MERCEDES-LACKEY Digest 2614 Topics covered in this issue include: 1) Re: From Books of Three to Languages... by Matt Neimeyer 2) Re: languages by Kenneth Allen Hyde 3) Brightly Burning by Matt Neimeyer 4) Re: Brightly Burning by eliza77-+AT+-webtv.net (eliza) 5) Re: Brightly Burning by RachaelPoet-+AT+-aol.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 18:10:03 -0400 From: Matt Neimeyer To: mercedes-lackey-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Re: From Books of Three to Languages... Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20010615174838.00a9c1a8-+AT+-ambriel.youth-guard.org> I snipped and clipped a couple posts together... sorry if it's fragmentary... > > For example, from what I remember, The Lord of the Rings came about because > > Tolkien was a linguist and decided to invent a language similar to one of > > the Nordic tongues. >Actually, as far as I know, he started writing the stories first. Either way the one was created to support the other. I'm still impressed. I seem to remember also hearing that his work on languages created problems in translation from English because it was difficult to come up with translations of translations or to find ways to come up with languages that had the same relationship to the main language. For example, an article I read on translation was pondering how to translate a book title like "All the Presidents Men". The title is a reference to the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme. So how do you effectively translate that to a language that doesn't "know" about Humpty Dumpty. >If you are interested, there are a number of books published on the >subject ("The >Languages of Middle-Earth" is the standard reference) and there are >probably quite a few web-sites. I found some websites last time I read the series... but that was a couple years ago. I'll have to look for the book. Do you happen to know who wrote it? Or who published it? >Another one is the linguist who created the Klingon language for the Star >Trek series. >I was once convulsed by laughter in a bookstore after catching sight of >a copy of _Hamlet_ translated into Klingon. Wasn't that a minor point in one of the Star Trek movies that most of Shakespeare was actually written by a Klingon... I remember this because I also seem to remember that they had a problem because the original Klingon didn't include an easy way to translate "To be or not to be" and they had to do a rework on the language. > > Is there anything out there about how this is done? >There are several mailing lists and newsgroups for the discussion of >Artificial Languages Do you know of any good ones to lurk on? >Most fictional languages are like Shina'a'in and Kaled'a'in: they are >fragmentary, not terribly grammaticalized, and not very well-thought-out. Heh... I guess that's where suspension of disbelief comes in right? Matt ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 18:19:44 -0400 (EDT) From: Kenneth Allen Hyde To: Misty Lackey List Subject: Re: languages Message-ID: On Fri, 15 Jun 2001, Abby Normal wrote: > Tayledras, Shin'a'in, and Kaled'a'in languages on Romany (which I > believe is the fifth Romance tongue). I don't know about the correspondance between the Velgarth languages and Romany, but I do know that Romany is not a Romance language (for that matter, there are a lot more than five Romance languages). Romany is an Indo-Hittite language, being part of the Indic branch of the Indo-Iranian group in the Indo-European family. Just as a btw, Romany is so distinct from the other Indic languages that it has its own sub-branch, also named Romany. Unfortunately, none of my books seem to have any briefs on Romany, so I can't really compare it to any of Misty's languages. However, for what it's worth, according to an online Romany dictionary, "edra" is Romany for "sister" (nominative). So, who knows. =) May the seas be your solace and the forests a refuge for your spirit, Cennydd Councilor of Mist Kenneth Allen Hyde | No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife Univ. of Delaware | between the shoulder blades will seriously Dept. of Linguistics | cramp his style -- Old Jhereg proverb kenny-+AT+-Udel.Edu | A mind is a terrible toy to waste! -- Me //www.ling.udel.edu/hyde/prof/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 21:52:33 -0400 From: Matt Neimeyer To: mercedes-lackey-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Brightly Burning Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20010615214915.00a8c700-+AT+-ambriel.youth-guard.org> Hey All, I just picked up Brightly Burning today and I'm looking forward to reading it. But I was wondering, while I know it's the story of Lavan Firestorm, where does that fit in the Valdemar timeline? I'm guessing somewhere between Vanyel's time and Elspeth's time... For that matter I noticed on the timeline in the book itself that there is the reign of King Theran... Is that when? Thanks for any help. Matt ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 23:36:58 -0500 (CDT) From: eliza77-+AT+-webtv.net (eliza) To: mercedes-lackey-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Re: Brightly Burning Message-ID: <1125-3B2AE26A-2057-+AT+-storefull-224.iap.bryant.webtv.net> Not to spoil anything about the book and i dont want to get into specific details, but yes it takes place somewhat approximately a hundred or so years (i think!! i could be wrong) after vanyels time. there's some confusing familial references near the end of the book and similar names that make you go "huh?" and check the timeline, but yep it's between vanyel and elspeth :) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2001 12:10:08 EDT From: RachaelPoet-+AT+-aol.com To: mercedes-lackey-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Re: Brightly Burning Message-ID: <67.1587eeea.285cdee0-+AT+-aol.com> --part1_67.1587eeea.285cdee0_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Yes, it is between Vanyel and Elspeth, it even mentions Tylendel. It is a really good book. Sorry about the one liner. Also in the front of the book there should be a timeline. Rachael cherry popiscle sheep to all --part1_67.1587eeea.285cdee0_boundary Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Yes, it is between Vanyel and Elspeth, it even mentions Tylendel. It is a
really good book. Sorry about the one liner. Also in the front of the book
there should be a timeline.
Rachael
cherry popiscle sheep to all
--part1_67.1587eeea.285cdee0_boundary-- ------------------------------ End of MERCEDES-LACKEY Digest 2614 **********************************