Reborn radiant Posted November 5, 2017 Report Share Posted November 5, 2017 Hi guys! So we are a doing a words of radiance reread and I came across this. In interlude 7 of words of radiance, Dalinar and Eholkar visit Taln ( or the man who calls himself Taln) and they can't understand most of what he says because according to Dalinar he is speaking in a very think northern rural alethi accent. In chapter 63 of words of radiance, Shallan visits Taln and she is able to clearly understand whatever he says. Infact she even comments that the person was speaking in perfect alethi. Are there any theories or WoB on this? I know people discuss his blade more often, but I have not come across this any where. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yata he/him Posted November 5, 2017 Report Share Posted November 5, 2017 I read it as Dalinar doesn't really put effort to understand Taln while Shallan is a vastly greater listener and she was really interested in Taln. But Taln is using some magical way to speak Alethi so it's possible something while Dalinar was there was messing with this (maybe Dalinar himself). Of course it's possible there is an error, but I find unlikely as the Taln's scenes are quite important for foreshadowing stuffs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Windrunner he/him Posted November 5, 2017 Report Share Posted November 5, 2017 I don't think there's necessarily an error here. Dalinar is Alethi, so he is able to recognize the accent the man has. Shallan is Veden, so she knows the man is speaking Alethi well, but she doesn't know the language well enough to place where exactly that accent comes from. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aleksiel Posted November 5, 2017 Report Share Posted November 5, 2017 When Shallan said she could imitate rural veden accent, Tyn told her no one out of Jah Keved would get the difference. I think it's the same here. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reborn radiant Posted November 5, 2017 Author Report Share Posted November 5, 2017 1 hour ago, Windrunner said: I don't think there's necessarily an error here. Dalinar is Alethi, so he is able to recognize the accent the man has. Shallan is Veden, so she knows the man is speaking Alethi well, but she doesn't know the language well enough to place where exactly that accent comes from. It's not just the accent thing. Dalinar was completely unable to understand what taln was speaking, except for a few words here and there. A veden shallan could? More over, I thought we were assuming, Heralds spoke accentless alethi? May be I am wrong here tho. My question is mainly about dalinar not being able to understand it tho. I am not sure if something happened between the time when dalinar spoke and shallan spoke, or if there is something else going on. I definitely don't think it's an error because Taln is a pretty important guy and both the chapters are from the same book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calderis he/him Posted November 5, 2017 Report Share Posted November 5, 2017 There's also the issue, if I remember correctly, that one of the scenes is from Taln's PoV, in which we don't see how he is speaking. He mumbles his litany repeatedly. For Shallan, she uses her powers in his presence and he jumps up and is much more coherent momentarily. I don't think it's the same situation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aleksiel Posted November 5, 2017 Report Share Posted November 5, 2017 19 minutes ago, Reborn radiant said: More over, I thought we were assuming, Heralds spoke accentless alethi? May be I am wrong here tho. Every country has several accents and I don't see why each person would hear the Heralds speaking in their local dialect. Well, I could be wrong, I just find it reasonable Taln would speak in one alethi dialect, regardless of who he is speaking in alethi to. Otherwise if it depended on the other person, I would have expected Shallan to hear him speak in her native veden, which wasn't the case. No idea how it's decided which dialect he speaks though. Also, Hoid too described Taln as speaking without a hint of an accent, so you might have noticed something I just don't count as discrepancy, because I don't think he or Shallan have paid any attention to the number of alethi dialects in Alethkar to describe any of them as something other than 'perfect alethi'. About Dalinar barely understanding Taln, he was murmuring instead of speaking loud and clear like when he entered through the gates, so I would say it was the volume and not the accent that was the problem: Quote “What was that? Speak louder, man.” Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Necessary Eagle she/her Posted November 6, 2017 Report Share Posted November 6, 2017 Thank you for asking this, I was pretty confused about it myself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thejopen27 he/him Posted November 6, 2017 Report Share Posted November 6, 2017 13 hours ago, Windrunner said: I don't think there's necessarily an error here. Dalinar is Alethi, so he is able to recognize the accent the man has. Shallan is Veden, so she knows the man is speaking Alethi well, but she doesn't know the language well enough to place where exactly that accent comes from. this Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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