Temporal, Esperanto And Latin

The Time Patrol Academy, like the Nest (see earlier posts) is in the American Oligocene. Time traveling organizations in alternative timelines have hideouts in other geological epochs. I posted about Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series earlier on this blog and on the Logic of Time Travel blog so interested page viewers might read those earlier posts.

"Temporal, the artificial language with which Patrolmen from all ages could communicate without being understood by strangers, was a miracle of logically organized expressiveness."
- Time Patrol (New York, 2006), p. 12.

But four hundred and seventy pages later:

"The Patrol speech had a grammar capable of handling chronokinesis, variable time, and the associated paradoxes, but when it came to human things was as weak as artificial languages generally are. (An Esperantist who hits his thumb with a hammer will not likely yell, 'Excremento!')" (p. 482)

I learned some Esperanto and it is very expressive. The Bible and Shakespeare have been translated into it and it has original poetry and fiction which are enjoyable to read. Speakers can create new words from stems and affixes. Thus:

Si diris, "Jes": She said, "Yes";
Si respondis jese: She responded yesly;
Si jesis: She yessed.

Demandemulino = Demand-em-ul-in-o, thus a female member of group with a tendency to ask questions, i.e., an inquisitive woman.

Samideanoj = Sam-ide-an-o-j, ones having the same idea, i.e., how Esperantists address each other, like "brothers and sisters" or "comrades."

I did not learn any swear words but I suppose Esperantists swear in their national languages! - although I heard of a couple who met and were married through Esperanto. Their children might have been bilingual in Esperanto and a national language but the international language is not meant to be anyone's first language.

Back to Temporal, Anderson tells us that it is exclusively used by the Patrol and that it has tenses for time travel. However:

"He used Temporal, the common speech of the Time Patrol and many civilian travelers..." (p. 657)

- so it is not used exclusively by the Patrol. And Anderson contradicts himself by saying that it is expressive but weak in human things.

I think we are told that the Exaltationist language sounds like song. (Later: An Exaltationist spoke "...in a language that purred and trilled." (ibid.))

"Time Patrol" introduces the Latin term for a time traveler, "...peregrinator temporis..." (p. 38), which is used later in the different scenario of There Will Be Time.

Addendum: Harry Harrison bought me a beer at a Con because I addressed him in Esperanto.