Spoken Languages In The Honorverse ...

Considering the future dates and all the different planets, people, races, cultures and what not, could a Sollie Citizen from Old Earth understand an August Citizen From Haven? Manticore? Grayson? Elsewhere? How many languages would an individual need to know just to get around? Dozens? A few? Just one?

HB of CJ wrote:Considering the future dates and all the different planets, people, races, cultures and what not, could a Sollie Citizen from Old Earth understand an August Citizen From Haven? Manticore? Grayson? Elsewhere? How many languages would an individual need to know just to get around? Dozens? A few? Just one?

The Honorverse uses what is euphemistically referred to as standard English, but other worlds use different languages. IIRC Nagasaki Japanese, Judean League Hebrew, New Berlin German and probably Chinese, Haven IIRC French is also spoken and San Martin Spanish.

saber964 wrote:

HB of CJ wrote:Considering the future dates and all the different planets, people, races, cultures and what not, could a Sollie Citizen from Old Earth understand an August Citizen From Haven? Manticore? Grayson? Elsewhere? How many languages would an individual need to know just to get around? Dozens? A few? Just one?

The Honorverse uses what is euphemistically referred to as standard English, but other worlds use different languages. IIRC Nagasaki Japanese, Judean League Hebrew, New Berlin German and probably Chinese, Haven IIRC French is also spoken and San Martin Spanish.

Note that those tend to be in addition to standard English - just about anyone from a developed planet is going to have standard English, with an accent that's at least understandable, in common with anyone else from a developed planet. (And "developed" here just means not amazingly isolated.)

saber964 wrote:

HB of CJ wrote:Considering the future dates and all the different planets, people, races, cultures and what not, could a Sollie Citizen from Old Earth understand an August Citizen From Haven? Manticore? Grayson? Elsewhere? How many languages would an individual need to know just to get around? Dozens? A few? Just one?

The Honorverse uses what is euphemistically referred to as standard English, but other worlds use different languages. IIRC Nagasaki Japanese, Judean League Hebrew, New Berlin German and probably Chinese, Haven IIRC French is also spoken and San Martin Spanish.

Jeff Engel wrote:Note that those tend to be in addition to standard English - just about anyone from a developed planet is going to have standard English, with an accent that's at least understandable, in common with anyone else from a developed planet. (And "developed" here just means not amazingly isolated.)

Absolutely. And little wonder too. Everyone originated from Old Earth. The default language on Old Earth is English in one form or another. So of course the default language was carried with them. It bridges all communication gaps.

Here on Earth many more people speak native Mandarin. There is a huge gap between second place but that's a bit misleading to this discussion. (second place is Spanish by the way.)

But for the sake of this discussion instead of considering the List of languages by number of native speakers, one should consider List of languages by total number of speakers. And that's the tale of the tape. English is still only second there, but a very close second. And Mandarin is a skewed data point in that respect, for obvious reasons.

So yea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_l ... f_speakers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_l ... e_speakers

HB of CJ wrote:Considering the future dates and all the different planets, people, races, cultures and what not, could a Sollie Citizen from Old Earth understand an August Citizen From Haven? Manticore? Grayson? Elsewhere? How many languages would an individual need to know just to get around? Dozens? A few? Just one?

Honor Harrington was able to read Horatio Hornblower, and understand it, despite the archaic language. So Standard English is still apparently somewhat close to modern-era English. But as others have noted, there are quite a few languages mentioned in the text, but English appears to be the standard for interstellar affairs.

saber964 wrote:

HB of CJ wrote:Considering the future dates and all the different planets, people, races, cultures and what not, could a Sollie Citizen from Old Earth understand an August Citizen From Haven? Manticore? Grayson? Elsewhere? How many languages would an individual need to know just to get around? Dozens? A few? Just one?

The Honorverse uses what is euphemistically referred to as standard English, but other worlds use different languages. IIRC Nagasaki Japanese, Judean League Hebrew, New Berlin German and probably Chinese, Haven IIRC French is also spoken and San Martin Spanish.

Given the name of Haven's capital (Nouveau Paris), it seems reasonable to conclude that Haven is bilingual in English and New French, or at least that the two coexist as co-official languages nationwide. Obviously, other individual systems might have additional official languages, and I'm betting that New French is more common on Haven itself and her older daughter colonies and less so the farther out you get from there.

(I might have a few too many theories about the sociography, demographics, etc. of Haven.)

saber964 wrote:
The Honorverse uses what is euphemistically referred to as standard English, but other worlds use different languages. IIRC Nagasaki Japanese, Judean League Hebrew, New Berlin German and probably Chinese, Haven IIRC French is also spoken and San Martin Spanish.

HB of CJ wrote:Considering the future dates and all the different planets, people, races, cultures and what not, could a Sollie Citizen from Old Earth understand an August Citizen From Haven? Manticore? Grayson? Elsewhere? How many languages would an individual need to know just to get around? Dozens? A few? Just one?

Jeff Engel wrote:Note that those tend to be in addition to standard English - just about anyone from a developed planet is going to have standard English, with an accent that's at least understandable, in common with anyone else from a developed planet. (And "developed" here just means not amazingly isolated.)

cthia wrote:Absolutely. And little wonder too. Everyone originated from Old Earth. The default language on Old Earth is English in one form or another. So of course the default language was carried with them. It bridges all communication gaps.

Here on Earth many more people speak native Mandarin. There is a huge gap between second place but that's a bit misleading to this discussion. (second place is Spanish by the way.)

Not exactly. The PRC likes to pretend that "Chinese" is one language with a bunch of dialects, but the actual fact is that it's several different languages that are mutually incomprehensible. That situation will change in a few decades since the PRC is forcing all children to learn MSM (Modern Standard Mandarin,) but it isn't true now.

It's also not true that Spanish is more widely spoken than English. The largest nation in South America speaks Portugese, and one of the others (Uruguay, IIRC) has a native language as its national language.

cthia wrote:But for the sake of this discussion instead of considering the List of languages by number of native speakers, one should consider List of languages by total number of speakers. And that's the tale of the tape. English is still only second there, but a very close second. And Mandarin is a skewed data point in that respect, for obvious reasons.

So yea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_l ... f_speakers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_l ... e_speakers

The important thing here is that both MSM and Spanish are regional languages, English is a global language. You don't learn MSM to talk to anyone outside of China, you don't learn Spanish to talk to anyone outside of Spain and the Americas. You learn English if you want a good chance of talking to important people anywhere in the world. The relative number of speakers, whether native or second language, is irrelevant.

SWM wrote:

HB of CJ wrote:Considering the future dates and all the different planets, people, races, cultures and what not, could a Sollie Citizen from Old Earth understand an August Citizen From Haven? Manticore? Grayson? Elsewhere? How many languages would an individual need to know just to get around? Dozens? A few? Just one?

Honor Harrington was able to read Horatio Hornblower, and understand it, despite the archaic language. So Standard English is still apparently somewhat close to modern-era English. But as others have noted, there are quite a few languages mentioned in the text, but English appears to be the standard for interstellar affairs.

Exactly. I suspect it has roughly the same status as Latin had in Late Medieval Europe and later - the common languages had diverged by that time, so Latin became a lingua franca that was pretty much frozen - it didn't change much because it didn't have to change. Right up to the 20th century the standard Latin Bible was the Vulgate, which was created in the late 4th century.

Imagine the challange of trying to read old Earth English particularly after over close to 2500 years. One reason out of many why I love Shakespear, (books and plays) is the cool language. It is English sorta and I can understand it kinda, but it is so completely different. So rich. So descriptive.

JohnRoth wrote:

saber964 wrote:The Honorverse uses what is euphemistically referred to as standard English, but other worlds use different languages. IIRC Nagasaki Japanese, Judean League Hebrew, New Berlin German and probably Chinese, Haven IIRC French is also spoken and San Martin Spanish.

HB of CJ wrote:Considering the future dates and all the different planets, people, races, cultures and what not, could a Sollie Citizen from Old Earth understand an August Citizen From Haven? Manticore? Grayson? Elsewhere? How many languages would an individual need to know just to get around? Dozens? A few? Just one?

Jeff Engel wrote:Note that those tend to be in addition to standard English - just about anyone from a developed planet is going to have standard English, with an accent that's at least understandable, in common with anyone else from a developed planet. (And "developed" here just means not amazingly isolated.)

cthia wrote:Absolutely. And little wonder too. Everyone originated from Old Earth. The default language on Old Earth is English in one form or another. So of course the default language was carried with them. It bridges all communication gaps.

Here on Earth many more people speak native Mandarin. There is a huge gap between second place but that's a bit misleading to this discussion. (second place is Spanish by the way.)

Not exactly. The PRC likes to pretend that "Chinese" is one language with a bunch of dialects, but the actual fact is that it's several different languages that are mutually incomprehensible. That situation will change in a few decades since the PRC is forcing all children to learn MSM (Modern Standard Mandarin,) but it isn't true now.

It's also not true that Spanish is more widely spoken than English. The largest nation in South America speaks Portugese, and one of the others (Uruguay, IIRC) has a native language as its national language.

cthia wrote:But for the sake of this discussion instead of considering the List of languages by number of native speakers, one should consider List of languages by total number of speakers. And that's the tale of the tape. English is still only second there, but a very close second. And Mandarin is a skewed data point in that respect, for obvious reasons.

So yea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_l ... f_speakers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_l ... e_speakers

The important thing here is that both MSM and Spanish are regional languages, English is a global language. You don't learn MSM to talk to anyone outside of China, you don't learn Spanish to talk to anyone outside of Spain and the Americas. You learn English if you want a good chance of talking to important people anywhere in the world. The relative number of speakers, whether native or second language, is irrelevant.

I agree. For the most part. However, I mentioned those statistics in the context as it is pertinent to this thread. Which is, what are the languages spoken in the Honorverse, and also responding to why English is most likely the common language.

My reasoning takes me back to the Final Wars of Old Earth.

Together with the weaponized nanotechnology deployed by the powers of the western hemisphere, the diseases managed to almost completely wipe out Earth's human population. They also jumped to the colonies on Earth's moon, Luna, and the neighboring planet Mars. (CS3)

IMO, had it not been for the aforementioned statistics, English might have taken a severe beating. Which would have been watered down further with the Diaspora. If only 2 % of a colony speaks English and there's no contact with any English speakers for generations then English would have died out. If not many English speakers survived to make the trip then what of the survivability of it in the Honorverse over generations? In other words, English survived the purge of the Final Wars as the defacto language via attrition.

For the sake of this discussion, I think it is highly relevant. IMO.