In Defence of Language Study: What is Linguistics?

 A little blurb on Linguistics for those of you wondering what on earth it is that I study...

Most people who have heard of Linguistics before know that it has something to do with languages. But beyond that, the general understanding of the subject becomes somewhat murky. As a relatively "new" and somewhat specialised subject, there is a lot of confusion around what it is all about and what linguists are actually interested in. The purpose of this post is to share a rough outline of what Linguistics is really about, at least in the understanding I have developed after studying it for the last five years.

What is Linguistics:

Traditionally we refer to it as "the science of language" but that is a slightly confusing and not very enlightening description. It is a science, but not a "hard science", and therefore belongs to the Humanities or Arts. Some might prefer to call it a Human Science, or even a Social Science, but not even these boxes are quite where it fits. It draws inspiration from a range of fields including: language teaching, literature studies, the classics, maths, the social sciences, anthropology, psychology, philosophy, geography, computer science, neuroscience, anatomy, medicine, acoustics, biology, genetics...the list could go on. In a way, it is one of the truly multi-disciplinary subjects. And yet it requires its own specialisation and jargon.

What Linguistics is not:

There are two common misconceptions regarding what Linguistics is about. Firstly, Linguistics is not about learning lots of languages. It is not about learning any languages. It is about understanding the phenomenon that is Language. A linguist does not need to be fluent in many languages. A person who is so would more appropriately be referred to as a Language Scholar, Language Expert or a Polyglot. Some linguists are polyglots. Some polyglots are linguists. The two are neither mutually exclusive nor mutually inclusive. Knowing many languages - especially different kinds of languages - will naturally contribute to understanding more about Language. But it is not a pre-requisite. If you are, like me, not a natural polyglot (you don't pick up languages easily or naturally) you can still do well in linguistics. Of course, as linguists, we deal with many different languages in trying to grapple with the phenomenon of Language. And to be a good linguist, it helps if you have had lessons in different languages and know things about the rules of their grammar. But learning about a language and its rules is not the same as being fluent in that language. And while fluency in many languages is preferable, it's not necessary. 

The second misconception is that Linguistics is about "rules of grammar" - grammatical and linguistic "correctness". Most linguists are not "grammar police". Our job is not to go around telling people how to speak and why they are speaking wrong. It is not to bemoan the decline in grammatical/language aptitude of our current generation, to preserve the perfection that is a language and to go around correcting and teaching those that can't speak properly. And even if we were interested in that, it is most definitely not about neat writing, correct spelling and punctuation. Writing, spelling and punctuation (in particular) are not Language. They are a means of expressing language but are largely human constructs. There are, of course, reasons why uniformity in these areas is important and useful to society (especially for clarity of expression and avoiding misunderstandings) but that is not the interest of the linguist.

The linguist is interested primarily in Language. That is our concern. What is Language and how does it work? That probably sums up the best what Linguistics is about.

Linguistics is the study of how language works

If we take the statement above as our starting point, all the sub-fields that make up the science of Linguistics fall nicely into place. Linguistics needs to be thought of as a super-discipline: an over-arching term that covers a whole range of sub-fields, some of which are and operate very differently from each other. In the same way the (hard) sciences may be divided up into chemistry, physics, mathematics, biology etc. so does Linguistics have many sub-fields. Unlike experts in the hard sciences, linguists are generally expected to have expertise in a few different (even seemingly unrelated) sub-fields of Linguistics. In part this is because it is still a relatively new discipline (in its current form, that is) and hasn't reached the level of specialisation some of the hard sciences have, and in part because the various disciplines, though different and able to be treated in isolation, do in fact influence each other.

So what are these sub-disciplines? Well they all address the question of how the phenomenon that is language works. But they do so in different ways.  

Sociolinguistics looks at how language works in society. It addresses issues such as dialect variation, identity, and bilingualism within communities, at the level of small social groups and at national level. It examines the role and interaction of different languages within a society and how power-relations are played out through those languages.

Psycholinguistics looks at how language works in the human mind. How are individual languages acquired and learnt by children and adults? How are mental thoughts converted into spoken language and how is spoken language understood and de-constructed back into mental thoughts by those who hear or read it? The related field of Neurolinguistics looks at how language is physically processed by the brain. Which parts of the brain are responsible for processing language, what kinds of language formations are more difficult for the brain to process and why, and how are brain defects related to language defects?

Historical Linguistics looks at how languages are related to one another. What "genetic" connections are there between the different languages of the world and how and why do languages change over time (why do dialects, and eventually different languages, develop)? It looks at trying to understand, through reconstruction, rules of sound and grammatical change within the history of language groups.

Then there is a group of sub-fields within linguistics that may be grouped together under the heading Formal Linguistics. These fields look at how Language works internally by analysing the different building blocks that make up Language. These sub-fields, in particular, can use very formal methods derived from mathematics and logic. Phonetics and Phonology look at the underlying sounds used by humans to string together words and sentences. They examine particular rules that govern how these sounds are combined to derive different meanings. Semantics and Pragmatics look at the meaning behind individual words, how these words are combined to convey larger amounts of information, and how meaning is related and conveyed by different contexts. Morphology looks at how individual words are formed in different languages and made more precise by combining root meanings with semantically meaningful or grammatical forms like prefixes and suffixes. Syntax examines sentence structure and the way words of different types (nouns, verbs, adjectives, function words etc.) are combined according to particular rules in different languages to convey meaning.

The last two fields make up what you may more generally know as "grammar". But again, what we are interested in as linguists is not whether grammar is used "correctly" or not, so much as what the "natural" rules underlying the grammars of different languages are, why they work like that and why there are differences in different languages.

I've tried to keep this description simple, but it is hard to convey accurately what Linguistics is about without getting into technical terms. This, in a nutshell, sums up the basic ideas behind Linguistics and the focus of the different sub-fields. It is not an exhaustive description, and perhaps not even fully accurate. But the idea was to convey the gist of it.

Many of these fields are still in early stages of development and there is a lot of contention and debate within each field. Although language is something every human being is familiar with, it is also abstract and intangible; especially when one is trying to work out how language works in the mind or how the internal structure of a language is built up. No one can physically see or measure these things and so we are working with many theories and conjectures. Like with other sciences that deal with the intangible, it means there are disputes. But we are not simply grasping at straws. We use scientific methods to test our theories and have some evidence for their correctness. But we still have a long way to go.

And that, in part, is why I study Linguistics. There is still so much to learn about how language works. This amazing ability which we use almost every day of our lives and which almost every linguist will tell you is unique to humans is so very little understood. In the same way a biologist studies a life form to try and learn better what beautiful creatures exist in our world and what makes up this complex thing called life; in the same way an astronomer studies cosmic phenomena to better understand what is out there in the universe, and perhaps through that seeks for understanding in how our universe is made up; so the linguist wishes to study this beautiful and complex ability called Language.

Not all linguistics would feel the same, but for me, as a Christian who believes language was created and built into our genetic make-up by God, as a means of communicating with one another and hence enriching our lives, I can think of few better things to do than study this amazing ability with which he has blessed us. And in understanding these things, to gain a better appreciation for the great God whose imagination and power brought such a great phenomenon to be.

So that is what Linguistics is all about and why I study it. I hope it has shed some light on what I spend my time doing. I plan a follow-up post looking into more detail about why Linguistics is important to me, the Descriptive versus Prescriptive debate (which relates to the issue of grammatical correctness) and what that means to me as a Christian.

Narnia Show in Kensington Gardens

For those interested in my experiences, I wrote the following review on the new London stage show performance of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe for thelionscall.com.  

On Saturday 16 June 2012, Silkdash and I made our way to Kensington Gardens in London to watch the Threesixtyº Theatre's production of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. It was a mild June afternoon with intermittent patches of sun and cloud, the occasional drop of rain and a brisk wind.

Next to the theatre was an open pavilion which sold snacks, sweets including Turkish Delight and show memorabilia (such as plushie lions and t-shirts with "Son of Adam" and "Daughter of Eve" printed on them). There was also a wall for children (or adult representatives from The Lion's Call) to write messages to Narnia on.

The theatre itself was circular with seats all around except for the aisles and a single walkway on which actors could enter and exit. There was a circular ring of the tent ceiling which was used to project images onto and served in place of a backdrop. A theatre of this kind could have no curtain and so the dimming and raising of light had to be used instead.

The play started with the four Pevensie children arriving at the Professor's house, having been sent away from London during the Blitz. It began somewhat informally with Lucy Pevensie (Rebecca Benson) asking the children in the audience whether they wanted to join in with a game of hide-and-seek and making the children count. Eventually the focus shifted back to the Pevensies themselves playing hide-and-seek and Lucy hiding in a Wardrobe. The wardrobe used in the play was square and placed in the centre of the stage. It could rise out of and lower into the floor as necessary. After Lucy entering it, we were given an idea of what it was like inside by projections of wooden panelling on the screen on the ceiling. As Lucy described the feeling of fur coats becoming fir trees, the wood panel projection began to crack and vanish and was replaced by shadows of trees. Lucy emerged from the top of where the wardrobe had been and for a while was "flying", attached to an overhead wire, as snow fell from the roof of the tent. As the wardrobe sank back into the floor, a number of trees appeared on stage along with a lamp post and Mr Tumnus (Forbes Masson). The trees were people on stilts holding branches and dryad-like beings with long flowing robes, also holding branches and suspended in the air. The effect was artistic and impressionist rather than realistic and added to the fairy-tale atmosphere of the story. The story proceeded as is familiar to readers of the book (and previous renditions of the story), gratifyingly using much dialogue directly from the book.

Like the trees, the animals in the play were portrayed artistically rather than realistically. All were played by people in costumes which alluded to, rather than directly represented, the animals they were playing (in a way somewhat reminiscent to some portrayals of the animals in The Wind in the Willows). I suspect the costuming was also inspired somewhat by the popular Disney musical theatre production of The Lion King. Mr Beaver (Paul Barnhill) first appeared wearing a large loose hood over his head vaguely resembling a beaver's face, but after winning the children's trust, he lifted off the hood to reveal the face of a bearded man wearing a fur cap. He wore rustic, (perhaps you could call them "woodman's") clothes. He even carried an axe. Around his waist and legs was a sort of wooden-framed skirt and attached to it a fabric beaver's tail. Mrs Beaver (Sophie-Louise Dann) was similarly dressed.

Although not billed as a musical, there were a number of songs interspersed throughout the play. The musical accompaniment to these came chiefly from three other animals who were either off stage or in the centre of the action, depending on what was more suitable for the scene. These were a fox (Peter Peverly) and a squirrel (Susannah van den Berg) playing clarinets and, to the utter delight of this reviewer, a hedgehog (Audrey Brisson) playing an accordion. The squirrel had a wooden twig-woven frame in the shape of a squirrel's tail attached to her back, and the hedgehog a hood and cloak to which fabric strips resembling hedgehog spines were sewn. The fox wore a burnt orange-coloured coat with fur cuffs. In some scenes, there was also a rabbit with two sharp pointed-ears on his head that looked like something between rabbit s ears and two large feathers.

For the most part, the story followed the book, including exact dialogue. The scene in which Susan (Carly Bawden) and Peter (Philip Labey) tell the Professor (Brian Protheroe) of their concerns about Lucy making up stories proceeded largely verbatim, echoing Lewis' famous trilemma "either your sister is telling lies, or she is mad, or she is telling the truth. You know she doesn't tell lies, and it is obvious that she is not mad. For the moment, then, and unless any further evidence turns up, we must assume that she is telling the truth." Unfortunately (and perhaps with reason not wanting children viewers to start questioning the school system) the most memorable line from his speech I wonder what they teach in schools these days?" was cut. The part where the professor suggests to Susan that they do what no one has thought of so far "minding our own business" was retained.

Other scenes which I noticed used dialogue exactly (or nearly exactly) from the book were that in which the beavers tell the children about Aslan for the first time and Susan is quite shocked to discover he is a lion, the conversation between Aslan and the White Witch Jadis (Sally Dexter) about the Deep Magic (with the beavers interjection about Jadis thinking herself "the Emperors' hangman") and Aslan s explanation to Susan and Lucy after his resurrection about the Deeper Magic from before the Dawn of Time.

There is a divergence from the book in the events that cause each entry into the Wardrobe by the children. Lucy goes into the Wardrobe the first time as part of a game of hide-and-seek (in the book this is the reason for her second visit). The second entry is because she is curious and angry at the others for not believing her. Edmund follows her out of spite. The third time, when all four find their way in, is perhaps the most divergent scene in the whole play. Lucy has a nightmare in which she dreams that Mr Tumnus has been caught and tortured by Maugrim and his wolves. She wakes up and the others wake too to see what is wrong. She is sure she can hear strange noises. Edmund, looking for an excuse to get the others into the Wardrobe according to the Witch' s order that he bring his siblings back to Narnia, encourages her saying he can also hear strange noises. In fear, they all hide in the Wardrobe, and thus find their way into Narnia.

The four Pevensies were relatively well portrayed. Edmund (Jonny Weldon) was an appropriately annoying brother to begin with, at first lured by the Witch s lies and the temptation of the promise of more enchanted Turkish Delight. But his attitude changes as he sees the Witch for what she really is. Peter and Susan were well chosen for their roles, and Peter in particular filled the role of the eldest sibling who finds himself unexpectedly thrust into the role of High King very well. I wasn t as thoroughly convinced by Lucy. I felt she was cast a bit old and therefore lost some of her childish innocence. She wasn't a bad act at all, but as essentially the main character, you expect a lot from her, and there seemed something slightly missing, but maybe that was just me.

The performance of Jadis by Sally Dexter was convincing and similarly true to the book, using much dialogue straight from it. Ginnabrik her dwarf (Miltos Yerolemou) gave the impression of a crude and somewhat uncivilised/simple dwarf. Maugrim was portrayed by a man with a wolfish hind but more human upper body. He held bones in his arms which acted as sort of crutches with which he could walk on "all-fours". The bones added to his fearsomeness.

Father Christmas was portrayed by the same actor as the professor (something I only discovered on checking the programme afterwards). He was a cheerful but serious rather than jolly Father Christmas with a delightful Scottish accent. His words were quite different from the book, but he gave a good speech as he spoke about "Christmas being about more than just presents" in response to a comment by Susan that it was the wrong time of year for Christmas. He didn t go as far as saying that Christmas was about Christ' s birth, but rather gave a more generic reference to it being about hope and the like.

I got the impression at various points in the play that the producers were trying to add a "tribal" feel to it. This was most noticeable when the Beavers chanted the Prophesy about Aslan's return and in the animals enjoying Father Christmas' picnic which was how the show was restarted after the interval. They were singing and dancing around to the sound of a drum beat. By "tribal" I mean something reminiscent of Native American, African or Australasian tribal systems. Perhaps even Celtic or Anglo-Saxon. This "feel" was enhanced by the fact that some animals and other creatures such as Mr Tumnus had markings on their bodies somewhat reminiscent of tribal body painting/tattoos. The rustic clothing and cloaks of the animals also added to this effect.

I find this an interesting interpretation in light of what Narnia is. Considering Narnia is more usually thought of as representing and English countryside with a Medieval/Classical European feel, it is certainly quite different to the portrayal you expect from a Narnia production, and yet it somehow worked. As a Christian, I was somewhat concerned that by adding this tribal element, however, it distracted somewhat from the underlying Christian message, by making the animal s worship of Aslan seem like something closer to animistic religions than Christianity. On the other hand, the Christian message was still clearly there, and could not be wholly lost as Lewis' own words were adhered to so much throughout the play.

Also, considering Lewis himself was not afraid to introduce elements of Classical mythology into his story, the producers were perhaps doing something not so different, but using elements of traditional mythologies still practised in today s world (and therefore perhaps more recognisable to a modern audience than Classical myth) such as Native American and African. I should add too that this was merely an underlying feel to the play and no overt tribal elements were introduced to change the actual story.

Another interesting element was during the private conversation between Jadis and Aslan. In the book this simply happens "off stage" and we do not know what is discussed. In this play, Aslan and Jadis speak to one another in an unknown, harsh-sounding language (presumably a language associated with the magic from the Dawn of Time).

I' m not sure quite how to describe Aslan. He is certainly different from normal representations, far less cuddly and golden, but still solemn and impressive. His frame was built to fit over two standing men, one in the position of his forelegs (Christian From) and the other his hind legs (Will Lucas). A woman puppeteer (Jane Leaney) controlled his head (running next to the lion body). David Suchet did an excellent performance of his voice. The best way I can think of to describe him is as a lion-shaped frame, with his head, forelegs and hind covered in "bark". His torso was more "hollow" and you could even see his ribs in one point which I found a little strange. He wasn' t quite as weird as it may sound, though, as he fitted in well with the impressionistic representations of the rest of the animals, and it was still possible to take him seriously. He was quite versatile and could run quite fast when necessary. The Stone Table scene was very well done (most of his body was covered in a shroud during the sacrifice and his head covered later, so that his body could be flattened and made to "vanish" while the girls weren' t watching). A new resurrected Aslan then came bounding in from back stage.

The ending of the play was quite interesting. The four children were presented with crowns and each described themselves as they grew up in words derived from what it says of them in the book. Then four older actors in royal attire came on stage and received the crowns from their younger selves. A coronation-type song followed, and then Mr Tumnus brought news of the sighting of the white stag. The four adult actors spotted the lamp post and headed towards it while the child actors, still on stage, cited their words of surprise in seeing this lamp post growing in the wood (in the same delightful archaic royal language used of them in the book). The Wardrobe in the centre of the stage then rose up around the four children as the adults left the stage. The four then came falling out of the Wardrobe door to be greeted by the Professor who informed them that breakfast was nearly ready and that they shouldn 't try return to Narnia the same way twice, but that they probably would return, after all "Once a King in Narnia, always a King".

In all it was a well-made show; quite original in certain aspects, especially costuming, but at the same time wonderfully loyal to the book in terms of dialogue with little deviation from the storyline. An enjoyable show.

Obviously we were not permitted to take photos of the actual performance, but you can find a link to official photos and videos here. The section "production images" has some lovely pictures of the cast in costume.

Official LWW Show Website

You can read a more detailed scene-by-scene review on Narniaweb.

Writing Challenge Day 12

Songs About Writing

I apologise that I have rather fizzled out on my posts for the 15 Day Writing Challenge. Between my Liebster Awards Posts, my lack of writer's experience and my busyness in preparing for Oxford this unfortunately has become the least priority. I would like to finish it off, however, by writing a post for day 12. Many of my friends struggled to find examples of songs about writing, and while these are not entirely related to novel/fiction writing, I thought they might be appreciated.

Lèrowen's blog: Eat...Sleep...Write

When I saw this day's question, it made me think of two Christian songs about writing. They are both technically about song-writing an writer's block, but I think they're rather appropriate

The first is by a band that would arguably be called the most famous Christian band in South Africa. They've had songs of theirs played on secular radio stations as background music at international cricket matches and in television commercials. They were actually based in America for some time, and I thought they might have been more popular in the Christian music scene over there, but I discovered that it was probably more that this led to their extreme popularity in SA though they remained rather unknown internationally.

I've been to two of their concerts. At the first one this particular song really affected me, and I've loved it ever since.

No Words - Tree 63

Is there nothing new underneath the sun?

Some unfound way to tell of all You've done

I sit around and round in circles

All that I find is one thing true

I'm trying to resist saying things You've heard
I'm trying to invent a new way with words
All that I find in my frustration

Is that it does not change the way I feel 'cos

There are no words that I could say
There is no music I could play
There is no song I could sing
To tell of all the love You bring
 

Are all my sleepless nights just a waste of time?

Will my words mean anything if I can't make them rhyme?

You're waiting for me to break the silence

You're listening even though you already know that there...

There's nothing new

Underneath the sun

And I'm lost for words anyway

You're a symphony

Washing over me

Washing over me

I'm lost for words

~~ * ~~

The second song is something I used to hear on our local Christian radio station. It expresses the same sort of sentiment as the former. I confess I had to look up the artist, and can't even be sure this is the version I heard. But since his name came up in the majority of the results, I shall attribute it to him.

26 Letters - Ben Glover

I can't form a sentence

To save my life

I try to coin a phrase

But I can't make it sound right

I feel helpless

A little dumb

I'm an educated fool

With a brain gone numb

All I wanna do is let You know that You

You had the heart to change the heart of me

You took me to a love I never knew

26 letters is all I got

To tell You how I feel about You

26 letters and you know I'm never ever

Gonna write the perfect paragraph

I try to express

with adjectives of thankfulness

But, I don't know if I can do it

With 26 letters

I could be a scholar

I could be a sage

I could write a million books

And be the latest rage

I still can't say enough

For what You've done for me

With this limited vocabulary

All I wanna do is let You know that You

You had the heart to change the heart of me

You took me to a love I never knew

On and on and on I go

With limited descriptive prose

And I give up 'cause I've said it all before

Linguistic Conundrums in Narnia

I promised myself I wouldn't get into the language issue in my Susan Fic, but try as I might, I have failed. How can I, in good conscience, motivate a new world that just "happens" to speak the same language as Susan Pevensie?

I thought I had a solution, but I've already hit a snag. My initial idea was to do what Lewis did, and ignore the question completely: the people (or animals) in this new world speak the same language as some kids from England? So what? Deal with it. Accept it. The story works.

I guess it does, but I'm not Lewis, and it's already starting to plague me.

Lewis (or perhaps some of his fans) have explained the situation in Narnia quite eloquently. The saving moments come from one of the last of the books written, The Magician's Nephew. In it we learn that Narnia was created in the presence of some English people: Digory, Polly, Unle Andrew and Frank the Cabby Driver (I won't deal with the question of  Jadis at the moment - after all, she was a witch ;-) ), and the Narnian animals became talking animals in their midst. It was convenient that Aslan would make them speak the same language as the visitors. The first King and Queen of Narnia were English too. Aslan was being practical. Problem solved.

But is it really? I recently had a discussion with some of my TLC friends about how it was that the other people-groups in the greater Narnian world also spoke English. The answer to this is given in Mr Lewis' proposed timeline, created after the completion of The Chronicles. In it we learn that the people of Archenland and Calormen are descendants of King Frank and Helen, the first rulers of Narnia. It is only logical, therefore, that their descendants also speak English. That solves that problem. (I have personal reservations about the fact that the Calormene culture so closely resembles aspects of Eastern cultures - Arabian, Turkish or Indian - as does their physical appearance. I'm not sure how this works if their their ancestry and language is purely English/Narnian. But maybe that's just me, and things can change drastically in 1 000 years. So, I won't make too much of a fuss about that issue).

Another question which arises is how it is that the Telmarines also speak English. We know they are descendants of pirates from our world and the natives of an island in the Southern Sea. The nationality of these pirates is unclear, and various suggestions have been made. The idea that they were Mediterranean, Spanish in particular, has been popular since the release of the Disney Prince Caspian film in 2008. Whatever their native tongue, the argument goes that they picked up English after conquering Narnia, since that was the language spoken there and in the surrounding lands. I wonder over such a suggestion, that the conquerors would pick up the language of their conquered (especially since the conquered included few men and mostly talking animals and other creatures with whom they would have very little to do). But such a situation is not completely unreasonable. It was, after all, the most wide- spread language in that eastern part of the world.

Okay, so here we have a few nice little arguments. All lined up, they explain why English was the language spoken by Narnians, Archenlanders, Calormenes and Telmarines. There I have no problem. But language is not that simple. And here I do have a problem.

Language is not static. It never has been. And despite various desperate attempts, it never will be. Every language has mutiple dialects. And as time passes, languages shift and change. The English language is divided into three time spans: Old English (also called "Anglo-Saxon"), Middle English (the language of Chaucer) and "Modern" English (the language from Shakespeare's time until today).

And one only needs to look at the language of Shakespeare to realise that it will not be long before people will accept that Shakespeare's English and that spoken by present day society is hardly the same language at all. Within the next generation I foresee a new category of English: Post-Modern? O.o (lets hope they coin a better name for it).

In sociolignuistics, we learn about two things that lead to the creation of dialects: geographical separation and societal seporation. Add to this temporal seporation and we have three important factors.

People that live in different places, different social groups and different times, (even those who started out speaking the "same" language) adapt their the way they speak to suit their needs. The further apart in space, society and time, the more different their speech becomes. This is why we have the phenomenon we call "dialects". And the longer and more distant the separation between groups that speak different dialects, the more different those varieties of the language become. Given enough separation and time, the dialects eventually loose their "mutual intelligibility". This is the ability of speakers of the one variety (dialect) to naturally understand speakers of the other.

One needs simply to look at the English of Britain and that of America (or Australia or South Africa or India etc.) to see evidence of dialectal differences. Thanks to global connexions brought about through modern technology, these dialects are still mutually intelligible. This is not the case for languages that started out as dialects of Latin. French, Spanish and Italian, though they bear some resemblance to each other, were once mutually intelligable dialects spoken by different groups. Separation has lead them to the point of diverstion they are at today.

So what does this have to do with Narnia? The answer is simple. While I can accept that Narnians first spoke the English of Digory and his companions, how do we explain that when the Pevensies arrived, the creatures of Narnia speak the exact same form of English, the same "dialect" they had spoken 1 000 years ago. That would be equivalent to discovering that, Chaucer's English was actually exactly like ours (and the stuff he wrote was him just having a bit of fun).

It's not possible. Even if we were to argue that language changed more slowly in Narnia, that the White Witch's presence kept language more static. Even an individual's language changes over their life-span. I'm pretty sure that hers would have changed a little in 1 000 years. Even if 1 000 years had passed in our world between the creation of Narnia and the Pevensie's visit, we would expect the English in Narnia to have diverged significantly from the way English had shifted in our world. But there is only one generation between the two visits of English children in Narnia. The English spoken by the Pevensies is not mouch different to that spoken by Digory and Polly or Frank and Helen. But how is it that Mr Tumnus and Mr and Mrs Beaver, speak the same form of English that their ancestors, the crow who was the "first joke" and "Fledge" spoke?

Taking this further, we would expect the Calormenes, living cut-off from Narnia during the 100 year winter, to speak yet another dialect of English. There is no evidence of this beyond slight "stylistic" peculiarities in their speech (and generally only their formal speech). There should be differences in vocabulary, semantics and even possibly grammar after all these years. The Telmarines, if they did speak another language and picked up English from their Narnian captives, should at least have had some affect on changing the language. Look what happened with the Norman invasion. Why don't we see a similar influence by Spannish or "Telmarinian" on the language of the Narnians? They would have at least contributed significantly to the vocabulary. After all English loves to pick up vocabulary from other languages.

And so I find myself in a pickle (no not a hedgepickle, but a linguistic pickle). Not only do I take issue with Lewis' explanations for the language in Narnia, but how in the world (or worlds) do I motivate that 20th Century English is also the language spoken the the world I created for my Susan Fic? There is probably some solution. I'm writing the story for fun, not as a serious writer, and so I could probably go back to my original plan and just "ignore the issue". It may require a few changes to my plot. The reason language is about to become important is because the creatures have a mysterious scroll Susan must interpret. I'll make a plan on that. But there you are. A puzzle indeed. Sometimes I wish I didn't "think" so much! ;-)

PS. CS Lewis is one of my favourite and most respected authors. He himself had an amazing intellect and a way with language that I could never emulate. He does much better justice to the language issue in his Sci-Fi trilogy. I know the Narnia stories were written for children, which is why he doesn't address complicated linguistic questions there. And these questions really take nothing away from the brilliancy of the stories. Some may wonder at all why I even bother to ask them at all. It's only because they interest me and are messing with my own writing. Selfish reasons completely.

My Hedgehog Collection - Part Three

It's taken me a while, but here I finally post the last of my hedgehog collection: All my Mrs Tiggy-winkles and Pindsvin - a very special Danish hedgie.

Mrs Tiggy-Winkle

The largest is a knitted one we found at a flea market. It's not the best workmanship, but she was rather cheap, so we bought her. She's actually grown on me the longer I've had her.

The second largest was originally bought for me by my mother. About 6 months later, one of my best school friends gave me the exact same one for my birthday. We phoned the shop where my mum had got mine from and they let us exchange her for another Beatrix Potter character. There wasn't much choice, but I came home with a sweet Goody Tiptoes. The one in the middle, was a another one my mum found to make up for her one having been replaced.

The Tiggy holding the number 5 was birthday present a few years ago. You may have seen her in one of the photos of my shelved hedgehogs in part 1. There's nothing significant about the number 5, it just happened to be what my parents found. If you look very closely, she is shaking hands with a little mouse.

The final ornament one was my graduation present in 2010 for my bachelors degree and lives in a display cabinet.

 

Pindsvin

This is one of my most special hedgehogs. My mother has a number of Royal Copenhagen (the Danish version of Royal Dalton) porcelain figurines, which she inherited from her Danish grandmother and mother. My parents had this hedgehog specially ordered from a supplier of RC for my 21s Birthday. I call it Pindsvin - the Danish name for "hedgehog".

Umndeni Wami

Okay, I admit that this is random. But just for fun, I thought I'd post my isiZulu oral that I'm doing in class tomorrow. It's very simple ('cause I've only done one semester of the language) and basically tells of my family, my dad's 60th birthday party, my sister and I squabbling over a hair brush and the family holiday we are going on next week. We had to use certain grammatical forms (including direct commands, hence the squabble, the recent past and future tense, and non-verbal predicates).

Umndeni Wami

NginguAjnos. Ngingumfundi. Nginomndeni omuhle kakulu. Nginomama nobaba nomfowethu nodadewethu. Anginabo omkhulu. Umama ungutisha futhi ubaba uyi-Urban Designer. Umfowethu igama lakhe nguTenebrous, futhi udadewethu igama lakhe nguArwen. UTeneb uyafunda i-IT kodwa uArwen usesikoleni. Sinezinja izimbili. Amagama lazo nguJuliet noJasmine. Ziyabukeka. Abazali bayazona izinja. Zithanda ukulala embhedeni. Azithandi ukudlala phandle.

NgoMgqibelo ubaba wenze iphathi. Uneminyaka engu60. Asiyibukanga i-rugby. Abantu abaningi beze ephathini. Sidle uboeboetie nobreyani namameatballs.

Udadewethu uyahlupha kancane. Uyantshontsha ibhulashi lezinwele zami.

NgoMqibelo ekuseni uthe “Ajnos, mawungiboleka ibhulashi.”
Ngithe, “Cha, liphi ibhulashi lakho?”
UArwen uthe, “Angazi. Angikwazi ukulithola”
Ngithe, “Cha, uzolahla ibhulashi lami futhi.”

Ntambama ibhulashi lisegunjini lami lokulala. Udadewthu ulintshonshile.

Ngimemeze, “Arwen, mus' ukuntshonsha ibhulashi. Libuyise!”
Uthe, “Mus' ukungikhuza!” Ubalekile.

Kodwa ngithanda udadewethu. Ngithanda umndeni wonke. Ngesonto elizayo sizohamba eholidini. Sizohamba eDrakensburg. Asizuhamiba sodwa. O-anti nomalume bazohamba futhi. Sizohamba ngezimoto. Sizohlala impelasonto yonke.