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more Narnian linguistics!
Mar. 15th, 2009 12:25 pmI 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.)
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.)
