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Scenario: Safehold colonizes another planet...

This fascinating series is a combination of historical seafaring, swashbuckling adventure, and high technological science-fiction. Join us in a discussion!
Re: Scenario: Safehold colonizes another planet...
Post by John Prigent   » Sun Oct 18, 2015 2:40 pm

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Just to muddy the waters, we do have at least one example of this kind of name here on Earth. The False Acacia, Pseudoacacia, so named because it looked a bit like an acacia when discovered.
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Re: Scenario: Safehold colonizes another planet...
Post by Henry Brown   » Sun Oct 18, 2015 5:02 pm

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Loren Pechtel wrote:Another problem--why do we have names like "nearoak" in the first place--that implies they came from another world with real oaks and thus breaks their myths.


I agree. A name like nearoak makes sense in the Honorverse. Because in that universe, the colonists all know there are other planets and that on Terra there are Oak trees. Which is not the case on Safehold. None of the colonists had any memory of the Terran Federation or knowledge of other planets. Langhorn and the other Archangels could have just called them Oak trees. Nobody would have known the difference.
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Re: Scenario: Safehold colonizes another planet...
Post by Dathi   » Sun Oct 18, 2015 9:04 pm

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Kakai wrote:And besides, how would Safeholdian know that there is such thing as an "oak"? To give an example, here in my place we have word "nietoperz", meaning a bat (animal). "Nie" means "no", but there is no such thing as "toperz", so there's no-one suggesting that "nietoperz" comes from "not a toperz". It's probably the same on Safehold, anyone suggesting that "nearoak" comes from "near an oak" will be put down by his fellows pointing out that there's no such thing as an "oak".

Hmmm...

Note that
From Proto-Slavic *netopyrjь, from Proto-Indo-European *nekʷto-peryo "night flyer"

in modern Polish those elements would be sort of
noc[o] prze[lot]

So, the second element is still visible, even if the first isn't, no?

Besides you've got a word that has evolved for 1000 years or more (from proto-slavic to Polish) independently from its constituent elements.

One of my complaints is that that HASN'T happened on Safehold.
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Re: Scenario: Safehold colonizes another planet...
Post by evilauthor   » Sun Oct 18, 2015 11:53 pm

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Dathi wrote:One of my complaints is that that HASN'T happened on Safehold.


IIRC, the reason for this is the centralized standardization and education provided by the Church. Plus all the policy of assigning priests to countries they weren't born in which allows everyone to hear HOW words should be pronounced.

Even so, the standard of pronunciation HAS shifted and there's plenty of regional accents that are so different from the standard that they're ALMOST unintelligible to non-speakers and thus ALMOST qualify as whole new languages.
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Re: Scenario: Safehold colonizes another planet...
Post by hanuman   » Mon Oct 19, 2015 1:05 am

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evilauthor wrote:
Dathi wrote:One of my complaints is that that HASN'T happened on Safehold.


IIRC, the reason for this is the centralized standardization and education provided by the Church. Plus all the policy of assigning priests to countries they weren't born in which allows everyone to hear HOW words should be pronounced.

Even so, the standard of pronunciation HAS shifted and there's plenty of regional accents that are so different from the standard that they're ALMOST unintelligible to non-speakers and thus ALMOST qualify as whole new languages.


Yet, in the three centuries or so since English became an export product the language has diversified into numerous dialects that all adhere to either of two major spelling systems and a still-unified grammar, but some of which are virtually unintelligible to speakers of other dialects. And this is a process that continues to this day despite the massive influence of near-instantaneous mass communication.
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Re: Scenario: Safehold colonizes another planet...
Post by Kakai   » Mon Oct 19, 2015 4:43 am

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Dathi wrote:Hmmm...

Note that
From Proto-Slavic *netopyrjь, from Proto-Indo-European *nekʷto-peryo "night flyer"

in modern Polish those elements would be sort of
noc[o] prze[lot]

So, the second element is still visible, even if the first isn't, no?

Well, valid point here. That's what happens when a programmist tries to tackle linguistics, I guess :oops:

Besides you've got a word that has evolved for 1000 years or more (from proto-slavic to Polish) independently from its constituent elements.

One of my complaints is that that HASN'T happened on Safehold.

A valid point again. I'd say it's simply artistic license. Going by names, nearoak is probably something like "neyrohk" in "modern" Safeholdian, just like Kaleb is Cayleb, but we're getting the "Terran" version because this way RFC doesn't have to spend time on things like "neyrohk, which looked almost identically to Old Terran oak" and can simply mention nearoaks and move on to more important things.
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When in mortal danger, when beset by doubt,
Run in little circles, wave your arms and shout.
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Re: Scenario: Safehold colonizes another planet...
Post by Kytheros   » Mon Oct 19, 2015 5:34 am

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Henry Brown wrote:
Loren Pechtel wrote:Another problem--why do we have names like "nearoak" in the first place--that implies they came from another world with real oaks and thus breaks their myths.


I agree. A name like nearoak makes sense in the Honorverse. Because in that universe, the colonists all know there are other planets and that on Terra there are Oak trees. Which is not the case on Safehold. None of the colonists had any memory of the Terran Federation or knowledge of other planets. Langhorn and the other Archangels could have just called them Oak trees. Nobody would have known the difference.

Except that Terran oaks were one of the species that were brought with and seeded onto the planet as part of the terraforming process. Thus, there are (Terran) oaks and (Safeholdian) nearoaks.

I expect that in the hypothetical future of the OP, there would be differentiation in the common names by planet of origin. Ie, Terran Oak, Safeholdian Nearoak, etc.
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Re: Scenario: Safehold colonizes another planet...
Post by evilauthor   » Mon Oct 19, 2015 10:05 am

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Kytheros wrote:Except that Terran oaks were one of the species that were brought with and seeded onto the planet as part of the terraforming process. Thus, there are (Terran) oaks and (Safeholdian) nearoaks.

I expect that in the hypothetical future of the OP, there would be differentiation in the common names by planet of origin. Ie, Terran Oak, Safeholdian Nearoak, etc.


Oh, and don't forget that as far as SPELLING is concerned, the official handed-down-from-the-archangels spelling would still be "nearoak" however it's pronounced now.

In fact the same should go for personal names, which makes Weber's initial decision to go with phonetic spellings even more odd.
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