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[David Stockhoff]

On 2/19/2011 8:31 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
>
> From: "Andrew Mason" <andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com>
>> Gerry Quinn wrote:
>
>> I agree with all this. But another question is whether real Latin is
>> being used in _Long Sun_ (in 'vox populi. vox Dei', for instance). It
>> might be, because I take it that the Whorl cultures are deliberate
>> reconstructions, inspired by memories of 'our' time (which, as Cyriaca
>> explains, were restored to humans by computers at the end of the First
>> Empire). On the other hand, one might wonder whether actual languages
>> were among what was restored; the books in Ultan's library would seem
>> not to be books handed down from 'our' time, but books written at the
>> end of the First Empire, presumably in current languages, enshrining
>> knowledge from an earlier time.
>
> Hmm, I have never been inclined to take Cyriaca's story as other than 
> a myth with perhaps a grain of truth to it.  (Though Cordwainer 
> Smith's future history contains a similar event.)
>
> Your idea about the Whorl cultures is interesting.  They *do* seem 
> rather more unique and 'ethnic' than one would expect from colonists 
> coming from a world which was surely at least as much a global village 
> as our own.  On the other hand, the 'Indian' type culture in Gaon 
> seems to speak the same language as that spoken in Viron (or does 
> it?).  The Trivigauntis have their own 'high language' but their 
> normal language seems to be the same as in Viron.  The Sleepers do not 
> seem to have any specially imposed cultural norms.  It is hard to put 
> any definitive pattern to it.
>
It does not need to have been a successful recreation. Just an 
attempt---with a Babel-like resonance.


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