There were dozens of different modes of address for different situations, each one conveyed by minute alterations in pronunciation and structure. There were different modes used to speak to children, one each for boys, girls, and a separate one for infants of either sex; there were multiple modes for social superiors, depending on how much more important the addressee was than the speaker, and a special one used only for addressing the Emperor or Empress. There were modes for lovers, again in varying degrees with the most intimate being virtually sacrilegious to speak aloud in the preaence of anyone but the object of passion. There were modes for mother, father, husband, wife, shopkeepers and tradesmen, priests, animals, modes for praying and for scolding, vulgar modes and scatological ones. There were even several neutral modes, used when the speaker was uncertain as to the relative importance of the person they were addressing.

Additionally, the language was split into High Saramyrrhic -employed by nobles and those who could afford to be educated in it – and Low Saramyrrhic, used by the peasantry and servants. Though the two were interchangeable as a spoken language – with Low Saramyrrhic being merely a slightly coarser version of its higher form – as written languages they were completely different. High Saramyrrhic was the province of the nobles, and the

peasantry were excluded from it. It was the language of learning, in which all philosophy, history and literature were written; but its pictographs meant nothing to the common folk. The higher strata of society was violently divided from the lower by a carefully maintained boundary of ignorance; and that boundary was the written form of High Saramyrrhic.

'The shin-shin fear the light,' Asara said in a conversational tone, as she scuffed dirt over the fire to put it out. 'They will not come in the daytime. By the time they return we will be gone.'