Ektish

Ektish [1]

Franz Hohler [2]

Translated by xia23

The Ektish belongs to the dead language and seems to me the most interesting thing of all: it had only two words. The first word is “M” and the second one is “Saskrueptloxptqwrstfgaksolömpääghrcks”. “M” is feminine and means “What is going on now?”, and “Saskrueptloxptqwrstfgaksolömpääghrcks” is masculine and means “Nothing”.

It came along that the Ekters lived in an extinct volcano crater, which was always rumbling deep in the interior. Every time it was rumpling, Ektish women jumped up with fear and shouted: “M!”, to which their husbands said with reassuring voices: “Saskrueptloxptqwrstfgaksolömpääghrcks.”   That was the only thing the Ektish men talked about, everything else they did was in a big hurry and had no time to speak.

This must have not been a quiet land, the Ektien. Once it came as a result of unusual increasing numbers of volcano rumblings, there were even political demonstrations, in which a large number of Ekters gathered in front of the town hall and shouted “M!M!M!” in a speech chorus,  so the Ektish president went out in the balcony  and assured them in a great speech: “Saskrueptloxptqwrstfgaksolömpääghrcks!”

Though this was not totally true, and the president himself knew that too, but unfortunately he had no further expression to choose and so the Ektish now belongs to the dead language.

[1]. p. 6, Ektisch. Weg Werf Geschichten. Franz Hohler. Zytglogge Verlag. 2017.

Ektish, Ekter, Ektien are all fictional nouns, you could not find in a dictionary –  the translator’s note.

[2]. Franz Hohler. 3/1/1943 -  . A Swiss author. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Hohler