From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: (whorl) Mother Godspeak
Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 22:06:25 

on 3/12/01 11:39 PM, Robert Borski at rborski@charter.net wrote:

> Adam S., in a non-confused mode, professing:
> 
> <I may be missing something again, but I don't see the problem here. The
> Mother is a goddess of the Neighbors; why wouldn't she have been able to
> learn their language and teach it to Seawrack? And Seawrack could have
> taught Horn enough to translate the few lines he does (there's no need to
> assume it's an impromptu translation; he could have heard the same song in
> the boat with Seawrack).>
> 
> How then do you reconcile this with Horn stating, "I asked the Greater
> Scylla on the Red Sun Whorl how I could find Seawrack again. She told me how
> to communicate with her sister here."
> 
> In other words, if I understand you properly, Horn has to go all the way
> back to Urth and find out from the "Greater" Scylla how to communicate with
> her "sister," the Mother? So the Greater Scylla can speak Neighborese? Where
> the hell did _she_ learn it? The Berlitz Teach-Yourself-Neighbor in 10 Days
> or Less? (I tried ordering a copy from Amazon.com, but they're currently
> out.)

I'm not quite clear what your point is.  It seems you either believe that
the Mother only speaks the Neighbors' languague, so Horn would have to know
it to communicate with her, or you think my position implies this.  But
Mother talks to Horn in OBW, when she "transfers" Seawrack to him.  (This is
before any possible admixture of Pas, if you were going to argue that Horn
has translated the Mother's words from the Neighbors' language without
telling us.)  What the Greater Scylla taught Horn was how to summon the
Mother, as Alex David Gorce says.

> Sorry, but I still don't understand how the Mother, Silk or Seawrack
> comprehends the language of the Vanished People.

The Mother learned it from the Neighbors.  She could have learned it from
Neighbors she had saved or abducted as she did Seawrack, or from
eavesdropping on sailors, to give just two possibilities.

--Adam


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