Words Oft Uttered.
"Howe artow beeng, his amyable morwening?" She asked, climbing onto the bench next to Felicity at breakfast.
"Add Middle English to the list." Remus said, nodding at James.
"On it." James pulled a small notebook from his pocket and added Middle English to the end of a long list. "That makes twelve: English, German, Italian, French, Latin, Spanish, Kiswahili, Icelandic, Welsh, both Irish and Scottish Gaelic, and now Middle English."
"There's something wrong with you." James said teasingly.
"I'm not the one who can't keep a list. I used Scots, as in Lowland Scots at dinner last night."
"Thirteen." James ammended. "Are we close yet?"
"I told you, I'm not telling you how many there are."
"But are we close?"
"Close is a subjective term."
"Whatever." James said, slamming his notebook back into his pocket.
"I don't get why you're so intent on compiling a list. They're just languages." She said.
"Yeah, James, they're just thirteen plus languages. Also, two of them are dead. No biggie." Sirius said sarcastically.
Tillie shrugged.
"You're a linguistic genius, you know that?" Remus said, grinning.
"Prodigy."
"Huh?"
"I'm a prodigy, not a genius."
"O.K, little miss technicality. Gimme a break and take the compliment, O.K."
"Thank you for the inaccurate compliment."
"You're welcome."
"Quit flirting and get a room." Lily finally said.
"Yeah, get a room." James was quick to agree.
"You're pathetic." Sirius said to James.
James blushed and busied himself with spreading butter on his toast.
"What is it about languages that you like so much?" Remus asked Tillie, wanting to find out as much as he could about her. It'd been months since she'd become an unofficial member of the mealtime group, but he still couldn't figure her out.
"I love how the same 32 letters can create so many different words. Duck, pato, รถnd, bata, papera, ente, canard, deuk, etc etc. It fascinates me that none of those words actually mean anything. They are all used to represent a duck, but only because people decided they mean duck. Not because the words themselves are duck.
Remus had never thought about it that way. To him, a duck was a duck, plain and simple. But Tillie saw it differently. Tillie saw a duck, and saw all of the different ways people have thought of ducks.
"Why duck?"
"It just came to me. Things do that sometime. I'm a bit messed up."
"You're not messed up."
"Yeah, I am. But it's O.K. I don't mind. It makes me sound clever."
"You are clever."
"C'est vrai."
"Can you teach me a language sometime."
"It would be my pleasure." She smiled.
So did Remus.