"Suzette Haden Elgin - We Have Always Spoken Panglish" - читать интересную книгу автора (Elgin Suzette Haden)

just like the people beyond the wall; the difference is that the Losheffas from the slum look (and are)
desperately poor, and the Hisheffas from beyond the wall look (and are) pleasantly wealthy. (In Sheffa
Panglish, "beyond the wall" is a phrase that means "expensive and highly valued," as in "That house is
truly beyond the wall, but I plan to buy it anyway.") Sheff is divided only by a gulf of money and
material things and privilege, and that suffices; every Sheffan city has its boundary wall in honor of that
gulf. There are no Midsheffas, just the high and the low. I doubt that the system can be justified in any
system of Terran morality; but then I don't know much about it. I'm here to work with Beydini, not with
Sheffa Panglish, and I give my full attention to the Yegerrians.

We got into Benedict's Gate by going through an actual gate built into the boundary wall. It was a
windowless white-walled tunnel with barriers at each end, staffed by two hulking robots programmed to
keep us moving briskly along.

"It takes a lot longer going the other direction," Fadrien told me. I liked Fadrien; I wouldn't have wanted
to live the way she lived, with nothing to do but shop and go out for fancy lunches with her friends and
follow Bru around on request, but I liked her all the same. She was good company, and she was always
willing to answer yet one more silly question about Beydini verbs.

"Is Benedict's Gate worth the trouble?" I asked her. More importantly, I thought, is the restaurant worth
the trouble? I was more interested in food than in slum architecture.

"Would we be taking you there if it wasn't?" she said, smiling at me. "You'll see. Any minute now, when
the barrier goes up."

I wasn't prepared for what I saw then, in spite of having watched a long training threedy for Seagarden
back on Earth. In the threedy the slum had looked colorful and busy and exoticтАФand slightly tacky. Up
close and real, it was different; it took your breath away. I stood there staring at it, and then after a
minute or two I realized that the Yegerrians were watching me the way I'd watch a giraffe at the zoo,
amused by my totally unprofessional reaction, and I snapped out of it in a hurry. Linguists aren't
supposed to be subject to trances of astonishment.

"That's amazing," I said. "How is it done? I seem to remember from the pre-post briefing that they use
mud тАж But is that right? It doesn't seem likely, somehow."

"Well, it's a special kind of mud," Bru said. "Not Earth mudтАФnot Yegerry mud either. The Losheffans
mix it with different liquids, depending on the color they're after, and they stabilize it somehowтАФsorry, I
don't remember the detailsтАФand then they spread it over the walls in all those patterns and borders. It
goes on nonstop, I guess; no matter when you come here, even late at night, you'll see Losheffans
working at it. I think their goal is for every vertical surface except the windowsтАФthey don't like to
obstruct the view through the windowsтАФto be a work of art. Whether they succeed, I'm not qualified to
say; tastes differ. Fadrien thinks it's gorgeous, and I'm inclined to agree."



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 We Have Always Spoken Panglish

In all directions, the buildings and walls stretched away from us, covered with the glowing patterns of
color. Sometimes the patterns were flowers or birds or ocean waves, sometimes they were simple
geometric shapes, sometimes they were fractals; sometimes they looked like calligraphy, but not in any