Re: Iain M. Banks: Marain language

Hi Henrik,

On Mon, 19 Jun 2006, Henrik Theiling wrote:
>
> Hi!
>
> Anyone read Banks' books?
I read one.  It was a well-paced adventure or
action yarn, with a knowledgeable nod at some
current philosphical issues.  The construction
of the story was excellent; the characters a
little two-dimensional.  I was not moved to seek
out more of his work.  In its best moments, the
book reminded me of some of the qualities I
find so appealing in Jack Vance's work - most
particularly, the willlingness to extrapolate
specifically human behaviour into some creatively
different potential situations, and a certain note
of invincible optimism.


> I found a few words of Banks himself about the conlang used in his
> science fiction books:
>
>   http://homepages.compuserve.de/Mostral/artikel/marain.html
>
> Unfortunately, this is mainly only about the writing system -- not
> much about the language.  But still, that's something.
>
> What do you think?
I'm astounded that such a literate writer
confounds the spelling of the two words
"principal" and "principle" so consistently!
;-)

More to the point: the page you linked to
is the bare outline of an orthography for
a language with a phoneme inventory
remarkably like one that might be acquired
in a short lifetime by an urban inhabitant
of modern Britain.  Beyond the orthography,
we learn nothing about the language except
that it was constructed as a loglang capable
of use by all humanoids in the Culture.

And the Culture itself?  Remarkably similar,
I think, to its forebears, of which someone
famously said (rough paraphrase only) that:
"Man invented language in order to conceal
his true intentions from his fellows" :-(.

It's a pity Banks seems not to have elaborated
the language further; he has the necessary
inventiveness, but does he have the music?

Regards,
Yahya

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