Active Users:350 Time:02/04/2025 12:46:52 AM
Re: My god, a post! samgreenaway Send a noteboard - 09/07/2011 02:00:29 PM

2.) Why did the New Tongue develop and replace the old Tongue?

Why? After three thousand years the question should be 'why did the language only shift once?' One of the weakest aspects of the WoT universe.



I think its pretty realistic that it only changed once. After all Randland was one homogeneous society with a shared tongue in the Age of Legends and has had no outside interaction with other societies which usually causes a language to shift and alter.

Its also been demonstrated in the books that the common tongue is only the last of many evolutions of the old tongue, Thom mentions High Chant and various other forms of languages throughout the story.

The fact that the seanchan have the same language can be explained by the fact that that continent is controlled by invaders from Randland that already had the New Tongue as their language.

There obviously is a hole here when you consider that the natives of seanchan at the time of the invasion should have been speaking something derivative of the old tongue but that developed separately from the Randland Tongue.

It could be possible that the native language was similar enough to the Randland language because it shared the Old tongue as a root language that by the time of the consolidation the original native language had been subsumed into the dominant randland language in much the same way that French came to dominate England after the Norman invasion because the aristocracy spoke it etc.

Very little has been seen of shara and so it is entirely possible that the majority of the population speaks a different variation on the old tongue with only the traders being able to speak Randlandish (probably very easily because of the shared root language).

It would be very interesting to see someone from "the island of madmen" mentioned in the encyclopedia because apparently they havent made contact with anyone at all since the breaking so they should have an extremely different language.

Rant over :)


Reply to message
Survey time. - 18/06/2011 02:12:52 AM 1657 Views
Re: Survey time. - 18/06/2011 02:42:54 AM 1293 Views
Re: Survey time. - 18/06/2011 03:24:25 AM 1061 Views
This community will completely.... - 21/06/2011 04:37:49 PM 957 Views
I'm assuming the WoT forum will just merge with Books *NM* - 21/06/2011 07:03:34 PM 514 Views
Re: Survey time. - 18/06/2011 03:35:36 AM 1293 Views
Re: Survey time. *NM* - 18/06/2011 04:59:02 AM 562 Views
Re: Survey time. - 18/06/2011 06:45:52 AM 1016 Views
Die Antwort, -en - 18/06/2011 02:51:53 PM 1118 Views
OMG, are you German? - 18/06/2011 07:23:36 PM 927 Views
No, I just love the place and the language is musical (fu!k French and Italian, I love German) - 18/06/2011 10:23:18 PM 1003 Views
Me too - 19/06/2011 03:36:39 PM 968 Views
Re: Me too - 20/06/2011 10:27:44 AM 945 Views
Lol, whoops *NM* - 20/06/2011 11:57:54 PM 515 Views
Re: Survey time. - 18/06/2011 04:39:49 PM 1136 Views
Sur - 18/06/2011 05:27:01 PM 1150 Views
Re: Survey time. - 18/06/2011 06:01:18 PM 1025 Views
Re: Survey time. - 18/06/2011 07:28:08 PM 1024 Views
Re: Survey time. - 18/06/2011 09:58:06 PM 953 Views
Re: Survey time. - 18/06/2011 10:19:20 PM 953 Views
Re: Survey time. - 18/06/2011 11:06:03 PM 1020 Views
My god, a post! - 19/06/2011 12:30:15 AM 1112 Views
Re: My god, a post! - 09/07/2011 02:00:29 PM 963 Views
Re: Survey time. *NM* - 19/06/2011 04:06:22 AM 539 Views
Re: Survey time. - 19/06/2011 04:12:53 AM 1045 Views
Re: Survey time. - 19/06/2011 05:39:34 AM 957 Views
Re: Survey time. - 19/06/2011 08:20:34 AM 1081 Views
Re: Survey time. *NM* - 19/06/2011 05:41:36 PM 522 Views
much happening, heres my answers *NM* - 20/06/2011 04:21:46 PM 547 Views
well, if you think Goodking books are bad - 20/06/2011 04:35:35 PM 1002 Views
Hmmm.... - 20/06/2011 09:39:50 PM 1024 Views
Re: Survey time. - 20/06/2011 11:08:41 PM 928 Views
Re: Survey time. - 21/06/2011 01:03:05 AM 990 Views
Re: Survey time. - 21/06/2011 08:59:42 AM 1112 Views
Re: Survey time. *NM* - 21/06/2011 05:31:03 PM 512 Views
Re: Survey time. - 21/06/2011 08:58:21 PM 916 Views
Re: Survey time. - 23/06/2011 05:25:28 AM 1029 Views
Answers aplenty: - 24/06/2011 07:17:34 PM 1279 Views
Re: Survey time. - 29/06/2011 02:24:01 PM 959 Views

Reply to Message