Language change in Elantris

[+Oltux72]

Potentially Elantrians are immortal. That means that the range of ages in Elantris will be much larger than in any normal city. You will find people who learned to speak centuries apart. How do they talk to each other? How large does a founding population need to be to preserve its state of a language? Does language still change with the older population slowly adapting? Is Elantris large enough to impose its language on Arelon?

[Quantus]

It may be a problem that solves itself: Lingual drift tends to happen as the generations rise and fall.  But if the population includes a sub-group that still actively speaks the "original" then it would be able to preserve the original forms before any significant shifts could anchor them in the main usage.  They could still split, but it would need a more specific cultural trigger the make the rest want to actively separate themselves from the Elantrians (similar to the America's making changes to the English language, or the rise of "Oxford English" had social/caste implications.  Had it lasted longer the Raod would have likely accomplished that sort of segregation.  But as long as the Immortals are interacted with persistently enough the rest of the population shouldnt have lingual drift large enough to make communication difficult; at most they will have the typical generational slang and maybe regional accents.  

 

[thebubblesarealie]

Yeah, because Elantris had a perfect society, there would be no need to change what was already working. If there was strife, then there might be a split and lingual drift, as te previous commenter said, would likely occur.

[Honorless]

With Elantris being the heart of Arelon, with the sheer influence of the immortal Elantrians and the significance of Aons, Arelish would probably be a very static language. As the Aons are pronounced a certain way, there would be very little vowel shift over time.

Hmm... are the sounds or pronunciations of Aons tied to them? Isn't the magic of Aons in how they are written?

I don't recall anything in the text or in WoBs which indicated anything about Aonic pronunciation having anything magic in it so I'll assume eventually there will be some changes but they'll not occur anywhere near as fast as on Earth.

Edited October 7, 2020 by Honorless

[Aspiring Writer]

If language shifted to the point where they needed to learn a new language, I'm sure there's an Aon that can give them a connection to speak their language like Daliner did. How the Aons would be affect, though, is interesting as they are very connected to both the geography and language people use.

[Light In the Darkness]

Pretty sure the Aons came from before Arelon even existed; their symbols are completely different from the others they use in their language, and I remember reading that they were tied to the Shards before humans had even gotten to that world. Likely the meaning have been preserved along with the symbols, possibly because Dominion or Devotion taught them to the first humans they brought there, but the pronunciations have likely changed over time, and the language could have changed much faster between the fall and restoration of Elantris. As the Elantrians taught magic, though, the meanings would have been preserved because they indicate what magic it does.

Edit: as the Aons are geographic, they may not have been from before Sel was a Shardworld, but they probably existed before the kingdom of Arelon.

Edited December 9, 2020 by Light In the Darkness
Logical Fallacy