Language on Safehold

Forgive the nitpicky-ness of this post, but there are certain questions that I, as a language nerd, can't figure out and though I've posted these questions to the FAQ submission, I figured I'd test the wisdom of the forums as well.

Given that the language of Safehold is basically [future] English that has changed and made various changes since colonization, here are the questions that I have:

(1) Are the spellings of Safeholdian names how the Safeholdians actually spell the names? Or is it merely representative of how they pronounce them? That is, does Zhaspahr Clyntahn actually spell his name Jasper Clinton but simply pronounce it [ʒaspar klɪntan]? And if it is the actual spelling, are all the Safeholdian words spelled in this fashion? If so, the ordinary written language must be greatly different from the Holy Writ. Does this not cause confusion? We know that the language has changed greatly, which means there must be a greater divergence from the written version and the currently spoken Safeholdian version. Why would names alone be phonetically spelled but not the rest of the spoken language?

(2) Regardless of whether these are spellings or pronunciations, these representations are not always clear on the pronunciation. For example:
(a) Are "ay" and "ai" homophones or are they pronounced differently? It appears at times that Weber has basically applied the Great Vowel Shift once again to English ([a] > [e], [e] > [i], [i] > [aj], etc.). So, is Gahrvai pronounced [garvaj] (rhymes with "eye") or [garvej] (rhymes with "say")? Or is it two syllables [a-i]? Is Ahbraim Zhevons' first name "Ah-bra-eem"?
(b) What is the value of all those y's? They seem to be just a plain [ɪ] sound (as in 'bit') but why not just write that as an 'i'? And they also show up in words that used to have an 'o' sound, where most o's turn into 'ah' (Sahlmyn < Solomon). This makes me suspect that the y is actually a schwa [ə]. This vowel is really common and it's not clear how it's supposed to be pronounced.
(c) The h's are clearly there to show long vowel sounds ([a] as 'ah'), but how on earth is the h in Mhartyn supposed to be pronounced? And why is it not rendered as Mahrtyn? Is there a difference that we're supposed to be accounting for? Is it [hmartɪn] in the way that "wh" can be a 'hw' sound?

(3) The English Language is primarily a germanic language but with heavy romance language influence (French, Latin) in its vocabulary and has taken on loan words from languages across the globe. Has no one on Safehold noticed that their language is uneven this way? Do they not think it odd that the word for "Holy War" is "Jihad", a word that does not look a lot like most of the other words they say? Has not some curious scholar noted that there seem to be different word stocks within their language? I realize that given that there is only one language on Safehold, the idea may never have occurred to them, but it seems like someone would notice this.

Okay, that's it for now. Thanks for getting this far and indulging the nerdiness.

I don't know about the other points you raised but on your first point there is this quote from OAR MAY YoG 890 Chapter III:
For the moment, they were concentrating on recording the local languages and dialects. Without the PICA data interface, Nimue was going to have to learn the hard way to speak the considerably altered version of Standard English spoken by present-day Safeholdians. It looked as if the written language and grammar had stayed effectively frozen, but without any form of audio recording capability, the spoken form’s pronunciation had shifted considerably . . . and not always in the same directions in all locations. Some of the dialects were so different now as to be almost separate tongues, despite the fact that virtually every word in them was spelled the same way.

Weber, David (2011-05-06). Off Armageddon Reef (Safehold 1) (Kindle Locations 1546-1551). Macmillan Publishers UK. Kindle Edition.

So from this quote it appears they are representative but only RFC knows for sure

R

Tryptan Felle wrote:
SNIP
Given that the language of Safehold is basically [future] English that has changed and made various changes since colonization, here are the questions that I have:

(1) Are the spellings of Safeholdian names how the Safeholdians actually spell the names? Or is it merely representative of how they pronounce them? That is, does Zhaspahr Clyntahn actually spell his name Jasper Clinton but simply pronounce it [ʒaspar klɪntan]? And if it is the actual spelling, are all the Safeholdian words spelled in this fashion? If so, the ordinary written language must be greatly different from the Holy Writ. Does this not cause confusion? We know that the language has changed greatly, which means there must be a greater divergence from the written version and the currently spoken Safeholdian version. Why would names alone be phonetically spelled but not the rest of the spoken language?

SNIP

Welcome to the forums tryptahn Felle. First virtual drinks on us.

enjoy your time here.

Could somebody please translate the Safehold books to English.

Tryptan Felle wrote:
Are the spellings of Safeholdian names how the Safeholdians actually spell the names?

I've been operating under the assumption that the entire language has shifted, but it's only shown in the spelling of the names because to do a thorough job would be to make unreadable novels. As I read them I do an internal, mental translation of the names to something I'm more familiar with. On some names, like Jasper, that's easy. On others I'm continually shifting back and forth like some quantum superimposed name.

Are "ay" and "ai" homophones or are they pronounced differently?

I've associated the 'ay' spelling with the long 'a' as in Adrian--Aydrian, and the 'ai' with long 'e' as in Sheen--Shain.

The h's are clearly there to show long vowel sounds ([a] as 'ah'), but how on earth is the h in Mhartyn supposed to be pronounced?

I've associated the 'ha' spelling with the short 'a' sound as in Mary--Mhary, although that doesn't appear correct in your example.

This makes me suspect that the y is actually a schwa [ə].

I think that's often correct.

Do they not think it odd that the word for "Holy War" is "Jihad", a word that does not look a lot like most of the other words they say?

I think 'Jihad' looks strange to us because we know its antecedents. To the Safeholdians I believe it looks perfectly cromulent.

~Tonto

I suspect the word 'jihad' comes straight from the Holy Writ, probably from Book of Schueler or Chihiro and that's why it's unchanged. I doubt any words from Holy Writ have had spelling changed. How they actually pronounce it though is anybody's guess. Probably nothing we would recognize.

Yeah, I guess my thinking was something like this:

Let's say a scribe is copying manuscripts of the Writ (or other ancient documents) and notices that there are words in it like sanctuary, sanctify, and sanctimonious all of which have something to do with being "holy". And notices that there is also the word holiness. Or comes across words like manual, manufacture, and manumission and notices that they all have something to do with "hand" but there are also words like by hand, handbook, hand-made and handy.

There are some really smart people on Safehold, and the Church has its share of bright people. Is it unreasonable to imagine someone noticing this and concluding that man- means "hand" and sanct- means "holy" but that curiously, there are no words like that in the language? Might not that person conclude that perhaps man- and sanct- were from some other source? Perhaps the speech of the Archangels themselves?

Having then concluded that there is both holy and sancta- that seem to have the same meaning, would it now not appear even stranger that there was this word jihad that somehow meant "Holy War" but had neither "holy" nor "sanct-" in it? And also had an intervocalic 'h' that is fairly unusual elsewhere in the language?

Perhaps because they do not have other languages, the idea of other languages doesn't even occur to them. But it sounds like their linguistic situation is like that of the early middle ages, when everyone assumed they were all still speaking Romance (because they were using the same written language) but were really speaking French, Italian, Spanish, etc. At some point the idea of separate languages will become real and the idea might occur to someone that these different word stocks might have come from separate languages.

Tonto Silerheels wrote:Tryptan Felle wrote:


Do they not think it odd that the word for "Holy War" is "Jihad", a word that does not look a lot like most of the other words they say?

I think 'Jihad' looks strange to us because we know its antecedents. To the Safeholdians I believe it looks perfectly cromulent.

~Tonto

Tryptan Felle wrote:
Yeah, I guess my thinking was something like this:...

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. That was interesting.

We had another discussion some time ago about a similar topic. The originator questioned near-words. Words like nearoak. He asked wouldn't someone question what it was that the nearoak was near? At that time I opined that it was too easy to get into a that's-just-the-way-it-is mindset. I gave an example of my dad and the field lark. The field lark is a bird that's usually called the meadow lark. He had always called it the fielark, because that was the way he heard it pronounced. He had no idea that it was spelled 'field.'

~Tonto

Tryptan Felle wrote:Having then concluded that there is both holy and sancta- that seem to have the same meaning, would it now not appear even stranger that there was this word jihad that somehow meant "Holy War" but had neither "holy" nor "sanct-" in it? And also had an intervocalic 'h' that is fairly unusual elsewhere in the language?

Perhaps because they do not have other languages, the idea of other languages doesn't even occur to them. But it sounds like their linguistic situation is like that of the early middle ages, when everyone assumed they were all still speaking Romance (because they were using the same written language) but were really speaking French, Italian, Spanish, etc. At some point the idea of separate languages will become real and the idea might occur to someone that these different word stocks might have come from separate languages.

I think they don't translate 'jihad' as 'holy war'. After all, when a native Arab speaker thinks of the word 'jihad', they don't automatically translate it in their mind as 'holy war'. They translate it as 'jihad'. Jihad is a specific kind of thing, with a special name.

Does a Catholic mentally translate 'thurifer' into 'incense burner on a chain' every time they hear the word? Do they wonder why the word has no etymological roots in common with censer or incense? Does a native English speaker mentally translate 'rock' into 'mineral formation' when they hear the word? Do they wonder why the word has nothing in common with the word 'mineral'? To a native speaker, 'jihad' is a jihad; they don't have to mentally translate it. And 'jihad' is a native word for Safeholdians.

SWM wrote:

Tryptan Felle wrote:Having then concluded that there is both holy and sancta- that seem to have the same meaning, would it now not appear even stranger that there was this word jihad that somehow meant "Holy War" but had neither "holy" nor "sanct-" in it? And also had an intervocalic 'h' that is fairly unusual elsewhere in the language?

Perhaps because they do not have other languages, the idea of other languages doesn't even occur to them. But it sounds like their linguistic situation is like that of the early middle ages, when everyone assumed they were all still speaking Romance (because they were using the same written language) but were really speaking French, Italian, Spanish, etc. At some point the idea of separate languages will become real and the idea might occur to someone that these different word stocks might have come from separate languages.

I think they don't translate 'jihad' as 'holy war'. After all, when a native Arab speaker thinks of the word 'jihad', they don't automatically translate it in their mind as 'holy war'. They translate it as 'jihad'. Jihad is a specific kind of thing, with a special name.

Does a Catholic mentally translate 'thurifer' into 'incense burner on a chain' every time they hear the word? Do they wonder why the word has no etymological roots in common with censer or incense? Does a native English speaker mentally translate 'rock' into 'mineral formation' when they hear the word? Do they wonder why the word has nothing in common with the word 'mineral'? To a native speaker, 'jihad' is a jihad; they don't have to mentally translate it. And 'jihad' is a native word for Safeholdians.

Take that logic one step further. The concept of etymological roots implies that words are constructed and that there are different ways to organize the way words are constructed. Wouldn't considering language in this way be viewed as blasphemy?

Different ways of constructing language implies different sources for the one language. How can that be if god created everything? Since nothing suggests different sources for words other than similarity, ascribing different sources to words that are clearly created by God is imposing one's view onto God's creation. Humbris and arrogance at the very least and blasphemy if reported to the wrong inquisitor.