Shalampax Speaks

Hi peeps, the following is the second of the transcripts of the ongoing series of conversations that Openfly is having with Marie. In this conversation, Marie tells Openfly how she taught the people of Shalampax English. Enjoy.

“After coming-to on the island now called Shalampax, I was convinced lying prone that the people there had no language whatsoever. The only sounds they made were grunts, shrieks and groans.

“Because I was unable to walk and I spent most of my first few conscious days in Shalampax under guys, I thought those were the sounds that the men there made while they were having sex. Little did I know, that wasn’t the case. The guys in Shalampax liked to talk during sex and those sounds were their language.

“Because my ears were not attuned to such guttural sounds, it’s not surprising that I didn’t recognize it as speech. However, I later came to learn that it was. I have no idea why your [Openfly’s] people hadn’t developed a more elegant language by then despite the fact that all peoples around the globe, including the world’s other isolated tribes and clans, had done so. The people on the island had normal vocal cords that could produce the same range of sound as most other people, so that wasn’t the reason.

“Because I thought they didn’t have a language, I believed that the only way I would ever be able to communicate with them was to teach them my language. Furthermore, I don’t know why, but I developed this romantic notion that, in addition to teaching them English, I was going to lead them into the modern age—kicking and screaming, if necessary.

“Looking back on it, thinking that I could teach the island inhabitants English was rather naïve of me because I had never taught anyone anything before. In fact, up to that point I had done little with my life other than partying.

“My task was made all the more difficult by the fact that the island was so barren. There was the ocean, palm trees, coconuts that fell from the trees, and people. That was about it. After pointing repeatedly at a tree and saying “tree” and then doing the same for coconuts and people, I was running out of ideas.

“Fish were frequently washed up on the shore and ships occasionally sailed by, so I was also able to teach the Shalampaxians those words after a while. And low tide exposed some rocks below the island’s cliffs, allowing me to teach them ‘rock’ as well.

“I also did my version of ‘you Tarzan, me Jane’ or, in my case, it was more like, ‘you Grogckl, me Marie.’

“Teaching verbs for common actions was easy because I could perform the action and say the word. Not surprising, the first verb that most of the men mastered was ‘fuck.’

“Once I regained my strength after recovering from the injuries I sustained when I was shipwrecked, I also taught them ‘run,’ ‘walk’ and ‘lift.’ Thanks to the sharp rocks that we were able to find at low tide and the fish that washed up on the island, I also taught them ‘cut.’

“You know, when I think about it now, if I had to teach them English today, I think it would be more difficult. After meeting you [Openfly] and learning that, much to my surprise, the Shalampaxians had not died off through sheer incompetence, I’ve read the official Shalampax Web site and back-issues of Shalampax Speaks. From that, I’ve learned that Shalampaxians have changed a lot since I was there. They didn’t used to be anywhere near as indolent as they appear to be now. I don’t think I could teach them ‘run’ or ‘lift’ today because they don’t seem to have any need for those verbs.

“After a while, I got the bright idea of having the Shalampaxians row me out to any ship that happened to pass by on one of the extremely rare not-so-stormy days there. On the ships, I tried to trade coconuts for, not just food, but books, magazines, calendars or anything with pictures—even snapshots that the sailors had brought from home.

“I should have taken some women with me on these trading trips because the Shalampaxian guys wanted me to trade for only the girly calendars that some of the sailors had. However, I overruled them and brought back more useful material as well.

“Back on the island, I used the pictures to teach the Shalampaxians more words. Once we had a reasonable vocabulary down, I then worked on grammar and sentence structure. Its funny, but the guys were only interested in me teaching them sentences that included the verb ‘fuck.’

“The women were also interested in sentences with ‘fuck’ in it. However, because I had been extremely sexually active with their men, the sentences they wanted to learn were considerably different than the sentences that the men were looking for. And the women’s sentences were often directed at me and included ‘you’ after ‘fuck.’

“I mostly taught spoken, not written English. This was out of necessity because, until my visits to the ships, there were no paper, pens or pencils on the island. And the rock-hard soil did not lend itself to scratching words into it.

“When I left, pretty well all of the Shalampaxians had a very rudimentary grasp of spoken English and a couple of them could string together a few written sentences. I don’t know how your [Marie’s] people have progressed to the language skills you have today. It must have been through the contact with the outside world that your people were somehow able to formalize sometime after I left.”

Peeps, that’s a story that I had never heard until I got the transcript from Openfly. I knew that it was Marie had taught our people English, but the mechanics of those lessons was a mystery to me. It’s nice to have that story finally told.

I don’t think Openfly had the heart to tell Marie that the six authors of Shalampax Speaks and maybe just 10 or 12 other people are the only Shalampaxians who are functionally literate. I’m betting that Marie hasn’t asked Openfly to read or write anything. If she had, I don’t think Marie would be as impressed with our current language skills.

Hmm. I wonder how Openfly has been able to fill in the forms for immigrating to the United States. She must have had help.

Well peeps, until next time, be well.