'allo 'allo, an intrepidatious newbie here...

Jane · December 20, 2007, 04:18:47 PM

Quote from: "Eimi"I always figured the same, Yvonne. Personally, I'm surprised Southern and Northern Continent dialects aren't unintelligable XD

Wasn't that one of the purposes of Harpers and of sending them to places other than where they were raised? As teachers they were supposed to be keeping the language standard.

PastMember · December 20, 2007, 04:19:01 PM

Quote from: "Yvonne"You know, that was one thing that bothered me to no end about Pern... for the distance between settlements and the relative difficulty of travel (dragons not withstanding) I always thought there ought to have been more regional differences in speech! (I am such a nerd...)

Quote from: "Eimi"I always figured the same, Yvonne. Personally, I'm surprised Southern and Northern Continent dialects aren't unintelligable XD

Come join the linguistic Nerd Herd! :brilsmurf: I always wondered that too! Pernese from different places always spoke a little differently in my mind... the only reasons I could come up with, that there weren't more differences were:
1) Lack of interlanguage contact. With all the original settlers seeming to come from the same general place, there weren't many influences from other languages.
2) Shared sense of identity... often dialects and sociolects develop from a need to express differentiation from other groups... sometimes it takes a while for them to develop, and other times they can develop relatively quickly. I thought - maybe the Pernese felt a very strong sense of shared identity? This still seemed (and seems) pretty farfetched to me though.
3) In the Weyrs it would be kind of logical for a dialect leveling influence, with people coming from everywhere, and there being (in some cases) a kind of disconnect from their pasts. Of course, if people still feel a strong association with their pasts (which sometimes grows with distance), that's a reason to _maintain_ or even exaggerated linguistic differences... :profileleft: :profileright:
4) Maybe AM didn't want to write it in - if everyone uses a 'prestige' variety, there's less cause for any linguistic stereotyping, giving people kind of a 'clean slate' in terms of their background... this seems pretty unnatural to me though... but being a Southern Midwestern farmer girl who moved out of state for college, i've always been engrossed with differentiation!

But with the ever-increasing time-depth, and especially with cultural differences between the Northern and Southern Continent, it would make total sense for different dialects to develop... I have noticed that sometimes people associated with SeaCrafting :pirate: use British Isles colloquialisms like 'aye' more, and using the word 'Dar' for father - I'm all for it! :colors: Hooray for linguistic diversity!

Speaking of mobility though - there's probably still too much intercontinental traffic for the dialects to become totally unintelligible... I'm thinking of British, American, and Australian English... the dialects that are more difficult tend to be those with more contanct from other languages (like Scottish, i heard some Scots in a train on the way to a soccer match against Ajax in A'dam one time - i thought they were speaking some Scandinavian language for a while!)

(sorry - this probably got _much_ too nerdy for y'all :study: ) Feel free to shut me up anytime! LOL

PastMember · December 20, 2007, 04:27:53 PM

Quote from: "Yvonne"Whereabouts is Kiowa spoken? The only real NA language I know anything about at all is Dene. Do you speak Kiowa?

Cool, you know about Dene?! The Canadian one, or the Apache one... I have a Navajo friend who went to Dine college - they're all related, you know. Awesome languages - quite complex! Do you speak any, or know any speakers?

Kiowa is a language of a Plains group; the Kiowa people came down from the Northern Plains and roamed the mid- to southern plains... the Tribal Headquarters is in Oklahoma now. It's related to some Pueblo languages, though - Tewa, Tiwa, Towa, Jemez... still kind of a mystery exactly how that worked, who moved where when. There are stories, but... not exactly confirmed.

I speak _some_ Kiowa, though it's a constant struggle to get better! It's not spoken that often anymore - though there are quite a few elders around who speak some, they tend not to use it much, for different reasons, except in prayer, speeches, or some code-switching (joking, discourse markers...)

It's being taught to some children in school though, so there's still hope that it could live on... takes a lot of work though, and a lot of people who are willing to put in the effort to really learn it... the community is still trying to figure out how to deal with that. (I'm trying to help, as best I can...)

Sorry, there i go rambling... i can talk about that for HOURS, days, weeks... but that's my day job :brilsmurf:

Eimi · December 20, 2007, 05:23:31 PM

Quote from: "Ambrosia"But with the ever-increasing time-depth, and especially with cultural differences between the Northern and Southern Continent, it would make total sense for different dialects to develop... I have noticed that sometimes people associated with SeaCrafting :pirate: use British Isles colloquialisms like 'aye' more, and using the word 'Dar' for father - I'm all for it! :colors: Hooray for linguistic diversity!

But don't they say that language changes 14% on average every hundred years? Even without other languages interaction, the languages would start incorporating new sayings and slang terms that would be morphed into everyday language and, after a while, changing it completely. And the pronunciation would shift slightly... The Southern continent was settled about 1,200 turns before, and there has been a geographical split between the people for all that time. There has been disputes between the two continents and therefore very little movement for some time. Let's say there has been limited contact and seperated crafthalls for at least 500 turns. That would be a 70% difference in language going off the 14% per 100 turns/year model!

And yes, Jane, they did have harpers helping to regulate the language, but after the split in the Halls, there would have been an inevitable language shift happening independantly of their Northern Hall (which would probably be shifting another way) and so there would be some linguist changes. So there would be standard Southern and standard Northern dialect being taught by the two crafthalls. That is, assuming things worked on Pern as it does on Earth, which as we all know, it doesn't XD

Jane · December 20, 2007, 05:44:49 PM

If we followed the letter of the Triad club history on this one ...

QuoteCrafters do not generally move between the continents

... we'd have to re-history many of our current personas! As it is, I think that a universal language is alive and well in the Triad Universe.

Eimi · December 20, 2007, 06:26:35 PM

Quote from: "Jane"If we followed the letter of the Triad club history on this one ...

QuoteCrafters do not generally move between the continents

... we'd have to re-history many of our current personas!

Luckily the word "generally" leaves a slight bit of wiggle room ;)

PastMember · December 20, 2007, 07:45:38 PM

Quote from: "Bree"Hullo, there! I'm the mostly absent web-monkey, but I thought I'd toss a wave your way! :D

You lived in Innsbruck for a year, huh? I lived in Melk, Austria, for a year. Lovely place! And hey...I just found out yesterday that I'm probably going to have to fly to Oklahoma next year to do some product installation for work. I was just thinking that I'm not sure I know ANYONE there!

Welcome to the nuthouse! I'm sure they'll take good care of you. :D

Hello Bree - luv yr avatar!

Thx for the wave :cat:

Oh yes, i loved Innsbruck - 'cept that i twisted my knee first time i went skiing there! That was a bummer. Melk is near Vienna, right? It's supposed to be a beautiful town... i've never been there though :( Someday!

Well, we're in Norman, just south of Oklahoma city - so if you need any info (places of interest, nice pubs, etc), or would like to meet up for a drink

, just give us a holler!

PastMember · December 20, 2007, 07:55:11 PM

Quote from: "Eimi"But don't they say that language changes 14% on average every hundred years? Even without other languages interaction, the languages would start incorporating new sayings and slang terms that would be morphed into everyday language and, after a while, changing it completely. And the pronunciation would shift slightly... The Southern continent was settled about 1,200 turns before, and there has been a geographical split between the people for all that time. There has been disputes between the two continents and therefore very little movement for some time. Let's say there has been limited contact and seperated crafthalls for at least 500 turns. That would be a 70% difference in language going off the 14% per 100 turns/year model!

You're totally on target, Eimi... You know a lot about languages :D (why doesn't that surprise me :sunny: ) Only thing is that unfortunately, it's not quite as regular as that (despite what glottochronologists think - people who measure time depth of languages and families based on a fixed rate of langauge change). Some cultures are a little more conservative than others, while some change their vocabulary quite often due to taboos of using names of those who have passed on.

Quote from: "Eimi"And yes, Jane, they did have harpers helping to regulate the language, but after the split in the Halls, there would have been an inevitable language shift happening independantly of their Northern Hall (which would probably be shifting another way) and so there would be some linguist changes. So there would be standard Southern and standard Northern dialect being taught by the two crafthalls. That is, assuming things worked on Pern as it does on Earth, which as we all know, it doesn't XD

Yup - again, i totally agree with you! :geek: I feel right at home here already! We could have a whole topic on 'linguists of Pern'! LOL
Hurray for wiggle room :shaking2:

PastMember · December 21, 2007, 09:53:22 AM

Howdy Ambrosia!

Just wanted to add my welcome. I was new to pbem when I joined in September as well! Judging from your posts, you'll be a great addition to triad! :2thumbs:

Rochelle · December 21, 2007, 07:40:20 PM

HI!!!!

Yvonne, you forgot me! :D But I'll forgive you, since I haven't been around much for a few months. Anthropologists rule! (Triad certainly seems to be collecting them, my BA is in cultural anthropology btw)

Glad to see you Ambrosia! I'm sure you'll love it here -and Triad is a great way to get some creative unwinding in when you're working on school! Look me up is you'd like a post!

Again, Welcome to Triad!