From: David Cake (davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au)
Date: Thu 21 Jul 1994 - 06:32:43 EEST
> _________
> Dave Cake
>
> > The difference is that someone who learns to read Loskalmi, can also read
> > (say) Jonatelan. In mediaeval times it was not the case that learning to
> > read French allowed you to read Italian (though it probably helped due to
> > language similarity), because if you wanted to read you probably first
> > learned Latin.
>
> EXACTLY! Latin existed before either French or Italian, and Latin script
> remained in widespread (all but universal) use even when the populace were
> speaking Romance languages. What I'm suggesting is that the Gloranthan
> Western *written* language is still at this early stage of development:
If Greg meant that the Western tongues had no written form, and that there was a psuedo Latin used by the literate classes, he would have said it.
What he said was that the various Western tongues share a written form, which is quite different (though with similar social consequences).
> just plain WRONG to anyone able to read it. Before mass literacy, the fact
> that the written form of the language isn't the same as what people are
> saying should come as no surprise at all.
>
Actually, it was my impression that at the beginnings of mass literacy, the
written form was closer to what people actually said than it is today, as
spelling was less formalised and more phonetic.
> I should qualify what I'm saying slightly, given that IMHO there is more
> local variation between Western written languages and scripts than is
> described in the Glorantha Book -- e.g. the Jonatelans may have an alphabet
> which relates to standard Western as Cyrillic does to Greek; the Carmanians
> certainly have several "new" letters adopted from Pelorian alphabets; etc.
>
Yes, that is why you want to get your read Western up well above 50%, so you
can read all those bizarre dialects.
> But if the Language of Learning in the West is the ancient Brithini written
> script, you get exactly the result described in "Glorantha" -- literate men
> from Loskalm to Seshnela to Malkonwal can write to one another in the
> universal language of Western Learning. (And they could probably speak it,
> too, though to a limited extent).
>
And they can't speak to one another, other than according to normal language
similarity.
> I'm not flaming Kanji (whatever turns you on, frankly) -- I'm just pointing
> out that the situation prevailing in the West has a simpler explanation,
> one more familiar to the mediaeval setting of the West. Gloranthan Wizards,
> like mediaeval clerics, doctors and scientists, write and lecture in the
> ancient language of True Learning. "Sorcery" is studied in Brithini. (This
> would also follow Martin Crim's Islamic parallel, of course, if we assume
> Western to be the language of the Book).
>
My explanation actually creates what is known about the West, yours
approximates it (well, different orders of approximation for the pedantic).
Given that the ideographic language fits the known facts better, why fight against it?
And also - I regard Latin being more appropriate for mediaeval Europe being something against it - the most common complaint about the West is that it is to Europe like, and not Gloranthan enough. Why then further this impression by making it more Europe like?
Cheers Dave
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