Poetry in The World
This poem was composed by Peraman, a Daine sawyer of Auntimoany upon watching a hawk soar above the fields outside the City on a hot summer morning in Sunswaxing. The Teyorish tongue is a beautiful tongue and its forms are not overly difficult to master, being neither harder nor easier than the speech of the Teleranians. Yet it is a tongue most difficult to master! For to master their tongue is to spend lifetime after lifetime of of the Younger Kindreds in gaining all the wisdom of stick and stone, star and stream and keeping that wisdom in the long memory of Elder folk.
For when a Teyor speaks of the sea as raurumwollio, his word at once leads one to think he is speaking of the continuous rolling of the waves crashing upon the warth. And, indeed, raurum means a roaring, crashing sound, as of thunder or waves or even a rockslide in the hill country; and wowollio gives the sense of repetition, of doing a thing again & again. Yet however lovely and appropriate we might think such a word, for another Teyor, its meanings run much deeper. For the Elder Folk this single word contains not only the sound of the roaring waves but also the long memory of the Distant Sea as it was in the time of their youth far away and deep sorrow and longing for lands long ago washed away and drowned deep under those rolling, roaring waves and indeed the knowledge of the loss of kith and kin who have taken to ships and sailed away upon those waves to Donwareccwalhya, the Land Beyond the Sea which none may now attain.
Indeed, it is the mastery of ages of memory and thought and feeling that makes the speech of the Teyor difficult, even for one of Daine kind who may study its lore for many many years!
| Teyoran | English |
|---|---|
| piario le dongwayos ngweliamme tange e eng rungyo! |
The hawk soars above the field sharp his talons! |
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