“The flocks we saw on our way here today had tiny udders between the front legs. Milk animals need more nourishment than animals raised for meat, wool, or hides, and Dinadh probably doesn’t produce enough grain to feed animals.” He leaned forward and poured another cupful of the beverage that accompanied their meal. “Water or water flavored with mashed dried fruit as a drink. There’s probably no grain or fruit left over for fermented or distilled drinks, either. Definitely a subsistence diet, trembling always on the edge of famine.”
“Which might explain the Dinadhi dependence upon their gods,” she commented softly, casting a look across the empty room at the yawning young woman who had served them while politely averting her eyes. “They need to feel they have done all the right things to assure their continued well-being.”
“You draw this conclusion from the language?”
“The use and frequency of religious words and phrases helps place the culture.”
“How?”
Lutha made a little moue. “The precept is that consistent and frequent use of a limited lexicon, oral and gestural, denotes the presence of a rigorous sect, possibly one with a well-defined canon of positive and negative observances—”
“Thou-shalts and shalt-nots?”
“Right. Add to this adversarial language—”
“Adversarial?”
“Adversarial or exclusionary language—words that mean ‘them,’ as opposed to ‘us.’ I don’t mean simple reference to identity. I mean trash words. Like the words the Firsters apply to non-Firsters—animal-lovers, ape-people, tree-worshipers, greenies … ”
He laughed. “Those are the mild ones.”
“Well, you get the idea. Fearful people develop their religions as protective devices, ways to manipulate hostile environments, formulas for identifying and defeating their enemies. The more fearful people are, the more enemies they have, the more adversarial language they use. My race is proud; yours is uppity. My people are the elect; yours is damned. My religion is true; yours is false. I worship god; you’re possessed by demons.”
“Surely that’s very common?”
“Of course it is! Only very secure people are able to think nonadversarially. As a linguist, I have to keep in mind that fearful people are dangerous. When backed into corners, they bite! Before I start translating some document, I need to know what words and phrases might be heard as corner-backers.”
“So you look for trash words and adversarial and exclusionary language. How?”
She nodded thoughtfully. “If possible, you lay hands on transcriptions of meetings, observances of public holidays, special religious services, any session where the people aren’t talking to outsiders but are talking about them. You run those records through a content analyzer looking for god words. You also want to know how manlike the god is. Fearful people prefer manlike gods, deified humans, or gods that take human shape or do human things, gods they can imagine being friends with, or asking for a favor.”
“People don’t go into battle shouting the name of the Ethical First Principle?”
“Not usually. Also, the god often resembles his followers in behavior and feelings. Angry people have angry gods and vindictive people have vindictive gods, and so forth.”
Lutha indicated the serving woman who leaned against a doorpost, eyes half-closed. “When our serving woman spoke of the gods, however, she wasn’t talking about deified humans. During our supper she mentioned Weaving Woman and Brother Corn and the Fruit Maidens and half a dozen other deities, none of them manlike, none of them adversarial. But, finally, when she left us to our dinner, she said, ‘May the Gracious One hold us all in beauty,’ and by using the word for ‘us all,’ she excluded the mentioned being.”
“Meaning she wants the pattern to benefit her and her family and friends, but doesn’t want it to benefit us?”
Lutha frowned. “No. The only creature specifically excluded was the other creature mentioned, the Gracious One. The language is adversarial by omission!”
He laughed. “Sorry, Lutha, but I don’t get that.”
“Listen. There are a dozen Dinadhi words for ‘all,’ or ‘us all.’ For example, there’s a word that means us all, everything living in the universe. There’s another word that means all us Dinadhi, and still another word that means all us humans here in this room. When you use an ‘us all’ word, if you mention anyone in particular in the same phrase, it means that person is excluded. You can say, ‘Simidi-ala and us all Dinadhi are faithful worshipers,’ and actually mean, ‘Except for Simidi-ala, we on Dinadh are faithful worshipers.’ Or you can say, ‘Martha and us all were laughing at the jokes,’ which actually means, ‘We were all laughing except Martha, who has no sense of humor.’ “