tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28103455.post123918055811025831..comments2024-03-09T05:53:59.542-05:00Comments on Oz and Ends: The Marx Fantasy Dialogue ScaleUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28103455.post-46932283889864301422008-02-12T22:48:00.000-05:002008-02-12T22:48:00.000-05:00Well, no wonder I couldn't understand a word!Well, no wonder I couldn't understand a word!J. L. Bellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15405157000473731801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28103455.post-21936272344599890472008-02-12T22:35:00.000-05:002008-02-12T22:35:00.000-05:00Whoops -- sorry about the extra "a" in the above p...Whoops -- sorry about the extra "a" in the above post. <BR/><BR/>I guess I need to learn to speak New High English.<BR/><BR/>mtaAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28103455.post-58742471713688806992008-02-12T22:06:00.000-05:002008-02-12T22:06:00.000-05:00I think the "high speech" convention might also or...I think the "high speech" convention might also originate with dialects like "Hochdeutsch" (High German) and Old High French -- which, somewhat like BBC English, acted as a national upper- and middle-class dialects mediating between several regional dialects. <BR/><BR/>Due to the class-based arrangement of such languages, there was the appearance of "cleanness" and Olympian impartiality, even heroism, attached to the concept of a "high" speech as opposed to "low" local dialects ... which looks ugly in retrospect. I mention this only because a lot of "high fantasy" in the past (and perhaps in the present?) had a weird elitist, Royalist bent. <BR/><BR/>All the samite was white. There was never mud on them horses.<BR/><BR/>Anyone speak "thieves' cant"? <BR/><BR/>mtaAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28103455.post-5140033930246370912008-02-12T19:21:00.000-05:002008-02-12T19:21:00.000-05:00Sounds like an authorial convenience, a way to get...Sounds like an authorial convenience, a way to get around the language barriers that most worlds would have. <BR/><BR/>In eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe, the aristocracies of many nations spoke French. Russian nobles sometimes spoke nothing but. That produced the notion of a "lingua franca" for communicating across many cultures (though that phrase, paradoxically, is in Latin, not French). <BR/><BR/>So there's some real-world precedent for a "high" form of speech working across many nations. But more common, I suspect, are "pidgin" dialects cobbled together for commercial purposes, not high at all. <BR/><BR/>It looks like Stephen King is one of the authors who uses the "High Speech" trope, so his books have undoubtedly spread the idea.<BR/><BR/>I prefer <A HREF="http://ozandends.blogspot.com/2006/05/e-nesbit-and-language-barrier.html" REL="nofollow">E. Nesbit's boldfaced way</A> of tackling the challenge.J. L. Bellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15405157000473731801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28103455.post-30836754883541486182008-02-12T17:21:00.000-05:002008-02-12T17:21:00.000-05:00You're right -- A language without contractions se...You're right -- A language without contractions seems like one of those movies where all the props and costumes are clean and new. <BR/><BR/>By the way, this post reminded me of a question:<BR/>Lots of fantasy books refer to a "high speech," which is sometimes a common tongue among different nations or some such.<BR/>Where did that get started?Samhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09492841891625994218noreply@blogger.com