The Last Samurai (15 page)

There are a lot of Greek letters that are like English letters. See if you can read this, and I wrote on a piece of paper:

ατ

And he said at.

And I wrote down βατ and he said bat.

And I wrote down εατ and he said eat.

ατε. ate. ιτ. it. κιτ. kit. τοε. toe. βοατ. boat. βυτ. but. αβουτ. about.

And I said That’s good.

And I said There are some other letters that are different, and I wrote down γ = g, δ = d, λ = 1, μ = m, ν = n, π = p, ρ = r, & σ = s & I said see if you can read these.

I wrote down γατε and he said Gate!

And I wrote down δατε and he said Date!

And I wrote down λατε and he said Late!

ματε. Mate! ρατε. Rate! λετ Let μετ Met νετ Net πετ Pet σετ Set!!!!!!

The Alien said that that was enough for today.

Mr. Mill said his father had started him on cards with Greek vocables at the age of three and that what he had done could assuredly be done by any boy or girl of average capacity and healthy physical constitution.

Mr. Ma said that was far too much for one day & that too much material had been covered in a superficial manner without being thoroughly mastered.

I said I think that’s enough for one day

& he said NO! NO NO NO NO

So I wrote down ξ = x. ζ = z.

μιξ. Mix! λιξ. Lix—oh Licks! πιξ Picks! στιξ Sticks! ζιπ Zip!

I said Now you know the sound H makes, and he said Huh.

I said Right. I said Now in Greek they don’t use a letter for that sound, but a little hook over the first letter of the word, that looks like this: ‘. It’s called a rough breathing. If a word starts with a vowel & doesn’t have an H sound it gets a smooth breathing, which is a hook facing the other way: ’. So how would you say this:

λπ.

He thought about it for a while & at last he said Help?

I said Good. And this?
π

And he said Hop.

τ. Hot! íτ. Hit!
τ. It?
τ. Hat!
τ At!
τε Hate!
τε Ate!

And I said Brilliant!

And he said This is easy!

And the Alien made a rattling sound in its throat. Coupez la difficulté en quatre, it said, with a ghastly grin.

Mr. Ma said You know my methods.

I thought: Just five more minutes. I can stand five minutes.

I said That’s good, because the next bit is a little harder. There are four letters that stand for sounds that we write with two letters. There’s θ which is th, but it’s not the th of the or thin, it’s more like what you say if you say SPIT HARD. And there’s φ which is ph as in SLAP HARD. And there’s χ which is kh as in WALK HOME. And there’s ψ, which is ps, as in NAPS. Do you want to try or do you want to stop for now? And he said he would try.

So I wrote παθιμ

and he looked for a very long time & at last I said Pat him.

And I wrote παθερ

and he said Pat HER.

And I wrote μεεθιμ & he said Meet him and I wrote μεεθερ & he said Meet HER & I said Terrific.

βλαχεαρτεδ Blackhearted? βλοχεαδ Blockhead. βλαχαιρεδ Blackhaired.

λφερ Help her.
λφιμ Help him. ριψ Rips! λιψ Lips! νιψ Nips! πιψ Pips!

And I said Brilliant.

Then he picked up the book and looked at it and he said he couldn’t read any of it.

I said patiently That’s because it’s a different language so all the words are different. If you could read the words it would be English in different letters.

I said:

Look, I’ll get out some pages I’ve done on this book and you can work on that.

He said:

OK.

So I went to find the four pages I had managed to finish. Four years earlier I had started work on a sort of
Teach Yourself Iliad
, with text vocabulary at bottom of page translation on facing page. I had finished four pages which had been stuck in the back of the Homeric dictionary for the past four years & I had still not progressed beyond
Iliad
1.68. This was depressing but at least it meant I had some pages for him to work on with vocabulary at the bottom of the page.