"He struggled to pronounce [Aycharaych] properly, but it came out sounding more Scottish than Chereionite..." (p. 279)
This passage is written from Flandry's pov. It follows that he is familiar with and can recognize a Scottish accent. So such local accents still exist on Terra. Within a passage written from Flandry's pov, it would be inappropriate for the omniscient narrator to address us, the readers, on the assumption that we understand a reference that Flandry does not.
So how much do we know about languages in Technic civilization?:
League Latin
Anglic
Fransai
Scottish accent
Serbian on Dennitza
Spanish on Nuevo Mexico?
Van Rijn claims to speak twenty or thirty languages bad, ten or fifteen good, Anglic best, but this number includes extraterrestrial languages like the nonhuman whistling that his chief secretary has just heard him conversing in. We know how van Rijn distorts Anglic but he runs a successful business through it so he does speak it well enough.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And we sometimes see Old Nick saying a few words of Dutch as well. So Dutch still existed in his time.
Despite the homogenizing dominance of Anglic and Eriau on Terra and Merseia, it makes sense to see other languages still surviving on those planets. And even regional dialects of Anglic even on Terra.
Ad astra and Happy New Year! Sean
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