𐑋𐐲𐑌𐑃𐑅, 𐐶𐐮𐑄 𐑄𐐮𐑅 𐑉𐐲𐑆𐐲𐑊𐐻. 𐐓𐐶𐐯𐑌𐐻𐐨 𐐼𐐫𐑊𐐲𐑉𐑆 𐐪 𐐶𐐨𐐿 𐐼𐐲𐑆𐑌’𐐻 𐑀𐐬 𐑁𐐪𐑉. 𐐆𐐿𐑅𐐹𐐯𐑌𐑅𐐲𐑆 𐐸𐐰𐐼 𐐺𐐮𐑌 𐑀𐑉𐐩𐐻𐐲𐑉 𐑄𐐰𐑌 𐑇𐐨 𐐸𐐰𐐼 𐐿𐐰𐑊𐐿𐐷𐐲𐑊𐐩𐐻𐐲𐐼. 𐐜𐐩 𐐫𐑊𐐶𐐩𐑆 𐐪𐑉. 𐐄𐑌𐑊𐐨 $1.87 𐐻𐐭 𐐺𐐴 𐐪 𐐹𐑉𐐯𐑆𐐲𐑌𐐻 𐑁𐐫𐑉 𐐖𐐮𐑋. 𐐐𐐲𐑉 𐐖𐐮𐑋. 𐐣𐐯𐑌𐐨 𐐪 𐐸𐐰𐐹𐐨 𐐵𐑉 𐑇𐐨 𐐸𐐰𐐼 𐑅𐐹𐐯𐑌𐐻 𐐹𐑊𐐰𐑌𐐮𐑍 𐑁𐐫𐑉 𐑅𐐲𐑋𐑃𐐮𐑍 𐑌𐐴𐑅 𐑁𐐫𐑉 𐐸𐐮𐑋. 𐐝𐐲𐑋𐑃𐐮𐑍 𐑁𐐴𐑌 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑉𐐯𐑉 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑅𐐻𐐲𐑉𐑊𐐮𐑍—𐑅𐐲𐑋𐑃𐐮𐑍 𐐾𐐲𐑅𐐻 𐐪 𐑊𐐮𐐻𐐲𐑊 𐐺𐐮𐐻 𐑌𐐮𐑉 𐐻𐐭 𐐺𐐨𐐮𐑍 𐐶𐐲𐑉𐑄𐐨 𐐲𐑂 𐑄 𐐪𐑌𐐲𐑉 𐐲𐑂 𐐺𐐨𐐮𐑍 𐐬𐑌𐐼 𐐺𐐴 𐐖𐐮𐑋.

𐐜𐐯𐑉 𐐶𐐲𐑆 𐐪 𐐹𐐮𐑉-𐑀𐑊𐐰𐑅 𐐺𐐲𐐻𐐶𐐨𐑌 𐑄 𐐶𐐮𐑌𐐼𐐬𐑆 𐐲𐑂 𐑄 𐑉𐐭𐑋. 𐐑𐐲𐑉𐐸𐐰𐐹𐑅 𐐷𐐭 𐐸𐐰𐑂 𐑅𐐨𐑌 𐐪 𐐹𐐮𐑉-𐑀𐑊𐐰𐑅 𐐮𐑌 𐐰𐑌 $8 𐑁𐑊𐐰𐐻. 𐐂 𐑂𐐯𐑉𐐨 𐑃𐐮𐑌 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑂𐐯𐑉𐐨 𐐰𐐾𐐮𐑊 𐐹𐐲𐑉𐑅𐐲𐑌 𐑋𐐩, 𐐺𐐴 𐐲𐐺𐑆𐐲𐑉𐑂𐐮𐑍 𐐸𐐮𐑆 𐑉𐐲𐑁𐑊𐐯𐐿𐑇𐐲𐑌 𐐮𐑌 𐐪 𐑉𐐰𐐹𐐮𐐼 𐑅𐐨𐐿𐐶𐐲𐑌𐑅 𐐲𐑂 𐑊𐐪𐑌𐐾𐐮𐐻𐐭𐐼𐐮𐑌𐐲𐑊 𐑅𐐻𐑉𐐮𐐹𐑅, 𐐲𐐺𐐻𐐩𐑌 𐐪 𐑁𐐯𐑉𐑊𐐨 𐐰𐐿𐐷𐐲𐑉𐐲𐐻 𐐿𐐲𐑌𐑅𐐯𐐹𐑇𐐲𐑌 𐐲𐑂 𐐸𐐮𐑆 𐑊𐐳𐐿𐑅. 𐐔𐐯𐑊𐐲, 𐐺𐐨𐐮𐑍 𐑅𐑊𐐯𐑌𐐼𐐲𐑉, 𐐸𐐰𐐼 𐑋𐐰𐑅𐐻𐐲𐑉𐐼 𐑄 𐐪𐑉𐐻.

𐐝𐐲𐐼𐐲𐑌𐑊𐐨 𐑇𐐨 𐐸𐐶𐐲𐑉𐑊𐐼 𐑁𐑉𐐲𐑋 𐑄 𐐶𐐮𐑌𐐼𐐬 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑅𐐻𐐳𐐼 𐐺𐐲𐑁𐐫𐑉 𐑄 𐑀𐑊𐐰𐑅. 𐐐𐐲𐑉 𐐴𐑆 𐐶𐐲𐑉 𐑇𐐴𐑌𐐮𐑍 𐐺𐑉𐐮𐑊𐐷𐐲𐑌𐐻𐑊𐐨, 𐐺𐐲𐐻 𐐸𐐲𐑉 𐑁𐐩𐑅 𐐸𐐰𐐼 𐑊𐐫𐑅𐐻 𐐮𐐻𐑅 𐐿𐐲𐑊𐐲𐑉 𐐶𐐮𐑃𐐮𐑌 𐐻𐐶𐐯𐑌𐐻𐐨 𐑅𐐯𐐿𐐲𐑌𐐼𐑆. 𐐡𐐰𐐹𐐮𐐼𐑊𐐨 𐑇𐐨 𐐹𐐳𐑊𐐼 𐐼𐐵𐑌 𐐸𐐲𐑉 𐐸𐐯𐑉 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑊𐐯𐐻 𐐮𐐻 𐑁𐐫𐑊 𐐻𐐭 𐐮𐐻𐑅 𐑁𐐳𐑊 𐑊𐐯𐑍𐑃.

𐐤𐐵, 𐑄𐐯𐑉 𐐶𐐲𐑉 𐐻𐐭 𐐹𐐲𐑆𐐯𐑇𐐲𐑌𐑆 𐐲𐑂 𐑄 𐐖𐐩𐑋𐑆 𐐔𐐮𐑊𐐮𐑍𐐸𐐰𐑋 𐐏𐐲𐑍𐑆 𐐮𐑌 𐐸𐐶𐐮𐐽 𐑄𐐩 𐐺𐐬𐑃 𐐻𐐳𐐿 𐐪 𐑋𐐴𐐻𐐨 𐐹𐑉𐐴𐐼. 𐐎𐐲𐑌 𐐶𐐲𐑆 𐐖𐐮𐑋’𐑆 𐑀𐐬𐑊𐐼 𐐶𐐫𐐽 𐑄𐐰𐐻 𐐸𐐰𐐼 𐐺𐐮𐑌 𐐸𐐮𐑆 𐑁𐐪𐑄𐐲𐑉’𐑆 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐐸𐐮𐑆 𐑀𐑉𐐰𐑌𐐼𐑁𐐪𐑄𐐲𐑉’𐑆. 𐐜 𐐲𐑄𐐲𐑉 𐐶𐐲𐑆 𐐔𐐯𐑊𐐲’𐑆 𐐸𐐯𐑉. 𐐐𐐰𐐼 𐑄 𐐗𐐶𐐨𐑌 𐐲𐑂 𐐟𐐨𐐺𐐲 𐑊𐐮𐑂𐐼 𐐮𐑌 𐑄 𐑁𐑊𐐰𐐻 𐐲𐐿𐑉𐐫𐑅 𐑄 𐐯𐑉𐑇𐐰𐑁𐐻, 𐐔𐐯𐑊𐐲 𐐶𐐳𐐼 𐐸𐐰𐑂 𐑊𐐯𐐻 𐐸𐐲𐑉 𐐸𐐯𐑉 𐐸𐐰𐑍 𐐵𐐻 𐑄 𐐶𐐮𐑌𐐼𐐬 𐑅𐐲𐑋 𐐼𐐩 𐐻𐐭 𐐼𐑉𐐴 𐐾𐐲𐑅𐐻 𐐻𐐭 𐐼𐐲𐐹𐑉𐐨𐑇𐐨𐐩𐐻 𐐐𐐲𐑉 𐐣𐐰𐐾𐐲𐑅𐐻𐐨’𐑆 𐐾𐐭𐐲𐑊𐑆 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑀𐐮𐑁𐐻𐑅. 𐐐𐐰𐐼 𐐗𐐮𐑍 𐐝𐐪𐑊𐐲𐑋𐐲𐑌 𐐺𐐮𐑌 𐑄 𐐾𐐰𐑌𐐲𐐻𐐲𐑉, 𐐶𐐮𐑄 𐐫𐑊 𐐸𐐮𐑆 𐐻𐑉𐐯𐑈𐐲𐑉𐑆 𐐹𐐴𐑊𐐼 𐐲𐐹 𐐮𐑌 𐑄 𐐺𐐩𐑅𐑋𐐲𐑌𐐻, 𐐖𐐮𐑋 𐐶𐐳𐐼 𐐸𐐰𐑂 𐐹𐐳𐑊𐐼 𐐵𐐻 𐐸𐐮𐑆 𐐶𐐫𐐽 𐐯𐑂𐑉𐐨 𐐻𐐴𐑋 𐐸𐐨 𐐹𐐰𐑅𐐻, 𐐾𐐲𐑅𐐻 𐐻𐐭 𐑅𐐨 𐐸𐐮𐑋 𐐹𐑊𐐲𐐿 𐐰𐐻 𐐸𐐮𐑆 𐐺𐐮𐑉𐐼 𐑁𐑉𐐲𐑋 𐐯𐑌𐑂𐐨.

𐐝𐐬 𐑌𐐵 𐐔𐐯𐑊𐐲’𐑆 𐐺𐐷𐐭𐐻𐐮𐑁𐐲𐑊 𐐸𐐯𐑉 𐑁𐐯𐑊 𐐲𐐺𐐵𐐻 𐐸𐐲𐑉, 𐑉𐐮𐐹𐑊𐐮𐑍 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑇𐐴𐑌𐐮𐑍 𐑊𐐴𐐿 𐐪 𐐿𐐰𐑅𐐿𐐩𐐼 𐐲𐑂 𐐺𐑉𐐵𐑌 𐐶𐐫𐐻𐐲𐑉𐑆. 𐐆𐐻 𐑉𐐨𐐽𐐻 𐐺𐐲𐑊𐐬 𐐸𐐲𐑉 𐑌𐐨 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑋𐐩𐐼 𐐮𐐻𐑅𐐯𐑊𐑁 𐐫𐑊𐑋𐐬𐑅𐐻 𐐪 𐑀𐐪𐑉𐑋𐐲𐑌𐐻 𐑁𐐫𐑉 𐐸𐐲𐑉. 𐐈𐑌𐐼 𐑄𐐯𐑌 𐑇𐐨 𐐼𐐮𐐼 𐐮𐐻 𐐲𐐹 𐐲𐑀𐐯𐑌 𐑌𐐲𐑉𐑂𐐲𐑅𐑊𐐨 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐐿𐐶𐐮𐐿𐑊𐐨. 𐐎𐐲𐑌𐑅 𐑇𐐨 𐑁𐐪𐑊𐐻𐐲𐑉𐐼 𐑁𐐫𐑉 𐐪 𐑋𐐮𐑌𐐲𐐻 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑅𐐻𐐳𐐼 𐑅𐐻𐐮𐑊 𐐸𐐶𐐴𐑊 𐐪 𐐻𐐮𐑉 𐐫𐑉 𐐻𐐭 𐑅𐐹𐑊𐐰𐑇𐐻 𐐫𐑌 𐑄 𐐶𐐫𐑉𐑌 𐑉𐐯𐐼 𐐿𐐪𐑉𐐹𐐲𐐻.

𐐃𐑌 𐐶𐐯𐑌𐐻 𐐸𐐲𐑉 𐐬𐑊𐐼 𐐺𐑉𐐵𐑌 𐐾𐐰𐐿𐐲𐐻; 𐐫𐑌 𐐶𐐯𐑌𐐻 𐐸𐐲𐑉 𐐬𐑊𐐼 𐐺𐑉𐐵𐑌 𐐸𐐰𐐻. 𐐎𐐮𐑄 𐐪 𐐸𐐶𐐲𐑉𐑊 𐐲𐑂 𐑅𐐿𐐲𐑉𐐻𐑅 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐐶𐐮𐑄 𐑄 𐐺𐑉𐐮𐑊𐐷𐐲𐑌𐐻 𐑅𐐹𐐪𐑉𐐿𐐲𐑊 𐑅𐐻𐐮𐑊 𐐮𐑌 𐐸𐐲𐑉 𐐴𐑆, 𐑇𐐨 𐑁𐑊𐐲𐐻𐐲𐑉𐐼 𐐵𐐻 𐑄 𐐼𐐫𐑉 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐐼𐐵𐑌 𐑄 𐑅𐐻𐐯𐑉𐑆 𐐻𐐭 𐑄 𐑅𐐻𐑉𐐨𐐻.

𐐐𐐶𐐯𐑉 𐑇𐐨 𐑅𐐻𐐪𐐹𐐻 𐑄 𐑅𐐴𐑌 𐑉𐐯𐐼: “Mme. 𐐝𐐬𐑁𐑉𐐬𐑌𐐨. 𐐐𐐯𐑉 𐐘𐐳𐐼𐑆 𐐲𐑂 𐐃𐑊 𐐗𐐴𐑌𐐼𐑆.” 𐐎𐐲𐑌 𐑁𐑊𐐴𐐻 𐐲𐐹 𐐔𐐯𐑊𐐲 𐑉𐐰𐑌, 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐐿𐐲𐑊𐐯𐐿𐐻𐐲𐐼 𐐸𐐲𐑉𐑅𐐯𐑊𐑁, 𐐹𐐰𐑌𐐻𐐮𐑍. Madame, 𐑊𐐪𐑉𐐾, 𐐻𐐭 𐐸𐐶𐐴𐐻, 𐐽𐐮𐑊𐐨, 𐐸𐐪𐑉𐐼𐑊𐐨 𐑊𐐳𐐿𐐻 𐑄 “𐐝𐐬𐑁𐑉𐐬𐑌𐐨.”

“𐐎𐐮𐑊 𐐷𐐭 𐐺𐐴 𐑋𐐴 𐐸𐐯𐑉?” 𐐰𐑅𐐿𐐻 𐐔𐐯𐑊𐐲.

“𐐌 𐐺𐐴 𐐸𐐯𐑉,” 𐑅𐐯𐐼 Madame. “𐐓𐐩𐐿 𐐷𐐲𐑉 𐐸𐐰𐐻 𐐫𐑁 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑊𐐯𐐻’𐑅 𐐸𐐰𐑂 𐐪 𐑅𐐴𐐻 𐐰𐐻 𐑄 𐑊𐐳𐐿𐑅 𐐲𐑂 𐐮𐐻.”

𐐔𐐵𐑌 𐑉𐐮𐐹𐐲𐑊𐐼 𐑄 𐐺𐑉𐐵𐑌 𐐿𐐰𐑅𐐿𐐩𐐼. “𐐓𐐶𐐯𐑌𐐻𐐨 𐐼𐐫𐑊𐐲𐑉𐑆,” 𐑅𐐯𐐼 Madame, 𐑊𐐮𐑁𐐻𐐮𐑍 𐑄 𐑋𐐰𐑅 𐐶𐐮𐑄 𐐪 𐐹𐑉𐐰𐐿𐐻𐐮𐑅𐐻 𐐸𐐰𐑌𐐼.

“𐐘𐐮𐑂 𐐮𐐻 𐐻𐐭 𐑋𐐨 𐐿𐐶𐐮𐐿,” 𐑅𐐯𐐼 𐐔𐐯𐑊𐐲.

𐐄, 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑄 𐑌𐐯𐐿𐑅𐐻 𐐻𐐭 𐐵𐑉𐑆 𐐻𐑉𐐮𐐹𐐻 𐐺𐐴 𐐫𐑌 𐑉𐐬𐑆𐐨 𐐶𐐮𐑍𐑆. 𐐙𐐲𐑉𐑀𐐯𐐻 𐑄 𐐸𐐰𐑇𐐻 𐑋𐐯𐐻𐐲𐑁𐐫𐑉. 𐐟𐐨 𐐶𐐲𐑆 𐑉𐐰𐑌𐑅𐐰𐐿𐐮𐑍 𐑄 𐑅𐐻𐐫𐑉𐑆 𐑁𐐫𐑉 𐐖𐐮𐑋’𐑆 𐐹𐑉𐐯𐑆𐐲𐑌𐐻.

𐐟𐐨 𐑁𐐵𐑌𐐼 𐐮𐐻 𐐰𐐻 𐑊𐐰𐑅𐐻. 𐐆𐐻 𐑇𐐳𐑉𐑊𐐨 𐐸𐐰𐐼 𐐺𐐮𐑌 𐑋𐐩𐐼 𐑁𐐫𐑉 𐐖𐐮𐑋 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑌𐐬 𐐶𐐲𐑌 𐐯𐑊𐑅. 𐐜𐐯𐑉 𐐶𐐲𐑆 𐑌𐐬 𐐲𐑄𐐲𐑉 𐑊𐐴𐐿 𐐮𐐻 𐐮𐑌 𐐯𐑌𐐨 𐐲𐑂 𐑄 𐑅𐐻𐐫𐑉𐑆, 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑇𐐨 𐐸𐐰𐐼 𐐻𐐲𐑉𐑌𐐼 𐐫𐑊 𐐲𐑂 𐑄𐐯𐑋 𐐮𐑌𐑅𐐴𐐼 𐐵𐐻. 𐐆𐐻 𐐶𐐲𐑆 𐐪 𐐹𐑊𐐰𐐻𐐮𐑌𐐲𐑋 𐑁𐐫𐐺 𐐽𐐩𐑌 𐑅𐐮𐑋𐐹𐐲𐑊 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐐽𐐩𐑅𐐻 𐐮𐑌 𐐼𐐲𐑆𐐴𐑌, 𐐹𐑉𐐪𐐹𐐲𐑉𐑊𐐨 𐐹𐑉𐐲𐐿𐑊𐐩𐑋𐐮𐑍 𐐮𐐻𐑅 𐑂𐐰𐑊𐐷𐐭 𐐺𐐴 𐑅𐐲𐐺𐑅𐐻𐐲𐑌𐑅 𐐲𐑊𐐬𐑌 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑌𐐪𐐻 𐐺𐐴 𐑋𐐯𐑉𐐲𐐻𐑉𐐮𐑇𐐲𐑅 𐐫𐑉𐑌𐐲𐑋𐐯𐑌𐐻𐐩𐑇𐐲𐑌—𐐰𐑆 𐐫𐑊 𐑀𐐳𐐼 𐑃𐐮𐑍𐑆 𐑇𐐳𐐼 𐐼𐐭. 𐐆𐐻 𐐶𐐲𐑆 𐐨𐑂𐐲𐑌 𐐶𐐲𐑉𐑄𐐨 𐐲𐑂 𐐜 𐐎𐐫𐐽. 𐐈𐑆 𐑅𐐭𐑌 𐐰𐑆 𐑇𐐨 𐑅𐐫 𐐮𐐻 𐑇𐐨 𐑌𐐭 𐑄𐐰𐐻 𐐮𐐻 𐑋𐐲𐑅𐐻 𐐺 𐐖𐐮𐑋’𐑆. 𐐆𐐻 𐐶𐐲𐑆 𐑊𐐴𐐿 𐐸𐐮𐑋. 𐐗𐐶𐐴𐐲𐐻𐑌𐐲𐑅 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑂𐐰𐑊𐐷𐐭—𐑄 𐐼𐐲𐑅𐐿𐑉𐐮𐐹𐑇𐐲𐑌 𐐲𐐹𐑊𐐴𐐼 𐐻𐐭 𐐺𐐬𐑃. 𐐓𐐶𐐯𐑌𐐻𐐨-𐐶𐐲𐑌 𐐼𐐫𐑊𐐲𐑉𐑆 𐑄𐐩 𐐻𐐳𐐿 𐑁𐑉𐐲𐑋 𐐸𐐲𐑉 𐑁𐐫𐑉 𐐮𐐻, 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑇𐐨 𐐸𐐲𐑉𐐨𐐼 𐐸𐐬𐑋 𐐶𐐮𐑄 𐑄 87 𐑅𐐯𐑌𐐻𐑅. 𐐎𐐮𐑄 𐑄𐐰𐐻 𐐽𐐩𐑌 𐐫𐑌 𐐸𐐮𐑆 𐐶𐐫𐐽 𐐖𐐮𐑋 𐑋𐐴𐐻 𐐺 𐐹𐑉𐐪𐐹𐐲𐑉𐑊𐐨 𐐰𐑍𐐿𐑇𐐲𐑅 𐐲𐐺𐐵𐐻 𐑄 𐐻𐐴𐑋 𐐮𐑌 𐐯𐑌𐐨 𐐿𐐲𐑋𐐹𐐲𐑌𐐨. 𐐘𐑉𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐐰𐑆 𐑄 𐐶𐐫𐐽 𐐶𐐲𐑆, 𐐸𐐨 𐑅𐐲𐑋𐐻𐐴𐑋𐑆 𐑊𐐳𐐿𐐻 𐐰𐐻 𐐮𐐻 𐐫𐑌 𐑄 𐑅𐑊𐐴 𐐫𐑌 𐐲𐐿𐐵𐑌𐐻 𐐲𐑂 𐑄 𐐬𐑊𐐼 𐑊𐐯𐑄𐐲𐑉 𐑅𐐻𐑉𐐰𐐹 𐑄𐐰𐐻 𐐸𐐨 𐐷𐐭𐑆𐐼 𐐮𐑌 𐐹𐑊𐐩𐑅 𐐲𐑂 𐐪 𐐽𐐩𐑌.

𐐐𐐶𐐯𐑌 𐐔𐐯𐑊𐐲 𐑉𐐨𐐽𐐻 𐐸𐐬𐑋 𐐸𐐲𐑉 𐐮𐑌𐐻𐐪𐐿𐑅𐐮𐐿𐐩𐑇𐐲𐑌 𐑀𐐩𐑂 𐐶𐐩 𐐪 𐑊𐐮𐐻𐐲𐑊 𐐻𐐭 𐐹𐑉𐐭𐐼𐐲𐑌𐑅 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑉𐐨𐑆𐐲𐑌. 𐐟𐐨 𐑀𐐪𐐻 𐐵𐐻 𐐸𐐲𐑉 𐐿𐐲𐑉𐑊𐐮𐑍 𐐴𐐲𐑉𐑌𐑆 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑊𐐴𐐻𐐲𐐼 𐑄 𐑀𐐰𐑅 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐐶𐐯𐑌𐐻 𐐻𐐭 𐐶𐐲𐑉𐐿 𐑉𐐲𐐹𐐯𐑉𐐮𐑍 𐑄 𐑉𐐰𐑂𐐲𐐾𐐲𐑆 𐑋𐐩𐐼 𐐺𐐴 𐐾𐐯𐑌𐐲𐑉𐐪𐑅𐐮𐐻𐐨 𐐰𐐼𐐲𐐼 𐐻𐐭 𐑊𐐲𐑂. 𐐐𐐶𐐮𐐽 𐐮𐑆 𐐫𐑊𐐶𐐩𐑆 𐐪 𐐻𐑉𐐲𐑋𐐯𐑌𐐼𐐲𐑅 𐐻𐐰𐑅𐐿, 𐐼𐐮𐑉 𐑁𐑉𐐯𐑌𐐼𐑆—𐐪 𐑋𐐰𐑋𐐲𐑃 𐐻𐐰𐑅𐐿.

𐐎𐐮𐑃𐐮𐑌 𐑁𐐫𐑉𐐻𐐨 𐑋𐐮𐑌𐐲𐐻𐑅 𐐸𐐲𐑉 𐐸𐐯𐐼 𐐶𐐲𐑆 𐐿𐐲𐑂𐐲𐑉𐐼 𐐶𐐮𐑄 𐐻𐐴𐑌𐐨, 𐐿𐑊𐐬𐑅-𐑊𐐴𐐮𐑍 𐐿𐐲𐑉𐑊𐑆 𐑄𐐰𐐻 𐑋𐐩𐐼 𐐸𐐲𐑉 𐑊𐐳𐐿 𐐶𐐲𐑌𐐼𐐲𐑉𐑁𐐲𐑊𐐨 𐑊𐐴𐐿 𐐪 𐐻𐑉𐐭𐐲𐑌𐐻 𐑅𐐿𐐭𐑊𐐺𐐫𐐮. 𐐟𐐨 𐑊𐐳𐐿𐐻 𐐰𐐻 𐐸𐐲𐑉 𐑉𐐲𐑁𐑊𐐯𐐿𐑇𐐲𐑌 𐐮𐑌 𐑄 𐑋𐐮𐑉𐐲𐑉 𐑊𐐫𐑍, 𐐿𐐯𐑉𐑁𐐲𐑊𐐨, 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐐿𐑉𐐮𐐻𐐮𐐿𐐲𐑊𐐨.

“𐐆𐑁 𐐖𐐮𐑋 𐐼𐐲𐑆𐑌’𐐻 𐐿𐐮𐑊 𐑋𐐨,” 𐑇𐐨 𐑅𐐯𐐼 𐐻𐐭 𐐸𐐲𐑉𐑅𐐯𐑊𐑁, “𐐺𐐲𐑁𐐫𐑉 𐐸𐐨 𐐻𐐩𐐿𐑅 𐐪 𐑅𐐯𐐿𐐲𐑌𐐼 𐑊𐐳𐐿 𐐰𐐻 𐑋𐐨, 𐐸𐐨’𐑊 𐑅𐐩 𐐌 𐑊𐐳𐐿 𐑊𐐴𐐿 𐐪 𐐗𐐬𐑌𐐨 𐐌𐑊𐐲𐑌𐐼 𐐿𐐫𐑉𐐲𐑅 𐑀𐐲𐑉𐑊. 𐐒𐐲𐐻 𐐸𐐶𐐲𐐻 𐐿𐐳𐐼 𐐌 𐐼𐐭—𐐬! 𐐸𐐶𐐲𐐻 𐐿𐐳𐐼 𐐌 𐐼𐐭 𐐶𐐮𐑄 𐐪 𐐼𐐫𐑊𐐲𐑉 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐐩𐐻𐐨-𐑅𐐯𐑂𐐲𐑌 𐑅𐐯𐑌𐐻𐑅?”

𐐈𐐻 7 𐐲’𐐿𐑊𐐪𐐿 𐑄 𐐿𐐫𐑁𐐨 𐐶𐐲𐑆 𐑋𐐩𐐼 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑄 𐑁𐑉𐐴𐐮𐑍-𐐹𐐰𐑌 𐐶𐐲𐑆 𐐫𐑌 𐑄 𐐺𐐰𐐿 𐐲𐑂 𐑄 𐑅𐐻𐐬𐑂 𐐸𐐪𐐻 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑉𐐯𐐼𐐨 𐐻𐐭 𐐿𐐳𐐿 𐑄 𐐽𐐪𐐹𐑅.

𐐖𐐮𐑋 𐐶𐐲𐑆 𐑌𐐯𐑂𐐲𐑉 𐑊𐐩𐐻. 𐐔𐐯𐑊𐐲 𐐼𐐲𐐺𐐲𐑊𐐼 𐑄 𐑁𐐫𐐺 𐐽𐐩𐑌 𐐮𐑌 𐐸𐐲𐑉 𐐸𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑅𐐰𐐻 𐐫𐑌 𐑄 𐐿𐐫𐑉𐑌𐐲𐑉 𐐲𐑂 𐑄 𐐻𐐩𐐺𐐲𐑊 𐑌𐐮𐑉 𐑄 𐐼𐐫𐑉 𐑄𐐰𐐻 𐐸𐐨 𐐫𐑊𐐶𐐩𐑆 𐐯𐑌𐐻𐐲𐑉𐐼. 𐐜𐐯𐑌 𐑇𐐨 𐐸𐐲𐑉𐐼 𐐸𐐮𐑆 𐑅𐐻𐐯𐐹 𐐫𐑌 𐑄 𐑅𐐻𐐯𐑉 𐐲𐐶𐐩 𐐼𐐵𐑌 𐐫𐑌 𐑄 𐑁𐐲𐑉𐑅𐐻 𐑁𐑊𐐴𐐻, 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑇𐐨 𐐻𐐲𐑉𐑌𐐼 𐐸𐐶𐐴𐐻 𐑁𐐫𐑉 𐐾𐐲𐑅𐐻 𐐪 𐑋𐐬𐑋𐐲𐑌𐐻. 𐐟𐐨 𐐸𐐰𐐼 𐐪 𐐸𐐰𐐺𐐮𐐻 𐑁𐐫𐑉 𐑅𐐩𐐮𐑍 𐑊𐐮𐐻𐐲𐑊 𐑅𐐴𐑊𐐲𐑌𐐻 𐐹𐑉𐐯𐑉𐑆 𐐲𐐺𐐵𐐻 𐑄 𐑅𐐮𐑋𐐹𐑊𐐲𐑅𐐻 𐐯𐑂𐑉𐐨𐐼𐐩 𐑃𐐮𐑍𐑆, 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑌𐐵 𐑇𐐨 𐐸𐐶𐐮𐑅𐐹𐐲𐑉𐐼: “𐐑𐑊𐐨𐑆 𐐘𐐪𐐼, 𐑋𐐩𐐿 𐐸𐐮𐑋 𐑃𐐮𐑍𐐿 𐐌 𐐰𐑋 𐑅𐐻𐐮𐑊 𐐹𐑉𐐮𐐻𐐨.”

𐐜 𐐼𐐫𐑉 𐐬𐐹𐐲𐑌𐐼 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐐖𐐮𐑋 𐑅𐐻𐐯𐐹𐐻 𐐮𐑌 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐐿𐑊𐐬𐑆𐐼 𐐮𐐻. 𐐐𐐨 𐑊𐐳𐐿𐐻 𐑃𐐮𐑌 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑂𐐯𐑉𐐨 𐑅𐐮𐑉𐐨𐐲𐑅. 𐐑𐐳𐑉 𐑁𐐯𐑊𐐬, 𐐸𐐨 𐐶𐐲𐑆 𐐬𐑌𐑊𐐨 𐐻𐐶𐐯𐑌𐐻𐐨-𐐻𐐭—𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐐻𐐭 𐐺 𐐺𐐲𐑉𐐼𐐲𐑌𐐼 𐐶𐐮𐑄 𐐪 𐑁𐐰𐑋𐐮𐑊𐐨! 𐐐𐐨 𐑌𐐨𐐼𐐲𐐼 𐐪 𐑌𐐭 𐐬𐑂𐐲𐑉𐐿𐐬𐐻 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐐸𐐨 𐐶𐐲𐑆 𐐶𐐮𐑃𐐵𐐻 𐑀𐑊𐐲𐑂𐑆.

𐐖𐐮𐑋 𐑅𐐻𐐪𐐹𐐻 𐐮𐑌𐑅𐐴𐐼 𐑄 𐐼𐐫𐑉, 𐐰𐑆 𐐮𐑋𐐭𐑂𐐲𐐺𐐲𐑊 𐐰𐑆 𐐪 𐑅𐐯𐐻𐐲𐑉 𐐰𐐻 𐑄 𐑅𐐯𐑌𐐻 𐐲𐑂 𐐿𐐶𐐩𐑊. 𐐐𐐮𐑆 𐐴𐑆 𐐶𐐲𐑉 𐑁𐐮𐐿𐑅𐐻 𐐲𐐹𐐪𐑌 𐐔𐐯𐑊𐐲, 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑄𐐯𐑉 𐐶𐐲𐑆 𐐰𐑌 𐐮𐐿𐑅𐐹𐑉𐐯𐑇𐐲𐑌 𐐮𐑌 𐑄𐐯𐑋 𐑄𐐰𐐻 𐑇𐐨 𐐿𐐳𐐼 𐑌𐐪𐐻 𐑉𐐨𐐼, 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐐮𐐻 𐐻𐐯𐑉𐐮𐑁𐐴𐐼 𐐸𐐲𐑉. 𐐆𐐻 𐐶𐐲𐑆 𐑌𐐪𐐻 𐐩𐑍𐑀𐐲𐑉, 𐑌𐐫𐑉 𐑅𐐲𐑉𐐹𐑉𐐴𐑆, 𐑌𐐫𐑉 𐐼𐐮𐑅𐐲𐐹𐑉𐐭𐑂𐐲𐑊, 𐑌𐐫𐑉 𐐸𐐫𐑉𐐲𐑉, 𐑌𐐫𐑉 𐐯𐑌𐐨 𐐲𐑂 𐑄 𐑅𐐯𐑌𐐻𐐮𐑋𐐲𐑌𐐻𐑅 𐑄𐐰𐐻 𐑇𐐨 𐐸𐐰𐐼 𐐺𐐮𐑌 𐐹𐑉𐐲𐐹𐐯𐑉𐐼 𐑁𐐫𐑉. 𐐐𐐨 𐑅𐐮𐑋𐐹𐑊𐐨 𐑅𐐻𐐯𐑉𐐼 𐐰𐐻 𐐸𐐲𐑉 𐑁𐐮𐐿𐑅𐐲𐐼𐑊𐐨 𐐶𐐮𐑄 𐑄𐐰𐐻 𐐹𐐲𐐿𐐷𐐭𐑊𐐷𐐲𐑉 𐐮𐐿𐑅𐐹𐑉𐐯𐑇𐐲𐑌 𐐫𐑌 𐐸𐐮𐑆 𐑁𐐩𐑅.

𐐔𐐯𐑊𐐲 𐑉𐐮𐑀𐐲𐑊𐐼 𐐫𐑁 𐑄 𐐻𐐩𐐺𐐲𐑊 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐐶𐐯𐑌𐐻 𐑁𐐫𐑉 𐐸𐐮𐑋.

“𐐖𐐮𐑋, 𐐼𐐪𐑉𐑊𐐮𐑍,” 𐑇𐐨 𐐿𐑉𐐴𐐼, “𐐼𐐬𐑌’𐐻 𐑊𐐳𐐿 𐐰𐐻 𐑋𐐨 𐑄𐐰𐐻 𐐶𐐩. 𐐌 𐐸𐐰𐐼 𐑋𐐴 𐐸𐐯𐑉 𐐿𐐲𐐻 𐐫𐑁 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑅𐐬𐑊𐐼 𐐺𐐲𐐿𐐲𐑆 𐐌 𐐿𐐳𐐼𐑌’𐐻 𐐸𐐰𐑂 𐑊𐐮𐑂𐐼 𐑃𐑉𐐭 𐐗𐑉𐐮𐑅𐑋𐐲𐑅 𐐶𐐮𐑃𐐵𐐻 𐑀𐐮𐑂𐐮𐑍 𐐷𐐭 𐐪 𐐹𐑉𐐯𐑆𐐲𐑌𐐻. 𐐆𐐻’𐑊 𐑀𐑉𐐬 𐐵𐐻 𐐲𐑀𐐯𐑌—𐐷𐐭 𐐶𐐬𐑌’𐐻 𐑋𐐴𐑌𐐼, 𐐶𐐮𐑊 𐐷𐐭? 𐐌 𐐾𐐲𐑅𐐻 𐐸𐐰𐐼 𐐻𐐭 𐐼𐐭 𐐮𐐻. 𐐣𐐴 𐐸𐐯𐑉 𐑀𐑉𐐬𐑆 𐐫𐑁𐐲𐑊𐐨 𐑁𐐰𐑅𐐻. 𐐝𐐩 ‘𐐣𐐯𐑉𐐨 𐐗𐑉𐐮𐑅𐑋𐐲𐑅!’ 𐐖𐐮𐑋, 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑊𐐯𐐻’𐑅 𐐺 𐐸𐐰𐐹𐐨. 𐐏𐐭 𐐼𐐬𐑌’𐐻 𐑌𐐬 𐐸𐐶𐐲𐐻 𐐪 𐑌𐐴𐑅—𐐸𐐶𐐲𐐻 𐐪 𐐺𐐷𐐭𐐻𐐮𐑁𐐲𐑊, 𐑌𐐴𐑅 𐑀𐐮𐑁𐐻 𐐌’𐑂 𐑀𐐪𐐻 𐑁𐐫𐑉 𐐷𐐭.”

“𐐏𐐭’𐑂 𐐿𐐲𐐻 𐐫𐑁 𐐷𐐫𐑉 𐐸𐐯𐑉?” 𐐰𐑅𐐿𐐻 𐐖𐐮𐑋, 𐑊𐐲𐐺𐐫𐑉𐐨𐐲𐑅𐑊𐐨, 𐐰𐑆 𐐮𐑁 𐐸𐐨 𐐸𐐰𐐼 𐑌𐐪𐐻 𐐲𐑉𐐴𐑂𐐼 𐐰𐐻 𐑄𐐰𐐻 𐐹𐐩𐐻𐐲𐑌𐐻 𐑁𐐰𐐿𐐻 𐐷𐐯𐐻 𐐨𐑂𐐲𐑌 𐐰𐑁𐐻𐐲𐑉 𐑄 𐐸𐐪𐑉𐐼𐐲𐑅𐐻 𐑋𐐯𐑌𐐻𐐲𐑊 𐑊𐐩𐐺𐐲𐑉.

“𐐗𐐲𐐻 𐐮𐐻 𐐫𐑁 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑅𐐬𐑊𐐼 𐐮𐐻,” 𐑅𐐯𐐼 𐐔𐐯𐑊𐐲. “𐐔𐐬𐑌’𐐻 𐐷𐐭 𐑊𐐴𐐿 𐑋𐐨 𐐾𐐲𐑅𐐻 𐐰𐑆 𐐶𐐯𐑊, 𐐯𐑌𐐨𐐸𐐵? 𐐌’𐑋 𐑋𐐨 𐐶𐐮𐑃𐐵𐐻 𐑋𐐴 𐐸𐐯𐑉, 𐐩𐑌’𐐻 𐐌?”

𐐖𐐮𐑋 𐑊𐐳𐐿𐐻 𐐲𐐺𐐵𐐻 𐑄 𐑉𐐭𐑋 𐐿𐐷𐐳𐑉𐐨𐐲𐑅𐑊𐐨.

“𐐏𐐭 𐑅𐐩 𐐷𐐫𐑉 𐐸𐐯𐑉 𐐮𐑆 𐑀𐐫𐑌?” 𐐸𐐨 𐑅𐐯𐐼, 𐐶𐐮𐑄 𐐰𐑌 𐐯𐑉 𐐫𐑊𐑋𐐬𐑅𐐻 𐐲𐑂 𐐮𐐼𐐨𐐲𐑅𐐨.

“𐐏𐐭 𐑌𐐨𐐼𐑌’𐐻 𐑊𐐳𐐿 𐑁𐐫𐑉 𐐮𐐻,” 𐑅𐐯𐐼 𐐔𐐯𐑊𐐲. “𐐆𐐻’𐑅 𐑅𐐬𐑊𐐼, 𐐌 𐐻𐐯𐑊 𐐷𐐭—𐑅𐐬𐑊𐐼 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑀𐐫𐑌, 𐐻𐐭. 𐐆𐐻’𐑅 𐐗𐑉𐐮𐑅𐑋𐐲𐑅 𐐀𐑂, 𐐺𐐫𐐮. 𐐒 𐑀𐐳𐐼 𐐻𐐭 𐑋𐐨, 𐑁𐐫𐑉 𐐮𐐻 𐐶𐐯𐑌𐐻 𐑁𐐫𐑉 𐐷𐐭. 𐐣𐐩𐐺𐐨 𐑄 𐐸𐐯𐑉𐑆 𐐲𐑂 𐑋𐐴 𐐸𐐯𐐼 𐐶𐐲𐑉 𐑌𐐲𐑋𐐺𐐲𐑉𐐼,” 𐑇𐐨 𐐶𐐯𐑌𐐻 𐐫𐑌 𐐶𐐮𐑄 𐑅𐐲𐐼𐐲𐑌 𐑅𐐮𐑉𐐨𐐲𐑅 𐑅𐐶𐐨𐐻𐑌𐐲𐑅, “𐐺𐐲𐐻 𐑌𐐬𐐺𐐲𐐼𐐨 𐐿𐐳𐐼 𐐯𐑂𐐲𐑉 𐐿𐐵𐑌𐐻 𐑋𐐴 𐑊𐐲𐑂 𐑁𐐫𐑉 𐐷𐐭. 𐐟𐐰𐑊 𐐌 𐐹𐐳𐐻 𐑄 𐐽𐐪𐐹𐑅 𐐫𐑌, 𐐖𐐮𐑋?”

𐐍𐐻 𐐲𐑂 𐐸𐐮𐑆 𐐻𐑉𐐰𐑌𐑅 𐐖𐐮𐑋 𐑅𐐨𐑋𐐼 𐐿𐐶𐐮𐐿𐑊𐐨 𐐻𐐭 𐐶𐐩𐐿. 𐐐𐐨 𐐮𐑌𐑁𐐬𐑊𐐼𐐲𐐼 𐐸𐐮𐑆 𐐔𐐯𐑊𐐲. 𐐙𐐫𐑉 𐐻𐐯𐑌 𐑅𐐯𐐿𐐲𐑌𐐼𐑆 𐑊𐐯𐐻 𐐲𐑅 𐑉𐐲𐑀𐐪𐑉𐐼 𐐶𐐮𐑄 𐐼𐐮𐑅𐐿𐑉𐐨𐐻 𐑅𐐿𐑉𐐭𐐻𐐮𐑌𐐨 𐑅𐐲𐑋 𐐮𐑍𐐿𐐪𐑌𐑅𐐲𐐿𐐶𐐯𐑌𐐽𐐲𐑊 𐐪𐐺𐐾𐐯𐐿𐐻 𐐮𐑌 𐑄 𐐲𐑄𐐲𐑉 𐐼𐐲𐑉𐐯𐐿𐑇𐐲𐑌. 𐐁𐐻 𐐼𐐫𐑊𐐲𐑉𐑆 𐐪 𐐶𐐨𐐿 𐐫𐑉 𐐪 𐑋𐐮𐑊𐐷𐐲𐑌 𐐪 𐐷𐐮𐑉—𐐸𐐶𐐲𐐻 𐐮𐑆 𐑄 𐐼𐐮𐑁𐐲𐑉𐐲𐑌𐑅? 𐐂 𐑋𐐰𐑃𐐲𐑋𐐲𐐻𐐮𐑇𐐲𐑌 𐐫𐑉 𐐪 𐐶𐐮𐐻 𐐶𐐳𐐼 𐑀𐐮𐑂 𐐷𐐭 𐑄 𐑉𐐫𐑍 𐐰𐑌𐑅𐐲𐑉. 𐐜 𐑋𐐩𐐾𐐴 𐐺𐑉𐐫𐐻 𐑂𐐰𐑊𐐷𐐲𐐶𐐲𐐺𐐲𐑊 𐑀𐐮𐑁𐐻𐑅, 𐐺𐐲𐐻 𐑄𐐰𐐻 𐐶𐐲𐑆 𐑌𐐪𐐻 𐐲𐑋𐐲𐑍 𐑄𐐯𐑋. 𐐜𐐮𐑅 𐐼𐐪𐑉𐐿 𐐲𐑅𐐲𐑉𐑇𐐲𐑌 𐐶𐐮𐑊 𐐺 𐐮𐑊𐐭𐑋𐐮𐑌𐐩𐐻𐐲𐐼 𐑊𐐩𐐻𐐲𐑉 𐐫𐑌.

𐐖𐐮𐑋 𐐼𐑉𐐭 𐐪 𐐹𐐰𐐿𐐲𐐾 𐑁𐑉𐐲𐑋 𐐸𐐮𐑆 𐐬𐑂𐐲𐑉𐐿𐐬𐐻 𐐹𐐪𐐿𐐲𐐻 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑃𐑉𐐭 𐐮𐐻 𐐲𐐹𐐪𐑌 𐑄 𐐻𐐩𐐺𐐲𐑊.

“𐐔𐐬𐑌’𐐻 𐑋𐐩𐐿 𐐯𐑌𐐨 𐑋𐐮𐑅𐐻𐐩𐐿, 𐐔𐐯𐑊,” 𐐸𐐨 𐑅𐐯𐐼, “𐐲𐐺𐐵𐐻 𐑋𐐨. 𐐌 𐐼𐐬𐑌’𐐻 𐑃𐐮𐑍𐐿 𐑄𐐯𐑉’𐑆 𐐯𐑌𐐨𐑃𐐮𐑍 𐐮𐑌 𐑄 𐐶𐐩 𐐲𐑂 𐐪 𐐸𐐯𐑉𐐿𐐲𐐻 𐐫𐑉 𐐪 𐑇𐐩𐑂 𐐫𐑉 𐐪 𐑇𐐰𐑋𐐹𐐭 𐑄𐐰𐐻 𐐿𐐳𐐼 𐑋𐐩𐐿 𐑋𐐨 𐑊𐐴𐐿 𐑋𐐴 𐑀𐐲𐑉𐑊 𐐯𐑌𐐨 𐑊𐐯𐑅. 𐐒𐐲𐐻 𐐮𐑁 𐐷𐐭’𐑊 𐐲𐑌𐑉𐐰𐐹 𐑄𐐰𐐻 𐐹𐐰𐐿𐐲𐐾 𐐷𐐭 𐑋𐐩 𐑅𐐨 𐐸𐐶𐐴 𐐷𐐭 𐐸𐐰𐐼 𐑋𐐨 𐑀𐐬𐐮̈𐑍 𐐪 𐐸𐐶𐐴𐑊 𐐰𐐻 𐑁𐐲𐑉𐑅𐐻.”

𐐐𐐶𐐴𐐻 𐑁𐐮𐑍𐑀𐐲𐑉𐑆 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑌𐐮𐑋𐐺𐐲𐑊 𐐻𐐫𐑉 𐐰𐐻 𐑄 𐑅𐐻𐑉𐐮𐑍 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐐹𐐩𐐹𐐲𐑉. 𐐈𐑌𐐼 𐑄𐐯𐑌 𐐰𐑌 𐐯𐐿𐑅𐐻𐐰𐐻𐐮𐐿 𐑅𐐿𐑉𐐨𐑋 𐐲𐑂 𐐾𐐫𐐮; 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑄𐐯𐑌, 𐐲𐑊𐐰𐑅! 𐐪 𐐿𐐶𐐮𐐿 𐑁𐐯𐑋𐐮𐑌𐐮𐑌 𐐽𐐩𐑌𐐾 𐐻𐐭 𐐸𐐮𐑅𐐻𐐯𐑉𐐮𐐿𐐲𐑊 𐐻𐐮𐑉𐑆 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐐶𐐩𐑊𐑆, 𐑌𐐲𐑅𐐯𐑅𐐮𐐻𐐩𐐻𐐮𐑍 𐑄 𐐮𐑋𐐨𐐼𐐨𐐲𐐻 𐐮𐑋𐐹𐑊𐐫𐐮𐑋𐐲𐑌𐐻 𐐲𐑂 𐐫𐑊 𐑄 𐐿𐐲𐑋𐑁𐐲𐑉𐐻𐐮𐑍 𐐹𐐵𐐲𐑉𐑆 𐐲𐑂 𐑄 𐑊𐐫𐑉𐐼 𐐲𐑂 𐑄 𐑁𐑊𐐰𐐻.

𐐙𐐫𐑉 𐑄𐐯𐑉 𐑊𐐩 𐐜 𐐗𐐬𐑋𐑆—𐑄 𐑅𐐯𐐻 𐐲𐑂 𐐿𐐬𐑋𐑆, 𐑅𐐴𐐼 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐐺𐐰𐐿, 𐑄𐐰𐐻 𐐔𐐯𐑊𐐲 𐐸𐐰𐐼 𐐶𐐲𐑉𐑇𐐮𐐹𐐻 𐑊𐐫𐑍 𐐮𐑌 𐐪 𐐒𐑉𐐫𐐼𐐶𐐩 𐐶𐐮𐑌𐐼𐐬. 𐐒𐐷𐐭𐐻𐐮𐑁𐐲𐑊 𐐿𐐬𐑋𐑆, 𐐹𐐷𐐳𐑉 𐐻𐐫𐑉𐐻𐐲𐑅 𐑇𐐯𐑊, 𐐶𐐮𐑄 𐐾𐐭𐐲𐑊𐐼 𐑉𐐮𐑋𐑆—𐐾𐐲𐑅𐐻 𐑄 𐑇𐐩𐐼 𐐻𐐭 𐐶𐐯𐑉 𐐮𐑌 𐑄 𐐺𐐷𐐭𐐻𐐮𐑁𐐲𐑊 𐑂𐐰𐑌𐐮𐑇𐐻 𐐸𐐯𐑉. 𐐜𐐩 𐐶𐐲𐑉 𐐮𐐿𐑅𐐹𐐯𐑌𐑅𐐮𐑂 𐐿𐐬𐑋𐑆, 𐑇𐐨 𐑌𐐭, 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐐸𐐲𐑉 𐐸𐐪𐑉𐐻 𐐸𐐰𐐼 𐑅𐐮𐑋𐐹𐑊𐐨 𐐿𐑉𐐩𐑂𐐼 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐐷𐐲𐑉𐑌𐐼 𐐬𐑂𐐲𐑉 𐑄𐐯𐑋 𐐶𐐮𐑃𐐵𐐻 𐑄 𐑊𐐨𐑅𐐻 𐐸𐐬𐐹 𐐲𐑂 𐐹𐐲𐑆𐐯𐑇𐐲𐑌. 𐐈𐑌𐐼 𐑌𐐵, 𐑄𐐩 𐐶𐐲𐑉 𐐸𐐲𐑉𐑆, 𐐺𐐲𐐻 𐑄 𐐻𐑉𐐯𐑅𐐲𐑆 𐑄𐐰𐐻 𐑇𐐳𐐼 𐐸𐐰𐑂 𐐲𐐼𐐫𐑉𐑌𐐼 𐑄 𐐿𐐲𐑂𐐲𐐻𐐲𐐼 𐐲𐐼𐐫𐑉𐑌𐑋𐐲𐑌𐐻𐑅 𐐶𐐲𐑉 𐑀𐐫𐑌.

𐐒𐐲𐐻 𐑇𐐨 𐐸𐐲𐑀𐐼 𐑄𐐯𐑋 𐐻𐐭 𐐸𐐲𐑉 𐐺𐐳𐑆𐐲𐑋, 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐐰𐐻 𐑊𐐯𐑍𐑃 𐑇𐐨 𐐶𐐲𐑆 𐐩𐐺𐐲𐑊 𐐻𐐭 𐑊𐐳𐐿 𐐲𐐹 𐐶𐐮𐑄 𐐼𐐮𐑋 𐐴𐑆 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐐪 𐑅𐑋𐐴𐑊 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑅𐐩: “𐐣𐐴 𐐸𐐯𐑉 𐑀𐑉𐐬𐑆 𐑅𐐬 𐑁𐐰𐑅𐐻, 𐐖𐐮𐑋!”

𐐈𐑌𐐼 𐑄𐐯𐑌 𐐔𐐯𐑊𐐲 𐑊𐐨𐐹𐐻 𐐲𐐹 𐑊𐐴𐐿 𐐪 𐑊𐐮𐐻𐐲𐑊 𐑅𐐮𐑌𐐾𐐼 𐐿𐐰𐐻 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐐿𐑉𐐴𐐼, “𐐄, 𐐬!”

𐐖𐐮𐑋 𐐸𐐰𐐼 𐑌𐐪𐐻 𐐷𐐯𐐻 𐑅𐐨𐑌 𐐸𐐮𐑆 𐐺𐐷𐐭𐐻𐐮𐑁𐐲𐑊 𐐹𐑉𐐯𐑆𐐲𐑌𐐻. 𐐟𐐨 𐐸𐐯𐑊𐐼 𐐮𐐻 𐐵𐐻 𐐻𐐭 𐐸𐐮𐑋 𐐨𐑀𐐲𐑉𐑊𐐨 𐐲𐐹𐐪𐑌 𐐸𐐲𐑉 𐐬𐐹𐐲𐑌 𐐹𐐪𐑊𐑋. 𐐜 𐐼𐐲𐑊 𐐹𐑉𐐯𐑇𐐲𐑅 𐑋𐐯𐐻𐐲𐑊 𐑅𐐨𐑋𐐼 𐐻𐐭 𐑁𐑊𐐰𐑇 𐐶𐐮𐑄 𐐪 𐑉𐐲𐑁𐑊𐐯𐐿𐑇𐐲𐑌 𐐲𐑂 𐐸𐐲𐑉 𐐺𐑉𐐴𐐻 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐐪𐑉𐐼𐐲𐑌𐐻 𐑅𐐹𐐮𐑉𐐮𐐻.

“𐐆𐑆𐑌’𐐻 𐐮𐐻 𐐪 𐐼𐐰𐑌𐐼𐐨, 𐐖𐐮𐑋? 𐐌 𐐸𐐲𐑌𐐻𐐲𐐼 𐐫𐑊 𐐬𐑂𐐲𐑉 𐐻𐐵𐑌 𐐻𐐭 𐑁𐐴𐑌𐐼 𐐮𐐻. 𐐏𐐭’𐑊 𐐸𐐰𐑂 𐐻𐐭 𐑊𐐳𐐿 𐐰𐐻 𐑄 𐐻𐐴𐑋 𐐪 𐐸𐐲𐑌𐐼𐑉𐐲𐐼 𐐻𐐴𐑋𐑆 𐐪 𐐼𐐩 𐑌𐐵. 𐐘𐐮𐑂 𐑋𐐨 𐐷𐐫𐑉 𐐶𐐫𐐽. 𐐌 𐐶𐐫𐑌𐐻 𐐻𐐭 𐑅𐐨 𐐸𐐵 𐐮𐐻 𐑊𐐳𐐿𐑅 𐐫𐑌 𐐮𐐻.”

𐐆𐑌𐑅𐐻𐐯𐐼 𐐲𐑂 𐐬𐐺𐐩𐐮𐑍, 𐐖𐐮𐑋 𐐻𐐲𐑋𐐺𐐲𐑊𐐼 𐐼𐐵𐑌 𐐫𐑌 𐑄 𐐿𐐵𐐽 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐐹𐐳𐐻 𐐸𐐮𐑆 𐐸𐐰𐑌𐐼𐑆 𐐲𐑌𐐼𐐲𐑉 𐑄 𐐺𐐰𐐿 𐐲𐑂 𐐸𐐮𐑆 𐐸𐐯𐐼 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑅𐑋𐐴𐑊𐐼.

“𐐔𐐯𐑊,” 𐑅𐐯𐐼 𐐸𐐨, “𐑊𐐯𐐻’𐑅 𐐹𐐳𐐻 𐐵𐑉 𐐗𐑉𐐮𐑅𐑋𐐲𐑅 𐐹𐑉𐐯𐑆𐐲𐑌𐐻𐑅 𐐲𐐶𐐩 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐐿𐐨𐐹 ’𐐲𐑋 𐐪 𐐸𐐶𐐴𐑊. 𐐜𐐩’𐑉 𐐻𐐭 𐑌𐐴𐑅 𐐻𐐭 𐐷𐐭𐑆 𐐾𐐲𐑅𐐻 𐐰𐐻 𐐹𐑉𐐯𐑆𐐲𐑌𐐻. 𐐌 𐑅𐐬𐑊𐐼 𐑄 𐐶𐐫𐐽 𐐻𐐭 𐑀𐐯𐐻 𐑄 𐑋𐐲𐑌𐐨 𐐻𐐭 𐐺𐐴 𐐷𐐫𐑉 𐐿𐐬𐑋𐑆. 𐐈𐑌𐐼 𐑌𐐵 𐑅𐐲𐐹𐐬𐑆 𐐷𐐭 𐐹𐐳𐐻 𐑄 𐐽𐐪𐐹𐑅 𐐫𐑌.”

𐐜 𐑋𐐩𐐾𐐴, 𐐰𐑆 𐐷𐐭 𐑌𐐬, 𐐶𐐲𐑉 𐐶𐐴𐑆 𐑋𐐯𐑌—𐐶𐐲𐑌𐐼𐐲𐑉𐑁𐐲𐑊𐐨 𐐶𐐴𐑆 𐑋𐐯𐑌—𐐸𐐭 𐐺𐑉𐐫𐐻 𐑀𐐮𐑁𐐻𐑅 𐐻𐐭 𐑄 𐐒𐐩𐐺 𐐮𐑌 𐑄 𐑋𐐩𐑌𐐾𐐲𐑉. 𐐜𐐩 𐐮𐑌𐑂𐐯𐑌𐐻𐐲𐐼 𐑄 𐐪𐑉𐐻 𐐲𐑂 𐑀𐐮𐑂𐐮𐑍 𐐗𐑉𐐮𐑅𐑋𐐲𐑅 𐐹𐑉𐐯𐑆𐐲𐑌𐐻𐑅. 𐐒𐐨𐐮𐑍 𐐶𐐴𐑆, 𐑄𐐯𐑉 𐑀𐐮𐑁𐐻𐑅 𐐶𐐲𐑉 𐑌𐐬 𐐼𐐵𐐻 𐐶𐐴𐑆 𐐶𐐲𐑌𐑆, 𐐹𐐪𐑅𐐮𐐺𐑊𐐨 𐐺𐐯𐑉𐐮𐑍 𐑄 𐐹𐑉𐐮𐑂𐐮𐑊𐐲𐐾 𐐲𐑂 𐐮𐐿𐑅𐐽𐐩𐑌𐐾 𐐮𐑌 𐐿𐐩𐑅 𐐲𐑂 𐐼𐐭𐐹𐑊𐐮𐐿𐐩𐑇𐐲𐑌. 𐐈𐑌𐐼 𐐸𐐮𐑉 𐐌 𐐸𐐰𐑂 𐑊𐐩𐑋𐑊𐐨 𐑉𐐲𐑊𐐩𐐻𐐲𐐼 𐐻𐐭 𐐷𐐭 𐑄 𐐲𐑌𐐮𐑂𐐯𐑌𐐻𐑁𐐲𐑊 𐐿𐑉𐐪𐑌𐐮𐐿𐐲𐑊 𐐲𐑂 𐐻𐐭 𐑁𐐭𐑊𐐮𐑇 𐐽𐐮𐑊𐐼𐑉𐐲𐑌 𐐮𐑌 𐐪 𐑁𐑊𐐰𐐻 𐐸𐐭 𐑋𐐬𐑅𐐻 𐐲𐑌𐐶𐐴𐑆𐑊𐐨 𐑅𐐰𐐿𐑉𐐮𐑁𐐴𐑅𐐻 𐑁𐐫𐑉 𐐨𐐽 𐐲𐑄𐐲𐑉 𐑄 𐑀𐑉𐐩𐐻𐐲𐑅𐐻 𐐻𐑉𐐯𐑈𐐲𐑉𐑆 𐐲𐑂 𐑄𐐯𐑉 𐐸𐐵𐑅. 𐐒𐐲𐐻 𐐮𐑌 𐐪 𐑊𐐰𐑅𐐻 𐐶𐐲𐑉𐐼 𐐻𐐭 𐑄 𐐶𐐴𐑆 𐐲𐑂 𐑄𐐨𐑆 𐐼𐐩𐑆 𐑊𐐯𐐻 𐐮𐐻 𐐺 𐑅𐐯𐐼 𐑄𐐰𐐻 𐐲𐑂 𐐫𐑊 𐐸𐐭 𐑀𐐮𐑂 𐑀𐐮𐑁𐐻𐑅 𐑄𐐨𐑆 𐐻𐐭 𐐶𐐲𐑉 𐑄 𐐶𐐴𐑆𐐲𐑅𐐻. 𐐊𐑂 𐐫𐑊 𐐸𐐭 𐑀𐐮𐑂 𐐰𐑌𐐼 𐑉𐐲𐑅𐐨𐑂 𐑀𐐮𐑁𐐻𐑅, 𐑅𐐲𐐽 𐐰𐑆 𐑄𐐩 𐐪𐑉 𐐶𐐴𐑆𐐲𐑅𐐻. 𐐇𐑂𐑉𐐨𐐸𐐶𐐯𐑉 𐑄𐐩 𐐪𐑉 𐐶𐐴𐑆𐐲𐑅𐐻. 𐐜𐐩 𐐪𐑉 𐑄 𐑋𐐩𐐾𐐴.

Blessèd are the Bless’d, for They Shall Receive Blessings

Long, long ago, back before the Deseret Alphabet was even a gleam in Brigham Young’s eye, before the United States was born, before the Pilgrims landed on Cape Cod—even before Canada was discovered—the English language was a very different animal that went by the name of “Middle English” and spent most of its time contemplating what Aprill with its shoures soote had done to the droghte of March. The rules were different in those days. Æ, Ð, Þ, and Ƿ were still part of the alphabet. Vowels were real vowels, and consonants were real consonants. Nobody had time for any of this sissy silent letter crap. If a word was spelled “knight,” then it started with a k-sound and had a guttural gurgling in the middle, by Wōdan. If a word looked like it had two syllables, then it had two syllables, like the sturdy yeoman that it was.

Case in point—

English verbs, then and now, fall into two categories: strong verbs, and weak verbs. Like Indo-European languages generally, English is a synthetic language and retains bits and pieces of its older, conjugation-heavy heritage. Verbs still change to indicate tense. If they change by altering their vowels, they are strong verbs. If they change by adding a suffix, they are weak verbs. Sing and bite are strong verbs. Love and hate are weak verbs.

English weak verbs form their past tense by adding -ed. Back in the Middle English days, this was, in fact, pronounced as a separate syllable. As Middle English morphed into modern English, the tendency was to elide the vowel as much as possible, so that today, loved is pronounced with only one syllable; however, because pronouncing two successive dentals without an intervening vowel is difficult in English, hated remains disyllabic.

Naturally, there was a transition period. Even as late as Shakespeare, a weak verb’s -ed might or might not be pronounced as an extra syllable, with (for the Bard) the meter often the determining factor. In modern editions of Shakespeare, you’ll frequently see this indicated by putting a grave accent over the e if the syllable is to be pronounced, and by replacing the e with an apostrophe if it is not. (This is a useful convention which I will be adhering to below.) Thus, in The Merchant of Venice, Act iv scene 1, Portia tells Shylock, “The quality of mercy is not strain’d," whereas in King John iv.2, the Earl of Salisbury warns the titular monarch, “To gild refinèd gold, to paint the lily,…is wasteful and ridiculous excess.” Note that in each case, you get a perfect line of iambic pentameter by pronouncing the “-ed” endings as explicitly marked.

(Whether or not a particular edition of Shakespeare adheres to this convention depends on a number of factors. In particular, Project Gutenberg tends not to use -èd, because in its early days it was restricted to plain ASCII and had no reliable way to add the accent.)

In the 21st century, though, the rule is that the “-ed” is pronounced only when it is phonetically necessary to do so. But what would a rule be without exceptions? (A good rule, that’s what.)

First, a bit more grammar. Indo-European languages generally make clear distinctions between the various parts of speech. A verb, therefore, can’t just behave like an adjective; it has to be turned into one. A verb-turned-into-an-adjective is called a participle. English has two kinds forms for the participle: the present participle (as in “the flying nun”) and the past participle (“the frozen pond”). For weak verbs, the simple past verb conjugation and the past participle are both formed by adding -ed to the verb stem. (“I salted the meat myself.” “The salted meat is too salty.”)

The English language adores participles, because we use them in the compound forms of verbs, and we use compound forms a lot. With compound verbs, we use a helper verb (to be or to have) with a participle. We have the simple present (“I read Dante’s Divine Comedy every few years.”), the present progressive (“Right now I am reading Kirkpatrick’s translation.”), the present perfect (“I have read Ciardi’s translation several times.”), and the simple past (“I read three cantos yesterday.”), among others. One of our more spectacular constructions is the present perfect progressive (“It has been snowing all morning.”) Of these, only the simple present and simple past are not compound forms, and this is hardly an exhaustive list.

Now comes the kicker. Some past participles, a long time ago, basically became fixed expressions and turned into adjectives in their own right, and these adjectives preserved their pronunciation when the past participle proper changed its. That is, their -ed ending continued to be pronounced as a distinct syllable.

As an example, consider “learned.” If I am using it as a standard past participle, I pronounce it with one syllable: “I have learn’d my verb conjugations well.” As an actual adjective, however, it is now a separate word meaning “having much knowledge acquired by learning,” and as such is pronounced learnèd. You would have to be an unlearnèd man like Homer Simpson to pronounce the adjective “learn’d."

Other adjectives have followed a similar trajectory. Another common one is “aged” (“The president has aged decades since he took office.” “I saw an agèd, agèd man, /A-sitting on a gate.” Note, however, “middle-ag’d," which we never pronounce “middle-agèd.”) I’ve seen “cursèd” used as a distinct adjective on occasion. There are more.
None of these adjectives, however—none—has caused me as much grief as “blessed,” because it has to do with God-ish things, and so tends to occur a lot in religious texts. Like the Bible. Like the King James Bible. Like the one Bible translation of which I have converted everything except about the last third of the Old Testament into the Deseret Alphabet.

Precisely because of its association with the King James Bible, and particularly with the Beatitudes in Matthew 5, “blessed” is not only the past participle and simple past of “bless,” but an adjective in its own right meaning “having a sacred nature, associated with God.” As an adjective—and especially in conjunction with the archaic, exalted style we associate with the Authorised Version—there is a strong tendency to pronounce it as “blessèd.” The various dictionaries I’ve consulted, by the way, are not consistent here. Some say the preferred pronunciation of the adjective is “blessèd,” and some say that it’s “bless’d.” (Everybody allows both pronunciations.)

What makes this more difficult than other verbs is that it is a transitive verb that can take thing with volition as both subject and object, and commonly does. Thus, Matthew 5:9, “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.” The sentence makes sense whether you parse it as meaning “God blesses peacemakers” or “Peacemakers are holy.” (And if anybody starts talking about manufacturers of dairy products, I will have no idea to what they are referring.) If I say, “Aged indeed are my parents’ surviving siblings,” I’m very clearly not implying that some cheesemaker has come by and stuffed them in storage while they ripen; so it’s “agèd.” “Anyone who is genuinely learned will understand that anthropogenic climate change is a real problem” does not imply that people have gone around learning other people; so it’s “learnèd.”

For the New Testament, there is something that can help, and that is I know sufficient Greek to tell what the original sense is. In the case of Matthew 5:9, the original word is μακάριοι which is an adjective and means “happy, fortunate.” It’s not a conjugated verb. On the other hand, in Matthew 14:19, we have “He…took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and break, and gave the loaves to his disciples.” Outside of the fact that the English sense is pretty clear, the Greek here is εὐλόγησεν, the third person singular aorist active indicative of the verb εὐλογέω, which means, well, “to bless.” (Literally, it means “to speak well of.”)

That’s actually a workable solution to distinguish blessed-qua-verb and blessed-qua-adjective, and I adhered to it sporadically through the New Testament. Unfortunately, I don’t know Hebrew well enough to do the same in the Old Testament.

Now, the whole rigamarole is actually unnecessary, because there is a simple, sensible solution to the dilemma. As I say, all the dictionaries I’ve consulted say that “bless’d” is an acceptable pronunciation for blessed-qua-adjective and some of them give “bless’d” as the preferred pronunciation. So just use “bless’d” all the time.

Unfortunately, simple though I may be, I am not sensible. I just could not get myself to put “Bless’d are the merciful” into Jesus’ mouth. Instead, I’m doing what is probably the worst possible thing under the circumstances and simply going by euphony if semantics will not guide me. If the English sense is very clear, I go by that. Otherwise, if “blessèd” sounds better than “bless’d,” I use “blessèd.” If “bless’d” sounds better, use it instead. The result is a linguistic abomination and wrecks havoc with my principle of “one word-one spelling,” but at least it lets me sleep at night in blessèd, blessèd slumber.

When Chickens Work Together, Do They Coop-erate?

In my misspent youth, I occasionally would run across something odd. Occasionally, there would be a couple of odd dots on top of a vowel: zoölogy, Phaëthon, Boötes, noël, Nausicaä. I had no idea what was going on, and it never occurred to me to ask somebody. Either I knew how otherwise knew how to pronounce them, or, like Linus van Pelt reading Dostoyevski, I just “bleeped” over the others.

(I also ran across the mysterious symbol “æ”, which I found impossibly cool, in words like Cæsar and hæmoglobin. It was rather more obviously just an “a” and “e” smashed together for some unknown reason. Its capitalization, “Æ”, is also pretty cool.)

Eventually, I discovered the solution to the mystery. The double dots are called a diæresis—sorry, dieresis. In English and other languages, the dieresis serves the purpose of indicating that two vowels are to be pronounced separately in cases where one would naturally be inclined to pronounce them together.

The standard English alphabet, among its other quirks, has too few letters. In particular, we have more vowels than letters to represent them, so we resort to various tricks like the silent-e, vowel doubling, and so on. (And as usual, we end up with multiple ways of spelling the same sound.) So “goose” is [gus], “too” is [tu], “coop” is [kup], and “zoo” is [zu]. The temptation would be to pronounce “zoology,” therefore, as [zuləʤi] and not [zoʊˈɑləʤi], and so we put the two dots to avoid confusion.

There is another diacritic which looks very similar to the dieresis: the umlaut. It originated as a small “e” written on top of a vowel (seriously) and eventually became a pair of dots, just like the dieresis. It’s used in German and other languages to indicate a modified vowel sound, so you have “Mutter” (mother) and “Mütter” (mothers), which are pronounced with a very different initial vowel. Since it originated as an “e,” it can still be written using an “e,” as in “Muetter.”

Although technically there is a very subtle difference in the visual appearance between a dieresis and an umlaut—or, more correctly, a font designed by a German for use in German text will have umlauts ever so slightly closer to their vowels than a font designed by a Frenchman for French text will have its diereses—for all practical intents and purposes, they’re identical. Even if a particular typeface does distinguish them (and most of them ones I’m familiar with don’t), you’d have to know what to look for to tell them apart. Character encoding standards have traditionally used the same character for both. Unicode does this: both dieresis and umlaut are U+0308 COMBINING DIAERESIS. There is a standard way to distinguish them if you really want to, but almost nobody does.

The use of dieresis was never prominent in the United States. Even in Britain it’s rather archaic. For one thing, there are a lot of places where it should strictly be used and isn’t. You know, like in “diëresis” or “archaïc”, in case anybody was tempted to say [daɪrəsɪs] or [ɑrˈkaɪk]. For another, there’s the whole problem of the impact of typewriters on English typography. Moreover, as a rule, a fluent reader of English is almost never going to be thrown by the lack of a dieresis. Worst comes to worst, you can use a hyphen (as in “co-operate”). As for names like Boötes, you can bleep over it, pronounce it like “booties”, or not go in for stargazing. They’re all foreign names, anyway, except Brontë, and why would one ever want to talk about someone named Brontë?

(On an unrelated note, expect a Deseret Alphabet version of Jane Eyre sometime in 2015.)

There is one other diacritic used in English-only text: the grave accent. This one I was able to figure out on my own, since I encountered it first when reading Shakespeare. Sonnet 78, for example, includes the couplet, “In others’ works thou dost but mend the style,/And arts with sweet graces gracèd be.” A cursory examination of the scansion makes it clear that “gracèd” is intended to be pronounced with two syllables for the sake of the meter, rather than the usual one.
So what does all this have to do with the Deseret Alphabet?

English has, among its many quirks, a number of diphthongs: two vowel sounds smoothly combined into one syllable. In fact, most long vowels in English are actually diphthongs. If, for example, you say “may” very slowly, you can tell that you’re saying [meɪ] and not [me]. Even some of our short vowels can be pronounced as diphthongs. I know a lot of people who pronounce “and” as [æɪnd] instead of [ænd]. We generally don’t think of such vowels that way, of course. We generally reserve the word “diphthong” for sounds like “ow” and “ay”, where there can be no doubt.

This is reflected in the organization of the Deseret Alphabet, which begins with twelve vowels: six long and six short. Next are two diphthongs: “ow” and “ay”. Two glides come next, then sixteen consonants (a combination of stops and fricatives), then two liquids, and finally four nasals. That accounts for the thirty-eight letters of the standard Deseret Alphabet.

Some sounds are still missing, however. In addition to having no schwa, the Deseret Alphabet is missing one common diphthong: [ɔɪ] as in “boy”. There is a forty-letter version of the Deseret Alphabet for which some evidence exists, one that was never part of the standard description or printed materials. It appends the letters OY and EW at the end. The former is a distinct phoneme in English; the latter could arguably be one, too.

If one restricts oneself to the standard thirty-eight letters, a problem occurs. There can be an ambiguity when something like [ɔɪ] or [oɪ] occurs in the middle of a word, because that could be either one syllable or two. I ran into this when trying to transcribe the word “prohibition”. I pronounce it something like [ˌproʊəˈbɪʃən] or [ˌproʊɪˈbɪʃən]. (The problem of reduced vowels in English is another blog entry or two.) Because of my spelling conventions, I would spell it 𐐹𐑉𐐬𐐮𐐺𐐮𐑇𐐲𐑌, but is that proy-bishun or pro-ibishun?

Now, there are sensible solutions to the problem. One would be to abandon my spelling rule and go with 𐐹𐑉𐐬𐐲𐐺𐐮𐑇𐐲𐑌. Another would be to abandon the standard Deseret Alphabet and go with 𐑎 for words like “𐐺𐑎” so that 𐐹𐑉𐐬𐐮𐐺𐐮𐑇𐐲𐑌 is unambiguous. Or we could just assume that a fluent English speakers would know that proy-bishun isn’t a word, just like we know that coop-erate isn’t a word.

Naturally, I want to be cool, not sensible. I use a dieresis and spell it 𐐹𐑉𐐬𐐮̈𐐺𐐮𐑇𐐲𐑌.

Now, there is a vaguely similar problem, one with a vaguely similar solution. There are three reasons why we double vowels when writing English. One is to spell a certain vowel sound in a frankly unobvious way, as in “goose.” Another is when we want to indicate a vowel stretched out unnaturally, as in, “I am your faaaaaaaather’s ghooooooost.” Finally, there are cases where you genuinely have two separate vowels, as in “zoology.”

For me, this came up with the word “medieval” (or “mediæval” or “mediëval”). I pronounce it [ˌmidiˈivəl]. (I believe that [ˌmɛdiˈivəl] is more likely to be considered correct, but let’s ignore that for the moment.) Just to make absolutely sure that people don’t try to pronounce it as if they were a ghooooooost from the Middle Aaaaaages, it would be good to indicate the fact that there are four syllables there, not three. And so I opted for 𐑋𐐨𐐼𐐨𐐨̈𐑂𐐲𐑊.

Now, there are some nay-sayers who will say “nay,” and that I’m being rather silly. Nobody will seriously be confused by spellings like 𐐹𐑉𐐬𐐮𐐺𐐮𐑇𐐲𐑌 or 𐑋𐐨𐐼𐐨𐐨𐑂𐐲𐑊. I have to confess that they’re right, but I nonetheless have two points in response.

Firstly, I’m being silly enough to be churning out Deseret Alphabet content of any sort. A little extra silliness won’t hurt.

Secondly, diereses are cool.

Oh, and does anybody know where I can get a fez in my size?