18 · nuawe

Part III closes with the words that join. nela is and: it stands between the things it joins. sola is or: it stands where a choice stands. And nuawe (together) is not a joiner at all but a manner word, standing before the verb like maeli, saying that the doing is done as more than one. A day of joint work:

I

lopia nela siora mua thepalu nai.
sulae nela phao mua wonepa meilo.
lohau nela misheko mua womu nulae.

Child and guest in the garden; friend and parent at the table; dog and cat (a sentence that would have started a war in chapter one) asleep in the same house. nela stands between its two, joining without ranking them.

II

phao: sulopa sola napuro.
sulae: napuro. mea.
lopia: wa siora sulopa sola milura nuola. Loosely: soup or milk for siora?
siora: milura.

Soup or bread? Bread. Or, for the smaller guest, milk. A choice is offered the way everything is offered here: both doors open, sola standing quietly between them.

III

lo mia nuawe riola.
phao nela sulae moru nuawe shiroka.
lopia nela siora lo kerou nuawe kolua.
we lohau nuawe riola. In the dog's assessment.
misheko lo miona nila.

We work together: the wall from chapter ten gets its yearly looking-after, four hands at a time, stones traveling in pairs. The dog also works together, in the dog's assessment. The cat holds the supervisory role it has never once resigned.

IV

shero shua. theula miona mua thepalu meilo.
wheo: lo mia po nuawe thuroa.

Evening, everyone in the garden, and the elder says the sentence this book has been walking toward, the manual's own example, met in the wild: we can grow together. Every word of it is yours: the many-I, the possibility particle, the manner of togetherness, the verb at the end where Phi keeps its verbs. Nothing in it is a lesson anymore. It is just something an elder says in a garden.

Part III is complete. You can now refuse and permit, command gently, count what you share and share what you count, meet strangers by name, thank them properly, and join any two things in the language, including yourselves: lo mia po nuawe thuroa. Part IV teaches Phi to speak about speaking: saying that, asking whether, quoting, and knowing how you know. After that, the fable is yours to read alone.

The machinery, when you want it: coordination is the manual's Part V, chapter 17; nuawe's story is in its own lexicon entry.