Is someone multilingual? Do they try to teach another language to the other? How does it go?
Truthfully speaking, I headcanon Percival and Newt as multilingual.
Percival knows English obviously and he has mastered Gaelic since he was a child because his mother was from Ireland and she always talked to him in Gaelic just so he wouldn’t forget his root even though he was born as a Graves. Percival also knows a bit of French. Passable quality. Enough for him to get by whenever he’s in town for conferences and for him to throw thinly veiled insult whenever he’s annoyed with the French Aurors and Ministers.
Now Newt though. He has traveled the world; stepped on foreign soils and learned new languages and soaking up the fascinating cultures — humans and beasts alike.
He knows languages. Learns how to roll his tongue and purse his lips and use the correct syntax.
And he’s currently teaching Percival how to speak in Malay language.
“It’s one of the easiest languages in the world!” Newt exclaims. “There’s no nonsense about grammatical gender. No masculine nouns or female nouns. Everything is compartmentalised into “Aku”, “Dia”, “Kamu” for “I”, “She/He”, “You.” Isn’t that fascinating? Everyone has the same role in Malay language and there’s no discrimination in it!”
Percival looks at his lover and notes the way he is flushed in the face as Newt pulls out yellowed around the edges book about the Malay language.
“Plus! The language is very, very romantic. You only utter one word to express your deep feeling. For example, when you miss someone, when you yearn for someone and you want to hold them in your arms in the deepest jungle of Borneo, you just look up at the stars and say, “Rindu.”
“Rindu?” Percival asks and Newt nods.
“Rindu” as in “I miss you. I yearn for you. I long to be with you. Every sharp painful feeling you have in your chest from missing someone so much is compressed into one single word and that is “Rindu”.
Percival tilts his head to the side, watching the way the lights from the fire in the hearth splashes across Newt’s face.
“How about love? When I love someone so much that I feel happy and scared at the same time. When I look at the person I love, I feel like my chest is being clawed from the inside out by how much I love this person?”
Newt glances up and catches Percival’s gaze before he ducks his head to hide a shy smile.
“If you feel like that towards someone then the word for it is “Sayang”. It’s such a soft word when you say it; like a quiet whisper, a sighing breath like you can’t believe this person is yours,” Newt explains, his smile growing wider when Percival keeps peering at him. “It’s a word that you don’t lightly use in the Malay culture. It carries your feeling, your longing, your hope for that one person whom you truly love.”
Percival crawls closer to where Newt is sitting; peering his face up, trying to catch Newt’s eyes and when green meets hazel, Percival whispers the word.
He utters it in a breathless sigh in a complete reverence that Newt can’t help but leans in to kiss Percival slowly, softly; murmuring back the word into Percival’s mouth, hoping it will warm his heart.
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