Re: OT: Quick Intro

Steg Belsky wrote:
>On Thu, 20 Feb 2003 19:06:35 +0000 Andreas Johansson <and_yo@...>
>writes:
> > He actually had a few more Elvish languages, like Telerin and Silvan
> > Elvish.
> > But I suspect that the Lord of the Rings, with it's plentiful
> > references to
> > Elvish speech and Dwarvish inscriptions, has, thru' not too
> > attentive
> > readers, helped establish the pattern in many Fantasy worlds of
> > each
> > non-human race having just one language. I've, in RPGs, seen rather
> > amusing
> > examples of this, where Dwarfs speak Dwarf, Minotaurs speak Minotaur
> > and
> > Halflings speak Halfling, while the humans, in addition to being the
> > only
> > race that doesn't get a capital letter, for some reason don't speak
> > Human.
> > And they _never_ bother to explain this irregular state of affairs.
> >                                                      Andreas
>-
>
>I remember encountering explanations for the phenomenon... stuff like
>"humans are more varied in their cultures, languages, ethics, etc. than
>other races."  sometimes it goes back to cosmological bases having to do
>with different racial deities and stuff like that.
OK, I'll reformulate that: "And they've _never_ in any text that I've read
bothered to explain this irregular state of affairs."

I've actually seen the "humans are more variable" explanation, but that was
of a world whose creators had the imagination to give non-English names to
the non-human languages.

                                                 Andreas

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