Silver Silence

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I’d like to thank all the people who helped me with research questions for this book, most of them to do with translating Latin and Russian.

Before I do that, I’d like to say that I did take some liberties with the information provided: for example, as Russian is written using Cyrillic script, where the spellings of the translations varied, I’ve chosen a spelling and run with it.

Those of you familiar with Russian naming conventions—where many surnames have a different form, depending on the gender of the bearer—will have noticed that Valentin and his sisters all bear the name Nikolaev (rather than Nikolaev/Nikolaeva). This is because not all the naming traditions in the Psy-Changeling world are identical to our own.

One Russian custom seen throughout Silver Silence is the way diminutives are used to show affection. A single person can have multiple nicknames, some used by friends (Valya), others by family (Mishka)—and, of course, there are the special names a lover might think up and use (Valyusha).

My thanks to everyone who helped me find the right diminutives for the characters.

As for the Latin maxim, as one of my translators pointed out, because it’s a dead language, there’s no one around to ask if a translation is perfect. The final translation used in this book is the result of several people’s input.

Without further ado, I’d like to thank (in alphabetical order): Tatiana Agapov, Teresa Anderson, Lana Calinin, Rachel K., Galina Krasskova, Cathleen Kuznesoff, Lori Jo Levy, Melissa Martinez, Tetiana Matsypura, Father Nick, Irim Sarwar, Jenny Sliger, and Julia Sullivan.

An extra-special thanks to Karen Lamming and Vladimir Samozvanov for their detailed explanations of the structure of the Russian language and how Russian culture so often impacts particular words and the way they’re used.

As always, any errors are mine—I hope you’ll forgive them!