Archaic Language: mind your Thee's and Theretofore's (Spoilers)

[AndrewStirlingMacDonald he/him]

I've heard it stated that, Cosmerically, Brandon considers the language of the books to be an English translation of whatever the language actually spoken in the series is. When MeLaan reveals herself to Aradel, the language that she used was the sort of archaic, King Jamesy language we often assosciate with holiness or religionish stuff in our culture. However, the language on Scadrial has evolved very differently. The language doesn't seem to have evolved overmuch in 300 years (which could be attributed to the whole "It's a translation" thing), and even during the Final Empire, no one spoke with thees and thous. I have trouble believing that Aradel would be "expecting" to hear a language that was spoken pre-Catacendre (love that name, by the way!), since it really seems that for 99.9% of Sacdrians, history began with Kelsier. Could she have perhaps been speaking in High Imperial? If so, I'm a little disappointed that it was "translated" for us the way it was, but if not, I'm curious whether there is actually a linguistic shift similar to English hidden somewhere in Scadrian history.

[Zathoth]

MeLan could be speaking in a pre-catacendre noble kind of accent. The same The Lord Ruler would have been speaking. Sure there are not "Thee's", but if the original Mistborn were written like that they would have been kind of annoying to read so I defiitely think it is a translation thing.

 

Or it is high imperial, but no one really understands high imperial.

[natc]

I'd guess it was just to denote in text that she's definitely not speaking modern language? 300 years changes more than you'd think.

We know what high imperial sounds like. It's just Spook being Spook because official government languages totally need to be intentionally obtuse slang. It's not that.