What connects the planets within a civilization-cluster? Usually, not:
a unified government;
any common culture, ideas or beliefs;
trade in necessities.
However, there is trade in:
luxuries;
arts;
cultures;
technologies, starting with the superlight drive;
knowledge.
And what is necessary for trade? Communication. Each cluster has a lingua franca, learned by spacefarers as part of their training.
Uru:
is a modification of the language spoken by the earliest interstellar visitors to this region;
is flexible and "...grammatically streamlined..."; (p. 54)
has standardized units for measurement;
can be pronounced or at least written intelligibly by any oxygen breather;
has been adopted by several clusters originally civilized by the same interstellar travelers;
is the language spoken between Donnan and the Dragar.
When the Dragar president, after a few minutes pondering, assents to a suggestion by the Overmaster's representative, we are told that:
"One refreshing aspect of feudalism was, to Donnan, the ease with which such decisions could be made." (p. 56)
Feudalism gets a good press in Anderson's:
The King Of Ys (with Karen Anderson);
History of Technic Civilization;
The High Crusade.
Greg Bear wrote:
"...give me no spaceships in feudal settings...unless, of course, you are Poul Anderson...."
-see Why Empires?
Uru cannot be more grammatically streamlined than Esperanto:
nouns end in "-o," adding "-j" for the plural and "-n" for the accusative, the only exception being that feminine names end in "-a";
adjectives end in "-a" with the same plural and accusative endings as nouns;
the verbal infinitive ends in "-i," past tense in "-is," present in "-as," future in "-os";
adverbs end in "-e."
many meanings are contained not in separate words but in affixes, e.g.:
viro, man, and virino, woman;
patro, father, and patrino, mother;
lordo, lord, and lordino, lady;
dextra, right, and maldextra, left.
Word parts can be combined creatively, thus:
Si respondis, "Jes." (She replied, "Yes.")
Si respondis jese. (She replied "yesly"/affirmatively.)
Si jesis. (She "yessed.")
11 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I would have included "No Truce With Kings" as another story where we see Anderson taking a sympathetic look at feudalism. And we see a futuristic feudalism in THE AVATAR as well (e.g., the Captain Generals of the Olympic Domain).
I "get" the Esperanto "patro" for "father," but I would have thought "matrino" would have been more natural an Esperanto word for "mother" than "patrino."
Sean
Sean,
Zamenhof wanted to keep it consistent for speakers of other language groups to use. "Patr-" is a root; "-in-" is the feminine affix; "-o" is the noun ending. So Japanese etc do not need to learn another root: "matr-"
Paul.
Paul:
Plusgood. (Orwellian Newspeak)
Actually, I bought a "Teach Yourself" Esperanto course and dictionary back in the late '90s, but with no one to practice with, I've lost virtually all of it I'd learned. Though I still have the books.
Kaor, Paul!
And I was thinking of how the Indo/European root for "mother" is more "mat" and its derivatives, such as the Latin "mater." And that seems more natural to me than "patrino" (which reminds me more of "father").
Sean
I hate to parade my ignorance but wouldn't 'patrina' be a more likely 'feminine' word? This seems more likely given the Italian/Spanish feel of Esperanto. At least to me.
Sean and Ketlan,
But Esperanto was designed for everyone, including the majority unfamiliar with European languages.
David,
Alan Moore's Captain Britain meets his counterparts from parallel Earths, including "Captain Airstrip One" who says, "Cap Brit, dounbleplusgood usmeet."
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But I'm still more inclined than not to agree with Ketlan, ignorant tho I am of Esperanto, that the "a" ending seems more natural than "o" for feminine words.
Also, I note how Esperanto still uses the Roman alphabet, so how can it be for "everyone" when widely used languages such as Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Vietnamese, Cambodian, etc., such widely different alphabets and ideographs for writing?
Sean
Sean:
"o" is the Esperanto ending for all nouns (except the plural, where it's "oj," pronounced "oy" (gevalt!)).
Concerning the idea that "a" is a more naturally feminine ending, that's a modern Western European preference. Russians have no problem with using "a" as the ending for diminutives of male as well as female names — Pavel becomes "Pasha," Ivan becomes "Vanya," Alexander is "Sasha," etc. — so they'd give you a funny look for your comment. And I've no doubt that Saxon kings such as Offa and Penda would've had something unpleasantly humorous done to you for insisting that their names were girlish.
Tolkien pointed out in an appendix to The Lord of the Rings that the Hobbit names as shown in the main text aren't as the Hobbits themselves would speak them, but anglicized for his audience "by altering their endings, since in Hobbit-names a was a masculine ending, and o and e were feminine."
Sean,
But it is impossible to use every alphabet in a single language. The Roman alphabet is easy to learn. The idea is that everyone would learn their national language from birth and the international second language at school plus any other languages that they wanted to study.
"a" seems to some of us an appropriate feminine ending but only because we are used to it: Paul, Paula etc. It is easy to learn that "-in-" is the feminine affix for common nouns in Esperanto.
Paul.
Kaor, DAVID!
Thanks for your entertaining and very much to the point comments! I should have remembered the "a" ending is not always feminine, as you demonstrated with the Russian examples. In fact, while visiting my brother in FL we watched the filmed version of NICHOLAS AND ALEXANDRA, and one scene shows Rasputin calling the Tsar and the Empress "Patuschka" and "Matuschka," which I think is a diminutive form of "Little Father" and "Little Mother." So, I am more than willing to accept your correction.
Yes, I recall that bit from Tolkien's Appendices to THE LORD OF THE RINGS about "a" endings to masculine Hobbit names. And that names like "Frodo Baggins" are Anglicized translations of the Hobbit names.
Sean
Kaor, Paul!
Yes, I agree now with your comments. Yes, the Roman alphabet is, I hope, easy to learn. But I don't think Esperanto will ever become widely used or be more than a curiosity for more than a few persons.
Sean
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