"What clue?" The minister stood up abruptly, ignoring the messy documents in front of him, and immediately grabbed the collar of the staff member across the desk.
"Vision... vision..." The staff member who was grabbed by the collar struggled to breathe, pointing to the console in front of the minister: "Video... meeting... meeting..."
"Ah, oh, oh!" The minister immediately let go of his hands and quickly operated a few times. The big screen opposite flickered a few times, and a large open room appeared, and dozens of excited and scholarly figures appeared.
“…there are currently more than 20,000 languages spoken by more than 1,000 people in the world, and more than 3,000 languages spoken by more than 30,000 people. Language development is an extremely complicated process…”
When the minister joined the video conference, the scholar standing in the middle was speaking: "Geographical isolation: mountains, rivers, swamps, deserts... and social environment: wars, plagues, customs, etc., are the two most likely factors for the creation of new languages. …The history of the world on Earth is full of such examples, such as the Alps…”
"Did I press something wrong?" Hearing these whimpers that had nothing to do with the "supernatural clues", the minister raised his head and looked at the assistant.
"Please keep it short..." At this time, the other party joining the video conference expressed the same eagerness. This was a very familiar voice. The Minister of Public Opinion Guidance could hear that the other party should be the person in charge of the Ministry of Public Emergency Affairs: " We will ask you again when there is a need or a problem.”
"Well... okay..." The scholar who was speaking stopped, and turned the document in his hand to the back five pages in one breath: "... For the medieval world, severe personal confinement, never leaving the village from birth to death One step is the normal state of most free people; even the lord class, with long-term wars and mutual hostility, the risk of leaving the ruled area is quite high; different villages ruled by the same lord are no exception, due to the poor living environment and extremely poor traffic conditions , unless it is a tax collection or an extremely serious event, the gentry class will reluctantly go out."
"therefore… "
Finally heard the key word "so", the minister was refreshed, only to hear the scholar continue: "Under the double influence of geographical isolation and social environment, we can see that the village of Aikeli is like a different country from other villages. Even with a messenger to translate, it's quite difficult to communicate."
Speaking of this, the scholar raised his hand to signal, and a young man next to him, probably an assistant, pressed the console a few times, and the screen behind the scholar showed the first time Dean and Elmo arrived in Akeli Village. The clips of exchanges, the clips of the interrogation when the thieves were captured, and the clips of interrogation where Wu Qingchen blocked messengers from other villages with public weapons.
"In such a situation, under the premise of a unified script, for example, on Earth, dialects are extremely different from each other... Putting them in the medieval world where the literacy rate is less than 0.5%, they already belong to different languages in essence."
"Zooming up to the entire Akford Territory, the situation is similar. From the dinner yesterday, the visit to the castle, and the chat before the morning prayer today, it can be clearly seen that all the officials, guards, and attendants from different villages, Basically, they all have serious accent problems... For example, the second Zhuangtou, his father is from Ori Village... "
"Please wait a moment..." The minister adjusted the status of the microphone and joined the video connection: "In these cases, the briefing basically has... Where are the supernatural clues?"
"Supernatural clues are hidden in the accent..." The scholar paused again, and turned the document over two pages again: "Well... here it is..."
The scholar gestured again, and the assistant next to him operated again, and a panoramic picture of Wu Qingchen leading everyone to morning prayer appeared on the monitor.
"Because of the good stage effect designed by the staff group, the morning prayer hosted by Mr. Wu Qingchen is very appealing. Please watch it..." The scholar adjusted the speed to 0.3 times, held a small stick and clicked on the video screen, and everyone looked at the position where the scholar deliberately clicked , and soon discovered that when Wu Qingchen recited the prayer, a large part of the audience below followed him silently.
"Follow... can't you? Is this a supernatural clue?" The head of the Public Opinion Guidance Department heard that the person in charge of the Public Emergency Department was already very impatient.
"No." The scholar shook his head: "The following is the result of the cooperation of experts from the lip language group and the micro-expression group."
The scholar pressed a few keys, and a series of words and short sentences spoken by more than 20 people in the language of the Middle Ages came out of the speakers immediately.
"It's a parody of religious language."
After speaking, the scholar pressed a few more keys, and another string of words and short sentences spoken by these twenty-odd people in the language of the Middle Ages came out from the speaker.
"It's a simulation of everyday conversation."
"Hmmm..." said one of the more astute videoconference participants: "The accents of the morning prayers are very neat, and the difference in ordinary conversation is quite large."
"Not bad." In the remote video conference, the scholar nodded: "A third of the more than a dozen sound collection objects are permanent residents of Fort Ackford, and a third are frequent business trips to other villages. of the officers, and the last third were subjects who had lived in other villages for many years... The results are quite clear: geographical isolation and social environment factors play a very different role in terms of religious language and everyday dialogue.”
"This..." the person in charge of the Public Opinion Guidance Department said suspiciously: "Is this the difference caused by standard pronunciation? Formal French and regional slang are not affected to the same degree by local accents... After all, formal French has a national education system , with national coverage on radio, television, and…”
Speaking of this, the head of the Public Opinion Guidance Department suddenly stopped by himself.
"That's right, it's the same as you think..." The scholar smiled: "Radio, TV, websites, of course there are none of these in the medieval world... As for the education system, everyone has seen the teaching ability of Your Excellency Praia."
"Ignore the idiots in the Public Opinion Department, and then?" Another video conference participant couldn't wait to ask.
"Well..." The scholar only turned one page this time: "Data analysis shows that the language and accent of the objects Mr. Wu Qingchen has contacted are directly proportional to the degree of geographical isolation between them. The greater the degree of isolation, the greater the difference in accent. The more obvious, combined with other intelligence, there is a fairly obvious data trend."
"For example..." The scholar's assistant operated again to change the content of the display screen again: "The most common words such as pea, buckwheat, diving, and small fire... Based on the accent of Akeli village, the nearest village of Akford It is 0.85, the further away village of Ori is 0.72, the farther village of Loveland is 0.63, the farthest is 0.41 for the parish deacon, the farthest distance to the current location, and the thief from another territory is 0.22... "
Speaking of this, the scholar lowered his arms: "Such a change is basically a slash."
"However..." the scholar continued: "For the same statistical objects, when it comes to religious terms, although they are also affected by accents, the average change rate is only 17%-25%. Some uncommon ones, For words in the purely spiritual realm, the rate of change is even between 5% and 9%!"
Speaking of this, the scholar bent his arms: "Such a change is basically a wavy line with very low fluctuations."
"A slash... a wavy line..." the head of the Public Opinion Guidance Department murmured and repeated something vaguely in his mind.
"Through discussions with gentlemen in the field of linguistics..." The speaking scholar nodded to dozens of other scholars in the seminar room: "And communicated with colleagues from other countries, the current conclusion is that 15%-78% of the changes in daily language The rate is completely in line with the previous Akford Territory and surrounding areas, affected by geographical isolation and social and environmental factors, the judgment of the local language was gradually formed around 200-500 years ago."
"However, religious terms are only 5%-9%, and 17%-25%..." At this point, the speaker's face is full of unbelievable expressions: "5%-9%! What does this mean? This data shows that since 300 years ago, the entire Akford Territory, the entire Fishgard parish, and even another area covered by the lord, the religious personnel used the same language! The accent is exactly the same language , and for a long, long time, more than a hundred years, almost nothing has changed!"
"And what does 17%-25% mean?"
The speaking scholar said slowly and solemnly: "Currently there are various conjectures, but the most recognized by colleagues around the world is: 150 to 170 years ago, after some accident happened, the originally identical religious language suddenly began to be affected by the surrounding people. The influence of geographical isolation factors and social environment factors."
"150-170 years..."
The screen behind the scholar showed these two huge red numbers:
"Matching this data with the research results of theological scholars of major religions and the military department, the results are amazing."