Scoobying Workshop #4, Afternoon 6/13/2006 (Main Campfire)
[ Roster]
Xander is standing in front of the unlit campfire holding up a book in the hand that doesn't have splinted fingers. He's being careful not to get soot on it because yo, Tev'Meckian/English Dictionary. In hardback.
"Hi, my name's Xander and I'm a geek. I'm sure that revelation totally gasts your flabber. But despite the huge pains I take to hide that fact, I felt I should confess it for the good of all, since sometimes it comes in handy to be a geek."
He coughs, then says in a gravelly voice, "Pef trom Grabthar, jux shag!"
"Okay, a real Tev'Meckian would totally laugh at my accent, if there were real Tev'Meckians. But how many other people, or monsters, or real aliens, or whoever I might have to keep something secret from while my team talks in front of them, are gonna have a clue what I just said?"
He waves the book. "This is a totally invented language, which means the speaking population is limited to... well, geeks. That makes it really useful for talking in front of people you're pretty sure... aren't. Real languages are great too, if you happen to be lucky enough that your whole team speaks one that most people around you don't, but the made-up ones are a lot easier to come by.
No, I'm not gonna make you learn Tev'Meck. It's three hundred pages long and just reading a translation of The Cat In The Hat almost gave me laryngitis once. But there are other invented languages that are a lot easier to learn, and I've got a worksheet for you on one of them.
It sounds simple, but when you speak it fast enough it's pretty much just, well. Gibberish. Except to you and whoever you're talking to. If you practice enough, you can rattle off an entire conversation in front of your teacher without her realizing you're planning on sneaking out to fight lava monsters during the filmstrip --- which, uh is bad and you should totally not do mm'kay -- and if they start to catch on, at that point you'll probably be good enough at it that you can invent your own."
Xander grins. "So today you can spend the whole workshop yakking to each other about anything you want to yak about -- but the catch is, you have to do it in Gibberish."
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[OCD threads up! Gibber away. ]