One Ship: reply

matthew.malthouse · 18 Aug 2003, 08:58 · from urth-v0308.mbox · original

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From: matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk
Subject: Re: (urth) One Ship: reply
Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2003 09:58:11 +0100
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On 16/08/2003 09:36:33 "Ashley Crill" wrote:

>-The Chrasmologic Writings contain French and Latin because, A: Its a=20
religious=20
>writing. B: It was written and the Whorl was launched far before=20
Severian's=20
>time.=20

That I can go with easily enough if I had to.

>Also, Latin is extant in Severian's day, along with Greek and Spanish.

Nope.  An ancient language (epitomized by the inscriptions in the Atrium=20
of Time) presented to us as Latin not because it is Latin but because it=20
bears a similar relationship to Severian's tongue as Latin does to ours.

There is a general assumption that writing slows the change of language=20
and the more widespread literacy, the larger the published corpus and the=20
more durable and disparate the means of recording the slower changes will=20
be.

Yet it is actually rather hard to demonstrate that this is in fact the=20
case.

Take as an example Hindustani.  A language formed over half a millennium=20
from the Sanskrit rooted languages of the mid western Deccan and the=20
Persian of the Muhguls.

Hindustani is grammatically indistinguishable from Urdu and Hindi.=20
Technically all three are the same language.  Or were.

But starting in the late c19 and formalized at the beginning of the c20=20
Hindustani was divided.  Urdu re-acquired words of Persian origin while=20
de-emphasizing Sanskrit based vocabulary.  Hindi delved into Sanskrit=20
adopting words to supplant Persian vocabulary.

One single century since this was formalized a grammatically identical,=20
lexically identical language has been split to the point where spoken Urdu=20
(eg from TV and radio broadcasts) has only 60 percent comprehension for=20
Hindi speakers and Hindi - made more obscure by the flowery=20
circumlocutions of classical Sanskrit - is only 40 percent comprehensible=20
to Urdu speakers.

Should this rate of change persist the two languages are likely to be=20
mutually incomprehensible within another 100 years.  More divergent than=20
classical and modern Greek.  English is not immune, 400 year old=20
Shakespeare needs occasional footnotes; 600 year old Chaucer needs entire=20
explicative texts; American English and British English differ in=20
lexicography and usage sufficiently to require a choice between them when=20
installing a computer!  French has hallowed institutions dedicated to=20
preserving the immutability of the language yet Rabelais can be as obscure=20
as Shakespeare and Chretien do Troyes needs translating.  Castillian and=20
American Spanish.  Arabic in variations from Morroco to Syria.

Consider then the span of time between ourselves and Severian.  Consider=20
also the upheavals that are alluded to in the history.  The likelihood is=20
that if Greek, Latin, French, Spanish English or any other current=20
language "existed" it would be as archeological artefacts as obscure and=20
incomprehensible as Minoan / Archaean Linear A and Linear B.

Matthew

--=20

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