> > Tradetalk, and one of the reasons it has
> > spread so successfully is IMO that it is fairly similar to the original
> >Mantongue
>
> I don't know that there was a Mantongue
There WAS, (ie when Grandfather Mortal was made, and begat his family) but there isn't any more (phonetic devolution, caused by some chaos entity, or Ratslaf, or something similar).It may subsist in a few prehistoric written documents. (now there's a paradox for you ... )
It subsists in the roots and etymons of universal human concepts, but Brithini is v. closely related to it.
> (Darktongue and Aldryami are nearly
> instinctive for their species,
This, I very much doubt. Trolls and elves are NOT animals.
I would say that the paradigms of Aldryami are probably less what a human would call logical, because the elves are "in tune with nature". But, if it IS a LANGUAGE, then it is necessarily made of non-instinctive material. The aldryami may have "less" language than humans. As for Trolls, their language is hardly instinctive at all, at least no more than human languages are (in fact, human language does have some innate component, which could have been called instinctive, were this term not *exclusively* reserved for the description of animal behaviour.).
> and humans have no instinctive language).
Herdman?
> Even if there was, it probably wouldn't be Tradetalk, which I think is a
> simplified language, like a pidgin.
Well, pidgins come to exist in places where two or more languages come into contact, and blend. They do this by combining their common features (see above for universal Gloranthan etymons) and otherwise choosing those words from the original words which are easy to use, or which have some local importance from a cultural POV. This isn't quite the same as creolisation, because you don't get a complete language from this process, and mothers don't teach it to babies. (You, David, already know this, I see.)
Tradetalk, however, isn't a pidgin. It is an artificial language, constructed by the GodLearners, based on Seshnegi, Brithini, and abstract scholarly knowledge of Old Mantongue. Much like Esperanto in RW, except that it is based, at least partially, on a *real* universal tongue (and so contained *real* universality), and that the GLs made it stick. Their purpose was, of course, the linguistic and political reunification of mankind.
Whether the GLs were idealists or anal retentives I leave to you...
But, it does seem unlikely that the language they invented is used, unmodified, in 17th century Glorantha. It has certainly devolved, somewhat, and what we have now is probably a pidginised form of the original Tradetalk, yes.
Also, the name "Tradetalk" is probably not a GodLearner invention. Original Tradetalk was called Jrusteli, probably.
> I can't think offhand of any place
> where it has a creole form (i.e. people have adopted it as a native
> language, extending it to a full language).
Jrustela, before it fell.Also, the God Learner Secret is one sentence of Tradetalk.
PS Nick & Ian : Please let's not make another flamewar, guys ...
End of The Glorantha Digest V6 #2
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