[voice]

[unetrustworthy]

I was wondering...how many other people here can speak other languages?

[But then, she paused and there was a slight jostling of the camera as she shook her head.  Sorting out her thoughts.]

No,  not speak.  That doesn't really help any, with everything always being translated for us.  More like...read.  I was wondering...what languages everyone here can read?  Since written words have never been translated.  Not since I've been here.

Comments

Voice

[schrodingersghost]

Does Esperanto count?

Voice

[unetrustworthy]

[If it was a legitimate language, and he could read it well enough, then sure.]

What's...Esperanto? I've never heard of that language before.

Voice

[schrodingersghost]

It's an artificial language. My friend Tuck says that it's only purpose these days is to let nerds talk to other nerds.

[Danny had learned it because one ghost he knew didn't speak anything else. ]

Voice

[unetrustworthy]

But wait.

How can it be an artificial language if people--[Or, by his account, nerds]--can actually speak it?

Re: Voice

[schrodingersghost]

I don't know a lot about it, but I guess way back a bunch of guys got together and thought, you know what? I bet a lot of the problems around the world are because no one can understand each other. Lets invent a language that everyone can learn.

...It never really caught on.

Voice

[unetrustworthy]

So it's not really so much artificial as it is...half-dead?

[Kind of like Latin, only actually still spoken by a handful of people. By his own admission.]

Re: Voice

[schrodingersghost]

[He snorts. ]

I guess that's one way to put it.

[considering the only people he knew who spoke it were ghosts. ]

Voice

[unetrustworthy]

Even dead languages can still count. [She'd already encountered people who claimed to speak and/or read Latin, for one.] So I guess your Es...esperano? That counts too.

Do you speak anything else? Or is that what you're speaking now?

[It can be so hard to tell with the auto-translators in place.]

Re: Voice

[schrodingersghost]

Just English. I took high school Spanish, but I suck at it.

Voice

[unetrustworthy]

Have you ever wanted to learn more?

[Assuming that was the end of his list. Still, two languages--even if one of them was "half dead"--was better than some could boast.]

Re: Voice

[schrodingersghost]

Not really. Languages are kind of time-consuming, you know/.

Voice

[unetrustworthy]

But that's part of the point.

[That it was time-consuming.]

Re: Voice

[schrodingersghost]

[Superheroing really didn't leave much time for other things. Like homework. And a social life. Let alone studying languages for fun. ]

Huh, is it? I thought the point was to learn languages. And pass high school.

Voice

[unetrustworthy]

I wouldn't know. I've never been to high school.

[Even though her voice, though soft, definitely sounded like that of a teenage girl.]

Learning is part of it, but in a place like this, there's also only so much I can do to pass the time. I usually do my deliveries in the morning and afternoon, then study in the evenings.