more Narnian linguistics!

[edenfalling]

I think I either have to massively rewrite Babel, or declare it movie canon. Because I woke around 3am last night with the annoying realization that in the books, the universal language of the Narnian world really is English. I will now prove this to you, with three pieces of circumstantial evidence and two massive clinchers.

First, in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, when Lucy tells Mr. Tumnus that she came to Narnia through a wardrobe in the spare room, he twists that so she comes from the city of War Drobe in the land of Spare Oom. This implies that A) he generally understands Lucy, though since a magic portal between worlds isn't really within his experience, he assumes she's naming a country instead of common household places/items, and B) he's hearing the actual syllables Lucy says. Therefore, they are both speaking English.

Second, in Prince Caspian, when Peter dictates the letter of challenge to Doctor Cornelius, he reminds the Doctor to spell the word 'abominable' "with an H." This is not proper American spelling, but I assume it was proper British spelling when Lewis was writing... or possibly a dying spelling that he wanted to retain. Lewis strikes me as something of a language purist, and he's not above putting grammar lessons into his writing, like this one, "I really believed it was him -- he, I mean -- yesterday," which is also from Prince Caspian. Now, that particular line is Susan talking privately to Lucy, not to a native Narnian, so it doesn't prove anything one way or the other, but I think the dictation scene does.

Third, and this is much more circumstantial than the first two, in The Horse and His Boy, when Edmund grabs Shasta out of the street under the impression that Shasta is Corin, Lewis says that Edmund kept on asking him questions; where had he been, how had he got out, what had he done with his clothes, and didn't he know that he had been very naughty. Only the king called it "naught" instead of naughty. Putting that in context with the other Narnian dialogue we hear, it seems clear that they speak an ever-so-slightly archaic version of English... or some equivalent that Lewis is rendering that way. However, he is so specific about that one word that it does seem he wants readers to think it's all English. (Of course, the alternate explanation is that he doesn't want readers to think that Edmund and Susan are saying that Shasta-as-Corin is 'nothing,' just that he's been misbehaving.)

Finally, my crowning evidence comes from The Silver Chair, during Jill, Eustace, and Puddleglum's time in Harfang. This evidence has two parts. First is the giants' cookbook, which the narration assures us "was arranged alphabetically." Lewis shows three entries: MALLARD, MAN, and MARSH-WIGGLE. Those are indeed alphabetically arranged, in English. It seems extremely unlikely that they would happen to be alphabetical in another language as well.

Even more inarguable is the inscription that serves as the Third Sign. When the travelers are struggling through the storm toward the manor, Jill falls into a peculiarly shaped set of trenches. She walks in a straight line until the trench turns right at a 90 degree angle, and finds two more potential right turns (parallel to the first trench) before the cross-trench dead-ends. Later, they look out from the manor at the ruined city and see the words UNDER ME carved in the pavement.

As Eustace says, "We got into the lettering. Don't you see? We got into the letter E in ME. That was your sunk lane. We walked along the bottom stroke of the E, due north -- turned to our right along the upright -- came to another turn to the right -- that's the middle stroke -- and then went on to the top left hand corner, or (if you like) the north-eastern corner of the letter, and came back. Like the bally idiots we are." To me, this is definitive evidence that the inscription doesn't say something equivalent to 'UNDER ME' in a hypothetical Narnian language; instead, it literally says 'UNDER ME.'

The universal language of the Narnian world is English.

How did that happen? I think it's Digory and Polly's fault! You see, the five* people brought into Narnia at the beginning spoke English; therefore, when Aslan spoke and gave the gift of thought and speech to the Talking Beasts, English was the natural language to use, so his new creations could communicate with the visitors. If they hadn't been there, he might well have chosen a different language, but there they were, so English it was and English it has remained ever since.

The strange lack of linguistic drift in the Narnian world is still a valid observation. I just picked the wrong starting language. :-D


(*I said all five spoke English. This is obviously true of Digory, Polly, Uncle Andrew, and Frank the Cabby, since they were English. It's not so obviously true of Jadis, but I can argue around that. Here is my theory: the language of Charn was not English. My proof is that initially Digory and Polly couldn't read the inscription on the pillar that held the bell. However, Jadis seems to have used some sort of translation magic, because after a while the children understood her poem, though the actual carving never changed to English. Also, when Jadis wakes, she is immediately comprehensible to the children, and vice versa. I think that while the spell translated the inscription from Charnian to English for the children, it also back-fed English to Jadis, so she would be able to speak with whoever woke her. Therefore, Jadis knows English.)

Comments

[autumnia]

I love how you went through all the books and presented your arguments with pretty much undeniable proof that they all spoke English. And yes, it is Digory and Polly's fault! I wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment because it really is thanks to them that English became the de facto language in that world. If they had never appeared with Uncle Andrew and Frank, I wonder what kind of language the Narnians (and subsequently the peoples in the other countries) would have been used?

[speakr2customrs.livejournal.com]

Actually the Caucasian pirates in the South Seas were predominantly English. They usually based themselves around Madagascar and raided the East Indies. Captain Kidd, for instance, was active in the South Seas and not in the Caribbean. The Spanish names are harder to account for than the English language; perhaps the original Telmarines were a mixed crew of English and Spanish who fled the Caribbean during the 1718-1720 period when Woodes Rogers was conducting a campaign to stamp out piracy (with considerable success, until the 'Dread Pirate' Bartholomew Roberts arrived the next year and put everything back to square one).

[edenfalling]

perhaps the original Telmarines were a mixed crew of English and Spanish who fled the Caribbean during the 1718-1720 period when Woodes Rogers was conducting a campaign to stamp out piracy

I can go with that!

[edenfalling]

It was one of those realizations that just put itself together in the back of my head, without me even knowing I was worrying at the issue.

I find it nearly impossible to imagine Narnia without Digory and Polly's influence (and, perhaps more relevantly, Jadis's influence), but that is a very interesting thing to wonder. Presumably humans would have stumbled into the world sooner or later, and evil would have entered or arisen in some fashion, but so much would have been different: no human monarchy in Narnia and Archenland, no provision for Jadis in the Deep Magic, no winged horses, potentially different languages, no Tree of Protection and thus no wardrobe -- and with no Jadis to spark the prophecy of Cair Paravel... hey, we've just wiped out all the rest of the series, too! Yeesh. It would be interesting, but would it be Narnia? I am not sure.

[(Anonymous)]

I am with you here. Here is my question that I have always wondered.

Calormenes must have come from Earth. It seems improbable that a culture in the desert could come to resemble so closely (including religious practices) one of our own that also resides in a desert. So, if more humans did come (and it seems likely) why did they not bring their own languages? Or did they merely adapt to what the current inhabitants already used to ensure trade a la the Natives of America?

[edenfalling]

Actually, I think it entirely possible the Calormenes may have come from another world altogether. It is my understanding of Lewis's world-building that all humans are originally from Earth (what with the Son of Adam and Daughter of Eve business), but there is no telling how many worlds humans may have crossed into over the millennia, and the Calormenes could well have come to the Narnian world by way of spending time in one, two, or even several other worlds, since time flow between worlds is completely arbitrary.

But yes, they presumably brought their own language with them; it survives in vestigial forms like titles (Tarkaan, Tarkheena, Tisroc) and perhaps in proper names that once had meanings. My thought is that once people enter the Narnian world, they immediately understand English; the Deep Magic imposes it upon them. And since all the people around the newcomers speak English, that language gradually wins out over the imported languages. Or, in an alternate theory, the imported languages may be actively overwritten by the Deep Magic's tutorial in English, except where English does not have a close enough equivalent word for various concepts in the imported language -- in which case Tarkaan must originally not have meant exactly the same as 'lord,' but the people to which that title is attached later developed into a more standard feudal aristocracy.

YMMV, of course!

[firedawn.livejournal.com]

I was a ling major in university, and the lack of linguistic drift and the lack of evolution in linguistics in Narnia has always baffled me, since life and culture evolved so differently. You'd think that with so many things different about the universe, the grammar and vocabulary would change too.

The only evidence of linguistic drifting is in the different ways that people speak in different countries, and also in the slightly stilted language of royalty and noblemen.

[firedawn.livejournal.com]

I'm totally jumping in here months after the fact, but I always thought that what the Calormenes spoke must've been a heavily English-leaning pidgin, in which their ancestors brought over their language, but adapted to the local language, while keeping only a few words relating to their specific and unique way of life from wherever it is they came from before. It can be as simple as needing to trade and cross-breed with locals to survive, and the need to create a common language. Since it is easier for the dominant (Narnian) population to teach a few people their language than the other way around, it makes sense that Narnian English is used as the dominant language with a few Calormene characteristics thrown in.

The culture of Calormenes is so close to those of the Middle Eastern countries in our world, I assume they indeed come from our world. In fact, I believe in the canon, even Jadis originates from Adam, so somehow all known humans or part humans (by blood, not by looks ie. centaurs and fauns) are originally from Earth. Indeed, the storytelling style of the Calormenes are so close to the Arabian Nights stories that I would have trouble believing they are not actually Middle Eastern.

That said, Lewis's story is more for entertainment and less for world-building, and that is precisely the quality that Tolkien took so much offense to.

/tl;dr

[edenfalling]

In any normal, sane world, that would be the most likely explanation... except that the Calormenes are clearly much more numerous and (by realpolitik standards) more powerful than Narnians and Archenlanders. Calormen is a great empire, whereas Narnia and Archenland are both quite small and insular countries. Also, they do not share the Narnian culture, which makes the idea that they adopted a Narnian language at the expense of their own rather baffling -- the Calormenes clearly don't think of the Narnians as dominant in any way, so it would make more sense for them to try imposing their own hypothetical language on Narnia rather than vice versa.

But Lewis's world doesn't play by realistic rules. For example! Lewis wrote up a timeline of his world at some point, wherein he assures us that the Calormenes A) were a numerous and powerful enough nation by about the year 400 after creation that they colonized the then-empty land that later became Telmar, and B) are the descendants of rogue Archenlanders who fled south across the desert around the year 200 after losing a civil war. I cannot make the second assertion square with the first, nor with the Calormene culture and racial appearance as described in the actual books.

So I am forced to fall back on my conclusion that the Calormenes learned English by magic during their transition into the Narnian world, and that while the Narnians think the Calormenes are descended from rogue Archenlanders, any such refugees crossed the desert only to discover a young and thriving culture already in place. (They may have been pushed west and later conquered, which might help explain why the western provinces of Calormen seem rather rebellious during the LWW/HHB era, but that is unfounded speculation on my part.)

As you say, Lewis's aim was entertainment rather than realism, which sometimes causes me massive headaches, but is more often fun in its own way as I try to think of ways to reconcile the evidence of the book with my understanding of the world, while making as few compromises to each side as possible. :-)

[edenfalling]

Yeah, it's downright weird. But the Narnian world was created by a lion singing, and contains such oddities as Bism and Deathwater Island, so I tend to wave the frozen language as something Aslan fixed into the Deep Magic -- I really have no other way to explain it.

[adaese.livejournal.com]

Possibly a little joke on Lewis' part, but Peter's just being archaic. See also Shakespeare, Love's Labours Lost, Act V scene 1, where Holofernes ("a pedant") gripes about people pronouncing it wrong. Detailed and in-depth research (the dictionary) tells me that the "H" was pretty much dropped by the end of the C17th. Incidentally, Peter must have pronounced it without the H, otherwise he wouldn't have needed to mention the older spelling to Cornelius.

[adaese.livejournal.com]

Shameless unfounded speculation on my part here, but I wonder if the frozen language is something to do with the maleable nature of the Deep Magic at the dawn of time? Jadis managed to insert herself into it, no idea how, but that's the basis of her claim on any traitor's blood. Therefore at the dawn of time inserts, including self-inserts, were possible. Aslan sings Narnia into being - but his voice isn't the first we hear, the first person to sing is King Frank. What's more, he doesn't just pick on any cheerful ditty - he could have chosen any popular music-hall song that wasn't too vulgar for present company - but instead he selects a hymn. So a son of Adam, using the English language, is intimately woven into the creation of Narnia. I've thought for some time that that might explain the need for a human sovereign for Narnia to prosper, and reading your essay makes me wonder if the effects might be more far-reaching than that.

[edenfalling]

Interesting!

[edenfalling]

Ooh, that is a really nifty theory. I will have to think about that when I get around to finishing my "what Jadis did between MN and LWW" fic that I have been poking at off and on for two and a half years. Because really, when and how did she discover that she'd been written into the Deep Magic? Especially since she couldn't even get into Narnia for nine hundred years or so!

[(Anonymous)]

I view it as also a further jab at Miraz. "Abhominable" = "not human enough" (although according to Oxford Concise English Dictionary, that's not the word's etymology). Obviously, that meaning is lost in the modern spelling.

Hana - Marmota-b