"Language." Izakin supplies. "Izakin speak language. Izakin speak Lor language. Kyeskei speak language. Kyeskei speak...?" He waves her to continue.

"No, word - Kyeskei speak word Kyeskei, Izakin speak word Izakin? Kyeskei speak Mebliz language, speak word somebliz?"

"Izakin speak no Mebliz language. Izakin speak no somebliz language."

"Izakin speak no Mebliz language, speak no word somebliz. Kyeskei speak - yes no yes Lor language? Words solor?"

"Kyeskei Lor language words. Kyeskei speak word word word. Kyeskei speak Lor language?"

"Kyeskei speak -" she gestures, holding her hands slightly apart "Lor language?"

"More?" Izakin tries then he holds his hand up for her to wait.

He collects some rocks. "Rock." He holds one up to teach her the word. Then he holds two rocks in a hand and three in the other. "More rocks" he raises the hand with more rocks. "Less rocks" he raises the other hand.

"More- person, more tinende, more human? Word, rock, rocks: less less rock, more rocks?" She picks up a rock, then stops to look at it in complete bafflement. "Rock?"

"Rock." Izakin says slowly. "Rock, rock, rock." He repeats pointing.

"Rock no- synth word? Rock -" she scrapes up a handful of dirt, and squeezes it, then gestures with it. "no synth-word, rock no synth-word?"

"Rock no synth. Rock no... alive." He points at the ground "No alive," Then at himself, her and a nearby plant. "Alive, alive, alive."

"Alive," she nods. She taps a fingernail, tugs on a strand of hair, and mimes pulling a piece off of one of the plants. "Alive?"

"Alive." He echoes.

Well, that's cleared up! "More word, speak less less, less, yes, more, more more?" She holds up a thumb, then thumb and index finger, adding one finger at each pause until her whole hand is splayed.

Izakin provides to her the words for numbers, holding his fingers then indicating a similar quantity of rocks.

Numbers! "Four rocks, two two rocks," four rocks with two in each hand, "Five one rocks, two three rocks," six rocks with three in each hand, "Five five?"

"Ten rocks." And Izakin works her through basic arithmetics and things like tall, short, big and small.

Their math system is bizarre but she mostly gets the hang of it. Adjectives happen! It takes her a few minutes of back and forth talking to consistently place them before the words they're modifying.

He moves on to other basic things like pronouns.

She finally finds out the word for referring to yourself in speech! The plurals of pronouns use completely different words, except when they don't!

She tries several ways of asking about time and distance words to ask when they will get wherever they're going.

Izakin manages distance pretty easily (they're half way there) but it takes some doing until he manages time-related words. He points at the distance and she can see some odd square-ish things that are likely artificial.

(They do their time weirdly, too, and differently weirdly, in groups of sixty.)

Huh. Those are odd looking, why would you put enough effort to get something to grow like that? But it doesn't seem worth the effort of trying to ask until they get closer, so she practices the words she does know.

As they come closer they eventually see more of those people, many as tall as Izakin, but some are her height. No one is green, most are beige-skinned like Izakin, many blink at her in confusion but don't stop to ask questions.

Well. Apparently "humans" are either reproductively viable or someone made a lot of them. They don't seem hostile, at least. She gives them a wide berth and looks down as they pass.

He notices her discomfort and says a couple of things that sound soothing.

Eventually they reach a tall cylindric structure at least four times taller than any of it's neighboors, he gets inside and calls her to follow him.