Centrum English

[Tom Mazanec]

Centrum's Point of Divergence is 1120 IIRC.
Now, I have heard recordings of Chaucer's English, and it drives me nuts...I can almost make out a word, but when I try to figure it out another word I can almost make out comes along. It is like trying to catch minnows in a tank.
I have also heard recordings of the original Beowulf. It might as well be Klingon.
Since Centrum has such trouble with languages, how do they infiltrate Echoes, which speak languages so different from theirs?

[Sam Baughn]

Infinite Worlds seems to have some degree of 'temporal inertia'. Despite things diverging in small and large ways between parallels, the same people and historical themes seem to crop up again and again in similar places. The United States of Lizardia is an extreme example, but it applies to most of them.

So it seems plausible that Centrum English is somehow identical to the kind of English spoken on Homeline despite the massively different history.

[Benway]

Originally Posted by Tom Mazanec

Centrum's Point of Divergence is 1120 IIRC.
Now, I have heard recordings of Chaucer's English, and it drives me nuts...I can almost make out a word, but when I try to figure it out another word I can almost make out comes along. It is like trying to catch minnows in a tank.
I have also heard recordings of the original Beowulf. It might as well be Klingon.
Since Centrum has such trouble with languages, how do they infiltrate Echoes, which speak languages so different from theirs?

IW p. 47:

The official language of Centrum is English, which sounds like a
heavily accented version of Homeline English, with a rather larger number
of French loan-words.

See the box on above page in Infinite Worlds for the rest.

Seems that Centrum recruits outtimers to overcome language barriers while it sorts out its linguistic issues.

[Polydamas]

It is conventional for adventure and time-travel fiction in English to play down language differences and language learning because they tend to get in the way: it is hard to have a dramatic confrontation if the two sides barely understand one another. Yrth is the same way ... not just is English a common language, but banestorm victims from the 1990s can understand a bit of it.

Chaucer's London dialect is not too bad with practice, especially if you speak some Dutch or German.

L. Sprague de Camp wrote some good essays on the subject in the 1930s.

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Tom Mazanec

Centrum's Point of Divergence is 1120 IIRC.
Now, I have heard recordings of Chaucer's English, and it drives me nuts...I can almost make out a word, but when I try to figure it out another word I can almost make out comes along. It is like trying to catch minnows in a tank.
I have also heard recordings of the original Beowulf. It might as well be Klingon.
Since Centrum has such trouble with languages, how do they infiltrate Echoes, which speak languages so different from theirs?

First, given a divergence point of 1120, the Norman Conquest of 1066 and the presumed dominance of Anglo-Norman French is already established.

Second, Chaucer lived in the mid-14th century which is well after the divergence point.

While it seems unlikely that English would dominate and replace French as the language of the court given the absence of the Hundred Years' War and consequent loss of French lands held by English nobles, it evidently happened. [In OTL, Henry V was the first king to write in English rather than French.] Given that it did, a Chaucer-like Middle English and a Shakespearean-like start to Modern English aren't particularly improbable.

One regrettable loss may be that Centrum English having its origin in Terraustralis [Australia] probably doesn't sound much like Crocodile Dundee's Australian English. Then again, the box on The Language Barrier [IW p. 47] says the English is heavily accented, but the idea that it would be French-accented rather than Australian-accented is at best implied, rather than openly stated.

[Kax]

And Yrth is almost the opposite, diverging before the Norman-French insertion.

I did some history for Anglish, and it took some tweaking to get even to Chaucer-level understandability.

No Norman-French, not a lot of Parisian French, no Great Vowel Shift, a few other changes: managed to get to a language that doesn't sound like our English at all but isn't too hard to learn once you get the vowels right. That, and it's close enough that the locals can read Shakespeare without translation--Shakespeare is closer to Anglish than English in a few important ways.

Took some work and handwaving, though.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

It is conventional for adventure and time-travel fiction in English to play down language differences and language learning because they tend to get in the way: it is hard to have a dramatic confrontation if the two sides barely understand one another.

I disagree. The two sides barely understanding each other is a great way to add even more drama to the confrontation! The more interpreters you need to go through to get a message from decision-making guy A and decision-making guy B, the more characters with individual fears, motives, and flaws can change the message on purpose or accident. You'd be surprised how many wars got started from miscommunication...as well as how many wars got stalled because it took months for anyone to realize they were at war. And there have been at least a few wars where both sides thought the other side was surrendering at the same time!

To a writer, every obstacle is a tool. You don't have to use every tool in the box, but you shouldn't say any are useless.

[AlexanderHowl]

Language issues can be very important in an adventure, which is why languages cost points. If a character spends 50 points on Language Talent and 11 languages at Native, they probably should get something for their investment (though a character with that language portfolio should also probably be at least Wealthy, as they will be a capable business translator). I can imagine that a character with Arabic, Cantonese, English, French, German, Hindi, Japanese, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish, and Swahili at Native will be turning down jobs across the globe.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

It is conventional for adventure and time-travel fiction in English to play down language differences and language learning because they tend to get in the way: it is hard to have a dramatic confrontation if the two sides barely understand one another.

I recall one story of an uncontrollable time jumper whose translator quit working mid trip. When he finally returned home, he spoke a sort of Yiddish-Japanese-English-Ancient Egyptian blend (Yijapenglyptian?). It helped that the jumping was a sort of "stuck until you resolve the local issue" (when it wasn't "jump in, witness one thing, jump out") and so he was often there until he picked up some of the local language, anyway.