Why Latin with all its complexities and irregularities? Surely Interlingua, mentioned in James Blish's Cities In Flight, or Esperanto would have made more sense? Or is "League Latin" Interlingua? Esperanto has simple regular grammar, Roman letters and phonetic spelling with Latin and other European roots, e.g., Greek kaj instead of Latin et. "Father" and "mother" are not patro and matro but patro and patrino and "Lady" is Lordino - so the grammatical regularity is complete.
The Terran Empire mirrors the Roman Empire even down to having slaves but here is one logical difference: harems are guarded not by eunuchs but by non-humans! However, sex is possible between human beings and some other intelligent species, as we learn in the Young Flandry trilogy. Indeed, when aliens are described as both humanoid and bisexual, then we have to ask whether this might not be possible - although interstellar hybrids as in Star Trek and some Superman stories make no sense.
5 comments:
Hi, Paul!
I don't think it's either surprising or odd that knowledge of the Greco/Roman classics survived into the Imperial age of Technic Civilization. After all, that civilization was heavily descended, or derived from our Western Civilization which directly succeeded the Classical. That, along with Anglic springing from English and still using the Roman alphabet, makes it entirely possible that many educated humans (and non humans who came into contact with Technic Civilization) would be familiar with some Classical writers.
I don't think anything like Blish's Interlingua or artificially created languages like Esperanto should be understood as being League Latin. I've seen Latin being used at least once in one of the Polesotechnic League stories.
And I can see how it might be possible for some non humans and humans to feel sexually attracted towards each other if their races were strongly similar to each other in appearances. We see that miost clearly with the Scothanians in "Tiger by the Tail." And Flandry thought Tigery females were very attractive in ENSIGN FLANDRY (with Dragoika expressing an interest in Flandry as well at least once). Needless to say, no offspring would be possible, due to the genetic differences between races which had evolved on different worlds.
Sean
Sean,
I agree Anglic probably, almost certainly, does use Roman letters but are we specifically told that it does?
Paul.
Hi, Paul!
I've seen nothing in any of the Technic Civilization stories to make me think Anglic speakers used anything but the Roman alphabet for reading and writing. I have seen passages which said English had changed enough that texts from our time and before (such as the poems of Elizabeth Browning, Lewis Carroll's ALICE books, etc.) had to be translated, but nothing about any change of alphabet. The simplest conclusion or inference is that Roman letters were being used in Flandry's time.
Sean
Sean,
I agree although some changes are possible under extraterrestrial or technological influence. Even now, some people write, e.g., "4u" instead of "for you." Thus, "4" could change from a numeral to a word/letter with a different meaning.
Paul.
Hi, Paul!
I certainly agree that both extraterrestrial influence and technological changes are very likely to help our English to change into Anglic. But I doubt "for" will be replaced by the number "4." After all, you would still need to use "4" for numerical purposes. Besides, "for" is so simple a word in its spelling that I don't see much need or point for changing that.
More likely, English, as it changes in centuries to come, will use more phonetics in its written form. I can imagine the "qu" of words beginning like that being replaced by the "kw" we actually use in speaking. That is, "phonetics" may become "fonetics," "quack" will become "kwack," "queen" will become "kween," "quick" will become "kwick," etc.
And the same might occur with many personal names. E.g., "Joseph" might be replaced by "Josip."
Sean
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