Posted May 13, 2022, 9:54 p.m. by Ensign Kovan ch'Sirhc (Engineering & Communications Officer) (Abigail G)
Posted by Ensign Rand Farquharson (Yeoman First Class) in side - sim: The Essence of a Yeoman - Effective Communication (Tag Kovan)
Posted by Ensign Kovan ch’Sirhc (Engineering & Communications Officer) in side - sim: The Essence of a Yeoman - Effective Communication (Tag Kovan)
Posted by Ensign Rand Farquharson (Yeoman First Class) in side - sim: The Essence of a Yeoman - Effective Communication (Tag Kovan)
Posted by… suppressed (3) by the Post Ghost! 👻(snip)
Kovan nodded, secretly (deep down) pleased that Rand had chosen Tradealogue. It wasn’t the prettiest of languages, and one his communications teachers at the academy may have scoffed at but it was the language he had the most experience with. “Alright and when did you want to start this tutoring?”Ensign ch’Sirhc
“Whenever is convenient for you. But I’d like to start sooner rather than later.” For the most part Rand could move things around in her schedule for whatever time worked best for Kovan. She only had two set in stone tasks in her regular daily routine.
Yeoman Rand
Kovan thought it over, “We could start now. . . Give me twenty minutes to grab some information? And could we met up in your yeoman office? The lounge might be too distracting.”
Ensign ch’Sirhc
“I can do that.” She glanced at her watch. Just enough time to take the tray of drinks to the bridge and then try and fit a second chair into the closet that was her ‘office.’ Rand grabbed the tray off the counter and disappeared. 20 minutes later, Rand had managed to scoot a few things around and wedge a spare chair (Randy wouldn’t miss it) into the small space. It was a tight fit, but at least it was there.
Yeoman Rand
Kovan arrived 21 minutes later with a PaDD and a thin sketchbook. He wasn’t excited about the tight space but he figured Rand would prefer it to the lounge or one of their quarters. Kovan squeezed himself into the chair, and tucked his knees to one side. The sketchbook was flipped open, it was a fresh book of synthetic paper and a black marker set on top of it. Then he turned on the PaDD to show an image of the periodic table of elements. “There are two things universal to every species across all corners of the galaxy. The first is binary, the second chemistry. Tradealouge was built upon these foundations.
“Languages have three main components: Syntax, Morphology, and Phonology. In Tradealouge, the first two have absolute rules that all dialects must follow. Phonology has strange rules but we won’t cover that until later. For now, I’ll start by teaching you written Tradealouge, which is universal across all dialects.”
Ensign ch’Sirhc
Rand had her PaDD on the desk, she wasn’t looking at it, but she was writing as Kovan spoke, using short hand to capture what he was saying. A small grin crossed her face when he said they would start with the written form of Tradealouge. If Rand could read it she’d remember it without flaw - usually. The spoken part might be tricky, but Rand could remember everything she’d read instantly. Her stylus stopped moving about 15 seconds after Kovan stopped talking. She set it down and nodded to indicate she understood. She didn’t offer idyll comments, rather focused on paying attention to what he was teaching her.
Yeoman Rand
Kovan took the marker and drew various symbols upon the sketchpad, “Written Tradealouge draws upon the basics of Chemistry.” He drew a larger circle then another circle nestled inside it. A third circle at the top of the larger circle and drawn so that the line of the larger circle cut through the middle of the third one. “There are several dozen words in written Tradealouge. Each word describes a type of business such as trader, merchant, bank, currency exchange and so forth. This is the symbol for a merchant, someone who trades goods for currencies.” Then, to the right of the word for merchant he drew the basic molecules of gold and platinum. And to the left of the word merchant he drew the basic molecule of carbon and below that a molecule of air and water. “Together, this means a merchant who sells live goods for gold and platinum.”
Then Kovan pulled forward the PaDD with the periodic table of elements, “As I said there are only several dozen or so unique words in the written form, but each of those words are drawn to resemble molecules. Written Tradealouge is extremely basic, but it’s effective and it follows the same pattern. In the middle you have what you are or what you are looking for. To the left you write what you offer, and to the right what you accept for trade or currency. Above the center word one writes the time their business is active with one of three unique words. Below you write the location of your business or service or what ship you serve on.”
Kovan quickly drew several more ‘sentences’ to show Rand more unique words and different combinations of element molecules to represent more complex ideas. “Even if you have never encountered these symbols before, any intelligent species can recognize the molecules the universe was built upon. And even if you don’t know the spoken form of the language, anyone could learn and utilize the written form to perform commerce and trade.” Kovan spoke with a passion Rand would never have seen from him before.
Ensign ch’Sirhc COMMO/ENGR
Rand was fascinated. It all seemed very simple, or at least the foundation seemed simple. Carbon was the basis of most life, gold was considered valuable. She copied down each word and sentence Kovan showed her along with the elemental translation and how that turned into conversation. “What about more abstract concepts, like if you wanted to hire people for security or engineering on a ship?”
Yeoman Rand
“For that you would . . .” And he continued to explain while he drew new “sentences” in Tradealouge. New symbols that represented things such as “in search of” or “hiring” and “ship” or “planet”. Then, on the left where businesses would write what they sell or offer, he drew the carbon-air–water combo that meant living then drew a circle around them. “A circle around those three molecules means ‘sentient being’ or people like you or me.” Below that he drew the molecule for dilithium, then drew a circle around that. “And this means ship.” On the right of the center symbol he drew the molecule for gold, “All together this means you are in search of an engineer with pay in gold. As you can see it follows the same principles of the earlier sentences.”
Kovan flipped the sketchbook to a new page then flipped it around and placed the marker on top. “Write for me ‘trader selling phaser-style weapons for platinum’.” Simple save for selling part, purposefully chosen to make Rand think. How could she convey a phaser weapon in a few drawings of basic molecules? The so far ignored PaDD had a picture of the table of elements open upon it. There was a formal answer, but the key in Tradealouge was that there were no wrong answers so long as the meaning is correctly conveyed.
Ensign ch’Sirhc COMMO/ENGR
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