Re: Conlangs in History

On Sat, 19 Aug 2000, Thomas R. Wier wrote:

> Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
>
> > The seeming lack of language change in the Foundation trilogy really
> > bothered me when I first read it a month ago <ducking>, but there were so
> > many other things I loved about it that I forgave Asimov.
>
> What was even more ridiculous was that in one of the related
> novels set in the same universe, _The Stars, like Dust_, in the end
> the main protagonist reads aloud an astonishing discovery, the
> preamble to the US Constitution, and understands it!  In thousands
> of years time, even assuming that a copy of the US Constitution exists
> (which is a *big* if), there is no reason to believe that his language
> would at all resemble that of English today, much less 212 years ago.
Was there a short story version?  It sounds vaguely familiar.  If it's
the same thing, then that was something else I read before I knew
linguistics existed.

> By the way, there's no reason to be ashamed of not having read him.
> Asimov's writing is simple and unpretensious, but the depth of meaning
> that goes into much of his work is equally shallow at times.  He goes
> often more for narrative flow than symbolism or philosophy. He will
> probably be remembered, however, as fairly representative of the
> archaic period of English scifi literature, when people were still
> developing the new genre and getting the kinks out of it. And he's a
> good, light read, and there's nothing wrong with that.
<wry g>  I still haven't read _Dune_, either.  My sister tells me I'd
hate it, but everyone else urges it on me.  My queue of books to read is
such that I never got around to trying it....

YHL