Human beings in the future of the Forerunner timeline speak Anglay.
The Empire of Man speaks Angelic.
A Gregory Benford short story has "Anglish." (See the above link.)
The Interbeing League speaks English.
The freighter Highland Lassie has come for:
dried seafood;
vegetable oils;
exotic furs;
handicrafts -
- which are delayed because of local troubles.
A Polesotechnic League merchant would, first, curse any delay and, secondly, seek stable, untroubled societies to trade with whereas, in the Interbeing League:
"In such cases, the rule was that a freighter delayed liftoff. Native merchandise was seldom especially valuable to a far-flung civilization. But the encouragement of those natives to deal with civilization was important." (Star Prince Charlie, 1, p. 15)
A very different, almost paternalistic, attitude surely tenable only if the League subsidizes the merchants?
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I could ALMOST have sworn the English descended language spoken in the Empire of Man in Jerry Pournelle's Co-Dominium timeline was also called "Anglic." The thing to do would be to page thru THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE and THE GRIPPING HANG till I come to any references to the language.
I agree, merchants like Captain Malcolm Stuart could not have AFFORDED the expense of hanging about indefinitely for cargo to pick up in Talyina unless the Interbeing League had a policy of subsidizing such men if local troubles disrupted trade. The preference of the merchants of the Polesotechnic League to deal with stable societies is more plausible than what we see on New Lemuria.
Sean
Sean,
Or KING DAVID'S SPACESHIP. I think that there is a reference to "Angelic" there. It would also be appropriate.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I agree KING DAVID'S SPACESHIP is another source for trying to find out which language was spoken in the Empire of Man.
Sean
Though the actual evolution of the language would produce something like "Enlis", not "Anglic".
The "sh" sound in English is hard for non-anglophone speakers to handle, though not as much so as "th"; both are absent in some English dialects.
It's quite credible that English will become the default language; it, Mandarin, Arabic and Spanish are the main possibilities, but English is pushing into the territory of all of those -- for example, English (and its local dialect) is now the largest single home language in Singapore, and the primary lingua franca.
Almost none of those people have grandparents who were native English-speakers.
And English far and away the largest language on Earth now, counting L2 speakers -- probably about 30% of the human race have some acquaintance with it, and the proportion is higher among city-dwellers, travelers, academics and Internet-users.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I know I saw somewhere in one of PA's stories that a future form of English had evolved to become "Inglis." That's roughly similar to "Enlis."
And, in FOR LOVE AND GLORY, English had become "Anglay."
And I did know of how widespread English has become!
Sean
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