How Does Language Work for Nephilim, Pt. 1- (aka, something trivial I thought about way too deeply and now you get a post about it- enjoy)
So, if it’s not clear by now, I’m culture-obsessed when it comes to any fantasy world I’m interested in. I’m fascinated by culture in real life and how it shapes people without them being consciously aware of it, and I tend to look at every human motivation through a culturally influenced lens. This translates into the fictional worlds I love as well… but of course, fictional worlds are just that- fictional. A vast majority of the time, the culture building in stories is either a reflection of the authors cultural lens (often unintentionally) or else only developed in certain areas that serve the story and left ambiguous or underdeveloped in other areas. And this makes sense. When writing stories, time and energy needs to be spent on the plot, the characters, the world building… and energy is a limited resource. I appreciate authors who are able to focus on only the most important aspects of each and weave together both a fantastic story and an engaging world, because I can never progress past the deep detailed world-building stage to actually get a plot moving.
But since this is the way I’m wired, I can’t help but dream up deeper cultures and meanings behind why things are the way they are in the stories I read- and one of my favorites is Nephilim culture, because I feel that in a lot of aspects, it’s really well conceived of already. So many books just sort of copy and paste a version of a recognizable culture in our world, and TSC doesn’t really do that in my opinion. Of course, it takes place in our world, so there are similarities. But each Downworlder type and the Shadowhunters themselves have cultures that are strong, consistent, and are functional- which is my all-time favorite thing for a fantasy culture. It’s all well and good to have really neat elements to a fantasy culture- a spectacular holiday or a hyperspecific greeting or an unspeakable social taboo. But why is that a part of the culture? What purpose does it serve or used to serve? If it didn’t have one, why would anyone do it in the first place? Real-world cultures aren’t just a random string of elements people find aesthetically pleasing or fun to do. Everything traditional either currently has or once had an actual purpose in society.
I could go on for a long time about what I love about the Nephilim Culture Cassie has built (and all the Downworld cultures actually) but that is probably best saved for a different post. For now, suffice it to say that it is because of the great love and respect I have for this fictional culture that I think about it so much- and have created headcanons and systems in my head to bridge some of the random bits of information we are told throughout the books.
One of those things is language. I have thought for a long time about the Nephilim and language- more specifically, my fascination with the canonical fact that the Nephilim don’t have a language of their own and how that could even be possible. To pick this apart more clearly, let’s go back to the beginning.
The Nephilim begin in the 1,000’s AD with Jonathan Shadowhunter, his sister Abigail, and his bosom friend David. We don’t know exactly where they came from, but we know it was likely in northwestern Europe, and that they were nobility of some degree. They quickly began evangelizing and creating new Shadowhunters across Europe and some of Asia and maybe Northern Africa. And how were they making the decision of who to offer the Mortal Cup to and share their secrets with? They were likely looking for other noble families with sons that had attained knighthood, or similar martial distinction in other cultures. Echoes of this clearly exist in Shadowhunter families to this day- the generational wealth, the manors that endured into the 21st century, the family crests and mottos, the marriage politics, the heavily ingrained concept of familial honor- all of it has a distinct flavor of Middle Age European aristocracy.
So, these families are pulled in, bringing their own wealth and family pride and traditions, and merging that with this new religion and warriors code to essentially generate a completely novel ethnic identity. But how is cohesion formed among these families from such different places? How do they understand one another? How did Jonathan Shadowhunter get them to understand what being a Shadowhunter entailed in the first place? After all, in the Codex, we learn:
“The Sensor often baffles new Shadowhunters, mostly because of its control buttons, which are labeled in angelic runes. This is done to allow the device to be used universally around the world, as the Shadowhunters do not share a single common language other than the language of Raziel and the Gray Book.”
-The Shadowhunter Codex, pg 67
We also know this to be true from the books- Shadowhunters speak the language of the country in which they reside. On the surface, this is a very unique feature of their culture- they manage to have a unified and insular culture that doesn’t share a common tongue, and seemingly never did. There are things I like about this- it avoids the pitfalls that come with the the author having to come up with a fantasy language, and it also makes a lot of sense given the nature of what they do. In order to pinpoint and respond to demon threats that mostly affect mundanes, speaking and reading the local language would be important. But it does leave the question- how do the Nephilim communicate with one another? It’s true that Conclaves that share a common language are the main social group of Shadowhunter society- but the Shadowhunter world has never been comprised of loosely connected self-governing communities or a network of related but essentially different cultures. They are far too unified and strictly organized at the global level for that. They even have their own country, and it seems that not an insignificant number of Shadowhunters live there in permanent residence. While these Idris dwelling Nephilim will likely speak whatever language their parents speak as a first language, it would be bizarre to have no lingua franca to make communication possible in settings like Alicante, the Shadowhunter Academy, or meetings of the entire Council.
Indeed, this isn’t even what the books have shown, as pretty much every adult Shadowhunter is able to speak to one another without issue, regardless of nationality. In the books, this is presented as if every adult Shadowhunter just knows English as a second language for some reason, since the books are written in English. But I’m not really satisfied with this explanation. Yes, due to colonization and a variety of other factors, English has been the international language for around 80 years, and many people worldwide either speak it as a second language or have some passing fluency to be able to use it as a common language with others. However, I’m not sure why this would affect Shadowhunter society at all. Shadowhunters have been shown to stand well outside mundane political affairs, and their culture began long before English was of any significance on the global stage.
It is true that most Nephilim seem to have the ability to pick up languages more quickly and retain them more efficiently than their mundane cousins, possibly due to the angel blood running in their veins. There are even Nephilim that demonstrate the ability to speak upwards of five to seven languages. However, while not entirely uncommon, this isn’t exactly common either. There also appears to be a variation in natural language ability among Shadowhunters, which may account for a special Angelic talent that not all Shadowhunters possess, similar to the ability to see ghosts that don’t wish to be seen, or being naturally more gifted with certain warrior skills. So while there are more polyglot Nephilim than you would expect in an average population of another group, it still wouldn’t account for the consistent and widespread ability Nephilim around the world seem to have to communicate with one another.
For example, to my knowledge, Alec Lightwood does not speak languages outside of English and the Latin and Ancient Greek that he learned under Hodge’s tutelage. And yet, in The Red Scrolls of Magic, he goes to the Rome Institute for help and is able to talk with and understand everybody there, who by all rights should speak Italian (and really have no reason to speak English, especially not all of them.) He didn’t speak with any of the Italian Shadowhunters for very long- just very short exchanges, but still conveyed information more complex than a “hello, how are you.”
A possible answer to these seeming contradictions came to me in the form of another tidbit of information that is mentioned several times throughout TSC. It made me consider Latin itself as the solution- not as a first language, but as a commonly learned second language in an academic sense that can turn conversational if need be.
By the time Jonathan Shadowhunter was creating the first Nephilim families, Latin was already a dead language- as in, no one spoke it as their native tongue. However, it still had massive liturgical significance and nobility would commonly be trained in Latin in order to study the Bible and other texts. If Jonathan had the mission of attempting to recruit Shadowhunters from distant lands, it’s a possibility he could have used Latin to communicate with them (at least for other European nobility.) And by a similar token, the language of Idris or any official Shadowhunter meeting or gathering would have been Latin as well, to maximize the understanding of all participants and to avoid one group being privileged over another because of the language they spoke.
This could very well have carried on straight to the present day. For the most part, Shadowhunters are in lingual groups based on the location they live in, which tends not to change too much from generation to generation. While anyone could theoretically be assigned anywhere in the world by the Clave, it’s clear that the running of Institutes and other assignments tend to pass through family lines, or roatate between a few families with ties to the region. This kind of intergenerational stability combined with a continuous tradition of teaching children Latin as an academic language could certainly lead to a situation like the one described in the books- a unique culture in which Nephilim speak the language of the country they live in as their first tongue, and yet still are still able to communicate with Nephilim from a different continent.
There is plenty in TSC that implies this could be the case. First, The Shadowhunter Codex helpfully lets us know that many universal terms in Nephilim society (like “Clave”) come from Latin, and that the manual to first describe their Laws was written in Latin- which, again, would already have been a dead language at the time, so the main purpose to doing that would be widespread understanding.
“The term “Clave” comes from the Latin clavis, meaning “key…”
-The Shadowhunter Codex, pg 31
“The first edition of the Shadowhunter’s Codex is a hand-illuminated book written in Vulgar Latin, on pages of vellum.”
-The Shadowhunter Codex, pg 401
Then we have a string of examples scattered across the books in which a Shadowhunter suddenly interjects a Latin phrase, even when they are with a character with whom they typically speak the same language, almost seeming like an attempt to further clarify or explain themselves.
“Yours? Jace, no, it isn’t—”
“Oh, but it is.” he said, his voice as fragile as a sliver of ice. “Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.”
“What does that mean?”
“My fault.” he said, “my own fault, my most grievous fault. It’s Latin.”
-City of Bones, pg 483
“They didn’t talk much as they made their way back through the Bone City… Isabelle was whispering something under her breath. Though Clary couldn’t hear the words themselves, it sounded like another language, something old—Latin, maybe.”
-City of Ashes, pg 155
“Arthur Blackthorn looked horrified. “Not at all,” he said. “My brother may not have been wise in his… dalliances… but all records show that the children of Shadowhunters are Shadowhunters. As they say, ut incepit fidelis sic permanet.”
-City of Heavenly Fire, pg 832
“…Tessa was aware of Jem whispering to Will, in Latin, she thought— “Me specta, me specta,” and Will not answering.”
-Clockwork Prince, pg 177
“[Tessa] wondered what Will had said to her in Latin before he had vanished.”
-Clockwork Prince, pg 358
“Matthew, you are drunk. For all I know, you mean nothing you are saying right now.”
“I mean all of it,” Matthew protested. “In vino veritas—”
“Don’t you quote Latin at me.” said James.”
-Chain of Thorns, pg 598
“…the punishment was carried out on his wife instead.”
“His pregnant wife?” Marisol said, looking like she was about to be sick.
“Sed lex, dura lex,” Balogh said. The Latin phrase had been hammered into them from the first day at the Academy…”
-Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy, pg 124
Apparently, this phenomenon happens often enough to where, at a certain point, Clary just assumes that when a Shadowhunter suddenly tosses out a phrase in another language and makes no attempt to translate, they are speaking Latin.
“But Jace didn’t seem to think so; he smiled wistfully and said, “L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.”
“Is that Latin?”
“Italian.” he said. “Dante.”
-City of Fallen Angels, pg 105
Tessa reacts similarly- after being around Shadowhunters for a while she can recognize when a language isn’t Latin, but it seems to be a surprise when they change it up.
“Jem said something then, in a language she didn’t understand… She frowned at him. “That isn’t Latin?”
“Greek.” he said…
“These words, they have a special appeal to you, don’t they?” she asked softly. “These dead languages. Why is that?”
-Clockwork Prince, pg 247-248
Clary specifically notes that in her estimation, most Shadowhunters are so fluent that Latin is practically a second language, and Luke demonstrates this fluency despite not having been in contact with the Nephilim world for years.
“Over the doors was written in inscription in Latin that made her wish she had her notes with her. She was awfully behind in Latin for a Shadowhunter; most of them spoke it like a second language.
Taceant Colloquia. Effugiat risus. Hic locus est ubi mors gaudet succurrere vitae.
“Let conversation stop. Let laughter cease,” Luke read aloud. “Here is the place where the dead delight to teach the living.””
-City of Fallen Angels, pg 174
Funnily enough, Isabelle almost directly contradicts Clary’s observation by complaining that “no one speaks” Greek or Latin in City of Glass. That clearly is not the case, but it makes more sense if she is referring to the fact that no mundanes or Downworlders speak these languages (aka, anyone Isabelle is likely to want to converse with that she considers “cool” during this time period).
“So you speak French?” Isabelle sighed. “I wish I spoke another language. But Hodge never thought we needed to learn anything but ancient Greek and Latin, and nobody speaks those.”
-City of Glass, pg 754
Then there is the mountain of evidence that almost all Shadowhunters seem to be able to read Latin with little difficulty.
“The next room was clearly Jace’s… Books were stacked by his bed, the titles in Italian and French and Latin.”
-City of Lost Souls, pg 227
“Both Isabelle and Alec could read Greek and Latin…”
-City of Lost Souls pg 457
“Will was translating the Latin inscription on the wall of the crypt where Christopher Wren was buried— “if you seek this moment, look about you”—…”
-Clockwork Princess, pg 671
“At parties Jamie could most often be found curled up in a corner with his Latin, or laughing at a private joke with his parabatai.”
-The Bane Chronicles, pg 210
“Their rushing footsteps outpaced the steady tick of the Great Clock, under which was written in James’s beloved Latin, O Lord, keep safe our Queen Victoria the First,…”
-Ghosts of the Shadow Market, pg 49
“[Cordelia’s] gaze, like Lucie’s, was glued to the outside of the massive gates that closed off the property. Latin words were etched across the top of the ironwork.
ULTIMA FORSAN. The end is closer than you think.”
-Chain of Gold, pg 221
“I’ve been going through these,” [Alastair] said, patting the stacks of books on the table, a patchwork of volumes in language familiar to Thomas— Greek, Latin, Spanish, Old English— and many that were not.”
-Chain of Thorns, pg 382
In fact, not only do most Shadowhunters read Latin, but they also seem to write in it. There seems to be a tradition in Nephilim culture of older Shadowhunters who are passed their warrior prime using their time to do research on a particular topic of interest to them that pertains to the Shadow World (like demons or Downworlders or further attempts to decode angelic runes) and then writing their findings in a book that ends up in an Institute library somewhere. Much of this writing doesn’t appear to be particularly engaging or even insightful, but the sheer volume of experience contained in these pages is impressive, and a means by which Shadowhunters pass down information on which there are no other easily obtainable resources. The fact that so many of these books are insinuated to be written in Latin increases my suspicions, because the only reason to do this would be to reach as broad of a Nephilim audience as possible- and that only works if most of them can read Latin well enough to comprehend an entire book in it. (I’m basing this assumption off the fact that most Institute libraries are chock full of Latin books, and whenever a Shadowhunter is shown to be “studying” a particular topic related to the Shadow World, they always have Latin books. It just doesn’t seem like that many books about these particular topics written in Latin would exist unless it was Shadowhunters who wrote them.)
A particularly interesting example of this actually doesn’t occur in a Nephilim context at all, but rather when Maia notices that Praetor Scott’s office is filled with Latin books on lycanthropy. Although the Praetor Lupus is an organization made by werewolves, for werewolves, I couldn’t help but wonder who all those research books on lycanthropes could have possibly been written by. The Shadowhunter Codex tells us that lycanthropy didn’t appear until the 1200’s, and seeing as most mundanes think of werewolves as monstrous fiction and the majority of werewolves appear to be from working class mundane backgrounds, it seems unlikely that a large body of research was written and published into books by either of these groups. The fact that many of them were written in Latin just seems to be another clue that points to Nephilim authors.
“Maia peered past him… The walls of the room were lined with books about lycanthropy, many in Latin, but Maia recognized the word ‘lupus.’”
-City of Lost Souls, pg 268
Nephilim writing in Latin extends beyond books to encompass personal notes and journals, decorative engravings on statuary and architecture, and inscriptions on jewelry.
“…as Will had looked all day as he’d sat with her in the library and helped Charlotte with Benedict’s papers, translating some of the passages that were in Greek or Latin or Purgatic…”
-Clockwork Princess, pg 229
“Your bracelet,” she said. “‘Acheronta movebo.’ It doesn’t mean ‘Thus always to tyrants.’ That’s ‘sic semper tyrannis.’ This is from Virgil. ‘Flectere si nequeo superos. Acheronta movebo.’ ‘If I cannot move Heaven, I will raise Hell.’”
“Your Latin’s better than I thought.”
-City of Lost Souls, pg 592
“There were iron letters worked into the wrought arch atop the gate; when looked at from this direction, they were backward, and Tessa squinted to decipher them.
“Pulvis et umbra sumus. It’s a line from Horace. ‘We are dust and shadows.’ Appropriate, don’t you think?” Will said.”
-Clockwork Angel, pg 127
“…up to the front gates of Blackthorn Manor. They were black and twisted iron, with an arch at the top that spelled out the words in Latin: LEX MALLA, LEX NULLA.
A bad law is no law.”
-Chain of Gold, pg 60
It seems an important enough part of Shadowhunter life that Simon even had to learn Latin as part of the requirements at Shadowhunter Academy, and to a degree in which he feels comfortable claiming to have learned the language, as opposed to the lower level of proficiency at which he claims Cthonian.
“…he’d learned Latin, runic writing, and a smattering of Cthonian…”
-Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy, pg 330
We even seem to have a clue in the books that may hint at when Shadowhunters start to learn Latin in earnest. Here we have Julian Blackthorn and Emma Carstairs when they are 12 years old:
“Julian shrugged. “I barely remember Uncle Arthur. He sends us books in Latin… the only one of us who can read Latin is Ty, and he just learned it to annoy everyone.”
-City of Heavenly Fire, pg 546
[After Arthur Blackthorn uses Latin in defense of Helen’s Shadowhunter blood]:
“Julian slid down in his seat. “More Latin.” he muttered. “Just like dad.”
-City of Heavenly Fire, pg 832
Versus these same characters five years later when they are 17:
“Emma spoke English and some scraps of Spanish, Greek, and Latin…”
-Lady Midnight, pg 28
“What did that metal guy say to me when I told him my last name? Was it a faerie language?”
“Oddly, it was Latin,” said Julian. “An insult. Something Mark Antony once said to Augustus Caesar— ‘you, boy, who owe everything to a name.’ He was saying he would never have amounted to anything if he hadn’t been a Caesar.”
-Lord of Shadows, pg 933
Twelve isn’t the best time to start a language if one wishes for native fluency, but this doesn’t seem to be the Shadowhunter goal with Latin. Although there are surely Shadowhunters who start younger for whatever reason, twelve is around the age when most Shadowhunters get their first marks and start many aspects of their training in earnest, so it would make sense to be a typical age to begin Latin studies as well. All of this evidence largely points to a system that teaches Latin as a second language in a more academic setting rather than instilling conversational fluency since birth. This approach likely leaves large variations in individual Shadowhunter proficiency with Latin (ie, Emma claiming to know only “scraps” of Latin while Julian can catch an entire complex phrases in a high pressure situation) but the foundations provide a base for a rapid build up to conversational adequacy should the need arise.
One such situation in which conversational fluency would likely have room to be practiced and improved would be on a Shadowhunter travel year. This tradition seems to have been in place for a long time in the Shadowhunter world. At first it was mostly young Shadowhunter males that participated in this experience, and later on the practice was expanded to include all Shadowhunter young adults that wished to do so.
Overall, travel years seem to be divided into two types- the type of travel year in which one destination is chosen with the goal seeming to be total immersion in the chosen location, and the type of travel year in which the Shadowhunter attempts to see as much of the world as possible in their allotted time. Thomas Lightwood and Cristina Rosales are examples of people who chose the first option, while Matthew Fairchild and Filomena di Angelo opted for the second.
In both these cases, a common understanding that most grown Shadowhunters would share a working knowledge of Latin would make such exchanges more feasible. For travel years like the one Thomas went on to Spain, he had likely studied Spanish a bit beforehand, and since a main goal of the experience was clearly to fully learn the language, Thomas was speaking Spanish for a majority of his tenure at the Madrid Institute. Still, it would be comforting to have something to fall back on just in case communication was failing, especially in dire moments where being understood was of the utmost importance, like during patrol.
For a travel year like the one Filomena was attempting to undertake before her untimely death, this would be even more crucial. While Filomena canonically speaks some English (probably also studied before the beginning of her travel year) she can’t possibly have learned very much of the language of every single place she planned on going. Instead, I’m imagining a situation where she spoke in the local language when she could, but reverted to Latin when she didn’t know how to express something- and given the TLH gang’s obvious fluency in Latin, such switches could be plausible even in canon, though it obviously isn’t directly mentioned in the books.
This imagining of Shadowhunter fluency in Latin would of course be dependent on opportunities to learn and speak the language, which might look different for Shadowhunters in various situations. For instance, it might explain why Alec is unable to communicate with the Shadowhunters in the Buenos Aires Institute without the aide of a translator. (The Land I Lost, Ghosts of the Shadow Market.)
Breakspear had been running the Buenos Aires Institute like a mini dictatorship and had completely cut off the young men who had been stationed there from the Clave. This wasn’t a normal situation at all- usually, Institutes are run by a family and the local Enclave that reports to that Institute are also a network of families (often with relation to one another.) However, the entire Buenos Aires Institute and surrounding Enclave had been decimated during the Dark War, and the Clave as a whole had sustained such heavy losses during the war that they couldn’t afford to build it back up in the same way. So they sent in Breakspear as an interim Institute head and assigned many young bachelors to the area to assist him. Without the counterbalance provided by the concentric circles of linked but competing family groups that make up the typical Enclave, things devolved into a military-type hierarchical structure very quickly, with Breakspear at the top and everyone beneath him too afraid to stand up to him.
Throughout the story we can see how dire the situation has become, but Alec is incredibly disturbed from the get-go, sensing there is something deeply wrong with the way the Institute is being run in a way he can’t quite explain in words- he just knows based on little things, like a Shadowhunter child being knowingly abandoned and left to be raised on the streets by Downworlders. However, the language barrier that existed between Alec and a majority of the Buenos Aires Institute was likely another sign that things weren’t operating as they should be. Alec had been asked to come and intercede on behalf of Jem to gain audience with the Queen of the Buenos Aires Shadow Market- meaning he had brought Lily Chen with him as a translator because he expected to need it to communicate with the Downworlders of Argentina, not because he thought he was going to need a translator to speak to other Shadowhunters. This story also highlights the importance of offering opportunities like travel years, dedicated academic tutors in each Institute, and the chance to attend Shadowhunter Academy… the more these systems crumble apart as the strain of the Nephilim’s dwindling numbers increases, the more isolated and disunited the Shadowhunters will become- and one of the first signs of this is mutual unintelligibility.
In summary, I headcanon a tri-pronged approach to Nephilim linguistics which explains why Shadowhunters throughout the ages have maintained the ability to communicate despite having no official shared language. Firstly, they are organized by lingual group and mostly interact with others who speak the same primary language as them. Secondly, acquiring new languages seems easier for the Nephilim in general, and the increased number of individuals that speak at least two (if not more) languages bridges many lingual gaps. Finally, whatever isn’t accounted for by the first two items is covered by a working knowledge of dead languages, particularly Latin, that is prioritized in Shadowhunter education and practiced conversationally in settings where no other common tongue is shared. Under this system, it is still possible that not 100% of Shadowhunters will be able to talk with one another… but the vast majority of Clave members should be able to have a workable conversation with one another. However, the current situation the Nephilim have found themselves in has threatened this delicately maintained balance, and they may have to intercede with new strategies if they wish to maintain cohesion.
hi this is such a great insight! kind of dead blog but i felt the need to revive it a bit because a friend sent me this post and i find it so crazy cool because around the same time i was Also thinking about how odd it was that shadowhunters didn't have a common language despite having their own country and everything?
so for context i have a personal project that's kind of like reworking the worldbuilding of tsc just based on what i think a shadowhunter society would function. i lean a lot into the catholicism and also the crusader origins of the shadowhunters as well as focusing on them being very insular as a community and reluctant to change.
i also settled on latin being one of those common tongues because of its relevance in catholicism but i also wanted to have a little fun with speculating too so i have a main pick which is kind of out there: old/anglo-norman french (modified over time)
my reasoning is a bit of historical logic as well me just thinking it would be fun. originally i just settled on old english, since i kind of assumed by default that jonathan shadowhunter was meant to be english, but when i started looking into the first crusade a bit more, the crusaders were primarily of french origin. england at the time was also under norman (northern french) ruling, so that started leaning me towards that direction.
in my mind, this would be the primary language of idris and idrisian native shadowhunters, meanwhile those stationed at institutes/the surrounding conclaves would naturally speak the language of their respective countries. i imagine this would lead to a lot of loanwords and borrowing from other languages, but i feel the european influences would be much more prominent due to the geographical location of idris. idris is a pretty small country all things considered, so i don't know if it would develop any dialects within idris... (well, i have an idea for something similar, but that would take a While to explain. long story short: idris has serfs)
also not sure where to put this but since it also led me down the language rabbit hole: their names are also something that bugs me a little. these names are pretty anachronistic as they weren't popularized (for christians) until about the 16th/17th century. i give it some grace though since obviously its unrealistic to expect clare to have an encyclopedic knowledge of names. but anyhow these names would've been seen as Very jewish in early medieval europe (and the crusades coincided with a huge surge in european jewish persecution). however i don't consider hebrew as a possible common language due to it falling out of daily usage around the 3rd century and was only reconstructed in the 19th century, so even if jonathan/abigail/david were jewish, they realistically wouldn't have spoken it. interesting to consider though!
