A Case of Conscience
by James Blish
I schal declare the disposcioun of rome fro hys first making… and the seconde part schal
declar ye holynesse of ye same place fro his first crystendom; I schal not write but that i fynde in auctores or ellis that I sey with eye.
to LARRY SHAW
Pronunciation Key
For any reader who cares, the Lithian words and names he will encounter here and there in this story are to be pronounced as follows:
Xoredeshch: "X" as English "K" or Greek chi, hard; "shch" contains two separate sounds, as in Russian, or in English "fish-church."
Sfath: As in English, with a broad "a."
Gton: Guttural "G," against the hard palate, like hawking.
Chtexa: Like German "Stuka," but with the flat "e."
gchteht: Guttural "g" followed by the soft "sh" sound, a flat "e," and the "h" serving as equivalent of the Old Russian mute sign; thus, a four-syllable word, with a palatal tick at the end, but sounded as one syllable.
Gleshchtehk: As indicated, with the guttural "G," the "fish-church" middle consonants, and the mute "h" throwing the "k" back against the soft palate.
THE RULE is that "ch" is always English "sh" in the initial position, always English "ch" as in "chip" elsewhere in the word; and "h" in isolation is an accented rest which always precedes, never follows, a consonant. As Agronski somewhere remarks, anybody who can spit can speak Lithian.
Book One
The stone door slammed. It was Cleaver's trade-mark: there had never been a door too heavy, complex, or cleverly tracked to prevent him from closing it with a sound like a clap of doom. And no planet in the universe could possess an air sufficiently thick and curtained with damp to muffle that sound — not even Lithia.