Dead Languages; Literally, "Apu-Punchau"?

Mitchell A. Bailey · 01 Apr 1999, 21:47 · from urth-v0024.mbox · original

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From: "Mitchell A. Bailey" <MAB at lindau.net>
Subject: (urth) Dead Languages; Literally, "Apu-Punchau"?
Date: Thu, 01 Apr 1999 21:47:06
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I was hip from the first with the fact that Latin was used in BNS as a
stand-in for some language which to Severian was "dead", but from our
perspective probably has not even come into existence yet.

Until some points made in the recent "Thorn" discussions, however, it
never occured to me to question the literal authenticity of the name
"Apu-Punchau". The name is Quechua, the tongue of the Incas of Peru, and
means roughly "Lord Sun-God". I'm not a Quechua scholar, but I am
interested enough to own a book which includes a Quechua glossary.=20

I'm wondering if the use of Quechua is a substitution of the same sort
for some future autochthonous language, or whether Sev actually traveled
back in time to live among the pre-imperial Inca, c. 1200 AD?

For what it's worth, Chatelaine Thea thought English, a dead language
remembered by a few scholars in her time, was amusingly ambiguous.

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