Suzette Elgin - Native Tongue

It was inevitable that Sophie Ann’s racket, and Michaela’s questions, would draw the attention of the other women; they came pretty quickly. Caroline came, wrapped in her outdoor cape, just back from an assignment, and cocked her head sharply to listen.

“Oh, goodness,” she said at once, “what nonsense she’s talking!”

“Is it?”

“It certainly sounds like it. What’s she been saying, Mrs. Landry?”

“Something about a secret language for women,” Michaela told her. “She calls it Ladin… lahadin… Latin? Almost like Latin, but with a lilt to it. And she keeps saying that it won’t be long now, whatever that might mean.”

“Oh,” Caroline laughed, “it’s just the anesthetic!”

“Are you certain of that?”

“Mrs. Landry, Sophie is almost one hundred years old!”

“So? Her mind is as clear as your own.”

“Yes, but she is talking about something from long long ago… you know how very old people are! They cannot remember what they did five minutes ago — her cane, for example, which she never knows the location of — but things that happened half a century ago are as fresh in their mind as their own names. That’s all this is.”

“Please explain, Mrs. Chornyak,” said Michaela firmly. “I’m afraid it’s a complete muddle to me.”

Caroline held the screen with one hand and unwound her cape with the other, talking easily. “Mrs. Landry, when Sophie was a little girl the women’s language was a secret, I expect. Women were much more frightened then, you know; at least the women of the Lines were. They were afraid that if the men found out about the women’s language they’d make them stop working on it, and so they tried to keep it a secret. But that’s all been over for many many years.”

“There is a woman’s language, then?”

“Certainly,” said Caroline cheerfully. “Why not? It’s called Langlish, Mrs. Landry, not whatever Sophie was mumbling about Latin. And it’s not a secret at all. The men think it’s a silly waste of time, but then they think that everything we do except interpreting and translating and bearing children is a silly waste of time. You can almost always find somebody working on Langlish in the computer room, my dear… you’re perfectly free to go watch if you like.”

“But it’s for linguist women,” said Michaela.

“Did Sophie say that? ”

“No… but I assumed it would be.”

“That would be a warped sort of activity,” Caroline observed. “And a real waste of time… no, it’s not reserved for linguist women. We are constructing it, because we have the training. But when it’s finished, when it’s ready for us to begin teaching it, then we will offer it to all women — and if they want it, it will be for all women.”

“Sophie Ann called it a pigeon. A pigeon?”

Caroline frowned, and then she saw what the trouble was. “Not the sort of pigeon you’re thinking of, Mrs. Landry,” she said. “Not the bird. It’s pidgin… p-i-d-g-i-n.”

“What does that mean?”

“Is Sophie Ann all right, Mrs. Landry?”

“Absolutely. I wouldn’t be chatting with you if she weren’t.”

“I’m sorry; I ought to have known that. A pidgin, then… when a language in use has no native speakers, it is called a pidgin.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Say that a conquering nation spoke Hungarian. And they conquered a people who spoke only English. They would have no language in common, you see. But they would need to communicate for trade, for administration, that sort of thing. In such a situation they would work up between them a language that wasn’t quite Hungarian and wasn’t quite English, for use only when the two peoples had to communicate. And a language like that, the native language of no body, you perceive, is called a pidgin.”

“Is that a good thing? For women to learn one of these pidgins?”

“No… it isn’t. But say that the conquered speakers of English for some reason became isolated from the rest of the world. Say they had children who were born hearing the pidgin and grew up using it and perhaps began to prefer it to English. And by the time they had children, it was the only language the children heard, and it became a native tongue for them , for the children. Then it would be what is called a creole , Mrs. Landry. And it would be a new real language. It would develop then like any other language, change like any other language, behave like any other language.”

“So… women here who know this Langlish only from a book or a computer, they speak it to children. And the children would speak it, but it’s not a real language. But if they speak it to their own children…”

“The situation is very different from the classic one,” said Caroline. “We women are not precisely a conquered people with an existing language… but the analogy is close enough. Basically, yes; it would then become a native language. Remembering, of course, that all children of the Lines are multilingual and have a number of native languages. It would become one of their native languages.”

“For all women to learn, if they chose to.”

“Of course.”

“ Would they choose to, do you think?”

Sophie Ann was wide awake now, looking at them with an anxious expression that caught Michaela’s attention at once; she turned to her patient and touched her soothingly, stroking her arm.

“It’s all right, Sophie Ann,” she said. “It’s all over.”

“I’ve just been explaining to Mrs. Landry about Langlish,” Caroline told Sophie Ann. “You were talking about it before you woke up, dearlove — a lot of nonsense, I’m afraid. About long ago, when it was kept secret.”

Michaela saw the look of consternation on Sophie Ann’s face, and spoke quickly to reassure her. “It’s all right, dear,” she said, knowing that the old woman must be embarrassed at her confusion. “Really! Caroline has explained it all to me. It’s all right.”

“Well,” said Sophie Ann weakly. “Well. I’m sure… I’m sure everyone talks a lot of drivel under an anesthetic.”

“Oh, they certainly do,” Michaela reassured her. “Doctors and nurses don’t pay any attention — it’s never anything but nonsense — it was just that in your case it was such interesting nonsense.”

Caroline kissed Sophie’s forehead and went away, and Michaela settled to her care, saying no more. But she knew, nevertheless, that this was the very last straw. She could not harm these women.

She stood calmly before Thomas’ desk and listened to his courteous objections, but she was absolutely firm. He could of course force her to go through the formal procedure of contacting her brother-in-law and having him petition for her release, if he chose to do so. She knew no reason why he should, because he would have no trouble finding a replacement for her; but whatever he did, she was not going to change her mind.

She did not tell him her problem was that her life’s mission was to murder linguists and that she found herself in the uncomfortable dilemma of having for patients only linguists she could not bring herself to kill. She provided him with logical reasons, instead.

“My patients are endangered by this situation,” she told him when he asked for reasons. “There’s no way that I, a single nurse, can provide so many sick women with adequate care. And while I am not in the least afraid of hard work, Mr. Chornyak, I do have standards. When the work reaches a point where it’s literally impossible for me to do, my patients’ welfare must become my primary concern. I can’t any longer pretend that I can fill this post, sir.”