# Hethor's Talk

*The Urth list — 3 messages, 3 voices, 17 Mar 1998*

<https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/422>

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### m.driussi
*17 Mar 1998, 04:48*

Reply:  Item #1807114 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET02#

Christopher,

By writing that Hethor's most information rich (including links to
our time rather than Severian's time) speech act was in Severian's
dream rather than a witnessed event of "real life" I only meant to
gently point to where it might be found--you seem to have been looking
in the wrong place (volume I).

As for Korean, I'm hardly arguing with you--I'm on record as saying
that it is Chinese (1994).

=mantis=

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### C R Culver
*17 Mar 1998, 20:25 · follows m.driussi*

> I only meant to gently point to where it might be found--you seem to have
> been looking in the wrong place (volume I).<

Forget that whole letter. I was writing late at night, where the words
"Hethor" and "Jonas" begin to look the same. Nevermind me.

> As for Korean, I'm hardly arguing with you--I'm on record as saying
> that it is Chinese<

My reason that I reject Chinese is because Sev doesn't seem to mention tones,
which are present in Chinese but absent in Korean. Both are, however, nasal
monosyllabic tongues.

Christopher R. Culver <crculver at aol.com>
http://members.aol.com/crculver/index.html

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### Mark Millman
*17 Mar 1998, 15:43 · follows C R Culver*

>> mantis wrote:
>> As for Korean, I'm hardly arguing with you--I'm
>> on record as saying that it is Chinese

to which Christopher R. Culver replied:

> My reason that I reject Chinese is because Sev
> doesn't seem to mention tones, which are present
> in Chinese but absent in Korean. Both are, however,
> nasal monosyllabic tongues.

But Severian, since he doesn't speak Chinese, might well not notice the
tones--they're not that obvious to non-speakers even in Cantonese, which is
the more heavily tonal of the two major dialects.  The tones could be
interpreted, especially by someone who doesn't speak a tonal language, as
simply the natural rhythms and inflections of speech in that tongue.  It's
interesting to note that Mandarin, which would, given the lack of state
resources available to most Cantonese-speakers, seem to be more likely as
the language of a spacefaring culture, is more heavily nasal than
Cantonese--so much so that even those who don't speak Chinese can sometimes
tell them apart by the sound.

Mark Millman

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