Broken Conversation
(Part 1) | (Part 2) | (Part 3) |
11-8-18, System 43 – Onboard Ship
Bethany Nizdala was the first human to make it on board of a Kirothian ship. It had taken her many months of additional training and lessons on culture of the Kirothian people. She had already made a lasting impression on Commander Xcha’lanu and earned her place on board. Now she just had to convince the crew of that.
Unlike the Commander, the rest of the crew did not understand very much English. She had been learning the language of the Kirothian’s but it had many hard to pronounce consonant pairs. It had taken her a week to pronounce the Commander’s name right! She could catch snippets and a few words as she was walking through the corridors towards her quarters. The Kirothian had a very simple written language so she had learned that in a few months. She was following the signs to the floor and number of her room.
“Human… small… Commander… androids… avoid…” The sparse selection of words she could understand as she walked past the groups in the massive corridors did not do much to improve her mood.
Great. The crew knows about it. Am I going to have to repeat the whole speech to every crew member?
She shook off the comments and kept walking. She was a floor closer to her room when someone called out to her. Only reason she could tell that the shout was directed at her because of the “Human” and the butchered pronunciation of her name, “Batany”.  Her instructor in the spoken Kirothian language had pronounced her name that way when he had first read it. The pronounced “th” combination didn’t exist naturally in their language. And somehow her instructor had never had to pronounce a name with “th” in it before meeting her. It was an interesting day.
She waited and looked around till she saw the 8ft tall figure making its way over to her from back down the hall. The difficulty with the Kirothians was that they were not immediately distinguishable by gender. They had no male or female characteristics that where known to all. The best you could do was listen to the timbre in their voice. Female Kirothians often resonated higher than the males, but even that wasn’t always a given. The fact that they used gendered pronouns too could cause additional confusion when you were sure they were the other but they used the female “I” in Kirothian.
The one who had called out to her was finally in range. She raised her hand in a standard Kirothian greeting. The approaching figure repeated the gesture.
The very slow and crude English that followed almost made her double over in laughter.
“Batany… truth… androids? Warrior?”
She fought the laughter. After speaking with the Commander who could speak fluent English it was a stark contrast. She managed to contain the laughter and smiled. She, slowly, in her best Kirothian replied, “Exaggerated, yes warrior, no threat to ship.”
The Kirothian grinned in what she could assume was the amusement she had felt when they had spoken. The Kirothian’s face suddenly was clouded with an emotion she hadn’t seen on a Kirothian before. The Kirothian then smiled and reached into their pocket. When the Kirothian pulled out a tablet like device. Bethany wanted to smack her head. Of course! Until she got more fluent in Kirothian or the crew learned more English she could use the translator function or even just type out what she wanted to say since she could read and write much more Kirothian than she could speak!
The Kirothian typed out what they wanted to say, it took a minute but eventually the tablet was turned around and the speaker read out in the robotic English, “Is it true that you defeated an entire legion of the androids by yourself? If so what weapons did you use? Do you have other skillsets like other humans or are you a static category? Are there more humans like you? Do you have a food preference? How do you pronounce your title?”
Bethany laughed at the long succession of questions. While the voice had been speaking the Kirothian had been trying to mouth and mimic the voice. While it would help with the pronunciation she knew that the sentence structure and ordering of subjects in Kirothian was very different than English. She might have to add teaching an English class somewhere in her schedule. These broken conversations were going to get tiresome real quick even if they were humorous.
She took the offered tablet and began to type her responses and then her own questions. It would be slow going but she would get there. She had a scheduled Earth year on board this fleet initially. She’d be making pun jokes in Kirothian by the time she left.
