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blakes7-d Digest Volume 98 : Issue 297
Today's Topics:
[B7L] Languages
[B7L] More catching up.
Re: [B7L] Languages
Re: [B7L] Languages
[B7L] : Re How much time passes
[B7L] languages
[B7L] Personal for Pat
Re: [B7L] languages
Re: [B7L] languages
[B7L] Merlin
[B7L] GEOS
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 29 Nov 1998 19:28:10 +0100 (BST)
From: Judith Proctor <Judith@blakes-7.demon.co.uk>
To: Lysator List <Blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: [B7L] Languages
Message-ID: <Marcel-1.46-1129182810-bbaRr9i@blakes-7.demon.co.uk>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
I was in a pub the other night when an old frined of mine called a comment in
Irish to another friend of his across the room. It reminded me of an occasion a
few weeks before when I was in a small shop selling ethnic clothes and I got
fascinated by what the man behind the counter was doing. He was typing away on
a QWERTY keyboard, but the symbols coming up on screen were like nothing I'd
ever seen before. Turned out that it was Thai and that he was using software
that allowed him to access a much later set of symbols and accents by using
various odd key combinations. We got talking about languages. He'd never
realised that Welsh existed as a language, let alone that it was still spoken on
a day to day basis.
What I'm saying is that although Britain appears from the outside - and indeed
often from the inside - to have but a single language, there are other languages
still there spoken by a partly bilingual population.
What languages might have persisted until the time of the Federation and why?
For instance, one of the main reasons that Welsh survives to this day as a
living language was because the Bible was translated into Welsh in 1588 by
Bishop William Morgan. It was apparantly a particularly beautiful translation
and in the eighteenth century the Welsh religious revivals were held in the
Welsh language and that in turn generated a demand for religious books printed
in Welsh.
Might underground religious movements in Federation times have kept old
languages? Hebrew for example?
A 'dead' language actually has some uses. They allow communication in a form
that isn't easy to follow. Yes, computers can translate (though with variable
accuracy at the present time), but your trooper on the ground isn't going to
understand.
A language is a focus of identity for many people. I can imagine the Federation
trying to stamp out small localised languages simply because they encourage
independence. They promote different ways of thought. Some ideas can actually
be better expressed in one language than in another. Many groups seeking
independence from larger countries are language based. eg. Basque
Language is tied into your sense of history. I see myself as English - that is
the language I speak. My children have ancestors from Poland, Scotland and
Wales, but they see themselves as English (we don't even know if their Polish
ancestor was Jewish because the only living relative who would know - and who
was born in England - doesn't talk about her father). The history we learn is
English history. If I spoke Urdu or Punjabi, then I'm sure I would be far more
aware of of history and culture from India and Pakistan even if I hadn't been
born there. My view of the time of the British in India might be totally
different. The Federation would doubtless be aware of that desire people have
to know their own background. They would see destroying languages as a part of
the process of rewriting history to whatever suited them.
I can imagine persecuted groups hanging onto their langauges as they fled.
Frontier planets might be settled by such groups only to be taken over by the
Federation at a later date. The language could well survive though. Bilingual
societies are perfectly possible - one language spoken at home and another used
for school or work.
I've just been reading 'How Green Was my Valley' (an excellent book by Richard
Llewellyn, which I recommend) and it's evident that Welsh was the language of
the home even though English was also known. The attempts of the school to
prevent children speaking Welsh there were greatly resented. (The book is set
in the reign of Queen Victoria and I can't work out if the schools were state
run or were private, so I can't compare with the American habit - no longer
practiced as far as I know - of trying to obliterate Indian native languages
through sending children to English speaking schools)
I can easily imagine the Federation adopting similar tactics to try and
obliterate 'primitive' (in their eyes) languages while allowing a few
'civilised' languages such as French to survive. ('It's civilised if I learnt
it at school and primitive if I didn't' kind of attitude.) I can actually
imagine them teaching Latin to a select few while trying to destroy all
knowledge of Catalan, Pidgin, Gaelic, etc.
Judith
--
http://www.hermit.org/Blakes7
Redemption 99 - The Blakes 7/Babylon 5 convention
26-28 February 1999, Ashford International Hotel, Kent
http://www.smof.com/redemption/
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 29 Nov 1998 14:05:39 PST
From: "Joanne MacQueen" <j_macqueen@hotmail.com>
To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: [B7L] More catching up.
Message-ID: <19981129220540.5462.qmail@hotmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain
>> Oh. It is getting close to Christmas, Carol. Surely you're too busy
for
>> mayhem to be high on your list of things to do? <smile?>
>But mayhem is such a good way to relieve the stresses of the holiday
>season...I've no doubt that Avon arrived on Gauda Prime the day >after
he attempted Friday-after-Thanksgiving-shopping in the US. No >jury in
the country would convict him for going postal at that point. ;-)
You're probably right, and I've been trying to think of an Australian
equivalent. But the worst of the after-Christmas sales rush is over by
Australia Day, so I give up.
>There is that... One does need to do a "Harvest of Kairos" mental
>conditioning session to keep in a proper frame of mind. "This spider
>is menacing even if it has a wobble in its walk and its maximum
>attainable speed is five miles a year."
Afraid I'll have to substitute the virus in the Doctor Who story that
introduces K9 (slight mental blank - I can't remember the title, but I
can remember that the virus causes fish scales around the eyes and a
vocabulary limited to "It is most suitable for the purpose"). If a
"Thunderbirds"-like giant prawn hasn't put me in training, then nothing
will help me.
Actually, I listened to the rest of The Sevenfold Crown on Friday. At
bedtime. Right after listening to several songs from South Park that my
brother had taped off the radio. I think I need to listen to the B7 tape
again. It made sense, but I think that the sound of Cartman screaming
"Come sail away" did something to what there was of my thought processes
on Friday night.
Regards
Joanne
Dolly: is a girl like ewe.
--Glossary, Good News Week Vol. 2
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 29 Nov 1998 16:29:06 PST
From: "Edith Spencer" <sueno45@hotmail.com>
To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: Re: [B7L] Languages
Message-ID: <19981130002906.20116.qmail@hotmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain
Hello to all,
Amongst many other fascinating things, Judith noted:
"in the reign of Queen Victoria and I can't work out if the schools were
state
run or were private, so I can't compare with the American habit - no
longer
practiced as far as I know - of trying to obliterate Indian native
languages
through sending children to English speaking schools)-"
Um, yes and no. Native Americans who were sent to goverment-
sponsored schools did experience the awful assimilation process-
including the elimination of their home tongue. However, this was
entirely suscessful; the bible was translated into several Native
American languages, thus insuring its continuation(as Judith noted with
Welsh.) During the Great Depression, WPA workers in the USA set about
recorded on wax the remaining speakers of soon to be obselete tongues-
this would help historian and anthropologists reconstruct the language.
And during WWII, much of the code sent to the War Dept. in the USA was
not encoded by mathematical means but actually translated into Native
American languages, primarily the languages of the the North American
Midwest. Some of the Native American dialects still remain well spoken-
almost as like a renaisannce of sort.
Another point Judith makes:
"I can easily imagine the Federation adopting similar tactics to try
and
obliterate 'primitive' (in their eyes) languages while allowing a few
'civilised' languages such as French to survive. ('It's civilised if I
learnt
it at school and primitive if I didn't' kind of attitude.) I can
actually
imagine them teaching Latin to a select few while trying to destroy all
knowledge of Catalan, Pidgin, Gaelic, etc."
Yeah. Conformity through the language of commerce- know it or
be damned. Interestingly, when I went to college, I remember being being
throughly quizzed about my pronunciation and naunce of speech in Spanish
and English ( I speak both.) because my parent were from the Carribean,
there were ways of speaking that annouce your class structure and your
history. i also remember how when I went to Europe and studied
variarances in French how the speakers of one area felt about another-
something that took me by suprise.
But to get back to Judith's point, I can definitely see a
memeber(s) of certain groups wanting to adhee to their own language or
using an 'obselete' one to communicate messages without anyone knowing
for a while. After all, how many of us would know Iroquois if we heard
it?
Brilliant post, Judith.
Edith the almost Oxford Don :)
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 29 Nov 1998 16:28:25 PST
From: "Edith Spencer" <sueno45@hotmail.com>
To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: Re: [B7L] Languages
Message-ID: <19981130002958.4021.qmail@hotmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain
Hello to all,
Amongst many other fascinating things, Judith noted:
"in the reign of Queen Victoria and I can't work out if the schools were
state
run or were private, so I can't compare with the American habit - no
longer
practiced as far as I know - of trying to obliterate Indian native
languages
through sending children to English speaking schools)-"
Um, yes and no. Native Americans who were sent to goverment-
sponsored schools did experience the awful assimilation process-
including the elimination of their home tongue. However, this was
entirely suscessful; the bible was translated into several Native
American languages, thus insuring its continuation(as Judith noted with
Welsh.) During the Great Depression, WPA workers in the USA set about
recorded on wax the remaining speakers of soon to be obselete tongues-
this would help historian and anthropologists reconstruct the language.
And during WWII, much of the code sent to the War Dept. in the USA was
not encoded by mathematical means but actually translated into Native
American languages, primarily the languages of the the North American
Midwest. Some of the Native American dialects still remain well spoken-
almost as like a renaisannce of sort.
Another point Judith makes:
"I can easily imagine the Federation adopting similar tactics to try
and
obliterate 'primitive' (in their eyes) languages while allowing a few
'civilised' languages such as French to survive. ('It's civilised if I
learnt
it at school and primitive if I didn't' kind of attitude.) I can
actually
imagine them teaching Latin to a select few while trying to destroy all
knowledge of Catalan, Pidgin, Gaelic, etc."
Yeah. Conformity through the language of commerce- know it or
be damned. Interestingly, when I went to college, I remember being being
throughly quizzed about my pronunciation and naunce of speech in Spanish
and English ( I speak both.) because my parent were from the Carribean,
there were ways of speaking that annouce your class structure and your
history. i also remember how when I went to Europe and studied
variarances in French how the speakers of one area felt about another-
something that took me by suprise.
But to get back to Judith's point, I can definitely see a
memeber(s) of certain groups wanting to adhee to their own language or
using an 'obselete' one to communicate messages without anyone knowing
for a while. After all, how many of us would know Iroquois if we heard
it?
Brilliant post, Judith.
Edith the almost Oxford Don :)
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 02:17:32 -0000
From: "Neil Faulkner" <N.Faulkner@tesco.net>
To: "lysator" <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: [B7L] : Re How much time passes
Message-ID: <031701be1c0b$798aa560$b219ac3e@default>
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="utf-7"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
The 13 years cited by Penny Dreadful may come from my B7 Log Book which
Horizon ran in their newsletter (NLs 29-32). In compiling/inventing all
that, I assumed that faster-than-light travel would involve a measure of
time distortion similar to that created by very high sublight speeds, so
those 13 years would be experienced as considerably less by the crew.
Perhaps 8-9 years, which works out as about 2 years per season and is hence
not unreasonable. Hardly authoritative, though, I admit.
I think there was a measure of time dilation involved in FTL travel because
the voyage from Earth to Cygnus Alpha took eight months 'ship time' (ie+ADs- as
opposed to 'real' time, whatever that might be if it even exists at all).
And I think the London did go faster than light, The real world Alpha Cygni
is 1600 light years from Earth+ADs- even at a sufficiently high sublight speed
to get there in 8 months ship time, 1600 years would pass on Earth before
the London arrived. This would make ven Glynd rather elderly by the time he
cropped up again in 'Voice'...
FWIW, I don't think Cygnus Alpha was our Alpha Cygni, since the latter is
highly unlikely to have any planets at all, let alone habitable ones. The
whole concept of what constitutes a constellation would have to change in a
spacefaring civilisation, to discrete clusters of stars rather than patterns
in the sky. (Cf Egrorian's use of the word in 'Orbit').
Neil
+ACI-I chose not to choose Life. I chose Blakes 7 instead...+ACI-
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 02:54:00 -0000
From: "Neil Faulkner" <N.Faulkner@tesco.net>
To: "lysator" <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: [B7L] languages
Message-ID: <031e01be1c0c$afbc6fa0$b219ac3e@default>
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="utf-7"
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On the subject of Native American languages, it might be of interest to know
that native-speaking Navahos received special communications training by the
US Marines in the Pacific theatre of WW2. They could send and receive in
what to the Japanese was effectively an unbreakable code. Even if the
Federation might want to obliterate all other languages, a pragmatic Space
Command might bend the rules if they could see the point.
I can certainly envisage a multi-lingual B7 universe, but then I do keep
slipping bits of Esperanto into my stories. I've also used some German and
exhausted my repertoire of Japanese. Most Robert Holmes episodes had a
phrase or two of French dropped in somewhere.
Neil
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 29 Nov 1998 23:03:19 EST
From: AChevron@aol.com
To: Space-city@world.std.com
Cc: blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: [B7L] Personal for Pat
Message-ID: <41cbab8e.36621907@aol.com>
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit
Sorry to use the lists, but to Pat S.: I've got the zine, but you forgot to
tell me how much I owe you! Please respond via private e-mail. thanks, and
sorry for the bother. D. Rose
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 09:36:45 -0000
From: "Alison Page" <alison@alisonpage.demon.co.uk>
To: "Lysator" <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: Re: [B7L] languages
Message-Id: <E0zkPvZ-0007co-00@post.mail.demon.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=Default
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
This is an interesting subject that Judith introduced.
You can make a plausible case that in the future the use of AI translators
would make the distinctions between languages less significant (the 'Star
Trek' solution). However something about the feel of the Federation in the
B7 Universe makes me agree that language, and even accent, would be used as
a means of social stratification.
In a snobbish and elitist system there seem to be two contrasting forces
pulling in opposite directions. On the one hand there is the move to make
everyone the same - to teach the 'natives' to speak English, or to teach
the local kids to speak with a BBC accent. On the other hand there is the
deep rooted feeling that the outsiders will never be good enough - the
insiders are the only ones who speak the language properly.
Alison
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 11:17:26 GMT
From: mjsmith@tcd.ie (Murray)
To: Blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: Re: [B7L] languages
Message-Id: <199811301117.LAA06785@dux1.tcd.ie>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Dear Neil,
I was interested in you slipping bits of Esperanto and other
languages into your stories; but I always feel that when we do this, we have
to be careful, as the results can be strange, if not funny. For example, in
'Star Trek: The Next Generation', a woman in the series was called Vash. The
pronounciation of that name is the same as that of the French word 'vache'
for cow. So when she was silly, she literally was a silly cow!
Yours,
Murray
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 08:20:10 EST
From: "Letitia A. Casebourn" <lacasebourn@stew-01.cea.purdue.edu>
To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: [B7L] Merlin
Message-Id: <iss.6a21.36629c36.87661.1@scribe.cc.purdue.edu>
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
I taped Merlin about a week ago, and would be
happy to mail the tape to anybody who is interested.
It will be in American standards (NTSC), so
just about anybody "across the pond" would need
to convert it before it could be viewed.
Just drop me a line.
tisha@purdue.edu (shortest e-mail address)
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 15:14:44 -0600
From: "Reuben" <reuben@reuben.net>
To: <space-city@world.std.com>
Cc: "Blakes 7 Mail (E-mail)" <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: [B7L] GEOS
Message-ID: <02f601be1ca6$7710ef60$660114ac@misnt.tursso.com>
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="iso-8859-1"
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http://www.swd.net.au/geos/
Not sure if anyone has mentioned this. It's a very cool
vote-for-your-favorite-episode type page. It covers Blake's 7, Dr. Who,
Babylon 5, Star Trek, etc...
Really neat stuff.
Reuben
http://www.reuben.net/blake/
--------------------------------
End of blakes7-d Digest V98 Issue #297
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