Re: One language for the world

>Well, a lexicon would change more readily than the grammar, so I'd
>imagine that yes, a distinct dialect with a distinct accent could form,
>without it having it's own grammatical constructs, provided that
>communication through space was reasonably quick. Of course, if a
>language already existed on the colonized worlds, the dialect could
>adapt some of its constructs.
In the case of Jinx (Sirius), directional words change meaning since it is a
stretched rock with an atmosphere that becomes vacuum at its extremes and
too thick for humans in the middle. Niven explicitly uses East and West to
refer to the extremes of the long axis, but this seems a rather
unsatisfactory solution to me for such a bizarre environment. Wunderland
(Alpha Centauri) is said to be settled by patriotic German aristocrats, so I
would suspect that the Wunderlanders also have a distinct accent.
Has anybody else on the list addressed this problem?
________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com