The Vernacular of Ephia's Wake & The Great Ring

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The Vernacular of Ephia's Wake & The Great Ring

1st Edition

by T.A.
Magus of the Celestial Disc
Scribe of the Sublime Garden

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Introduction

As people come together, cohabiting and exchanging thoughts, ideas, and words, they create a community and through community they create a shared identity. This identity becomes a cultural artefact that may be used to identify a period of time through such tells as the mores that become established during that time.

The Settlement of Ephia's Well in the aftermath of Ringfall marks a unique footprint in time and space and one of the greatest impressions it makes is in the form of the language and expressions of the people who came together to make it what it is.

This work seeks to capture this singular aspect, that in the future to come, it may serve as a guide for others to identify an era that has come and gone and to know how tell it apart from other times and places amidst whatever remnants may be left when all is said and done.

However, in less distant terms, this guide shall also serve as a way for newcomers to the settlement to interpret nuances they might encounter in conversation and also as a public project which may be contributed to by those who reside in the here and now, in this Great Ring encircling the Great Ash Desert, through their own input either direectly or indirectly via the output of their own lives.

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The Vocabulary

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• Gallows Rate, The: Also known as the Gallows price. A charge far exceeding the actual value or established sale price of the object being purchased.
  
  Etymology: Named after the exiled and disgraced ex-scribe Shane Gallows, who charged astronomical excesses on licenses, exploiting his fellow refugees after obtaining a highly privileged position as the only roaming scribe employed amongst the new wave of arrivals to Ephia's Wake.
  
  Usage example: "I paid the Gallows rate for that paper, you know! Five hundred dinari for a single page, when I could have had a whole pamphlet for just five!"

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• Sahib/Sahiba: An honourary term by which a fair number of refugees refer to others by when genuflecting. Roughly equivalent to sir (sahib) or madame (sahiba). Despite its popularity, this usage is not reflective of any original inhabitants of Ephia's Well and has been introduced by newcomers seeking to fit into a society they do not properly understand.
  
  Etymology: Though a highly contested thing, both the terms sahib and sahiba are said to originate from desertfolk inhabiting a distant world, with the established understanding being that it was how traders and folk of distant places known as 'Manchaka' and 'Calimshan' would address visiting dignitaries or otherwise those whom they sought to show respect to. It is entirely possible that the people of Qadira-by-the-Sea may have some remnant of this usage in their own vernacular but as of this edition, this is not clear.
  
  Usage Notes: It is perhaps best to simply not use this manner of address unless you know exactly who you are and why you are using it. Don't just use it just because you think it will help you fit in to this strange new environ you find yourself in - it'll only make you look the part of a fool!

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