From: David Cake (dave@starfish.net.au)
Date: Thu 04 Nov 1999 - 07:57:19 EET
Perhaps what is magical about Tradetalk is that the many widely
scattered traders who speak it all appear to be able to communicate, hence
it does seem to undergo very little drift. The various trading cults
probably have something to do with this - whether its magic, or some
standardised teaching method, or somewhere in between (they are visited by
spirits who talk Tradetalk, so they all learn the finer points of
pronounciation from a central source, so the language does not have as much
drift?).
Other than that, I have always assumed it to be a pidgin, and thus
fairly easy to learn, like bahassa Indonesia, like many major real world
trading languages.
Cheers
David
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