Re: One language or two?

At 01:03 PM 9/5/03 +0100, Pete wrote:
Given that this is an open corpus of oral tradition, I think it would
>follow language changes, although possibly as a discrete distance.
How discrete a distance, do you reckon?  KJV distance or more like the
difference between colloquial and formal speech today, or something in between?

>  Each
>bard would learn the poems verbatim from his master during his
>apprenticeship (assuming that the bard is a special position in society),
Sort of.  Each child must learn the most ancient of the songs before they
can become an adult.  After that, it is up to the individual how much they
want to learn.  A lot of people will learn one or more of the more
important songs or rites (or ones which are their personal favorites.)  A
few people will spend a great deal of in study learning many of the songs
well and perfecting their performance methods.  Someone who is able to sing
a large number of the songs is in a special position in society, and the
learning of songs can become something of a lifelong pursuit involving
travelling away from one's home village to find other people who know songs
that you don't.  The "bards" are not generally itenerant, except as they
take journeys from village to village occasionally in order to learn and teach.

>and attempt to reproduce them as exactly as possible.
Yes, I imagine that it would be important to them to try to reproduce them
word-for-word.

>  However, he is likely
>to subconsciously adapt them to his own speaking style, so sound changes
>and the like will be absorbed.
Even a word-for-word reproduction will express sound changes.  (As in the
example that I gave of contemporary readings of Shakespeare.  Early Modern
English certainly wasn't pronounced the way we now pronounce it, but
picking up Shakespeare and reaing it aloud is a word-for-word reproduction,
but with phonological changes incorporated.

>  The bard will therefore recite the poems in
>slightly archaic but understandable language,
I am thinking that this "slightly archaic but understandable language"
might be what is used when giving public speeches and in other formal settings.

>  although there are likely to
>be fossilised expression here and there whose meaning has been lost in
>semantic shifts - these would sound cryptic, and possibly become the
>subject of metaphysical speculation
I hadn't thought about that, metaphysical speculations, that is.  I may
have to incorporate some of that into the story....Thanks for the thought.


>  When new poems are composed, they will be in contemporary
>form.
Contemporary form, or something at a discrete distance from contemporary
language?

>I would imagine that wholescale linguistic fossilisation is unlikely
>to occur before the poems are written down.
Yes, I've considered lately that these people are going to be in for an
unpleant surprise.  They have had no written language from the beginning of
their history, but, in the very near future, they will learn about written
language from one of the neighboring cultures.  By adding to and
subtracting from the other culture's alphabet, they get their own, and
excitedly welcome written language.  I have reflected that this is
eventually going to cause them to notice changes in their language and that
those changes are going to accumulate and become a real pain.  I wonder
what they're going to do when they notice it?

Isidora

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