(urth) This week in Google alerts; story with Gaiman:

[Gerry Quinn]

From: "Andrew Mason" <andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com>
> Gerry Quinn wrote:

> >  As you say, Latin and English would be nearly indistinguishable in
> > Severian's day. What I think is that the language represented as Latin 
> > in
> > BotNS is to the contemporary language of Severian's day as Latin is to 
> > the
> > English of today. And I don't think the language Thea speaks of (which 
> > is
> > actually the English we speak) holds that position. It seems more 
> > distant.
> >
> > I other words I think:
> >
> > <Terminus Est> : <Sev's language> :: Latin : English
> > <language Thea mentions> : <Sev's language> :: <really ancient language> 
> > :
> > English

> 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.

- Gerry Quinn