Re: Natlangs in Fantasy Worlds

On 11/10/07, Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> wrote:
> On Nov 10, 2007 6:17 PM, Jim Henry <jimhenry1973@...> wrote:
> > It has long been a minor annoyance to me that Lucy et al. can
> > readily understand the talking animals of Narnia when they arrive,
> > seeing as how the English of Narnia ought to have diverged greatly from
> > the late 19th century English spoken there at the time of its creation
> > during the thousands of years that passed between the time
> > of King Frank and Queen Helen, and the time of the White Witch.
>
> Meh, that's just genre convention.   Not worth getting annoyed about;
> just don't scrutinize too closely.  Time travel stories tend to have
> the same total disregard for language change...
Yes, but not all time travel stories. I seem to remember that in the
novel _The Doomsday Book_ the 21st century characters who get plopped
down in medieval England have difficulties coping with Middle English,
and much is made of this fact. Of course, that novel is indeed the
exception.

Dirk