Pirated Perspectives by InsaneScriptist

Beta'd by the refined Umei no Mai

Summary: A collection of different perspectives and prompts from Xanxus' Adventures in Parenthood Piracy. Random themes/characters from OP and KHR and prompts from every 100th reviewer.

Language Logistics

The Vongola as an organization could have developed in numerous completely different directions if not for a series of coincidences that resulted in the assembling of the Vongola's First Generations.

Notably, Asari Ugetsu, Primo's Rain Guardian got on the wrong ship sometime when he was at a port in a foreign country on the way to the Netherlands.

Many things about the Vongola's First Generation were never mentioned in history. The one that resulted in Asari becoming part of the Vongola was due to his appalling sense of direction and trusting someone's almost equally bad directions at a port when Asari didn't know the local language that well.

So instead of ending up somewhere in the Netherlands where the Dutch were carving out a shipping empire, he ended up in what would later become Italy; specifically Sicily, the birthplace of the Mafia, which at the time was not part of Italy -because 'Italy' didn't exist yet- and under the rule of the Spanish Crown.

Asari realized he was on the wrong ship approximately a week after boarding. Despite being well-educated and well-accomplished in both swordsmanship and the Four Accomplishments with some training in negotiations, the latter means nothing if you can't speak the language of the people around you. A person also gets terribly lost when they don't speak the language either, so getting on the wrong ship was a bad thing, even if it wasn't too terrible as the ship was heading in that same general direction for the most part.

Thankfully sailors that went from port to port around the world at least knew enough of the local language in any port to make themselves understood. So one week after boarding and sailing, Asari realized he was on the wrong ship. It was still heading towards Europe if not towards the Dutch -so if he wanted he could catch another ship to his destination or at another port once he had the funds- so Asari took the fact he was on the wrong ship in stride. The journey would be a long one after all, since they hadn't even reached any part of Africa and so they still had to sail all the way down around Africa and then up and around again.

Instead, to kill time on the months long journey, he learned various languages from the deck-hands, played his flute and practiced with his blade to keep his skill and reflexes sharp; to do otherwise would dishonor it. Combined with his polite manners, this made him the most popular passenger on the ship especially once he helped stop pirates from plundering the ship or that he could pitch in to help should a storm break overhead and hands on deck were needed.

This also meant that by the time the Vongola became the large organization that the Mafia Famiglia was later built upon, Asari also spoke the most languages until Daemon Spade joined. Daemon Spade being a noble, was both appalled and delighted by Asari's knack for languages; appalled because of how frank the other man was was and delighted because Asari was actually fluent for all that he cursed like a sailor outside of his native Japanese. This 'problem' was only halfheartedly corrected and then only in Sicilian through Giotto and G's efforts, Latin because he scandalized Knuckle and Asari learned to censor himself around the priest and French because Alaude wouldn't allow Asari to speak like a sailor anymore in his native language upon pain of incarceration. Seeing outsiders twitch as the smiling, friendly foreigner cussed them out in their own language never stopped being funny, not even for Daemon Spade.

Notably between both Daemon and Asari, they managed to educate their fellows in the written nuances of numerous languages after Asari learned the Latin script used; not that some of them didn't already know how to read or write but Asari only knew how to do so in Japanese as there were very few sailors that took books out to sea and written Japanese was complicated enough to count as several languages. Knuckle, being a priest had only learned how to read and write Latin. Lampo, was noble enough to be educated to do so in multiple languages even if he was lazy and therefore not very good at it. Alaude was also well educated, which left G and Giotto; plus Giotto's numerous friends of course.

Giotto and Cozarto were orphans in a poor town after all. They only spoke Sicilian and so could not communicate in Spanish or formal Latin as the nobles and educated of the time did, so they had to first be taught to speak and write in them. Knuckle taught them Latin, which they used to socialize with those of a higher class and social rank. Asari learned to read and write Latin then, and while the profanity problem persisted, Asari learned not to use certain phrases around the priest and women even if understanding of why not to use them took him years; he was quietly embarrassed by then and tried to eliminate them from his vocabulary but years of habit left its mark. Being able to speak fluently did not require understanding everything that was said especially when Asari had been led to believe that a number of phrases he had learned were just to emphasis emotion.

G learned to read, write and speak new languages quickly enough, as did Giotto and his allies, Cozarto Simon who created an organization similar to the Vongola and Giotto's numerous 'friends' who did the same. In return Giotto and G taught them how to use their Flames, even if much of the mafia's conventional usage of such flames were still undiscovered back then. It was the fact that Knuckle had Sun Flames and they could heal that protected the fledgling Vongola from being crushed under the heel of the Church back then; Flames were were seen as a blessing from God in the recently formed Vongola, and that was an attitude that stayed with the mafia, even as it became more secular as the Church and Pope lost power over the centuries.

However in order for all that to happen, Giotto and Asari had to meet. This meeting was later much romanticized as 'fate' but there was actually a far simpler reason than 'fate.' Notably, they only told people about their 'second meeting' and brushed off the first as something other than what it was; a passing matter at best was how Giotto treated it and so Asari did the same.

The first meeting happened because Primo was something of a gambling addict. He had to get money for the fledgling Vongola somehow before they received backing and support from the rich merchants and nobility without resorting to actual crimes like theft. Gambling wasn't an actual crime to Giotto so he took advantage of this fact.

Notably, this was also left out of history, but intentionally this time. Ricardo couldn't match his cousin's miraculous repeated feats in gambling and lacked even the inclination to try to do so, and thus resorted to something much easier to keep the Vongola in funds without worrying about how to pay for itself. These activities would later become illegal which made the Vongola into a Criminal Empire. Of course that meant that those activities had to be protected from both the law and the Vongola's competitors, so Ricardo terrorized the forming 'Underworld' that was the mafia by himself because the Vongola Famiglia needed the money to support itself and its agenda.

And that's why the Vongola turned into a Mafia Famiglia.

Asari had learned during his months at sea and the scant days at ports that playing an instrument was a valuable skill that could earn a person some of the local currency. It could also earn food, drink, and a bed for the night especially if you were any good. Asari was very good and even those who hadn't heard a flute before could tell.

That was really good as a lot of places didn't accept his native currency. They had no use for it beyond a novelty to show off to those that they knew. So playing for money to pay for necessities was very much something he had become accustomed to.

Like any sailor, Asari knew how to take care of himself in a foreign port and like any port used to foreigners they tended to stay near the port because they'd leave soon enough. It wasn't like the port side inns were the most comfortable places to stay in after all, which is why they were cheap. Those that stayed only did so because they couldn't afforded passage or couldn't work for it. Asari probably would have moved on and out of the port with the next ship except for the fact that a wiry blond ducked into his rented room and bolted the door.

(Giotto had been avoiding people that he had won all their money off of, who for some reason had taken offense to losing.)

Asari had been practicing his flute intensely and so didn't notice an overly dramatic blond barricade himself in his room or the search carried out by Giotto's gambling victims looking for the blond either. Not even when they broke the cheap lock on the door to peer inside and said overly dramatic blond dived under the bed to avoid notice.

(The foreigner was playing peacefully on his flute and the sword -no matter how strange looking- was beside him on the bed, convinced Giotto's pursuers that the blond wasn't in there and it was better to leave before the foreigner took his sword to them.)

Asari did notice the clapping after he was finished though. He blushed.

"Are you staying here long?" Giotto asked. "I've got a few friends that could do to listen to nice music on occasion. G's too uptight!"

Asari understood maybe half of that, but he did understand that Giotto would want to listen again so he shouldn't sail out on the next ship that would take him.

And that's how the first meeting went.

The second meeting happened when Giotto dragged G and a few unfortunates forgotten to history down to the pub to listen. The future Primo of the Vongola was a very friendly and charismatic guy which earned him plenty of friends even as his gambling habits earned him plenty of enemies.

Asari was playing various songs that some of the more well-traveled and less inhibited sang along with. Giotto had chirped merrily about the foreign flautist to his friends and then immersed himself in a couple of card-games once actually in the port-side pub.

G could only sigh at his friend's antics, as Giotto had such an accurate intuition that G had accused Giotto of having demonic help before. He wasn't the only one and Giotto was becoming far too used to being splashed with holy water; that he was blonde and therefore potentially foreign and suspicious did not help. Being seen around redheads like himself and Cozarto also didn't help, as they were subjected to holy water if less frequently than Giotto just for their hair color alone. Giotto however still sang along to the less bawdy -those were embarrassing enough to just listen to- songs and clapped when Asari was done.

Having an idea of what was going to happen soon, G pulled Asari close and gave the very foreign looking man a cash tip, because he really was that good. When the accusations of cheating started being flung Giotto's way, G was already pulling Asari away from the inevitable brawl.

The both waded back in anyway. G because Giotto was his friend and Asari because he liked the friendly blond; most people weren't that nice to people who were so different from them.

After the bar fight that resulted in Asari being tossed out of his rooms for the night, Giotto brought his eventual Rain Guardian home.

There were a number of misunderstandings as they tried to understand each other but it eventually worked out. It was a pretty embarrassing time that all involved tried not to remember. Far too much culture shock on both sides, if 'both' meant Giotto and G. Asari seemed immune to embarrassment and actually ignorant of the specific significance of some of the words he used, which did not help. It actually made things worse for both natives. They just tried to make sure that Asari learned to speak proper Sicilian and not a sailor's Sicilian.

Giotto and G were glad that Asari picked up on Sicilian and eventually Latin quickly, as was Asari. Asari found their attempts at speaking Japanese endearing but they too often put emphasis on all the wrong parts of the words, changing their meaning entirely.

As the Vongola grew, so did the understanding of at least stock phrases of Japanese and a number of other languages. The main reason was that so few people knew what Japan was, much less anything about its language or culture. It was practically a secret weapon all on its own for its sheer usefulness. Japan was at this point in history was completely closed off to outsiders, only trading in a very limited manner with the Dutch, so most people didn't even realize the country existed, no matter how well educated they were; unless they were Dutch.

Asari, having sailed with sailors was used to a bit of culture shock as that happened to him in practically every port and was by now cheerfully immune. The rest of the Vongola was not so lucky so there were a number of misunderstandings that weren't further helped by Asari's eclectic vocabulary in a number of languages when he tried to explain things should they not speak Sicilian or Latin as Knuckle had corrected the worst of that over time by being EXTREME-ly scandalized. It was even worse when the misunderstanding happened to those that weren't part of the Vongola. Most of them were eventually worked out, occasionally through use of force but some things didn't end nearly as well.

Giotto was not so happy to bail his eventual Rain Guardian out of jail that a French Intelligence Agent travelling in what would become Italy had put him in. Giotto then recruited Alaude to the Vongola's cause, so things worked out well enough for Primo.

The Cavallone also agreed to an alliance with the Vongola that same week.

The reason being that allying with that blond devil meant he wasn't gambling in their territory anymore. They actually liked to make a profit off of their horse racing, and they would have made a huge profit off of it except for the fact that Giotto tended to walk off with most of it after placing a few, admittedly large bets.

It was actually cheaper to send the men, horses and supplies over to help the Vongola than to continuously be robbed by that gambler. He was human -the had a priest check- and not possessed but he certainly had the Devil's Luck.

They too slowly started learning Japanese, if only because it had become the best language to share confidential news and information in among the Vongola alliance.

Needless to say, Asari had a number of students from all over the alliance learning Japanese; not just spoken Japanese, but also written.

Asari tried his best but for all his accomplishments he wasn't that good of a teacher concerning grammar; vocabulary was another issue considering how colorful his was in most languages he knew. Giotto had an idea that he eventually managed to convince Daemon -who had the Flame that dealt most with the mind- to copy Asari's memories of the language for himself and while Daemon had given himself a major headache that left him bedridden for most of a week, he did 'learn' the language almost overnight. Giotto then followed, chatting in Japanese only for the next three weeks leading Asari to translate as Daemon was too busy laughing at them.

It was a gamble that worked and proved very beneficial for the Vongola overall, for generations, since they followed suit. Needless to say, this was also left out of history intentionally because it was one of Primo's stupid ideas, for all that Daemon repeated the procedure on a number of the Vongola's elite and their staunchest allies; mafia historians attribute this use of Dying Will Flames to Daemon Spade's invention, spurred on by the necessity of having a secure line of communication and getting Asari into the field for their military exploits.

Asari could then dedicate more time to his music and his sword until changing circumstances forced him to chose the sword over the flute.

The use of the Japanese language as 'code' allowed for the passage of private communications to and from the Vongola and its allies up until World War Two, when Japan became noticeable to the world once more and then after as it pulled off its own post World War Two miracle.

Needless to say, as a language, Japanese was a favorite among the Vongola and its allies to learn. It isn't unsurprising that as a result a lot of the mafia that wasn't part of the Vongola alliance wasn't fond of the language or nation in general even if the belief that it was a devilish language was on the wane.

It had been the instrument of their falls from grace far too many times.

Notes: The history and facts mixed into this is mostly accurate, except for what deals with the Vongola as that's a fictional organization. Italy's history is a mess of foreign colonies, papal states and city-states until about 1860-ish when it was largely unified so there's lots of foreign languages spoken all over 'Italy' at various points in history. So Italy is officially younger than the US, as the USA separated from the British in 1776.

Sicily is considered the 'birthplace' of the mafia, so Sicilian -a Latin based language that like English steals words and phrases from other languages- is spoken by the poor plebeians because the 'rich and influential' speak Spanish and proper Latin as Sicily is under Spanish rule at this time. Sicily later joined Italy around 1860-ish and became autonomous in 1946.

Notably, as a language Sicilian is considered to be different enough from Italian to be its own language so the mafia based in Sicily likely speak this unless its a formal occasion in which they probably use Tuscan-Italian, which according to Umei, is the most well known dialect of Italian, made popular after the Second World War through mass-media. So, the mafia probably speak Sicilian and not Italian, or did because formal education and mass-media is pervasive like that, especially when given decades to work. For example, the Ninth likely grew up speaking/hearing Sicilian but his sons probably didn't; Xanxus probably did because the poor have less access to mass-media to change their language habits within a generation or two and like to hoard what they can including culture. A lot of people who speak near-dead languages/rare dialects are often prideful people living near or in poverty.

Languages have their own dialogue with history too, which can be interesting especially since Asari had no reason to go that way in the first place and Primo had no way to enter Japan and find Asari since Primo wasn't Dutch so he couldn't enter Japan to trade; plus Primo didn't have the money or time to travel back and forth. So Asari had to be seriously lost by getting on the wrong ship somewhere in India or else the major coincidences that made Vongola so powerful and so 'lucky' smack of conspiracy, possibly by Kawahira and Sepira... which is an interesting thought.

I might write on that later.