A soldier who leads others. The modern distinction between NCOs and COs is probably inapplicable given that it is based on social class although I note that even Carmenian squad leaders must be Hazars (ILH1 pg. 13).
>IMG, the leader of military bands is usually assisted by his
>household staff - which includes clerks.
At senior levels certainly, but the existance of clerks does not mean that the leaders are illiterate - merely that they have better things to do than writing out orders.
>Fazzur can read. But most
>of Fazzur's veteran soldiers are probably illiterate, including
>probably folk like Jorad Sideburn and Jomes the Wulf.
I'm sure there are senior officers who are illiterate but that's going to be the exception and a weakness.
>> I'm thinking that clan chiefs will want to know whether the
>> impressive parchment shown by this foreigner is actually an
>> imperial decree demanding taxes or a report to some official
>> in Glamour used by an unscruplous individual. So there's a
>> big incentive for someone in the clan to learn to read - an
>> incentive which didn't exist before.
>
>Again, most clan chiefs already have resource to Lhankor Mhy sages
>who do this sort of stuff without angering the Storm Tribe.
I'm surprised that most clans support a Lhankor Mhy sage as other than a lawspeaker - which is an oral rather than written tradition. Even if they do those sages will have to learn the new language and possibly a new script.
>> But the individuals who've learnt it will still be there, and if
>> the rebellion have been using it for convenience that may well
>> continue. Just like Dark Age Europe - Latin was the written
>> language because most literate people learnt it rather than their
>> native tongue.
>
>Yes, but Latin had been the written tongue of most of western Europe
>for a very very long time.
More accurately the written tongue of southern Europe, only Gaul and Brittania were in the northern half of the continent. Yet the Roman church brought Latin into the rest long after the fall of Rome.
>> Whether this happens in a single generation in
>> Sartar is questionable but certainly possible - most Africans
>> adopted a colonial language in the two or three generations between
>> conquest at the end of the 19th Century and independance in the
>> mid 20th. Another possibility is that New Pelorian script is
>> used to write Sartarite. Of course there may be a religious
>> inspired backlash in Sartar against anything Lunar.
>
>I think the better example is the Persian experience in Macedon.
>Macedon was a Persian satrap for about a generation. Not many
>impressive bits of written Persian in any of the Macedonian
>archeological finds that I'm aware of.
Sure, it's only a possibility dependant on a lot of factors and it's importance minimal given that literacy is completely forgotten in the area a little later.
-- Donald Oddy http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/
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