A future history lasts long enough for languages to change. However, sf characters have ways to overcome linguistic barriers. On Lokon:
"...the lowland dialect...was a debased form of Lokonese, which in turn was remotely descended from Anglic. The expedition's linguists had unraveled the language in a few intensive weeks. Then all personnel took a brain-feed in it." (p. 666)
The expedition speaks Atheian and probably languages from others of the Allied Planets.
Thus, one line of linguistic descent is:
Indo-European
Proto-Germanic and Latin
English
Anglic
Lokonese
the lowland dialectic
Millennia later in the Technic History, another remote descendant of Anglic will be the Kirkasanter language. Will it retain any Germanic or Latin roots?
2 comments:
English is language that’s undergone very radical changes in the past 1000 years, and it’s still identifiably Germanic... and identifiably Indo-European, which language was spoken around 3500 BCE, more than 5000 years ago.
In fact, some PIE words are still extremely similar to their modern English forms in sound and meaning: water, wed, wagon, sister, brother. Others are very similar if you make a few consistent sound-changes: father, mother, sky, foot, etc.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Now that was interesting. I conclude that even the remote descendant languages of Anglic may well still have identifiably Indo-European roots in many words.\
Ad astra! Sean
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