(urth) This Week in Google Alerts: story with Gaiman

[David Stockhoff]

On 2/19/2011 11:47 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:
> On 2/19/2011 7:52 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:
>> On 2/19/2011 8:17 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
>>> Incidentally, there seems to be a slight language inconsistency in
>>> that Severian does not find Typhon's language archaic, or at least he
>>> does not mention it. Yet Typhon lived something between 350 and 2000
>>> years before Severian's time (depending on whether the Whorl travelled
>>> at relativistic speeds or not). One would expect considerable changes,
>>> even in a culturally fossilised society.
>>>
>> Perhaps a language that is used to rule several worlds lasts longer than
>> Latin, which ruled only part of one. But yes, Severian or his translator
>> appears to have glossed over that. Typhon should have had some
>> unimaginable archaic accent.
>
> I brought this up last year, particularly with Typhon failing to 
> correct Sev on Autarch instead of Monarch.
>
> However, given the vast numbers of speaking and listening devices 
> apparently still functional in the House and the Citadel, it is 
> possible that they create philological inertia; aristocratic accents 
> command machinery, eclectic accents don't. In Severian's case, the 
> apprentices sleep in the highest floors of the tower adjacent to the 
> chattering computers and communicators, and likely stand watches there 
> as well.
>
That's a good point. And any kind of social inertia is fitting for the 
Commonwealth---especially so when we know the author has projected about 
20,000 years between our English and Severian's language.


---
avast! Antivirus: Outbound message clean.
Virus Database (VPS): 110220-0, 02/20/2011
Tested on: 2/20/2011 8:18:29 AM
avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2011 AVAST Software.
http://www.avast.com