Wordweavers

My new hire for cloak and probes turns out to be a daughter of a wordweaver couple. Among the many unique cultures in the cluster, for linguists the wordweavers are probably the most interesting ones.

Initially, on their home planet there were two very distinct cultures. They shared one continent on a temperate planet. The people of  the northeastern parts, the Krk Krzj, spurned vowels in their language. The inhabitants of the southwestern region, the Aoai Ue, did not use consonants. No-one has any idea how this came about. But, unable to have a conversation or even pronounce each other’s name, misunderstandings soon led to war. For a thousand years, the sounds of frontline battle rang across the continent, "grr" versus "aai".

It was only when facing a common challenge, in the form of the Amarr 10th Expeditionary Force, that they started to collaborate. 

Negotiations between with the apostolic legates required always both a Krk Krzj interpreter and an Aoai Ue interpreter. When, for example, they would need to say "Amarr", the two interpreters would alternate and interweave their speech. The Aoai Ue would do the "a"s and the Krk Krzj would do the "m" and "r".

Quite rapidly, this developed into a special and unique form of art, wordweaving, where a Krk Krzj and an Aoai Ue sing together, attuned to the pace of their voices in such a perfect way that the words, with both consonants and vowels, flow seamlessly as one. 

Of course, the voices need to match well if the words are to flow harmoniously and be well understood. This required close collaboration between voice partners. Great voice matchings soon led to great marriages. And with that, peace returned to the continent.

Ethnologists and linguists are nowadays hurrying to record such performances, as the art is in decline because the children of mixed marriages between Krk Krzj and Aoai Ue grow up using both vowels and consonants. It turns out that wordweaving is only made possible by the inability of pronouncing some sounds, rather by the ability to produce some.

Ms. Ayoagan had difficulties with consonants, and pronounces her own family name closer to Aioa'aha so it appears she has a stronger influence of her father (who belongs to the Aoai Ue), but nevertheless she is able to work with consonants too.