Flandry and Djana listen while Ydwyr the Seeker and Morioch Sun-in-eye converse although, of the two human beings, only Flandry understands Eriau. Morioch addresses Ydwyr as datholch, a title unknown to Flandry, and uses:
"...the aristocratic-deferential form of address." (p. 276)
Ydwyr addresses Morioch as qanryf, naval commandant, using:
"...the merely polite verbal construction." (ibid.)
This and a few similar passages provide nowhere near enough information to enable linguists to construct a vocabulary and grammar for Eriau although film script writers should be able to concoct some sounds that we would hear with the accompaniment of sub-titles.
We are told that q equals more or less kdh where dh equals th in which case why not write it like that? James Blish pulls similar stunts with the Lithian language in A Case of Conscience.
The Platonic Idea of the Technic History would include Tolkien treatment of Eriau, Planha and Anglic. But, unlike Tolkien's friend, CS Lewis, I am not a Platonist.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I agree it would have been good if Anderson had worked out in some detail invented forms of Merseian or Planha. Or even the Anglic of Dominic Flandry's time. We read in A KNIGHT OF GHOSTS AND SHADOWS of how he'd read, in translation, Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poem "A Musical Instrument." Our English had morphed into Anglic by the time Nicholas van Rijn was born, circa AD 2421.
Merry Christmas! Sean
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