How do the Fused speak Alethi?

[+robardin]

The Fused are returned "gods", the re-embodied spirits of singers from past Desolations, even many or all such cycles (it's not clear that singers can "join up" as a new Fused recruit or if all the Fused are of the same original generation of singers). And the last Desolation, not counting the False Desolation which didn't feature the Fused but simply "forms of power" and use of Voidlight being granted to singers - and even if it did count, it was so long ago as to predate the Recreance - the last Desolation was Aharietiam, over five thousand years ago.

Even if the Fused had learned human speech over time, when the Desolations were coming quicker and quicker between cycles, their knowledge of human language should be way, way out of date, right? How was mutual intelligibility not lost?

And it's not some kind of Connection based translation going on, or they wouldn't need Venli in Envoyform when speaking to former parshmen who only spoke human languages. And it's not that only some Fused can do Connection-based conversation, because we see Fused who are able to communicate in Alethi but are users of Surges that preclude also having the kind of Connection that Dalinar uses (e.g., Leshwi the Heavenly One, with the same two Surges as the Windrunners, being able to speak with Moash).

[I Am A Fish]

It's an avid question.

But because Taln is also able to speak modern Alethi, I'm assuming that Vorin language just hasn't changed, it's unlikely, but not impossible.

[+Bliev]

I wonder if it's a cognitive shadow thing, related to their Connection to the planet/region, and Alethi being the predominant language spoken there, the one that is more "connected" to Roshar at this moment? Or maybe it builds off of the abilities the "possessed" Singer bodies have, such that if you get one that spoke, Alethi, so then you can do? And that's why Venli is different--because she's not a cognitive shadow/Fused, and thus is using a form of power, not being possessed by another soul?

I don't know. That's always what I've thought--that it's cognitive shadow related in some way...with that said I don't think we see many Fused speaking Alethi. Maybe Leshwi is different?

[+Oltux72]

They trained for their mission. They knew that they would have to communicate with the newly awakened Singers in current languages. So they were running classes I presume. They certainly do have forces left on Roshar to monitor developments.

[Frustration]

BoM

Spoiler

Connection!

 

It's like Dalinar, or Venili.

[Honorless]

Probably the same way that the newly awakened post-Everstorm Parshendi from Alethkar are speaking modern Alethi, as well as Worldhoppers like Hoid: Connection, that's how Dalinar could speak Azish as well as the Azish, or the Azish Parshendi who sued the government

[+robardin]

1 hour ago, Honorless said:

Probably the same way that the newly awakened post-Everstorm Parshendi from Alethkar are speaking modern Alethi, as well as Worldhoppers like Hoid: Connection, that's how Dalinar could speak Azish as well as the Azish, or the Azish Parshendi who sued the government

I would have thought so, except they can't quite be doing it like Dalinar who is wielding a Surge to form the Connection.

I guess if Worldhoppers who aren't Invested (magic wielders) can do it, a Fused could as well, apart for Surgebinding. But that would imply anybody in the Cosmere could do it too, any time, which seems a bit of a stretch. And would be temporary, like the Mistborn reference @Frustration gave - it would only last the duration of the magical effect. (Similarly, I don't think Dalinar permanently gained the ability to speak Azish or Thaylen - I assume it wears off and he needs to re-form the Connection each time?)

The "awakened parshmen" spoke the languages they grew up hearing and understanding from their human masters, as well as the culture they passively absorbed. Or it could be a one-time case of a "Connection void" that really wanted to be filled all of a sudden getting filled with whatever was handy when the blockage was cleared, like air rushing into a vacuum, from a Cosmere-magic-physics POV.

Edited September 10, 2020 by robardin

[Karger]

Taln and the other Heralds came up with a way to speak languages a long time ago(connection) if they did not have it to start with.  It is possible that the fused use this method or just that Odium keeps abreast of linguistic drift and mandates modern language courses while on braize.  The fused must be doing something useful with their time.

[agrabes]

Another point - many of the Fused are inhabiting bodies that belonged to former Alethi Parshmen who spoke Alethi.  It could be that the body itself has that knowledge built in and the Fused are making use of it.

I don't know if we know if the Fused inherit anything from the bodies they possess other than just the physical shell.

[Halyo_Alex]

24 minutes ago, Karger said:

or just that Odium keeps abreast of linguistic drift and mandates modern language courses while on braize.  The fused must be doing something useful with their time.

This is such a great mental image. Thank you.

[Karger]

6 minutes ago, Halyo_Alex said:

This is such a great mental image. Thank you.

Mild profanity

Spoiler

I am trying to determine which of our minds went to the gutter first

On the off chance you were not.

I kind of do hope we get to braize at some point and we see a bunch of 1950s school rooms were fused without bodies get stuck reading books in modern Alethi.

[Realmatic Shadow]

7 hours ago, robardin said:

Or it could be a one-time case of a "Connection void" that really wanted to be filled all of a sudden getting filled with whatever was handy when the blockage was cleared, like air rushing into a vacuum, from a Cosmere-magic-physics POV.

That does seem to work for the Parsh, or it could be a more mundane one where they learnt the language by being around others that spoke it for so long, hearing as they speak, they were just too slow of mind (due to their lack of Identity) to talk properly.

I believe that it is likely that, while over the past few thousand years the human languages have drifted, but not exceptionally far from what they may have seen in historic Desolations. This would explain the broken manner of speech many of them are seen as having, maybe they once could all speak perfectly? And in modern day only the most mentally capable of them after all this time were able to adapt to the variations in the language quickly?

[ftl]

I'm with the group that says it's some Connection-manipulation.

That sort of magic is really common in the Cosmere - it's how Hoid and Khriss and all these other worldhoppers can just go around to places and talk to people. It seems like "learning the local language" is something very easy with investiture, so Odium could very well have granted the Fused that power.

[+Oltux72]

13 hours ago, Honorless said:

Probably the same way that the newly awakened post-Everstorm Parshendi from Alethkar are speaking modern Alethi, as well as Worldhoppers like Hoid: Connection, that's how Dalinar could speak Azish as well as the Azish, or the Azish Parshendi who sued the government

Then why do they use Venli to translate?

[Honorless]

27 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

Then why do they use Venli to translate?

Wasn't that the point of Envoyform? She could speak all of the languages that the Parshendi she needed to act as an envoy towards required her to in order to effectively communicate with them, presumably via temporary Connections.

[+Oltux72]

2 hours ago, Honorless said:

Wasn't that the point of Envoyform? She could speak all of the languages that the Parshendi she needed to act as an envoy towards required her to in order to effectively communicate with them, presumably via temporary Connections.

Yes, but what would be the point of using somebody in Envoyform, if they could use Connection themselves? They constantly use interpreters.

That points to them speaking a foreign language the good, old way: They have learned it.

[Honorless]

39 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

Yes, but what would be the point of using somebody in Envoyform, if they could use Connection themselves? They constantly use interpreters.

That points to them speaking a foreign language the good, old way: They have learned it.

I think that the restored Connection, in the case of the newly awakened post-Everstorm Parshendi allowed them to speak the language of their homeland, not all Rosharan languages. As for the Fused, half of them are crazy and the rest rarely deign to speak, as Kaladin puts it, so it's difficult to tell what's happening. 

[Weltall]

Yeah, I'm in the 'Connection hax' camp too. We know that it can be learned independent of whatever Investiture system(s) you have access to since we've seen Seventeenth Shard members able to speak the local languages with evidence that they are using Connection rather than having actually learned the languages (via linguistic quirks that give them away) and where their own 'innate' magics don't have a known method of manipulating Connection, or where they don't have any magical powers of their own that we know of, like Felt.

Since Odium planned for the Fused to be around for however long it would take to achieve the win condition that he and Tanavast agreed to, he could have considered it well worth his while to teach them whatever trick there is to it, so they could communicate with the current inhabitants no matter how much linguistic drift happened between Desolations. Though the mental image of a bunch of Fused in stuffy schoolrooms on Braize is pretty storming amusing. Meanwhile their descendants know local languages but can't communicate universally among themselves (they speak the languages of the regions they were in when their Connections and minds were restored) so having a special Envoyform listener to translate for them is helpful, especially since as Venli herself notes she's basically a propaganda piece creating the foundational myth Odium wants the singers to believe. In that role she's better suited to the job than any Fused would be.