This Week in Google Alerts: story with Gaiman

Gerry Quinn · 19 Feb 2011, 13:14 · from 2011-February.txt.gz

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From: gerryq at indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2011 13:14:46 -0000
Subject: (urth) This Week in Google Alerts: story with Gaiman
References: <AANLkTim2PO7XbNhMCSNsQFD+G26dUtjo9jpXn+rZxbnj at mail.gmail.com><Pine.LNX.4.64.1102171746280.5118 at orpheus.qimr.edu.au>
	<4D5FB71F.20309 at verizon.net>
Message-ID: <5181ED219FF74EF1BDB8C50887DD0D3C@jill>

From: "David Stockhoff" <dstockhoff at verizon.net>

> Funny that the guy who complained about Wolfe's use of Latin calls himself 
> Lepton. I am assuming he is not actually Greek, yet he resurrects this 
> archaic language and reuses its dead, worn-out words. ;)

I suppose he might say that 'lepton' is now an English word, signifying a 
member of a family of sub-nuclear particles, the best known of which is the 
electron.

> I was interested to read this thought:
>
> "Yes, I know what Latin is. What I'm saying is that the sword is not 
> actually called Terminus Est. It's name is actually in English, which to 
> Severian and the other characters is an ancient and defunct language. If 
> Wolfe gave us the actual name of the sword, it would convey to us the 
> meaning but not the sense. So Wolfe translates it to Latin."
>
> We've had some debates about names and languages used (towns on the Whorl, 
> etc.). But I am not sure anyone has proposed that the dead language is 
> actually English, even though this would explain some of Severian's 
> linguistic explanations, among other things. There is probably a limit to 
> how literally one can take the idea, but generally sense it works well and 
> yet is not obvious. And of course it's another puzzle of the simplest and 
> most confounding kind.

I read that too.  My first thought was that it was not English, because 
English is clearly referenced by Thea in her speech about "when the damn men 
went to Verthandi".  In the ancient language of the dawn men, "Present" 
means both "Now" and "The Gift".  She is baffled as to how anyone could use 
a language so confusing.

But still the question arises as to whether "Terminus Est" may be written in 
that ancient language, rather than some other.  On the face of it there is 
no firm reason why it should not be English, but I don't really believe it. 
Latin is part of the public consciousness of the modern world - most people 
could not read it but few would not recognise it. And it is a close ancestor 
of English - we use many words derived from it.  The language Thea speaks of 
seems older, and at least as incomprehensible as Egyptian hieroglyphics are 
to us.

So I don't think it is English, but I don't think it can be definitively 
ruled out. I don't know if I'd call it a puzzle as such, though.

- Gerry Quinn

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