Friday 3 November 2017

Teminology

Which phrase is correct: "Merseian Empire" or "Merseian Roidhunate"? Both are used. Both are correct, of course. "Empire" is the Anglic term, translated into English for our benefit, whereas "Roidhunate" is an Eriau word, "Roidhun-," with an Anglic/English ending, "-ate."

Other interstellar "empires" are given Anglic names:

the Domain of Ythri;
the Dispersal of Ymir;
the Realm of Gorrazan.

In the case of Ythri, a Planha term has been translated into Anglic, then, for our benefit, into English. The issue of language is ever present although no other author develops it as fully as Tolkien.

"Ymir" is Norse.

3 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I have wondered how and in what ways our English will have changed a thousand years from now. I recall Sandra Meisel suggesting some of those changes will involve a simpler, more "fonetic" spelling of many words. To say nothing, of course, of loan words from the languages of non human races becoming part of the Anglic of the Technic Civilization stories.

Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

English spelling is perfectly phonetic -- for English as it was spoken about 400-500 years ago!

We tend to underestimate the degree of linguistic change because the written language is much more similar to, say, Chaucer, than the spoken one.

I wouldn't be surprised if English developed a tonal system in the next thousand years, as it became more and more monosyllabic and as the already large number of homonyms and homographs increases with the simplification of the vowel sounds.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Dear Mr. Stirling,

Then the spelling of English has not kept up with how the language is actually spoken. If that had happened, we might be spelling words like ALTHOUGH, BEAR, QUACK, QUEEN, QUEER, QUICK,
as ALTHO, BARE, KWACK, KWEEN, KWEER, KWICK, etc.

I admit I don't know what a "tonal" English or Anglic would be like.

Sean