She was a small girl, not more than five years old, playing teeter-totter with another youngin. Her plump arms and legs wiggled with glee as she rocketed into the sky.
"Svirf," said sven, watching the toddler fly by, briefly outpacing his jet.
"There are four castes of the Baatezu tongue," continued his ursinal mentor. "The first and lowest (or highest, as the inhabitants of the Hells reckon things) is usually called simply Hellhound, for the barking sound it makes."
"And do Hellhounds speak it?" sven asked. "Svirf," he added, for clarification.
"No," said the ursinal, stroking the golden-brown bristles on his neck, looking at his Svirfnebli student with amused affection. "Hell hounds do not speak. Hellhound is, however, as complex a language as they can understand. Hellhound, called Harak by its speakers, is used mainly by spinagons, ice stalkers, knockers, fire mephits, whiptails, vierhaanders, and herlekin, although other races speak derivatives of it: kobolds and the lesser kinds of salamanders, for example. Xill, possibly, although the Xill language has evolved considerably in its own peculiar directions - including many of what we can now identify as Khen-Zai loan-words. Some human tongues bear the influence of Least Baatezu as well. It is well-adapted for shouting orders and directions on the field of battle."
"Svirf," said sven.
"I'm getting to it. The next most complex version of the Baatezu tongue, officially termed simply Baatezu, is usually called Infernal. It is the version of Baatezu most commonly used throughout the planes. Sigilians sometimes call it Ringing, as in, 'Stop that infernal ringing!' or as in, 'the Bells,' their slang term for Baator."
"Svirf?"
"Its rhyming cant. 'Baator's Nine Hells,' rhymes with 'Bells.' You probably have to be a Cager to understand."
"Svirf!"
"Oh, I'm sure you'll understand quite a lot before I'm through with you. But, as I was about to say, Infernal can be as sweet, dissonant, or ominous as its nickname. It's a good language for attempting to rouse emotion in listeners. Unlike Hellhound, it's a very deceptive language - it's impossible to tell the truth in it. Infernal lacks any absolutes, presenting a world of shadows where it is impossible to tell even which shade is brighter than the others. It stirs the glands without allowing the listener to tell exactly why. Infernal conveys temptations without any real information. Worst of all is the legal jargon, a specialized Infernal dialect whose snares and chains are real but linguistically meaningless. No spell can unravel it, because it's nothing but gibberish; gibberish with very binding consequences.""If it's meaningless," sven said hesitantly, "How can it be binding? Svirf?"
"A good question. The answer can be found only in the study of the Greater Baatezu tongue, or Malbaogni, from which Infernal Legalese derives. As convoluted as that can be, Greater Baatezu is a thousand times worse; none of it has any meaning at all. My studies have demonstrated that it's all an exquisitely complex code, a code whose true intent can only be unraveled through knowledge of Mabrahoring, the Baatezu court language spoken by pit fiends and nobles in the service of the Nine."
"Svirf!"
"Exactly. This means that the greater baatezu speak a language that even they don't understand. They pontificate and equivocate without ever admitting that they have no idea what they're saying. Perhaps this 'emperors and clothes' situation is a practical joke the ruling castes play on their underlings, but there's no doubt that it makes baatezu contracts difficult to interpret. Only those knowledgeable in both Mabrahoring and cryptology can truly solve the puzzle."
The flying girl looped around another time. The deep gnome stuck his head out the window and caught her in his mouth, swallowing her in an efficient gulp.
"Svirf," he said with relish.