Spoken Languages In The Honorverse ...

JeffEngel wrote:

John Prigent wrote:I'd think it fairly obvious that the Honorverse uses English as a common language because RFC is writing in English. If he was French, German, Japanese or what-have-you then he'd be writing in that language - unless he chose to write in English for the simple reason that more people who are likely to read books for pleasure have English as a first or second language than any other language. .

One of these days, I'm going to laugh my parts off when some science fiction writer blithely asserts that, in the future, everyone speaks, reads, and writes standard Basque or Welsh....

I have read such books. (But they were all set in alternative timelines.)

We at least have to acknowledge the motivation of navies to be multilingual. Can you imagine facing off an enemy ship to ship and trying to ask them to strike their wedge but you're actually asking them to light a match? Or you're trying to surrender but you're actually telling them to surrender.

Or Elizabeth trying to negotiate from a position of strength with the head of state of a foreign power but talking through a human translator. "Tell him I said back off. Say it just like that!"

.

I have been told, by various French speakers, that the French used Quebec is fairly close to the way French was used in the mid-18th century than tha the language used in France today.

French was the diplomatic language in the 18th and much of the 19th century and earlier.
The reasons you find French, German and Portuguese being used in various African countries can be traced back to the various colonial holding in Afirca in the 17th, 18th and 19th century. Portuguese going back further since they were setting up 1st trade/logisitic stations much earlier than anyone else then taking over some of the surrounding area. Dutch is the basis for Africaans in South Africa, that country being held by the Dutch before the English took over.

Untill relativly late in the 20th century, the English spoken locally by the inhabitants of Tangier Is in VA (southern end of Chesapeak Bay) was fairly close to Elizabethan English as noted in a couple of linguistic studies.

Brigade XO wrote:I have been told, by various French speakers, that the French used Quebec is fairly close to the way French was used in the mid-18th century than tha the language used in France today.

French was the diplomatic language in the 18th and much of the 19th century and earlier.
The reasons you find French, German and Portuguese being used in various African countries can be traced back to the various colonial holding in Afirca in the 17th, 18th and 19th century. Portuguese going back further since they were setting up 1st trade/logisitic stations much earlier than anyone else then taking over some of the surrounding area. Dutch is the basis for Africaans in South Africa, that country being held by the Dutch before the English took over.

Untill relativly late in the 20th century, the English spoken locally by the inhabitants of Tangier Is in VA (southern end of Chesapeak Bay) was fairly close to Elizabethan English as noted in a couple of linguistic studies.

I've seen it noted somewhere that the larger the language community, the faster it mutates. On the other hand, some of the differences are deliberate: Noah Webster changed "colour" to "color" in his dictionary. He wanted a uniquely American style.

JohnRoth wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:I have been told, by various French speakers, that the French used Quebec is fairly close to the way French was used in the mid-18th century than tha the language used in France today.

French was the diplomatic language in the 18th and much of the 19th century and earlier.
The reasons you find French, German and Portuguese being used in various African countries can be traced back to the various colonial holding in Afirca in the 17th, 18th and 19th century. Portuguese going back further since they were setting up 1st trade/logisitic stations much earlier than anyone else then taking over some of the surrounding area. Dutch is the basis for Africaans in South Africa, that country being held by the Dutch before the English took over.

Untill relativly late in the 20th century, the English spoken locally by the inhabitants of Tangier Is in VA (southern end of Chesapeak Bay) was fairly close to Elizabethan English as noted in a couple of linguistic studies.

I've seen it noted somewhere that the larger the language community, the faster it mutates. On the other hand, some of the differences are deliberate: Noah Webster changed "colour" to "color" in his dictionary. He wanted a uniquely American style.

I can easily get on this bus. I've preached since I first joined the forum that language is not a static phenomena, nor should it be. Language is meant to evolve. It is derived from experiences and a need to communicate. Experiences are forever changing. Language learns itself.

Demographics strongly influences language. A space- faring species would have many experiences foreign to one who is not. Etc.

If the story of the Tower of Babel bears some semblance of truth and mankind initially spoke one language then that was a very powerful language, if only from a spoken commonality. If indeed a God scattered the people to hinder their communication and as a result there ensued a babbling, then language inherently enjoys an innate momentum to relearn itself.

I communicated this at length with a professor regarding my thoughts after I read a paper of hers.
https://www.njcu.edu/cill/vol4/mascali.html

Well, it could be worse, like in SG-1... Where the entire universe magically speaks English which never existed when all of those people got removed from Earth to start with...

Relax wrote:Well, it could be worse, like in SG-1... Where the entire universe magically speaks English which never existed when all of those people got removed from Earth to start with...

Well they did initially have jackson as a linguist but gave up after about 2 episodes and then ran fairly exlicitly on translation convention http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... Convention

Hey, I am just happy my first language is English, my second is Spanish. Pretty much covers the world currently.

I always find it interesting watching foreign films and noting how much of their own dialog I can understand without subbing. It is frankly quite a bit.

If anyone is interested to see an illustration of how language evolves, go back and read the King James Bible in which the meanings of about 15% of the vocabulary has shifted in meaning in our own time, rendering the KJV an uncomfortable read. Then try Chaucer which is really challenging. Between the two, the language drift is quite striking.

Don

n7axw wrote:If anyone is interested to see an illustration of how language evolves, go back and read the King James Bible in which the meanings of about 15% of the vocabulary has shifted in meaning in our own time, rendering the KJV an uncomfortable read.

yup. For example the word "kill" in the KGV means "murder" in modern English. "Slay" in the KGV means "kill" in modern English.