Re: Natlangs in Fantasy Worlds

--- Jeff Rollin <jeff.rollin@...> wrote:

> In the last episode, (On Sunday 11 November 2007
> 19:27:21), ROGER MILLS wrote:
> > Michael Poxon wrote:
> > >In fact, this is what I have done in my tale "The
> Fletcher Wives" (book 1
> > >was finished, then the CD onto which I had backed
> it up got lost after I
> > >had to reformat the HDD after a serious virus 18
> months ago, so I am
> > > having to rewrite it!!).
> >
> > Interesting when that happens..........
> >
> > >All the Auleri speak (of course) their own
> language throughout the story,
> > >sometimes in large chunks.
> >
> > When I was mentally creating Cindu/Kash etc. it
> was a First Contact story
> > involving a young Terran who is sent down to
> Holunda city.  All the Kash
> > would have spoken in that language, up to the
> point where John finally gets
> > across the fact that his little shuttle ship has a
> device that enables him
> > to learn a language in like half and hour :-))
> Oddly, apparently I
> > overlooked the fact that both he and all the Kash
> are telepaths, which
> > would certainly solve the language problem....
> > But once he learned Kash, the story would have
> continued in English. One
>
> Not necessarily. Certainly in "Star Trek" and sci-fi
> of that ilk (think
> Stargate) telepaths seem to be able to communicate
> across languages and
> species, but then after a few episodes the Stargate
> aliens all seem to have
> developed an oddly rapid and intimate knowledge of
> English (whilst cunningly
> avoiding all terms which are not specific to their
> culture) anyway. However,
> I wouldn't expect this to be the case in "hard SF"
> (of which, admittedly, I
> have read very little.) After all, if we think back
> to the days when there
> were lots of different makes of computer, all
> incompatible, they all "spoke
> different languages" even though they all ran on
> electricity... and although
> we may all be the same species, I'm sure we can all
> think of instances when,
> communicating with someone who speak a/the same
> language as we do, we found
> that hard to believe!
Indeed.  I suppose it would depend on what mental
level the telepathy is occurring on, but I would have
thought that one's thoughts happen in a particular
language - this is the problem with initial learning
of an L2 - at first, you don't think in the language.

Interestingly, ISTR Babylon 5 having strong adverse
reactions in some telepaths to cross-species
communication.  The contacted mind is too different,
and the telepath's subconscious rebels...

Geoff

=====

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