The Languages of Randland

[SinisterDeath]

I was in a state of insomnia last night, and one of the things I was I was thinking about had to deal with the languages of randland.

In randland, there are 3,4,5 and possibly 6 distinctly isolated populations, whom all came from the same language (old tongue). Yet, they all now speak the same langauge (common tongue). With of course, there own unique words for things within there culture. IE the seanchan speak common, yet they have a few old tongue words they use every day, as well as other unique words, 'to'raken' for example. Aiel are the same way. And the same for mainlanders. The People beyond the aiel wastes *sharan's?* most likely speak the common tongue with a few of there own unique words.

What strikes me as odd about this is, we have approximately 6 cultures, all geographically isolated from each other, yet they all speak the same common tongue language?

Giving the time frame of around 3000 years, a langauge can litterally evolve into about 20 or more languages in that time frame!

To me, there are only 2 conclusions you can reach from this.

1 There was alot of communication going around post breaking, artur hawkwing eras, the old tongue survived longer then just a few houndred years post breaking, and each cultures language has been in a state of stalled evolution, because the communication between them has been enough that there hasn't been enough time to change. *Thus why they all have a few unique words, but not a truelly different langauge.

or

2) The Old Tongue was such a simple langauge, that it could only have evolved so much into what we now know as the common tongue, and you could have had 30 different isolated cultures, and they would all have developed the same langauge.

 

However, we do know that the 'common tongue' and the 'old tongue' aren't the only language in randland.

I wouldn't be suprised if the natives of seanchan had there own language, as they were isolated far more then the rest of the mainland. *artur hawkings son went there post breaking after there 'Roman concur of the world killed, and broke the world' *or would that be closer to Alexander?*

The Silk people that have a name that changes, and starts with an S, probably are much closer to a new langauge then the rest of randland, due to there complete isolation.

 

The land of the madmen them selves probably have a very different language... probably more 'caveman like' given what RJ has told us about it..

That or they just talk like aussies, so the randlanders can't understand em.

 

The 6th somewhat what place would be the Two Rivers, and other geographically isolated places within the mainland. They easilly, could have there own langauge given enough time.

South America is a shining example of just how many langauges can develop being geographically isolated from the world, for houndreds of years.

[Bob T Dwarf]

I've been told that the language "Beowulf" was written in more closely resembles modern German than it does modern English. I'm no linguist, so I can't say whether that's true or not.

 

Ordinarily, linguistic drift should have resulted in several different languages after 3000 years. Factors acting against that, here, seem to be, first that Hawkwing united all of what is now Randland and ruled it for quite a few years before his death. That would have resulted in a single official language for all of those people. Then, when his Empire disintegrated, the rulers of most of the resulting lands were those who had been his generals, much like was the case after Alexander died. Then came the Trolloc Wars. Again there would have been a lot of intermingling, and a need for common language to coordinate forces.

 

Adding to all of this is that trade has always continued, and the White Tower has always been there. Negotiating treaties. Settling disputes. Advising rulers. Administering justice.

 

If you want to win your case in court, you need to be able to communicate clearly to the Aes Sedai judge.

 

So, we end up with something approaching America or Britain. Regional accents. Homegrown expressions. But, under it all a common tongue.

[algspkr]

First a comment on the Beowulf statement, my highschool English teacher read us a paragraph from the original, and it did sound German.

 

Second the Westlands, have had a history of close interaction revolving around the White Tower explaining their common language.

 

There was a Seanchan PoV that stated they learned the common language from the armies sent by Arthur Hawking, previously there had been several languages spoken there.

 

Why the Aiel, Sharans, and to a lesser extent Seafolk speak common is beyond me.

[aznprince001]

If Randland was all one kingdom one time it cant have changed that badly. American was under British control for 219 years, (thats quincy adams to clinton) and English in Britain differed from America so that Americans and British could still toast the queen the same way.

 

but sinister death is right, why does Randland have all the same languages. I think at least the Seafolk have their own language.

[SinisterDeath]

The breaking was 3000 years ago right?

And Artur Hawking was around 1000 years pre-wot books

 

Pre-Breaking, everyone spoke the old Tongue.

Post-Breaking after several centuries of wandering around finding homes, starting kingdoms up again ect ect ect. People spoke the old tongue or various versions there of. Communication between nations during that hectic time period was Very Sparse.

Now thats 2000 years between the breaking and Artur Hawkwing.

Before that, nations were built, destroyed, rebuilt, concured, disapeared, vanished, merged, revolted. ect ect ect. I wouldn't be suprised if many nations were completely isolated from others. *Aiel/Sharans/Seanchan*

During those 2000 year gap, there had to have logically been houndreds of langauges running amongst the lands. Mainland, Wastes, Junglesilkland, seanchan, islands, aussies.

 

The Old tongue had to have been morphed into at least 20 different languages in that time frame. Many words were probably interchangable with other regions.. But langauges had to have been different.

Then When Hawkwing came to power, he basically united the mainland, he 'controlled' the known world. And in doing so, allowed trade amongst nations instead of 'war', petty battles for land/resources. With trade came langauge.

After Hawkwing died, its obvious that his generals, while they may have had battles for land rights, ect.. They still maintained the common language.

Yet we know every nation still has a few unique words, prhases, and probably entire aspects of there culture, that don't exist in others. Ie, names for various dances, songs, techniques, that may be in a completely different sounding language..

Seanchan natives spoke a langauge completely different then common tongue, but since seanchan invasion there, they now speak it, and possibly there orginal one to. *Which supports the Idea that Artur Hawkwing brought langauge unification to the mainland*

But that still leaves us with another 1000 years of geological isolation between the aiel, Sharans *whom artur probably never met?* isle of the mad aussies, and the seafolk. Seafolk have always sailed the seas. And since being on the ocean, you can't really live long with out another source of food asside from fish.. No great wealth. So obviously they did what they do best, Sail. Traders, buying low on one island, selling high on theother, making bundles. They obviously had to learn the langauges amongst every port city they went to. Or trading would kill them. (probably litterally to). However, they must have at one time or another had there own language, The same with the people on the islands.

 

Yet that 1000 year gap, even with trading I think should have evolved the langauges a bit more then is shown. Though, Dumani definately reflects how accents can almost completely morph one language into something else. Givin time, they'll have there own language.. But not just yet.

*From an authors pov, having everything in one language makes it a bit easier to write. :P*

[Jellybelly]

Well, what you do not consider in that survey is that our languages have evolved from a variety of completely different language families. The two thousand years or so of our history that has produced the various languages can not really be compared to this situation, since our languages have to a great extent been formed in through influence from other languages. As was mentioned, Old English is a language far different from Modern English; in fact it has much more in common with the germanic languages. In the Old English period, the language spoken on the British Isles was much very, very similar to Old Norse. It is through the influence of French that English turned into the language it is today. This factor has been missing in Randland.

 

Here, the languages we see are not only members of the same family, but descended from one single language. A basic linguistic rule is that when two peoples (be it two tribes, two villages etc.) are separated by a physical boundary, the two will start producing idiosyncratic expressions, lexica, phonetic peculiarities etc. The language of two peoples who originally spoke the same language, would not evolve to the point of being mutually unintelligible, though. This is how dialects come into existance.

 

Now, in the world of the Wheel we see that the languages of the different people are really no more than dialects. The main groups of Randland have been been separated, but they spoke the same language prior to this separation, and the languages have evolved parallelly. Being a fantasy series, it is no stretch of the imagination. At least, not if you accept channelling.

[Bob T Dwarf]

You are correct. First came the Trolloc Wars and later came Hawkwing.

[chuckievi]

I'm with Jelly on this.

 

Think Spanish and Portugese, someone who speaks spanish can pretty well understand someone who speaks portugese, because they have the same root. The same goes for a lot of the Germanic languages.

[Jonn]

I started a topic about this a few months back. In fact me and Jelly had a bit of an argument going about it. :D

 

Here's the link:

 

http://www.dragonmount.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4312&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=languages&start=15

 

This was my basic semi-conclusion to why the languages are the way they are:

 

 

...

It just so happens I do have figured an explanation as to how they could all be speaking the same language. The only problem is that there is a sense of ingnorance of any other language existing in the world we are seeing.

 

The explanation is that the world in the books is much MUCH bigger than we have been able to see.

 

Say there was a Breaking in our reality...If the Breaking had mashed all of the predominantly English speaking countries together somehow, it would be comparable to the continent we are so familiar with now in the books. Smash Canada and the United States together...it's plausible that the dominant language would be English. So long as South America, Africa and The other continents are kept separate from the American English portion...All the minority languages die out and all you have left is English spoken in regional accents.

 

So essentially you don't have a single world language. You have a dominant language used in a smaller portion of the globe.

 

We are under the assumption here that "Randland" (still hate the term) constitutes the largest portion of the world. This must not be true. you have the Seanchan Continent, the Sharan lands, the Land of Madmen Continental mass.

 

I think this is the answer.

 

The Old Tongue was globally accepted "educated" language as institutionalized by the Aes Sedai centered society. There were still other languages in use throughout the regions, but the language that was standardized that everyone who was educated could use was Old Tongue.

 

"Randland"- This is where all the action is. This is where the Bore was opened, this is where Dragonmount popped up and all just before the Breaking. This is a single continent that speaks their local language which we will call Common. Other continents are familiar with it to a degree but they have their own languages. The only unifying language is Old Tongue, which is generally used by the educated. Randland, though is like the United States and Canada. The standardized language for the United States and Canada is Common (English). The Breaking happens and all of Canada and United States are smashed together to form Randland and later the Compact of Ten Nations and so on. They all spoke common before the Breaking. the educated spoke Old Tongue and common. After the breaking, the most used language becomes common, because all of the societal structures are destroyed. Only the surviving nobler classes like female Aes Sedai and other races like the Ogier can maintain any other organized languages. All of the "foreigners" who came from other regions than *Canada and *the US were absorbed into the other groups which predominantly spoke Common.

 

Outside of teh Randland/US/Canadian continent there are other languages, but not in *sigh* Randland.

 

When Hawkwing's son went to conquer Seanchan, that continent had remnants of Old Tongue as well, so translation could come about between speakers of Common and the native Seanchan languages, which were probably many.

 

There. How's that for an explanation?

[Luckers]

Well, what you do not consider in that survey is that our languages have evolved from a variety of completely different language families.

 

Well actually Jelly, a majority of the languages in the world are derivations of one language, Sanskrit. There are a few few specific exceptions such as Busk and so on, but the influence of early indo-european culture was so wide-spread that almost all modern languages are derived from sanskrit. You can even follow the evolution. In the Near East you see the development of Avestan, then Hebrew, Arabic etc. In India you see Pali as a singular derivative (one that is still used today), and then mixing with Chinese and Japanese languages. In central Europe you see Latin, then English, German, French, etc. In Brittain you get Gaelic.

 

There are, of course, the African, Australian and other localized cultural bases that existed without an indo-european influence until relatively recently--but that just adds to it. The Aboriginals came to Australia, it is believed, in three waves, yet by the time the Europeans landed there were over 760 distinct languages... not dialects, languages.

 

So you see, despite a solid, singular linguistic base, even on one singular land mass, many many different languages form. I too find the linguistically stunted nature of the Wheel a bit... strange.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Yes, it does seem strange. But, then, we live in a much more freeform world than that of WOT.

 

Everywhere you look in these books you find frozen societies. There is no innovation. No original thought. The schools/institutes/research facilities that Rand has set up are something entirely new. The primitive things that they are coming up with are unprecedented. Nothing like this has happened in over 3000 years.

 

That, too, is strange. People are just too cussed ornery to keep thinking and doing exactly the same things in the same ways for that long.

 

What makes it even stranger is that their society had to be completely rebuilt from the ground up after the Breaking. In the AoL, food was probably cooked with *angreal. Once those were gone, people had to get creative and come up with ovens, and firepits and grates, and cookware that could stand up to open flame, etc. They had to locate water, dig wells, quarry stone, etc. And, they had to create the tools and technology to do all of it from scratch. That took original thought, determination and persistence.

 

Somehow, they did all of that, and then just stopped once they reached a medieval level of technology, thought, and understanding. Randland's troops are still using the same weapons and tactics that Hawkwing employed 2000 years ago.

 

Strange, indeed.

[Luckers]

Our society has had phases like that too. Until the renaisance all of Europe had existed in virtual stasis.

 

Recall too that there HAS been times of advancement in WoT, but that these have resulted in attacks by Ishamael, in order to keep them from getting too far along.

[Bob T Dwarf]

If you compare, say 12th century Europe with 4th century Rome, it can look that way, but that isn't really an accurate picture.

 

The northern and middle Europeans were "barbarian hordes" mostly because they existed at a technological base level that was centuries behind the Romans. They were essentially a late Stone Age/early Iron Age culture. Once Rome disintegrated, they were starting from a lower technological base. Those years were spent simply getting back the technology that had been lost when Rome died.

 

Simultaneous with all of that we have incredible progress in other parts of the world. The Arabs were inventing symbolic mathematics. The Chinese were perfecting the repeating crossbow, and beginning to employ explosives.

 

Things were far from how stagnant they appear to have been in Europe. And, Europe only looks stagnant because it took all those years for the "barbarians" to learn what the Romans had already known. By as early as the 8th or 9th century, there had even been some advances. Steel was now of sufficient quality that the longsword made an appearance. Armor became more sophisticated. etc.

[aznprince001]

Yeah that sounds right.

 

I read a book about crusaders in the Arab city of Tyre.

 

It said how it seemed the Crusaders had torn open the gates of heaven when they were in the holy land. They bathed everyday, (not in Europe) rugs, concrete, and even algebra came from Arabic lands.

 

thus affirming Dwarf's reasoning.

[Luckers]

aznprince.... what?

 

Bob, The Chinese had explosives for four thousand years before developing it further. The repeating crossbow bolt did not exist in our world for much much longer then it didn't in theres.

 

Cycles of a thousand years of growth, to be brough back to nearly the beginning are not peculiar aside from the fact that it is more hurried. We never experienced cataclysms of the lifes of theirs, and our cultures at different times have gone on for hundreds of years with no real noticeable cultural or technilogical growth. Nations rose and fell, but so did they in Randland. Singular innovative devices were constructed, but so were they in Randland, Philosophers discovered some innate truth, but so did they in Randland.

 

In reality the degree of social growth is matched, the only difference is that in Randland at a certain point Ishy would step in and sending all crashing back down again.

[RobertAlexWillis]

As far as language development goes, there is one thing to consider.

 

This is a story.

 

In real life, things would not have worked that way, linguistically. Populations isolated from one another begin to diverge lingually in one generation. After a thousand years of separation, the Seanchan language would be mutually unintelligible with the language of Randland, having been subject to isolation divergence and foreign population's (the Seanchan indigens) influence. But then, Turak couldn't have spoken to Rand, Egeanin couldn't have made friends with the dynamic duo (Braidtugger and Miss Snoot), Tylee and Perrin couldn't have allied, etc. There wasn't time in the story for Mat and Tuon to learn each others respective languages before making out.

 

In short, there would at least have been the type of divergence we see in the romance languages of Europe. Jordan almost certainly knows this, just like he knows channeling isn't real. It is a necessity of telling the story.

 

Please, please challenge me on this. This is my arena. :twisted:

[Luckers]

Clearly they are just all carrying around universal translators... er... i mean ter'angreal.

 

Every one of them.

[dimmu666]

Lets just say RJ wanted to make things easier and keep things simple yeah? Having a billion different languages would make writing WoT a tedious task of looking up diff words from made up tongues. Take LOTR for example, Tolkien spoke like 7 languages and created a complete working lanauge 'elvish' from scratch. That takes real skill and i don't think many writers in the world can do that and keep things coherent. If the characters all spoke different languages..the entire plot will be grindingly slow; interactions will be pathetically retarded with most of the time going "huh? what? ug? ga?" for example; for one character from lets say andor to communicate to a cairhienin it would be like speaking english to a french yeah? how could the story work then? If the cairhienin spoke andorish, it would also imply a level of education which randland does not provide freely. Never in the books do they mention compulsory schooling.

 

Thats why i think RJ did the right thing to keep it simple with two languages.

[RobertAlexWillis]

Take LOTR for example, Tolkien spoke like 7 languages and created a complete working lanauge 'elvish' from scratch. That takes real skill and i don't think many writers in the world can do that and keep things coherent.

 

Interestingly, as a side note, for Tolkein (a real linguist, I'm merely a dabbler) much of the story developed as a result of his invention of the elvish languages. His results (insofar as the languages are concerned) are very, very well developed consistent language structures. But even he kept the other languages' intrusions into the storyline minimal, only for "flavor". In reality, the peoples of Gondor and Rohan would probably have spoken a language that Frodo and companions would not have understood.

 

This is a common theme in fantasy storytelling. Foreigners, aliens, everyone finds a "common tongue". It is necessary to tell the story with any kind of flow, but it is unrealistic, and the second reason (behind physics) why most fantasy and sci-fi will have to remain fiction.

[Jonn]

Yes, this is the problem for me. The lack of any separate languages from Common.

 

I mean, I can accept that a large group of people from a single continent can end up speaking the same language.

 

I just find it hard to believe that there are no distinct variations that would be considered separate languages. Look at Portugese and Spanish. The countries where these languages are spoken are scattered all over the globe, but the homelands where they come from are smashed together. There's a good chance that many Portugese can speak and understand Spanish and many Spanish can actually speak Portugese, but still the two languages are distinct enough. In a relatively small region, you have two distinct languages co-exisitng side by side.

 

What's different in the Wheel of Time? I can accept there there's a universal language useable by all on the main continent, but it is strange that there are no offshoot languages or separate languages that coexist besides Ogier and the Old tongue.

 

The Seafolk are quite the anomaly. They have their own separate society and travel to other Continents that speak other languages, but the language they use is pretty much the language that is spoken on the main continent.

 

The Seanchan as well. The explanation for them is that they are a very structured and regimented society. If the Hawkwing Blood demanded that everyone speak Common, everyone would adapt and speak it, and keep it uniform as part of their identity. Even for a thousand years, yes.

 

I still think that Old Tongue was a global language used by scholars. Every continent though had their adaptations, including the main continent in the storyline. One thing is made clear in the books. After the Breaking, trade and relations between people was re-established as a constant. Humankind was drawn towards one another as strongly as it was scattered by the strife of the Age. Even through wars, people still would communicate through peddlers and gleemen and travellers. I think the shared language was important to the main continent. After the War of Power they must have had to band together as a means of survival. Communication was vastly important. So after the Breaking, even as people went their separate paths, they were always brought back together through trade and...disaster. the False Dragons would pop up again and again trying to conquer the world. The people had to band together and defeat them. The White Tower established constant relations between rulers and the powerful. That was an infulence. There were the Trolloc Wars which lasted a long time. There were more False Dragons. Then the Conquest of Hawkwing came and further unified the cultures (or attempted to), and then the wars of Succession after. Always the White Tower was there. The the Aiel War, and so on...

 

Again, the only problem I have is that there are no alternative languages that some know and other do not. Ther eare no bilingual people on that continent, because there are no other languages that are acknowledged.

[RobertAlexWillis]

What's different in the Wheel of Time?

 

It's a story.

 

The Seanchan as well. The explanation for them is that they are a very structured and regimented society. If the Hawkwing Blood demanded that everyone speak Common, everyone would adapt and speak it, and keep it uniform as part of their identity. Even for a thousand years, yes.

 

Actually, that has never, ever been the case, anywhere in the real world, even for 500 years. Even in places where excellent records are kept. Anywhere. Ever. And don't pretend that English is an example. If you met Henry VIII you'd barely understand his name, much less what he was saying, despite the fact that he spoke "English". The reason no one understands the King James Bible today (even though lots of people think they do) is that it is written in what amounts to a different dialect, and it is probably the closest thing to language preservation over a long period that we have (395 years, it was first printed in 1611). We may just now be reaching the point where, technologically, we can truly preserve language, because now we can record sight and sound, as well as words. Writing alone never truly preserves langauge.

 

Your example of the Iberian penninsula specifically and Europe in general is very apt. Even in relatively close contact, and descending from a common source (the Roman vulgate of the Empire) the languages diverged to a point where they are barely mutually intelligible. A much greater difference than the "accents" in this or any other fantasy series.

 

Again, it is a necessary concession to storytelling. Jordan and the other authors know how languages work, but realism wouldn't let them tell their story. So, as they are willing to trash the laws of physics, they are willing to trash the laws of language development. Which is fine, with me, its fiction.

[SinisterDeath]

May I need remind all of ya, I did state somewhere in one of my posts that its an 'authors copout' because telling a story with 200 different languages makes things a bit.. challanging..

[RobertAlexWillis]

In terms of pure realism, yes, it is a copout.

 

Frankly, I'm not sure I would enjoy learning fictional languages just to understand a new fantasy series though .... especially the ones with aliens ... that could get very wierd.

[Jonn]

Sure, it's a story, but Tolkien made it a point to acknowledge that with different cultures there are different languages. He didn't really delve any deeper than he needed to, just to get the story to flow.

With the elven cultures alone there are several languages, and in the human cultures several languages still, but generally everyone was familiar with a common language in which the story was told in the majority. Still, the acknowledgement of the other languages is what made Tolkien's work so rich in that way.

So if you want to cop out and say that a story is allowed some leeway, there are examples within fantasy fiction that handle language very seriously and rather lyrically. There is an argument for suspension of disbelief, but when there is a precedent set in both real life and in the examples of literary fiction, it is just as valid if not more so to be critical of the exemption of an explanation of these issues.

It's a measure of appreciation for his work, that fans ask questions and are very serious about the contents in RJ's universe.

[RobertAlexWillis]

OK, I'll cop out, if thats what you want to call it.

 

Frankly, I've enjoyed stories of both types. In his Eden series, Harry Harrison goes so far as to develop lingual concepts that go past anything Tolkien tried to incorporate, involving non-human language, and the ability to speak well as the basis for adult consideration in society, as well as institutionalized subclasses based entirely on their ability to handle language. I enjoyed it immensely. But I also enjoy works that ignore that aspect of reality.

 

ALL fiction (especially fantasy) ignores some aspects of reality. Thats why we call it fantasy. The author chooses to tell his/her story in the way that most fits how it develops in his/her mind. Some choose to include language differences in what they ignore, some don't. I don't really have a problem either way, as long as everybody knows its not realistic. I'm fairly sure Jordan would, if asked, say something to the effect of "Yeah, if it were real, there probably would have been more lingual variation." The rest of his writing shows that he's too intelligent to simply have not considered it. So, I view it as a conscious choice, and given the length of his work as it is, I'm personally glad he chose not to belabor it further with lingual complications. He gave reality a nod with the regional "accents", and then moved on to the story.