Plus, Golden-Age Narnia would have had a lot of influences from the various traders, tourists (I just bet!), immigrants, mercenaries trying to take service (and probably being refused) and foreign courtiers who traveled through; and then each "species" of Narnian, such as centaur, dryad, dwarf,etc, would probably have had their own dialect, or at least had some terms used among themselves that might not be adopted by the culture as a whole. *muses*
It's easy to think about language in terms of what gets added, by outside influences. But the *lack*-or withdrawal-of them is an influence, too.
Maybe there would be some shunning of certain words or phrases for everyday use, lest they invoked something not taken lightly-made holy-or as retroactive punishment? People wouldn't go throwing the name Jadis around, or swearing by the King of Summer, lightly, for example. But to know the words were holy, or to shun them, you'd have to *teach* them first, *then* establish the taboo against using them. Not use them around the Telmarines, either.
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Date: 2008-07-22 08:18 pm (UTC)It's easy to think about language in terms of what gets added, by outside influences. But the *lack*-or withdrawal-of them is an influence, too.
Maybe there would be some shunning of certain words or phrases for everyday use, lest they invoked something not taken lightly-made holy-or as retroactive punishment? People wouldn't go throwing the name Jadis around, or swearing by the King of Summer, lightly, for example. But to know the words were holy, or to shun them, you'd have to *teach* them first, *then* establish the taboo against using them. Not use them around the Telmarines, either.