Heavenfall

Ryoko looked concerned. "Why? Have I said something wrong?"

"No, you've said something right. Unmistakably, perfectly right."

She still looked puzzled, but she simply nodded. "Then I am glad my words were not obscured."

Glancing at the writing materials, she added, "If I should meet this Shiba, perhaps you can show me how you write your letter?"

"Indeed, maybe it is time we admit you'll be our only student today."

He set aside his manual distraction, and walked to the improvised blackboard.

Here he wrote in quite big:

森

"Without knowing anything about it, what does this make you think of? Imagine it as a simple drawing of something, like what a child could do."

For his part, Sora stood aside, more of a teacher's aide than a teacher in this setting.

Ryoko gazed at it, puzzling it over.

"A forest?"

"Exactly. And this is how a forest is represented in written form.

At their heart, all words on paper are based on very simple drawings. It's all about summing up the essence of a thing in a few strokes.

To save time, space and ink, these drawings tend to become more and more refined with generations. For example, this is how our ancestors wrote the word water."



"And this is how we write it nowadays."



"It doesn't have to look exactly like that to be recognizable. Some modern scribes actually use a more luxurious variant, 水, to show off their mastery of the brush. But this is more akin to an art form than a practical skill, so we won't be covering that.

That's important is that, for anyone familiar with that system, those three particular strokes will immediately call upon the idea of water.

Thus, in a sense, learning to read is similar to learning a new language. Except instead of associating new sounds to concepts, you map some drawings to ideas.

Does that explanation make sense to you?"

(OOC: Thanks to Ko and the others who helped finding nice characters for this lesson)

"I think I get it... but there are so many things out there... and what about love? How do you draw that? Or Fear?"

She quirked her head. "I'm scared of centipedes, but maybe you aren't."

"Centipedes?"

Ayumu also cocked an eyebrow at the mention of centipedes, then pursued:

"A very good question indeed. Concepts tend to be made of a combination of several simpler symbols put together.

Love for example is made of the symbol for person:"



"Joined with the number two, which is just two horizontal strokes, for that result:"



"Similarly, fear is written as white heart: 怕. As you might notice though, what these characters represent is not as obvious as previously. A scholar would also tell you there are other ways to write love and fear, to represent different degrees and variants of love and fear. That is true, but we'll leave it for later classes.

White heart not however. You don't need to know the meaning of all characters in a text to read it. As for a foreign language, knowing the most common terms is enough to guess the missing ones from context."

"Many legged bugs." She shivered.

"I guess I understand the concept, but it seems you perhaps need to memorize them... that seems tough."

She smiled, faintly, and shook her head. "Is there any order to learning it? A way I should begin?"

"Sora, I'm interested in your input there. As for myself, lots of characters were just crammed into my head as a kid, when learning things without seeing the logic behind it was not a big deal. I'm not sure such an approach is good for adults however.

Instinctively, I would say it'll be more interesting if we were to start from a text you want to read and slowly work our way to decipher it, even if our progression might be non-linear, with advanced concepts mixed with basic ones. You mentioned a letter earlier?"

"All right, so... memorizing the characters is a chore. When Reiko started to teach me- and when Jin and Shiba picked up and helped with my learning- a lot of what was involved being shown the characters, told what they mean, and then repeating them as I wrote them down. It's not an easy process, especially the way I went about it."

He paused.

"That said... going back to what I said earlier, making a song about them might make it easier to remember- and easier to teach. But I spent a great deal of time refreshing my memory, drawing characters in the dirt with sticks... but it also helps that I was traveling with Shiba, and also able to send messages to Reiko, who could correct my writing and send it back. But to Ayumu's suggestion..."

He started sketching out a letter with a piece of bark and charcoal, since they had only a single student.

"Now, knowing that this is a message for Emperor Shiba, you can probably guess what the opening characters are- it's a salutation, after all, to someone whose name is known to you. There's a little added formality here, because even I am only informal with the Emperor up to a point. So."

He began to write, speaking the words as he wrote each character.

The letter wrote:"To the Son of Heaven, Emperor Shiba"

"So, knowing this is a letter, the opening is almost always simply indicative of who it's for. You wouldn't send a message without that information- general proclamations are best shouted at everyone you see, after all. But now, things get difficult for the new student..."

The letter wrote:I trust this letter finds you well, and that the kids are all behaving under Han-Han's watchful eye."

"A personal touch, both to verifiy that I'm not writing under any sort of duress, and just to be pleasant."

The letter wrote:"I write to you as a means of introducing the bearer of this message. Her name is Ryoko, of the Ongaku of the Takemori. She has concerns about the future of her tribe in your Empire, and wishes to speak to you on the matter."

"Always good to get to the purpose of the communication next- why has this message been sent?"

the letter wrote:"The Takemori do not farm, and they do not stay in permanent settlements. As the Kami who took in a mangy Hikaru who had similar worries about his people's place, you perhaps understand why I took an interest. By the sound of it, the Takemori and their Ongaku have much to offer if we let them. Their travels and their exposure to multiple areas of the Empire are, if nothing else, an asset."

"Backing you up a bit before you begin your own sales pitch."

The letter. wrote:"If this letter reaches you before I do, tell the firstborn that she can get an extra story this week in token of my absence. I miss them all."

"Another personal touch, conveying something I simply refuse to leave out of any such communication to the Emperor."

The letter wrote:"Your most fortunate servant, Jiyo Sora."

"And you close with an overt identification. Now, granted, the Emperor would also know my handwriting and my personal style and not really need it, but it's stilla good habit to maintain."

"Maybe reading this would be better as an endgame objective rather than as an introduction. It's honestly quite complicated, with non-natural grammar as part of etiquette, and many difficult words.

But it does leave us with some interesting anchors. For once, names."

Ayumu went back to the board.

"The written form of names is usually a romantic description of the people they designate. For example, the Isawa tribe is translated on paper as the blessed with courage tribe.

Sometimes, the characters of names are instead reminders of events that were fundamental in the growth of that person or that group of persons. The Seppun tribe is for example the kiss tribe, which, I guess, is a reference to something that happened as part of the tribe's history.

As for your own tribe, sempai chose to rendered it as the music tribe. The character for that is surprisingly complex, but it does contain a part that you might find inspiring:"



"As for the characters of Ryoko... I'm not sure I follow where you were going with that choice sempai."

"Honestly, a phonetic choice."

He shrugged.

"Those of us who came to it late tend to get a bit creative, since we haven't been living with the proper forms for our entire lives."

"Oh yes. This is kind of a hack, but it's possible to replace words you don't know with words that sound the same way even if their meaning is different.

In general, I would advise against using that trick, as, to understand what you meant, the reader both has to read it aloud and to speak a language that is similar enough to yours so that the homophony does persist.

However, names... Names just don't let themselves get so easily trapped on paper, and you indeed have to be cunning about it sometimes.

But that raises an interesting question. Ongaku no Ryoko, which characters do you feel your name should be made of? That can be anything, tangible or conceptual."

Ryoko looked... stunned. Perhaps the faucet was open too wide, or perhaps she was just not as fast at this as she wanted to be.

After a long moment, she realized they were waiting for her input, and she managed an eloquent response. "EtoIdunreallyknow..."

Profound.

After a longer moment, she shook her head, slapped her cheeks, and tried again. "I don't know... should I invent my own picture? Or are there pictures that sound like my name I should choose among?"

"You can invent. But usually people combine existing symbols. Like sun-person, or bear-warrior, or wind-speed... You get it. Something that defines you, generally something great. Though not always. My own name is written as the ambiguous walker of dreams for example.

Note that some people change the symbols of their name through their life. The name of Shiba was written differently before he ascended the throne. So don't worry too much about it, it's not a committing decision."

"So, I would need to pick symbols that sound like my name already?"

Ryoko seemed confused. "I don't know why ones sound like my name. Ryoko. What symbols sound like Ryoko?"

"Technically, you don't have to. For names, one can cheat by writing a symbol for its meaning, then write another symbol in small just next to it, to tell the reader it must be pronounced as the second symbol even if it represents the first.

Yeah, names are just the weirdest. I promise next sessions won't go that far down the fox hole.

If you want to keep it simple by limiting your choices at the characters that naturally allude to the sound of your name... I guess the list of possibilities would be made of complete – the simplest one by far and the one sempai used – or light or dragon or good or silk or far away..."