How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
It was boring—I usually fell asleep when I tried to study the amazing accomplishments of the Founder. His translation methods were detailed in the book and hard to understand. They included counting vowels and comparing hundreds of versions of the old songs—and repeating certain words thousands of times to himself to see how the words might have been changed over time, all the while dodging his own royal family. (50.5)
What Somiss—oh, sorry, the Great and Mighty Founder—is described doing here is basic historical linguistics research. Spoken languages change over time, but they usually follow patterns when doing so, so theoretically you could figure out those patterns by comparing lots of variants of the same words, phrases, or songs that you've collected. It sure sounds like a pain in the butt to do all that work with little to go on, though.
Quote #8
She was afraid of him—and she was afraid for Franklin—but Somiss could not be trusted as the sole keeper of the old songs. Rinka's Erides was right. No one person ever should be. (51.4)
Even though Sadima's afraid of Somiss (heck, we would be too), she chooses to make copies of his notes. She does this because she believes that knowledge shouldn't be hoarded. This belief is also held by the Eridians, a group that worships a prophet known as Erides. For all that they're made out to be a cult, they're not sounding too bad at the moment.
Quote #9
The next chapter wasn't about the Founder. It was about the songs that magicians from the first Age of Magic had passed down by memorizing the words of their magical chants, then setting them to simple tunes. They had taught their children the songs, and their children had taught their children, and so on. So for all the centuries when there was no magic in the world, when kings ruled completely, scraps of it were saved. (54.3)
So did the songs pass to just any children, or specifically the Gypsies? Or maybe both? Since we know Somiss is the best candidate for the Founder of the magic academy, we're thinking he's probably being his usual secretive self and glossing over some of the details of the language of magic. And we'll also point out that there's no mention of Franklin or Sadima in the history book, making it sound like Somiss figured out all the linguistics stuff by his lonesome self. Jerk.