What if a dead language could only be used once, each speaker could say each word only once in their lifetime, after which it would go flat and meaningless to them forever?
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Olvari Language Archive · Expenditure Notification · Form OLA-7 · Required upon voluntary use of any Olvari vocabulary item. Filed same day. Retained permanently in the speaker's record.
Scholar RegistryT., Senior Fellow, Dept. of Extinct Languages
Date of Use[ this morning, approximately 9:40 a.m. ]
Word Expendedvrathël [ threshold; boundary between known and unknown; the moment before crossing ]
Cumulative Total1 word expended / 0 previously / 1 remaining in personal ledger this year
Context of UseSpoken aloud, alone, in office. Not in the presence of other scholars. Not in a research context. Not witnessed.
Reason for expenditure (required). Please describe what you intended by speaking this word at this time.
I have been studying this word for eight years. I understand its grammar. I understand its documented usage, the three inscriptions where it appears at the end of a speaker's active record, which scholars have long read as the word a person chose to spend last. I understand its translation and its approximate etymological history.
I needed to know whether I understood it. That is the reason. I said it to find out whether saying it would tell me something that eight years of reading it had not. I believe it did. I cannot say what, exactly. The knowing is not the kind that translates into a sentence. I spent the word to get it and I do not regret the expenditure. I am recording this because the form requires it, and also because I think a record of why someone chooses to spend a word is its own kind of document, separate from the word itself.
Witnessed byUnwitnessed
SignatureT. [ signed ]