In Poul Anderson's Ensign Flandry and The Game Of Empire, Merseians on Merseia, and also in the second case in a spaceship, converse in Eriau but, of course, we read their conversations in English. In Anderson's The People Of The Wind, Ythrians on Avalon and in space converse in Planha while we read English. Time Patrol agents converse in Temporal...
I am not sure how it can be done but I think that authors need to help their readers to reflect on linguistic differences. In an English-language novel (title and author's name forgotten), a Frenchman says not that "everyone" comes into town on a Saturday but that "all the world" comes into town on a Saturday. "All the world" is a literal translation of the phrase, "tout le monde," which the French use when we say "everyone." There must be other similar ways of reminding a reader that another language is being spoken. This requires some knowledge of languages but it would be good if all of us had some of that!
See also:
When a Marine swears in French, a Dyson Sphere native asks:
11 comments:
You have to follow trends, too. For example, in spoken French n'est pas is formal grammar... but increasingly they don't use both prefix and suffix. They drop the "ne" -- "I don't know" is "Je sais pas", instead of "Je ne sais pas". I had fun with that in my Shadowspawn series -- someone remarks that the Shadowspawn speak French as if it was 1914.
About a quarter to a third of the human race speak some English at least -- something not seen since the Roman Empire (when it was Latin).
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I remember that what you said about some of the Shadowspawn speaking old fashioned French. Meaning people who live for really long periods start sounding quaint to later generations.
I also recall you commenting about your visit to India that most people you met didn't want to use Hindi, they preferred speaking English.
If English continues to spread as a world-wide language, it might someday be called Anglic!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: languages expand because they're useful.
500 years ago, in most places the 'local dialect' was most useful.
In 19th century Europe, the "standard" languages of nations were more useful.
Now English is more useful.
People don't learn languages (with rare exceptions) if they're not useful.
A lot of universities in Europe now conduct classes in English, for example.
And all languages are of roughly equal semantic efficiency, so it really doesn't matter much what tongue people speak. Except that English is -my- native tongue, so I'm all for its expansion.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, for most of us, most of the time, there's no real need to bother about other languages except what we grew up with.
I would argue that for most of the 19th century it was useful for reasons of culture and diplomacy to supplement one's native language with French. English has supplanted French for those purposes.
Incidentally, when the German George I became king of Great Britain in 1714, he did not speak English, so he conversed with his ministers using French.
Just a bit surprised about Continental universities making so much use of English. But we should recall how Latin was once the international language of scholarship.
Absolutely! English is my native language, so it should become the language of the world! (Laughs)
Ad astra! Sean
George I meant to say, "I have come for the good of you all," but said, "I have come for all your goods," I read somewhere.
Kaor, Paul!
I remember reading about that as well, it always makes me laugh! King George should have stuck with French more people would have understood what he meant. (Smiles)
Ad astra! Sean
Yup. He was confused at the hostile reception.... German was already a more inflected language than English at that point, and hence less dependent on word order.
All languages change. But at different rates, more or less dependent on how they're exposed to -other- languages. English was, and it changed radically between 1000 and 2000 CE. Lithuanian is isolated, and it's closer to PIE than any other Indo-European language. I had a Lithuanian-speaking friend in high school, and he could more or less read the Rig-Veda -- got about 40% of the words and inflections.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Part of the reason for that hostility George I met was because of lingering loyalty to the exiled Stuarts by many of the British. There really wasn't much enthusiasm for the Hanoverian succession. Many British considered the Hanoverians to be usurpers.
Yes, that awkward attempt at speaking English by George I would irritate some!
Even I could tell how much English has changed when I looked at the Middle English text of Chaucer's CANTERBURY TALES. Lithuanian and Sanskrit were still THAT closely related? Amazing!
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment