Chapter 1047: Chapter 990: The New Script Movement

After being fully replenished, the Saint Sun’s Ship set sail again.

However, with the addition of Catherine, Jeanne, and Jia Li, what Hilov initially thought would be a journey for two ended up with her tail fluffing up in surprise.

But the three had their reasons for tagging along.

Catherine was going to set up the Saintess Bank in Black Snake Bay, Jeanne needed to select new personnel for the Tribunal, and Jia Li was going to meet with the local Cheka.

Along with three other witches tasked with protecting Horn, six witches suddenly appeared on the Saint Sun’s Ship.

After the excitement of the morning had passed, combined with a bit of seasickness, Hilov decided to retreat to the cabin for some peace and quiet.

As for Horn, he sat on the deck, using the daylight to read letters sent by representatives from Kasha County.

The first letter was a protest against the "New Script Movement."

The signs of this "New Script Movement" were already evident around 1448, but since it was during the war, no one paid attention.

The so-called "New Script Movement" was initiated by Horn to rapidly increase literacy rates by ordering scholars to simplify and standardize the written language.

The empire’s common scripts were four.

Besides Elvish, there were the Highland Classical Script (used by the Leia people) and the Lowland Classical Script (used by the Falan people), along with the unique Runic Script (used by the Norn people).

Horn’s approach to simplify grammar started with the Classical Script because the original Classical Script was a mess of code.

The Classical Script inherited many structures from Elvish but not completely, and adopted many barbarian words but not entirely.

In the end, it turned into a mishmash of elements.

For example, in the prevalent Classical Script, "black horse" is one word, "white horse" is another word, "horse" is a word, and "black" and "white" are completely different words.

The El people (elves) have brains different from ordinary humans and can easily remember a vast number of words, but humans cannot.

Horn wanted to replicate Chinese characters but lacked the necessary foundation.

So he used Germanic morphology as a template and ordered scholars to simplify this complex morphology.

That means creating new words with prefixes, suffixes, and infixes to reduce the difficulty of learning, such as using "white-color-horse" instead of "white horse."

This was just the first stage of script reform.

The second was to eliminate irregular grammar, irregular conjugations, and standardize established words.

For example, the past tense conjugation would uniformly follow rules to add past tense suffixes, instead of relying on special conjugations unique to certain words.

The third was to eliminate multi-sound letters to ensure that words were pronounced as they were spelled and could be read as spelled.

Horn didn’t insist on making it as entirely phonetic as Pinyin, but at least the same combination of letters shouldn’t have seven or eight different pronunciations.

Finally, the reformed language and script were bound to be very closed and would inevitably lead to words becoming longer and longer.

So to ensure openness, Horn’s final guidance was to divide vocabulary into specialized and colloquial parts.

Specialized vocabulary consisted of uniquely created academic terms, and colloquial vocabulary consisted of words formed through morphology.

In primary and secondary schools, students only needed to learn colloquial vocabulary, but once entering university, they had to start learning specialized vocabulary.

This new language and script had already caused a great uproar among the populace, especially among conservative monk-scholars.

But Horn forced it through regardless.

This was a policy whose results wouldn’t be seen in three or five years, but rather in three to five decades.

Thinking about the new script reform, another matter immediately came to Horn’s mind.

"Edwin."

"I’m here, Your Majesty."

Horn sat up from the recliner: "Make a note for me, when we dock tonight, remind me to write about official document writing standards."

"Understood." Edwin quickly made a few notes in the schedule.

Due to the church’s toxic habit of extensively quoting scriptures, some officials liked to fill their official documents with citations from the ’Gospel’ and various anecdotes.

Often, a document would run several thousand to nearly ten thousand words, with a particular fondness for obscure anecdotes—the more obscure, the better—and Horn frequently had to summon the parties involved to explain.

Out of those several thousand to nearly ten thousand words, it’s estimated that only a few hundred words were useful.

If it was low-ranking officials or old monks who hadn’t yet adapted, Horn found it understandable.

But when those Secret Monks followed suit, Horn couldn’t tolerate it.

Is being cultured that great? Do you think it makes you superior?

From now on, speak plainly, and stop quoting scriptures.

Horn read through several letters from Kasha County, all opposed to script reform, until he reached the bottom and found one he was interested in.

"A letter from Rang Buluo?" Horn picked up the letter-opening knife with interest.

Back in the day, the three heroes of Blago Monastery: Juanuo, Ludvik, and Rang Buluo, this conservative old monk is the only one who survived.

After Ludvik died and Puzilio invaded Kasha County, Mr. Rang Buluo was completely disappointed with the Church and the Leia Kingdom.

He entrusted all the affairs of Blago Monastery to Martin, completely retreating into seclusion, immersing himself in academic pursuits.

Writing a letter to himself, that was quite a novel thing indeed.

Holding a thick envelope, Horn immediately realized, if it contained Dinars, there would be about ten thousand.

Clearly, Dinar banknotes wouldn’t be inside.

Upon opening the envelope, it was a thick stack of manuscripts, roughly about a hundred pages.

Picking up the topmost page, Horn quickly scanned it and understood.

Due to Horn’s proposed "El revival" movement, both the public and academia were inspired to translate El Empire texts into contemporary language.

Politically naive and stubborn, Rang Buluo’s naive and stubborn nature instead made him exceptionally gifted academically.

Over the years, of all the El Empire texts translated by Blago Monastery, he alone translated one-third.

In the process of translating, he strived for accuracy, adding numerous annotations and explanations while translating.

Yet, he progressed very slowly while translating "Saint Rania’s Life."

As for the reason —

"...After my investigation and translations, in Imperial Calendar 97, Luogong City was renamed Holy Seat City.

But the events in ’Saint Rania’s Life’ should have occurred from Imperial Calendar 29 BC to Imperial Calendar 12, and at the latest written on or before Imperial Calendar 97.

At that time, there was no mention of ’...visiting Holy Seat City...’ in the text.

There are other similar issues, like the word count of ’Saint Rania’s Life’ being peculiar, other chronicles are often three to five thousand words, but ’Saint Rania’s Life’ has a full fifty thousand words.

Such as the misuse of the El Empire’s subjunctive mood and the description of Bear Castle Territory—back then, Bear Castle Territory was still wilderness.

Through thorough investigation, I’ve made a bold hypothesis: could this most important classic of the Church have been rewritten or even fabricated by later generations?

Hence, I request funding from you to acquire books and artifacts to verify this point."

Saint Rania was one of Miseria’s disciples, and after Miseria’s death, he was also the founder of the Church.

Many secular powers of the Church, including the legal transfers and divisions of the El Empire, and the hierarchy system of the Church are based on this book.

It’s uncertain whether Rang Buluo was intentional or accidental, but he actually found issues in this book during his research.

Horn stared at the words on the page, his previously furrowed brows gradually relaxed, and a smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.

"Edwin."

"I’m here."

"Send a communiqué to the Holy Seat Mansion, have them discuss, authorize the establishment of a verification archaeological team, with Buluo leading, to confirm the authenticity of ’Saint Rania’s Life.’"

"Yes." Edwin immediately took out a small notebook and started writing furiously. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

Horn then took the manuscript filled with dense writing to Hilov’s cabin and gently knocked on the door.

"Hilov, are you feeling better? I’ve got something interesting to show you."

No sound came from inside the cabin.

Horn paused for a moment and knocked harder on the door: "Hilov, open the door."

Still no response came from inside after quite a while.

Horn’s expression suddenly changed, he pressed his ear against the door and still heard nothing. He stepped back: "Kick the door open!"

Before the maids could react, several loyal followers kicked the door open with a strong kick.

Amidst the splintering wood and dust, Horn ignored the manuscript and quickly rushed inside, only to see Wolf Woman lying on her back on the bed.

Her fur was lifeless, her complexion was blue, and her lips were as pale as gold.

"Doctor!"

Horn’s face changed dramatically as he rushed over to check Hilov’s breath, relieved to find she still had faint breathing.

He pulled open Hilov’s collar, bringing his head close to her chest.

The tight ticking sound was gone, replaced by the weak and slow turning sound of what seemed like old gears meshing.

Before Horn’s eyes flashed the day Angel stabbed with a sword, and the mechanical heart.

Carrying medical kits, monks and doctors rushed in quickly, clumsily beginning to check on Hilov.

Horn meanwhile burst out of the cabin and shouted towards the deck: "Return to port, return to port immediately!"