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The Fourth Rail: Reading the Languages

Span is the speech of Gotham. In telling, dispatch and service speech the event comes first, and a small word at the end says how the speaker knows it: dek seen, rel heard from someone, vesh worked out, bar not saying. Household and street speech is moving toward putting the speaker first; that is “the young way.”

• nul not; ma before the moment in question; vo after it; ru going on; fin finished
• ai I, nai we (with you), e he, she or it, dei they
• ka at the end turns a sentence into a question
• ri opens a description of someone or something, and nek closes it

Latch is the speech of Liberty and the Commonwell. The object comes first, marked by mu, and the verb comes last.

• ta past, ve future, li going on, du done; na not; ku at the end asks a question
• saf able, pel allowed, dut must, yel might
• In the log voice a speaker marks what has been checked: se checked by me, ket checked together, lo from a report
• Replies: tay taken up, nay refused, hala hold on

Switch is the speech of Garden. The object comes first, marked by ke, and the verb comes last.

• da past, go future, en going on, ot done; no not; sha at the end asks a question
• pa allowed, ka able, mai might
• The yard record voice gives, in order, the object, its condition, whose hand it is in, the permission, the next work and where it came from (trak)

Pronunciation. All three use the vowels a e i o u. Sh sounds as in “shoe,” y as in “yes,” and r is a light tap. Latch and Switch stress the first syllable of a longer word; Span stresses the next-to-last. Span keeps its final consonants and its small particle words audible.

Imperial Standard. The war office’s English. People change into it to speak to or for the war, and it is the language of writing. In this book that change is shown by the line turning into English.

Other languages of the Union. The companion novel, DISSONANCE, is set in Neo New Orleans, where the Mud speaks Kanal.

Glossary

Words as they are spoken in this book. Each entry gives the form, what it means, and the language it came in from where that is known. Readers do not need this list to follow the story; it is here for anyone who wants to look.

Sources: BN, Bengali. EN, English. HI, Hindi-Urdu. HK, Haitian Kreyòl. KEA, Kabuverdianu. PT, Portuguese. SP, Spanish. V3, the yard record register. ZH, Cantonese. An entry with no source is part of the old core of the language.

Dictionary

Switch is the spoken language of Garden. The object comes before ke and the verb comes last. The yard record voice gives object, condition, whose hand, permission, next work and provenance (trak, blank-trak, kros-trak).

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