The Impotent Scribe

This is my entry for the Words of Worldbuilding challenge January 2020
What you are about to read, is a Zeribian story. It takes place on the Eastern Islands. The most of the characters (that is, the Court of West Island) are Farens, and their native language is Nem. The scribe and the king of Washleng are Zeribians and their language is
Ngad i zerib (Zeribian language).

The Impotent Scribe

One day in the court of West Island Elderoak the king of Farens wanted to send a letter to the king of Wašleng. He had no Zeribian in his court to write in his language, so he sent his guards to find a scribe. "But be fast, I don't have all day!" He commanded, because he was an impatient man.
The guards went looking. On their way to the shipyards, they ran into a Zeribian man.
"Can you write the Eastern language?" the guards asked. The man was no scribe, so he hesitated. But he was afraid of the guards too, and he saw that they were on the court's business, so he answered:
"Yes I can, my lords"
They brought the ill-fated man back to the court. He saw the king seated on the throne. The vizier, the consul, and the high priest were also present. The man kneeled before them and did not dare to look at them.
“You brought a good and obeying man, it seems” the king remarked smiling, happy that the guards had returned so swiftly. “But stand up now, and come closer. I have this letter in my mind!”

The poor man got up all shaking. He was handed a scroll, a pen and an inkbottle. Luckily he was used to keeping good notes of his business, but he couldn't believe he was made to write on behalf of the King! He could feel the impatient gaze of the king on him, as he started dictating:

Say to Burwiš-Usahdeg Kageš the King of Washleng, my brother: For me all goes well. For you may all go well! For your wives, your sons, your house, your ships, your land may all go well! As a greeting, I have sent you 15 barrels of bronze, and sea silk!
Me and my brother have made a mutual declaration of friendship. Just as our fathers were friends, we are friends now. Recently, my merchant ships, who were on their way to the Moons, were blundered on their way near the Serpent's Spine Islands, my men killed and robbed. Serpent's Spine is your country, and it’s kings are your vassals. Could you make your men stop? Sentence to death the men that put to death my men! When you do, I will send you more wonderous silk!
Greetings, Elderoak

Once the letter was written, they let the poor Zeribian go, with rich presents of course, and send the letter on a journey with a royal delegation. After a week's travel the ships of Elderoak finally reached Wašleng. The King of Wašleng received the letter. His royal scribe cracked the seal open, and looked at the scroll. First he wasn't even sure what he was reading, but the longer he read, the more he blushed from shame. He tried to refuse reading it to his king, but he couldn’t defy his commands. When the king heard the message, he was enraged, and ordered the messengers to be cut into pieces and thrown to the bottom of the sea. This is how the letter read:

Say to Burwiš-Usahdeg Kageš the King of Wašleŋ, fishcutter, I am well. For your whores, your sons, your shed, your canoes, your mud, may all go well. As a teaching, I have sent you broken ships, deserved drinks of bloody stones and the clothes of a seamaggot!
You and I have made a mutual declaration of friendship. I fill fuck you like my father did! Now my merchant ships, who were on their way to the Moons were blundered on their way at Snake's Back Islands, my men killed and robbed.Snake's Back is your land, and it's kings your slaves! Do you not know how to tell your men to stop? Kill the men that killed my men! When you do, I will send you more weird seamaggot clothes!
Bye, Elderoak

---

The letter in Ngad i Zerib

This is the letter in the traditional Zeribian Script. The script is an abjad, a consonant script. The main letters are consonants, while the vowels are marked with diacritics (lines and dots) on the consonants. The script is read in vertical columns from left to right.

This is a detailed gloss of the letter in the dialect of Zeribian that the scribe wrote in, and what it should have been in Standard Zeribian. The tooltext under "Dialect" is an indepth grammatical gloss. The tooltext under "Standard" is more focused on noting the differences between the two variants. To understand the mistakes the scribe made, reading the "Standard" gloss and comparing some points to "Dialect" should be enough.

DIALECT
Ŋadur-ur ken Burwiš Usahdeg Kageš Iz i Wašleŋ, le-ze.
Ym zet uhah waš. Luhah waš ym den!
Luhah waš ym wanam-ige, ym čiš-ige, ym dem-ige,
ym gid-ige ym beth-ige.
Sumit rib bar griššumpeš ken den zezan, fylban basder,
neh ke i makqal i feren.

Set nex den, žep bet suryd 'exyr semex'.
Bar uwan žed-es, seŋewan.
Rim xar šummargid-es, i uŋkan ken Xim,
usaggeš ym saq ym Irin i Heš.
udrug zir-zir-es nex utelmar glar dewuš.

Irin i Heš beth-ige nex iz-iz i rim ŋar-ige.
Eneŋ i ewzanmit zir-ige?
Drug-ug dew i drugug zir-es.
Aŋ xar ewneŋ, sešummar nez gal ke i maqkal i feren.

Zeze, Elderoak

STANDARD
Fin engadur ken Burwiš Usahdeg Kageš Iz i Wašleŋ, lahi-ise.
Ym set uhah waš. Luhah waš ym den!
Luhah waš ym nana i den, ym čiš i den, ym ged i den,
ym zan i den ym derg i den.
Sumit rib bar zekanpeš ken den 15 (zežan) fylbanda arga,
nex terkweš ke.

Set nex den, bežep bet suryd 'exyr semex'.
Bar ukel žedes, seŋekel.
Rim xar šummarzan-es, i uŋkan ken Xim,
usaggeš ym saq ym Irin i Heš.
Udrug zir-ir-es nex telmar glar dewuš.

Irin i Heš beth i den nex iz-idu pal i den.
ekuž i ewzanmit zir i den
Fin edrughiz dew i udrug zir-es.
Aŋ xar ewneŋ, sešummar nez xleker terkweš ke.

Fin uxyr iz eze, Elderoak

Literary Sources

The story was originally written on Der Fem. The story was first told orally so it can't be conclusively dated, but it was probably first written around 850's during the rule of King Šamper Nezenŋad of Der Fem. The story is set a few decades back to Der Fem lead by the Faren Republic of Free West Island before the Zeribian Revolution of Der Fem.
Later the story became popular around the Eastern Islands, and copies of it can be found in every major library. The story has also become a part of the curriculum of the Zeribian noble education.

Purpose

The story is a piece of nationalistic literature. Its first purpose is to advocate for Zeribian unity and use of the Standard Zeribian language. Zeribian is a language with huge spoken variety on different islands, to the degree that the dialects are not mutually intellegible. The leaders argue for only using the Standard Zeribian in writing, to avoid any confusion or difficulties. This text includes a number of dialectal words from the Der Fem dialect that have different, often obscene meaning in Standard language. Sometimes the words are also phonologically so different, that they are confused with other words if written phonetically. However, learning the Standard language requiers a lot of education, which means that most of the commoners are functionally illiterate.
The second goal is to mock the Republic of Free West Island and its leaders. The Farens are portrayed as impatient, stupid, impolite and, above all, uncapable of understanding the Zeribian social structure. In the story, they think any lay Zeribian is good enough to write a letter to a king. The Zeribian culture is hugely hierarchical, and this would have been totally unacceptable.

Legacy

The text is one of the linguistically most important Zeribian texts, because it is among the only handful of texts that record the spoken varieties of Zeribian, and uniquely also includes the full translation. It is quite ironic, how the purpose of the text is to mock the spoken varieties, but it turnes out to be one of the greatest examples of them in use.