The Prophecy

25

While standing with his back to the camera, Ulster grabbed a blue marker from the tray and wrote two words at the top of the board, a few feet above his timeline. To emphasize his frustration, he added three large question marks, then returned to his seat with a sigh.

Finally, Payne and Jones could see what had been written.

Word Order???

‘Gentlemen,’ Ulster explained, ‘I was able to translate the individual words in your letter in a short period of time. Unfortunately, I struggled tremendously with the word order.’

‘Why is that?’ Jones asked.

‘As you’re probably aware, every language has grammatical tendencies that define its basic sentence structure. In English, nouns usually fall before verbs, adjectives typically fall before nouns, and so on. For example, the red ball bounces. Obviously there are many exceptions to these rules, but over time most people recognize the quirks of their chosen language and follow the established patterns.’

Payne nodded. ‘We’re with you so far.’

‘Occasionally, these patterns are distorted by topography and distance. In America, for instance, people who live in the north talk differently to people from the south.’

‘You mean, accents?’

‘Although accents are quite noticeable, they are merely tonal. I was actually referring to regional dialects. Simply put, the location of your home influences the words you use and the way you structure sentences.’

Jones smiled. ‘Down south, they say y’all. In Pittsburgh, they say yinz.’

‘Yinz,’ Ulster repeated. ‘I’ve never heard such a word. How bizarre!’

‘For the record,’ Payne said defensively, ‘I grew up here, but I don’t say yinz.’

‘And since you are highly educated,’ Ulster explained, ‘I wouldn’t expect you to. Typically, the more education a person receives, the less likely they are to use regional dialects. Unless, of course, a colloquial term has been absorbed by all levels of society.’

‘Can you give me an example?’ Jones asked.

Ulster nodded. ‘Of course I can. In fact, I’ll give you a test that is favoured by linguists round the world. If you were to order a carbonated beverage, what would you call it?’

‘In Pittsburgh, we’d call it pop.’

‘In other parts of America, it would be called cola, a soft drink, or simply Coke. Now tell me, if you heard any of those being ordered, would you look down upon the person?’

Jones shook his head no.

‘That’s because those terms have been accepted by all levels of society. On the other hand, if someone ordered soda water or soda pop, what would you think?’

‘I’d think they grew up on a farm. Or live in the 1950s.’

‘That’s because those expressions have been phased out of high society.’

‘Very interesting,’ Jones said. ‘I never thought of that.’

Payne cleared his throat in frustration. He knew if he didn’t interrupt them soon, they would talk about regional dialects all day. And considering the recent shootings, he realized they didn’t have time to waste. ‘Sorry to cut in, Petr, but what’s your point?’

Ulster smiled sheepishly. ‘Ah, yes, my point. When I translated your letter, I didn’t detect any words that I would consider slang or colloquialisms. This leads me to believe that the author was well educated. And the more educated a person is, the more likely he is to follow proper grammar in all means of communication — whether that be speech or word puzzles.’

‘Go on,’ Payne urged, trying to stop Ulster’s rambling.

‘As I mentioned earlier, all languages have a wide variety of nuances that make them unique. And because of this, I ran into all sorts of problems with your letter.’

‘Such as?’

‘First of all, Greek uses one alphabet, Hebrew uses another, and so on. Secondly, Hebrew is written right to left, not left to right, which hindered my initial efforts until I got comfortable with the flow. Thirdly, a few of these languages have conflicting sentence structures. Some of them require their articles and prepositions to be placed here, and others require them to be placed there. Not to mention adjectives and verb tenses, which were particularly troublesome.’

Payne grimaced, suddenly understanding the challenges that Ulster had faced. He knew the letter had been written in six languages, but he hadn’t factored in the grammatical issues. ‘So, what did you do next?’

‘The first thing I did was toss away the minor words in the letter. Since I didn’t know where to place them, I pushed them aside and concentrated on the major words.’

‘By major words, do you mean nouns and verbs?’ Jones asked.

‘Precisely!’

With a burst of excitement, Ulster grabbed the black marker from the tray and made a simple chart — two columns with eleven rows — on the board behind him. Then he picked up an orange marker and started filling in the left column with the English translation of all the major words. After that, he used a purple marker to identify the original language that the author had used in the letter. Amazingly, Ulster did the entire chart from memory, never turning round or glancing at his notes. When he was done, he exhaled loudly and collapsed into his chair, as if it had drained every ounce of energy from his body.

Both Payne and Jones wrote the chart underneath their copies of the letter while Ulster caught his breath. Thirty seconds passed before he spoke again.

‘As you can see,’ Ulster said, ‘the author varied his language throughout the message, never using the same language consecutively. Obviously this added to the complexity of the letter because his grammar rules were constantly changing.’

‘Did you learn anything by his choice of language?’ Jones wondered.

‘Hypothetically, yes. Conclusively, no.’

‘Theories are fine, Petr. This isn’t a court of law.’

Ulster smiled. ‘In that case, I would surmise that the author was a French Jew.’

‘Really?’ Jones said, surprised by the precision. ‘Why do you think that?’

‘Simple maths, my boy. Simple maths.’ Ulster remained seated as he pointed at his chart. ‘Please focus on the right-hand column. Forty per cent of his major words were either Middle French or Provençal, both of which were spoken in France. In addition, Latin and Greek provided the backbone of a classical education during medieval times, so if the author was educated, and I suspect that he was, then those languages would have been a part of his training.’

‘And the Jewish part?’

‘Since the advent of Middle French in 1350 AD, the major religion in France has always been Christianity, so much so that Jews have been persecuted for their beliefs. Therefore, if the author studied Hebrew, he was probably a Jew.’

Payne nodded. It made sense to him. ‘What about a location? Are there any Jewish settlements inside France?’

‘None that I can recall, but I shall certainly check.’

‘What about places outside France?’

Ulster rubbed his chin in thought. ‘Well, French is an official language in Switzerland and Luxembourg. It is also spoken in Malta, Monaco, and Quebec. Then there are a hundred million people spread across Africa who speak the language in one form or another—’

‘And Belgian,’ Jones said, interrupting him.

‘That is correct. Forty per cent of Belgians speak French.’

Payne leaned forward in his chair. ‘Last night’s shooter was Belgian.’

‘Is that so? I don’t know why, but I’ve never thought of Belgians as being dangerous.’ Ulster patted his large stomach and grinned. ‘For some reason, I think of waffles.’

‘Us, too,’ Jones admitted, ‘with fruit and powdered sugar.’

‘Anyway,’ Payne said, trying to move things along, ‘the Belgium connection might be a co incidence, but we’ll keep it in mind as we move forward.’

‘Don’t worry, Jonathon. I’m nearly done. And the best part is yet to come.’