Babel

by R.F. Kuang

Language was always the companion of empire, and as such, together they begin, grow, and flourish. And later, together, they fall. ANTONIO DE NEBRIJA, Gramática de la lengua castellana

He could read the language better than he spoke it.

Family names were not things to be dropped and replaced at whim, he thought. They marked lineage; they marked belonging.

‘The English reinvent their names all the time,’ said Professor Lovell. ‘The only families who keep theirs do it because they have titles to hold on to, and you certainly haven’t got any.

Only he could determine the truth, because only he could communicate it to all parties.

The word loss was inadequate. Loss just meant a lack, meant something was missing, but it did not encompass the totality of this severance, this terrifying un-anchoring from all that he’d ever known.