What to make of the Heralds' speech patterns?

[AquaRegia]

Moved here because I accidentally spoilered up the Stormlight Forum - sorry!

Has anyone else noticed that the Heralds we've seen - Ash and Kelek in particular - talk more like modern-day English speakers than any other characters on Roshar?

Ishar speaks very formally, but he's playing the role of a god-king.  Nale also has a very severe way of speaking, which fits his severe personality.  Ash and Kelek, however, read like contemporary Earth humans.

Twice in ch. 17, Ash uses the word "yeah" - the only time, I think, anyone has done so in four novels.

Kelek, in ch. 82: "Boy, you're doomed.  You realize that, right?  Tanavast is dead.  Like, completely dead."  The only time in four novels anyone uses "like" as the well-known idiomatic filler word it has recently become.  He's also the only one to use "hell" and "for heaven's sake".

This has to be intentional on Sanderson's part, so I'm wondering WHY?  What does it mean that he seems to want these ancient Ashynites to sound the most modern to our ears?  Thoughts?

I'm also very interested to hear from folks who read other language translations of the novels.  Did these differences come through in your experience?

[Guest]

"yeah" is used all over the place  Just in WoR: Yalb, Skar, Yalb, Syl, Kylrm, Bluth, Kaladin, Kaladin, Zahel... and many more.

 

Kelek I agree sounds different, though not necessarily "modern".  I agree his mention of "hell" instead of "damnation" is standout, but "heaven's sake" is less so. Navani says "heaven's no" in WoR, and "heaven" is clearly meant to mean "tranquiline halls" on many other occasions

[+mdross81]

Good call @AquaRegia. I definitely picked up on this too. I'm not sure whether it's the actual words they use or just a generalized flippancy to the way they speak. You know who else I get the same vibe from? Ulim. Maybe it's a Braize thing?

[AquaRegia]

1 hour ago, mdross81 said:

You know who else I get the same vibe from? Ulim. Maybe it's a Braize thing?

YES!  I knew there was at least one other character I was forgetting and it's definitely Ulim!  Thanks for adding him in. 

Seems unlikely that the Braize connection is a coincidence.

[Shob the Voidbringer]

maybe it's because they are immortal, and stopped living with how rigid the language is. i'm not sure how serious i'm am right now

Edited February 2, 2021 by Shob the Voidbringer

[Kyn]

While the principles of novel-writing suggest that characters intended to come from cultures the most like ours will speak the most like us to foster a sense of familiarity, that may not be what’s going on with the Heralds. I mean, I suspect it is, but it may not be (just) because they came from a world like Earth or cultures similar to modern ones. It may also be because the Heralds have lived long enough to see their own languages de-formalize, and then lived long enough after that to want to treat all new languages just as informally.

In the real world, languages tend to get less formal over time. It’s almost as if, collectively, speakers of any given language start to drop parts of words and sentences to simplify. In the shorter term, people within the same culture over time tend to use increasingly less-“correct” speech patterns, becoming more likely to use fragments or slang.

Maybe the Heralds can’t be bothered with formality, maybe they don’t want to put the extra effort into speaking in more complicated manners (or learning the proper over common-dialect speech), maybe they don’t want to waste time, maybe they’re just disrespectful of (young cultures’) conventions – or of the languages/peoples themselves. It just seems like there are also in-universe reasons immortal beings couldn’t be bothered with speaking properly.

And honestly, one of those reasons might just be personalities. The individuals whose speech patterns we’re looking at as examples seem like they might be extra disrespectful or dismissive of the people to whom they’re talking, or of the cultures whose languages they’re speaking. Taln seems less…abrupt.

[+Oltux72]

On 2.2.2021 at 7:26 PM, AquaRegia said:

YES!  I knew there was at least one other character I was forgetting and it's definitely Ulim!  Thanks for adding him in. 

Seems unlikely that the Braize connection is a coincidence.

They do not know the language they are speaking. The Heralds coming back and spending the first few months learning the modern language would not work. Likewise Ulim could hardly learn an unknown language in advance. Hence they are likely using some form of Connection, which connects them to the present time of the land of the people they are speaking to.

[Halyo_Alex]

2 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

They do not know the language they are speaking. The Heralds coming back and spending the first few months learning the modern language would not work. Likewise Ulim could hardly learn an unknown language in advance. Hence they are likely using some form of Connection, which connects them to the present time of the land of the people they are speaking to.

So... Does that mean their Connection-translation is making them sound like modern earth-english speakers (when reading the english versions of the books at least) to us because "it's translating it to the language of the reader"?

[+Oltux72]

23 minutes ago, Halyo_Alex said:

So... Does that mean their Connection-translation is making them sound like modern earth-english speakers (when reading the english versions of the books at least) to us because "it's translating it to the language of the reader"?

No, no, no ...

The Connection works on Brandon in the Sandercave under Castle Mistskull when he stops surpressing his Breaths and starts creating inverted rainbows and starts channeling the Cosmere through his Dragonsteel sword.

[Jondesu]

I’ve wondered if any of the Heralds are from Yolen and/or other planets, and I don’t remember if we have confirmation either way. I believe we had confirmation that one or more was a worldhopper, at least, though that doesn’t prove anything about their origin, and he could have been just being sneaky since they hop between Braize and Roshar.

[AquaRegia]

On 7/6/2021 at 0:19 PM, Oltux72 said:

They do not know the language they are speaking. The Heralds coming back and spending the first few months learning the modern language would not work. Likewise Ulim could hardly learn an unknown language in advance. Hence they are likely using some form of Connection, which connects them to the present time of the land of the people they are speaking to.

That's a great point.  I have no further arguments... but I can't help feeling there are still some significant mysteries about language in the Cosmere.  At some point we may just have to accept "Connection" as the answer and not worry about the details.  They are FANTASY novels, right?

[Stigmadiabolicum]

(i just started thinking about this on my current relisten of the series, its even more noticable with Ulim/Ash in the GA with their delivery)

So we know from TLM and WoB that to keep an eye out for worldhoppers by seeing words like soil etc, weird things that dont translate using connection tricks. Considering the Heralds reappeared over generations initially, wouldn't be surprised if theres some connection trickery to let them speak, otherwise they'd be using Dawnchant & only be able to talk to the current Bondsmith of the era

So since its hacking Ashyn--> Rosharan, we can assume thats where they get it from. Everyone has always theorized voidspren like Ulim might have been humans from that era, which explains his weird human mannerisms, but thats a separate issue entirely haha.

[Argenti]

7 hours ago, Stigmadiabolicum said:

(i just started thinking about this on my current relisten of the series, its even more noticable with Ulim/Ash in the GA with their delivery)

So we know from TLM and WoB that to keep an eye out for worldhoppers by seeing words like soil etc, weird things that dont translate using connection tricks. Considering the Heralds reappeared over generations initially, wouldn't be surprised if theres some connection trickery to let them speak, otherwise they'd be using Dawnchant & only be able to talk to the current Bondsmith of the era

So since its hacking Ashyn--> Rosharan, we can assume thats where they get it from. Everyone has always theorized voidspren like Ulim might have been humans from that era, which explains his weird human mannerisms, but thats a separate issue entirely haha.

Please try not to necro threads from nearly 2 years ago. If you want to talk about smth you saw on an old thread just make a new one. Run before Frustration sends you a strongly worded letter.