When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

Chapter 990 The New Writing Movement

After being fully loaded with supplies, Saint Sun's ship set sail again.

However, the presence of Catherine, Jeanne, and Carrie on the ship made Sylph, who had expected to travel as a couple, quite upset.

However, the three of them also had their reasons.

Catherine is going to set up the Saintess Bank in Black Snake Bay, Jeanne is going to select new members for the Tribunal, and Carrie is going to meet the local Cheka.

With the addition of three other witches responsible for protecting Horn, there were now six witches on Saint Sun's ship.

After the initial excitement of the morning wore off, and feeling a bit seasick, Shilov decided to seek some peace and quiet in the cabin.

As for Horn, he sat on the deck, using the daylight to peruse the letters sent by various representatives from Caxia County.

The first letter was a protest letter against the "New Script Movement".

This "new writing movement" had already shown signs around 1448, but at that time, during the war, no one paid attention to it.

The so-called "New Writing Movement" was Horn's order for scholars to standardize and simplify written language in order to rapidly increase literacy rates.

There are four common scripts used in the empire.

Besides Elwynn, there is Highland Classic (used by the Leia) and Lowland Classic (used by the Farrans), as well as the unique Rune (used by the Norn).

Horn simplified grammar by starting with classical texts, because the original classical texts were a mountain of code.

Classical script inherited a large amount of the El script structure but did not fully inherit it, and adopted a large amount of barbarian script but did not fully adopt it.

In the end, they created something that looked like a mishmash.

For example, in the classical texts prevalent in the empire, black horse was one word, white horse was another word, horse was yet another word, and black and white were two completely different words.

Elven brains are different from those of ordinary humans, so they can easily memorize a vast number of words, something humans cannot do.

Horn wanted to revive Chinese characters, but the conditions weren't right.

Therefore, he used German word formation as a template and ordered scholars to simplify this complex word formation.

This means using prefixes, suffixes, and interfixes to construct new words, reducing the difficulty of learning. For example, using "white-horse" to replace "white horse".

This is only the first step in the reform of the written language.

Second, it is to eliminate irregular grammar, irregular conjugations, and standardized, conventional words.

For example, when conjugating the past tense, always follow the rules and add the past tense suffix. Don't bother with those weird conjugations for special words.

Third, eliminate polyphonic letters to ensure that the sound and form can be read together, so that they can be spelled and read at the same time.

Horn doesn't insist on making things as easy to spell and pronounce as pinyin, but at least he doesn't want the same letter combination to have seven or eight different pronunciations.

Finally, the language and writing system that has undergone the above reforms will inevitably become extremely closed, and will inevitably lead to words becoming longer and longer.

Therefore, to ensure openness, Horn's last instruction was to divide a word into two parts: idioms and colloquialisms.

Specialized terms are academic terms created independently, while colloquialisms are terms formed using word-formation methods.

Primary and secondary school students can learn only colloquialisms, but after entering university, they must begin to learn the specialized terms of their major.

This new language and script has already caused a great uproar among the general public, especially among conservative monks and scholars.

However, Horn ignored the warnings and pushed it through anyway.

This is not a policy that will show results in three to five years, but rather a policy that will take thirty to fifty years to show results.

When the topic of new writing reform came up, Horn immediately thought of something else.

"Edwin."

"I am here, Your Majesty."

Horn sat up from the deckchair: "Make a note of this. When we disembark tonight, remind me to write down something about proper official document writing."

"Understood." Edwin quickly jotted down two notes on the schedule.

Due to the lingering influence of church writing's penchant for excessive use of classical allusions, some officials frequently quote extensively from the Gospels and various historical references in their official documents.

He often writes thousands or even tens of thousands of words at a time, and he especially likes to use obscure allusions, the more obscure the better. Horn often has to call the person involved in the story to explain.

Of these thousands, even tens of thousands of words, only a few hundred are estimated to be useful.

If it was a low-ranking official or an old monk who hadn't changed, Horn felt it was understandable.

Horn couldn't tolerate the fact that the group of privy monks were doing the same thing.

Being cultured is something to be proud of, isn't it? You think you're so great?
From now on, let's get straight to the point; no more blatant dissemination of information.

Horn flipped through several letters from Caxia County, all of which opposed the language reform. He finally found one that interested him at the very bottom.

"Let Bro's letter?" Horn picked up the letter opener with interest.

Of the three great monks of Blago Abbey—Juanno, Ludvik, and Jean-Blou—this conservative old monk was the only one to survive.

After causing the deaths of Ludvik and Putzlio's invasion of Caxia County, this old man, Broe, became utterly disillusioned with the Church and the Kingdom of Leia. He entrusted the entire affairs of Blago Abbey to Martin and secluded himself completely, devoting himself to scholarship.

He was writing letters to himself; that was quite a novel thing.

Holding the envelope, which was about an inch thick, Horn knew at a glance that if it contained pious banknotes, it would contain about ten thousand dinars.

Obviously, it doesn't contain dinar banknotes.

Upon opening the envelope, I found a thick stack of manuscripts, roughly a hundred pages long.

Picking up the top sheet of paper, Horn quickly glanced at it before realizing what was going on.

Due to Horn's proposed "Revival of the Ayr" movement, a movement to translate the Ayr texts into modern languages ​​arose in both the public and academic circles.

While Broe was politically naive and stubborn, this very naive and stubborn nature made him particularly outstanding academically.

In the past few years, he has translated one-third of the Erdős texts translated by himself at the Blago Monastery.

During the translation process, he strived for accuracy, adding numerous annotations and explanations as he translated.

However, he made very slow progress in translating "The Life of Saint Blue".

As for the reason——

"...After my research and translation, in the 97th year of the Imperial Calendar, the city of Luogong was renamed the Holy Throne City."

However, the events described in "The Tale of Saint Lan Liangxing" should take place between 29 BC and 12 BC, and at the latest, it should have been written before 97 BC.

At that time, there was no such thing as the Holy See City, but the original text contains the record of "...visiting the Holy See City...".

There are other similar instances. For example, the word count of "The Biography of Saint Lan Liang" is also quite strange. Other biographies are usually three to five thousand words long, but "The Biography of Saint Lan Liang" has a full fifty thousand words.

For example, the overuse of the subjunctive mood by Elwyn, and the description of Bearhold—which was still a wasteland at the time.

After extensive research, I have come up with a bold conjecture: could this most important classic of the church have been rewritten or even forged by later generations?

Therefore, I am requesting funding from you to purchase books and artifacts to verify this point.

Saint Lamian was one of Messiah's disciples and also the founder of the Church after Messiah's death.

Many of the church's secular powers, including the transfer and division of power under the laws of the El Empire, and the church's hierarchical system, are based on this book.

Whether it was intentional or accidental, Blow somehow made a mistake in his research on this book.

Horn stared at the words on the page, his previously furrowed brows gradually relaxing, and a smile appeared on his lips.

"Edwin."

"I'm here."

“Send a message to the Holy See Building, and have them discuss it. Allocate funds to establish an archaeological research team, with Blow in charge, to verify the authenticity of the ‘Biography of Saint Ranie’.”

"Yes." Edwin immediately pulled out his small notebook and began scribbling furiously.

Horn picked up the manuscript filled with dense writing, went to Sirof's cabin, and gently knocked on the door.

"Sylph, are you feeling better? I'll show you something fun."

There was no sound inside the cabin.

Horn paused for a moment, then knocked on the door harder: "Sylph, open the door."

There was still no response from inside the door for a long time.

Horn's expression changed drastically. He pressed his ear against the door, but still heard nothing. He took a step back and said, "Kick the door open!"

Before the maids could react, several Tadatsugu kicked the door open.

Amidst the sawdust and dust, Horn rushed in without regard for the manuscript, only to find the wolf girl lying face up on the bed.

His hair was dry and brittle, his face was bluish, and his lips were as white as gold paper.

"doctor!"

Horn's expression changed drastically. He rushed over and checked Sylph's nose, then breathed a sigh of relief.

Thankfully, she is still breathing, but it is very weak.

He pulled open Sylph's collar and brought his head close to her chest.

The steady ticking sound was gone, replaced only by a faint, slow turning sound, like old gears meshing.

The image of the angel's sword and the gear-like mechanical heart instantly flashed before Horn's eyes.

Carrying their medical kits, the monks and doctors rushed over and began examining Shilov in a flurry of activity.

Horn burst out of the cabin and shouted toward the deck, "Return to base! Return to base immediately!"

(End of this chapter)