Languages, Frontier Fleet and the dissolution of the SL

phillies wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:I got the impression that it was mostly the pre-warshawski sail colonization that was isolated groups moving far away, and out of contact with, from everybody else.

I suspect the majority of colonies were from the later period where you do have ongoing (though infrequent) contact with neighbors via tramp freighters. That would tend to keep languages from drifting as much - especially once Common because the trade and technical language of the majority of the known universe.

(Certainly any system under OFS's or a transtellar's thumb seems likely to be forced to adopt Common as their official language to make the job of the outsiders ordering them about easier)

Any system in which the libraries, paper and video, are intact is likely to have a language that tends to stop changing. Yes, there are occasional changes; over my seven decades I have noted several, and they grate in my ear.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:One develops presumptions about the national origins and languages spoken

I keep waiting for a Havenite Admiral to taunt an RMN Admiral by shouting "I wave my naughty bits at you, you English Kanuggets!"

This followed up by a catapault assault using a house then a cow as projectiles.

stewart wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote:One develops presumptions about the national origins and languages spoken

I keep waiting for a Havenite Admiral to taunt an RMN Admiral by shouting "I wave my naughty bits at you, you English Kanuggets!"

This followed up by a catapault assault using a house then a cow as projectiles.

----------------

You forgot the splats of Cow Pies -- Cheers to Monty Python

-- Stewart