{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/sflovers/105",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "sflovers",
  "thread": {
    "id": 105,
    "subject": "Language (was: Time) and the New Sun",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "1992-10-13T21:57:28+00:00",
    "last": "1992-10-14T01:52:48+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<sflovers-v17-540-1@digest.sf-lovers>",
      "from": {
        "name": "C.E. Thompson",
        "address": "cet1 at cus.cam.ac.uk"
      },
      "date": "1992-10-13T21:57:28+00:00",
      "subject": "Language (was: Time) and the New Sun",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "dani at netcom.com (Dani Zweig) writes, apropos of TBOTNS:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "We also note that it was reasonable to expect a coin from Ymar's time to\nsurvive, badly corroded, in Severian's: There is reason to suspect that\ncommon words such as 'copper', 'stone', 'wood', often refer to far more\ndurable materials than we associate with them."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Which gives me a peg to hang the following question on: what relationship\ndoes the language spoken by Severian bear to English?\n\nI offer the following two contrasting passages for your delectation:\n\n1. In TSOTT, in Thecla's story, as retold by Severian to Agia in the\n   Botanic Gardens, Father Inire is made to say to Domnina: \"Yet even\n   though light is so weightless we have given its name to that\n   condition...\". This pun only makes sense in English or *very* closely\n   related languages, as far as I can trace the derivation of the words\n   light (opposite of heavy) vs. light (opposite of dark).\n\n2. In TCOTC, Thea says to Severian: \"The dawn-men ... renamed it [Mars]\n   Present. That was a jest in their tongue for the same word meant both\n   _Now_ and _The Gift_. Or so one of my tutors once explained the matter\n   to my sister and me, though I do not see how any language could endure\n   such a confusion.\"\n\nSo how is one to reconcile the two passages? With any other SF author than\nGene Wolfe, I would attribute one or other to a momentary carelessness, but\nI would be quite reluctant to assume that here.\n\nChris Thompson\ncet1 at phx.cam.ac.uk"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<sflovers-v17-540-2@digest.sf-lovers>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Dani Zweig",
        "address": "dani at netcom.com"
      },
      "date": "1992-10-14T01:52:48+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: Language (was: Time) and the New Sun",
      "in_reply_to": "<sflovers-v17-540-1@digest.sf-lovers>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "cet1 at cus.cam.ac.uk (C.E. Thompson):"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "What relationship does the language spoken by Severian bear to English?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Essentially none.  What we see as English in the text is the language\nspoken in the unthinkably remote future.  What we see as Latin is an\nalmost-as-remote language which, by Severian's time, is dead-but-respected\n- - like Latin in ours.  (Did you notice that Valeria's translations from the\n'Latin' are faulty?)"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Father Inire is made to say to Domnina: \"Yet even though light is so\nweightless we have given its name to that condition...\". This pun only\nmakes sense in English or *very* closely related languages..."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "There will be people in the remote future who, like Wolfe and others today,\nwill have a love of language.  Should Wolfe avoid wordplay in his\ncharacters' speech?  Or give us wordplay that fails completely, with a\nfootnote to the effect that it's brilliant in the original language?\nThere's no good answer for this.  Treating that language as if it were\nEnglish, and giving us derivations that work for English, seems a\nlegitimate decision, though not perfect.  We are being given the feel of\nthe character's speech, though it could be that in the 'actual' language,\nthe connection being made is between 'light' and 'freedom', to offer a\nrandom example."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "\"The dawn-men ... renamed it [Mars] Present. That was a jest in their\ntongue for the same word meant both _Now_ and _The Gift_. Or so one of my\ntutors once explained the matter to my sister and me, though I do not see\nhow any language could endure such a confusion.\"\n\nSo how is one to reconcile the two passages? "
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Again, I don't see a problem.  The speech tells us about the speaker, not\nabout the language.  Besides, the language in question here is neither\nEnglish nor the language of Severian's time.  To which we add that the\nspeaker's philology (and her tutors') may well be suspect.\n\nDani Zweig"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}