Re: New Pelorian and Language Engineering

From: bethexton <bethexton_at_...>
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2002 19:35:29 -0000

>
> > In any case, no way you can say that English was "engineered"
that
> > way to control minds, it happened the other way around...
>
> *Nobody* is arguing this. We are taking the fact that a rather
creepy
> Empire, in a made-up world, which has a well-documented interest in
> employing underhanded methods to make people think in New Ways, has
> purposely invented its own official New Language; and trying to add
> stuff to make this More Fun. If you don't enjoy this, don't use it!
Me,
> I just *love* tying Lunar Newspeak to Nysalor Riddles and seeing
what
> else falls out along the way.

Language and culture, which is a reflection of which, or are they reflections of each other? For what it is worth, I suspect the preceeding sentence is easy to state in New Pelorian, but difficult in many other Gloranthan languages.

I would take a somewhat less structured view than Nick on the planning behind New Pelorian. My take would be that the lunars had many cultures to try and integrate, each with a different language, and each with many cultural assumptions built into that language. Not only did they need an easily learned language that many people could use, they recognized that all of the existing languages were complicated by having 'excess' detail and precision in culturally important areas--such as having gender assigned to all objects, having variations of the same word to denote the rank of the person it applies to, and so on.

So they stripped down a language--in this case Old Pelorian, since it was probably one of the less encumbered tongues around anyways. They provided a simplified but flexible vocabulary and a straightforward and (again) flexible grammar. They advertise this as making the language easier to learn, but of course it also serves to weaken cultural stereotypes.

Actually, let me correct that, "they" didn't strip it down. For certain, this being Glorantha, they went on a harrowing quest down ancient myth trails, possibly right back to the green age or some such, where they found a god/goddess (I'm sure NP doesn't distinguish between them) whose name was something like Communication. They walked the new myth where she does not become enslaved to Utility or Power or Glory (not really meaning these abstract qualities, but gods representing them). Somehow that myth then ties into the lunar cycle, and the questers came back speaking a new, pure, simple, language of surpassing grace and elegance, that was in itself a song to the goddess. The questers taught others of their new discovery......then probably got locked into a distant monestary while the politicians twisted the language to their own ends!

--Bryan