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Mitas, Written Language of Sirens

This written language is hard to come by, and only a few are familiar with it. It is used exclusively for documentation and occasionally communication between the ruling class of sirens.  

Language of the Ruling Class

The Tudines and the Language Keepers are the only people who know how to write mitas, and they use it almost exclusively to take the siren census every five years.  

Special Tools

Mitas is scraped onto thin rocks with a tool that deposits the ink of a rare squid found only in Lake Nopoth. Unfortunately, even in ideal storing conditions the writing wears away underwater in about a hundred years. This is generally enough time for census information to no longer be useful, but the passing of siren history and storytelling is generally preserved orally.  

Archives

Census tablets are kept in a room within the Tudine residence and ordered on shelves. The room is filled with purifying plants to keep as many pollutants out as possible, and sealed off to keep the space as cool and still as possible. Once per year it is inspected for any worn out tablets that can be discarded. Only the head language keeper and members of the Tudine family are allowed to enter the archives.

Ciphered Mitas

There is an unnamed force that uses a particularly special version of Mitas. To the eye of a language keeper, it appears to be normal information, but to the Tudines, and to this secret organization, this cipher offers a covert way to communicate to each other without revealing their existence at all.   Ciphered Mitas works by giving commonly used phrases different meanings. What is written may say something like, "5 new transformed sirens in Lake Pethem." What is meant is, "The True Ones have amassed followers in Lake Pethem."

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Comments

Author's Notes

This article was originally created for World Anvil Summer Camp 2020 for the prompt: Write about a secret code or cypher in your world: who uses it, and for what purpose?


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Jul 17, 2020 10:08 by Dr Emily Vair-Turnbull

This is just as interesting as I'd thought it be from you other article. The fact that the written language only lasts about a hundred years is fascinating. It definitely makes sense that oral language is much more important to the point where most sirens don't know how to read Mitas at all. :)

Emy x
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