{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1454", "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": "urth", "thread": { "id": 1454, "subject": "Urth is Norse", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1999-03-29T18:25:00+00:00", "last": "1999-03-30T07:25:10+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.com" }, "date": "1999-03-29T18:25:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) re: Urth is Norse", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Right, sure, of course. I originally listed it as \"Old Norse,\" but\nthen that made it seem as if: Urth had been \"terraformed\" (itself a\nquestionable notion) by the same civilization that terraformed Mars\nand Venus (that is: the planets get new names when they become new\nplaces); there had been no discontinuity between civilizations on\nTerra in the transition from Earth to Urth.\n\nSo I changed the \"Old Norse\" listing to \"English.\"\n\nBecause, alas, Norse \"Urth\" does not mean Earth. Yet Earth does mean\nEarth. And Thea's version of the planets and their names strongly\nsuggests that before the \"Norsophone\" civilization (which terraformed\nand renamed planets in their vigor) there was an \"Anglophone\"\ncivilization. We can see the distinction between \"Anglophone\" and\n\"Norsophone,\" but Thea's story blends them, so that homonyms in\nEnglish are expresed in Norse. Likewise, Earth is \"homonymized\" into\nUrth.\n\nFurthermore, the Norse word is spelled UR+, with the plus sign being\nthat wonderful letter which we no longer have in the Anglophonic\nworld--I won't bore you with the name of it. It is necessary,\nhowever falacious an impression it creates, to spell words with \"+\"\nas having either \"th\" (which rudely approximates the phonetic value)\nor \"d\" (which rudely captures the essence of the letter's shape,\nsince it looks like \"a crossed d\").\n\nSadly, English no longer graphically distinguishes between hard \"th\"\nand soft \"th.\" If we pronounce Urth as \"Earth,\" we are using the\nhard \"th\" sound. If we can somehow pronounce Urth as \"Ur+\" (with the\n\"th\" of \"then\"; the effect is almost a lisp with a headcold?) then we\nare speaking Norse. If we say it \"Urd\" (as in \"Oy urd youf been a\nn'aty boy, Clemit\") we are being mildly eccentric. \n\n(That's my understanding of it, at least. Scandinavians can go to\ntown, of course. But my central point being the Anglo/Norse\ntransition from Earth to Mars.)\n\n\"Urth(e)\" is also an old, obscure, variant spelling of an English\nword, \"Earth.\" Says the OED.\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Matthew Malthouse", "address": "matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk" }, "date": "1999-03-30T07:25:10+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) re: Urth is Norse", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "m.driussi at genie.com wrote:\nFurthermore, the Norse word is spelled UR+, with the plus sign being\nthat wonderful letter which we no longer have in the Anglophonic\nworld--I won't bore you with the name of it. It is necessary,\nhowever falacious an impression it creates, to spell words with \"+\"\nas having either \"th\" (which rudely approximates the phonetic value)\nor \"d\" (which rudely captures the essence of the letter's shape,\nsince it looks like \"a crossed d\")." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Com'on, don't be shy. It's a thorn, yes? (The letter that printers used y for,\nas in ye=the)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Sadly, English no longer graphically distinguishes between hard \"th\"\nand soft \"th.\" If we pronounce Urth as \"Earth,\" we are using the\nhard \"th\" sound. If we can somehow pronounce Urth as \"Ur+\" (with the\n\"th\" of \"then\"; the effect is almost a lisp with a headcold?) then we\nare speaking Norse. If we say it \"Urd\" (as in \"Oy urd youf been a\nn'aty boy, Clemit\") we are being mildly eccentric. \n\n(That's my understanding of it, at least. Scandinavians can go to\ntown, of course. But my central point being the Anglo/Norse\ntransition from Earth to Mars.)\n\n\"Urth(e)\" is also an old, obscure, variant spelling of an English\nword, \"Earth.\" Says the OED." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I wonder if it's actually necessary to have a change of language, isn't a\npronuncial shift from Earth -> Urth sifficient?\n\nBut even with a change do we read English = the vernacular of Severian's\nCommonwealth, Latin = and archaism, Norse = some distinct influence of the\ndistant past. Or do we have to consider these as real examples of English,\nLatin and Norse languages developed?\n\nIncidentally 'Urth', from very first seeing the word, put me in mind of 'Ur-\",\nas in, well I can't explicayte it to my satisfaction but as in Ur-gold and\nUr-Viles. Or maybe I just read Donaldson at too impressionable age. :)\n\nMatthew" } ] } ] }