Bonus Headcanoon (just for fun)!
Zhask is capable of learning any language as long as he's heard the words being spoken before. Of course, this also means that he's an audio thesaurus. Learning by sound and association.
Just don't show him the text or ask him to write something down, he can't bloody read. He doesn't even know the letters.
But of course he CAN learn. Usually by digging deep into the brains of other people. But he and Yve had had an agreement not to do that unless if the situation needs it direly (like when they're about to die with very important information). Of course that usually never happens so he's stuck with scratching his (and Jawhead's) noggin with the ABCs.
Sample dialogues:
"What do you mean it's spelled with a C and a B? The noise is K and M! Why is it spelled C R U M B but sounds like K-RUM??"
- Learning his Cs, Ks, and silent letters.
"Why are there spelling differences. You're telling me that if I spell it according to a different region's spelling it's wrong systematically??"
- Learning the spelling differences depending on where you come from.
"Are there 24 letters? 25?? 26??? How are we still so confused about this????"
- Dude I don't know either man.
"We never had this problem on Kastiya."
- Grampa.
"Back in my day if we couldn't think we had to spend an hour mental training. You mean to tell me you children get put into a corner?? No I will no- fine I'll go to the corner and think about my pitiful life choices."
- Grampa recalls the good ol' days.
"Oh you're giving your peculiar letters to my Kastiyan words now aren't you. Yve, we talked about this, Kastiyan stays Kastiyan."
- It's slightly offensive to him. He'll grow into it.
"Speaking of, HOW THE FUCK DO I EVEN SPELL YOUR NAME??? Y E E V? E V E?? E E V??? Oh wait it's Y V E okay Y V E.... Who named you???"
- What we all thought of except backwards.
"Zhask. Z H A S K. That's clear enough. Why can't you have a name like mine YVE?"
- Well-placed sass is a sign of a healthy mind.
"Spell C A T. Oh I am not going through this again. C A T. Oh that was right? OH THANK GOD-"
- Achievement!
"Shaloshta (mom/mother)... I want to go home... I'm scared... there's a Q...."
- Learning of the existence of Qs and queues.
"THERE'S DIFFERENT LETTERS???"
- Learning that no, not everybody uses the same set of letters on this planet too.
And the list goes on....










