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something I just realized for the first time (linguistics)


luminos

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So, I think I just caught the reason behind the use of 'h' as a placeholder for symmetry. Symmetry is supposed to indicate the divine on Roshar, so obviously their god's name has to be symmetrical. But 'Honor' doesn't look symmetrical. So priests would have explained that obviously, 'h' is always used for symmetry in this way.

Just something random that popped into my head that I had to share. I'm sure others already figured it out

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The only problem is that "Honor" is the name for that Shard in English, which the Rosharans do not speak. It's likely this is just a coincidence, at least it is not an in-world explanation (though it's conceivable it influenced Brandon in some way).

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The only problem is that "Honor" is the name for that Shard in English, which the Rosharans do not speak. It's likely this is just a coincidence, at least it is not an in-world explanation (though it's conceivable it influenced Brandon in some way).

I don't think that holds a lot of weight. After all, all the in world documents don't really work unless you assume the language is at least equivalent to english. The diagram cypher couldn't have been figured out without it being in english, and it is an in world thing. Various puns don't work unless the language is at least close to english. In short, I don't think the in world vs. as a book distinction has practical import unless there is a particular reason to make an exception

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I don't think that holds a lot of weight. After all, all the in world documents don't really work unless you assume the language is at least equivalent to english. The diagram cypher couldn't have been figured out without it being in english, and it is an in world thing. Various puns don't work unless the language is at least close to english. In short, I don't think the in world vs. as a book distinction has practical import unless there is a particular reason to make an exception

 

Brandon just spoke about this in the AMA:

 

 

thecountofchocula

 

Was the change to the use of modern English phrases in The Stormlight Archive deliberate or am I reading too much into it?

 

Brandon Sanderson

 

In regards to my books, I use Tolkien's own explanation, which was to pretend that the book you're reading is in translation--everything has been taken by myself from native dialects, and translated it to English. When I make a pun, they probably didn't say those exact words--they said something in Alethi that made a pun, and I put an appropriate one in the same place. Likewise, some of their idioms just don't translate, so I use a modern idiom that means something similar for effect.

 

(source)

 

This is a discussion that has come up before in regards to "Domi" and "Dominion" from Elantris.  The similarity is entirely coincidental and wouldn't exist in-world as they would be using their own word for Dominion.

 

As for the illustrations, those have all been "translated" to English as well, some just have been written using various Rosharan scripts for flavor.

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