Rayna began to laugh at Emilo.
Tanya received the documents from Emilo and Rayna about Asyire and then went to sit at one of the many table to go through them.
She already knew quite a lot about the Asyire Empire. As a noble one had to learn the history of other kingdoms and as the crown princess she had to learn their language in preparation for any of their visits to the Empire. As the former Crown Princess she had also had to learn all the official languages of all the 11 nations on the continent.
She was also aware of rumours that they were a mysterious nation. What was that despite never having gone to war in over a decade had become the most feared Empire on the continent in that time as if they had been the most violent. Tanya didn't know the reason for these rumours but she had a feeling the Emperor and the military knew why.
In addition to the General Imperial Palace library, there was also the emperor's library and the Military's library. Now those libraries contained classified documents that could only be read by certain authorized individuals within those sub-palaces.
Despite knowing a lot about the Asyire she still took the books and documents she'd already read about before. It wouldn't hurt to double-check, would it? She wanted to make sure everything was perfect so that Malek would… Tanya lost her train of thought as everything that had happened that afternoon replayed in her mind.
She let out a frustrated sigh. Regardless of her conflicting emotions she still had to plan for this well it was His Highness's order.
It was the first time she was formally going to meet the Asyire prince. In the past ot used to be a delegate or the Asyire Emperor who would come but the emperor was now ill and had been ill for a while. So the prince was coming in his place.
Tanya read the documents and reports about the prince. Those contained information about the kinds things he liked. His favourite colour, food, etc. She would would get an idea of how to have his wing, which he would be staying in, prepared for him.
Then she went on to read the recent documents about the journey the prince would be making to her Empire, the Kajar Empire. He was coming with a female companion. She was not a crown princess he didn't have one. The document said she was a commoner woman from a small village in the Asyire Empire. It didn't specify whether she was a lover or not, but Tanya felt like it was the former.
I suppose princes really like commoner women these days, don't they? Tanya thought to herself feeling agitated. She didn't personally have anything against commoner women, her sister-in-law used to be one after all. There were many noblemen that married commoner women. However, for noblemen with specific titles or high ranking, it was often recommended to choose a noblewoman who would easily be able to keep up with the demands of the title of his wife.
The document Tanya read said the Asyire prince's companion spoke a dialect that was spoken by a small town in the Empire. Fascinated by this Tanya went back to Emilo and Rayna to see she could find documents on Asyire languages to learn more of this dialect. She was given a few documents and returned to the table she had taken.
Tanya found this interesting because she had a passion for languages and history. She loved to study and read as much as she could about them. Languages are her particular favourite. She would write down all the grammar and syntax of the languages and look for the patterns and rules that the languages followed. Every language had a set of rules it followed.
She loved identifying these patterns because it revealed a lot about the people that spoke the language. Asking herself questions like; why are the nouns in this language like this? Why are these words paired like this? To her it felt she was putting pieces of a puzzle together. Tanya loved a good puzzle. Tanya realized you could effectively learn a lot about a kingdom or culture just from its language.
Tanya read the documents on the Asyire dialect but there wasn't much aside from a few rules about how the dialect was spoken. Though she was disappointed there wasn't much, she wasn't surprised. She decided to make the most of what she could and learn to speak the dialect from that.
When it came to dialects that were spoken by smaller groups in a kingdom they were often commoners. Most commoners didn't know how to read and write and so their dialects had no written form.
Tanya was fascinated by dialects though, by how the same language could change and have many variations of it.
Many kingdoms had many dialects and languages that were spoken in them. The Kajar Empire was no different it had 7 languages that were spoken and 18 different dialects. The Kajar language that nobility spoke and the Kajar language that commoners spoke was completely different. Even Celeste didn't initially speak the official Kajar language properly. Her language had significantly improved but she had an accent.
official languages of kingdoms were chosen by what the nobility of that nation spoke. Thus making any other language or dialects spoken in the nation irrelevant and deemed improper. Tanya had actually studied all the Kajar languages and dialects that were for 'peasants' and saw they were no different from the 'proper' language. It was all just politics really. It's a shame other dialects weren't taken seriously.
"So what did we learn today?" Rayna asked her as she read.
Tanya had lost track of time learning about this dialect as she then realized the room was completely dark.
"Oh, I'm sorry you're closing up?" she asked as she stood up from the table.
Rayna nodded.
Tanya just loved staying in the library and reading history and language books. In the last seven years, the library had become a safe place for her. When Malek avoided her and she had free time to herself outside of her Crown Princess lessons she would go there. She could do what she enjoyed to pass the time. She also had to pretend to be someone else when she was with Malek but in the library, she could be her true self. She wished she could stay in there now with the horrible things that had
As Tanya left the main palace library late that night she felt significantly better. She didn't feel like crying anymore.