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Re: Natlangs in Fantasy Worlds

From:Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
Date:Saturday, November 10, 2007, 14:50
On Nov 10, 2007 4:30 AM, R A Brown <ray@...> wrote:
> Alex Bicksler wrote: > > I've always noticed that in fantasy worlds such as Tolkien's Middle Earth, English is often > > used alongside conlangs. This seems like it would be highly unlikely. > > And is surely a misrepresentation. According to Tolkien's conworld, > there is *NO* English! Nor are Sindarin, Quenya etc conlangs!
Well, they are conlangs IRL. I think Alex just meant that they're fictional, and the presence of a real natlang like English in their midst would indeed be unlikely (although possible, given a creative in-world explanation); I don't think he was suggesting that they were supposed to be conlangs within the Middle-Earthen milieu. But yes, LoTR is allegedly a translation of the original, and while JRRT didn't develop Westron enough to do a full back translation, there are some details about it available. Most other fantasy works operate on a premise, explicit or implicit, that the language everyone is speaking is not, in fact, English, but is merely represented as such for the benefit of the reader. -- Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>

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R A Brown <ray@...>