liguistic drift
 

Most shows and books seem to assume the future, whether sunny, like Star Trek, or apocalyptic, like Mad Max, will continue to speak modern english exactly as we speak it today. I figure that won't happen, particularly after TEOTWAWKI.

I intend to simulate that by having survivors speak ebonics, and trying to get PCs to speak Shakespearean english whenever possible. Over time, they'll learn the degenerated dialect, and the campaign's language will settle down to normal english. Anyone else have any thoughts or ideas on this?

Sounds like a very interesting idea!

Have a look at these links:

http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/futurese.html
http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/lingo.html


There may be too much detail there, but there's a lot to think about which may help you out.

To quote Harry Harrison's Slippery Jim diGriz: "Oh, I speak Esperanto like a native."

Darkwing,

An admirable idea, a little heavy-handed.

Star Trek's language is called "Galacta", it's related to but not English. Same with other stories, if they spoke in other languages we'd not be able to easily understand it.

Drift is somewhat slippery to pin down, and in my opinion the difference between Old English and Ebonics is greatly exaggerating the problem. Most drift tends to result from exposure to other languages and cultures, either between one population the other, or both. Isolated cultures tend to remain more linguistically "pure" compared to a cosmopolitan one from which it springs.

Radical changes are possible, true, but most likely where assimilation is a factor. It can go both ways; slaves or conquered peoples can adopt the tongue of the "master" race, but in turn the superior culture will also tend to adopt reciprocal changes, too. English in the Southern USA is a prime example of this reciprocal process.

Most post-WWIII communities in North America are going to remain very isolated not just from other languages but other communities. Of course Project teams are going to be like flies in amber. You'd notice an accent, for sure, but I doubt unless there is some influence from ethnic enclaves or groups (Spanish in many areas, perhaps other languages in different areas) you would not see actual dialects forming. Arabic and for that matter Latin have remained stable for centuries due to religious reasons, so it's not inevitable.

Of course, it's up to you, you can make a case either way! One thing that is clear, linguistically, is place names do not change. Even when entire peoples are displaced they tend to stay the same for navigational purposes, because the land doesn't change. (This is why the only remaining traces of the Pictish language are place names, even though the rest of the language has completely disappeared.)

Tony

One interesting thing about the word "ignorant" here in Pittsburgh is when we use it, "ignorant" means "rude" but everywhere else, "ignorant" means that they "do not know any better." Say if someone burps and doesn't say "sorry" or "excuse me," someone here might say, "you're very ignorant." We also say, "yuns" for the plural form of "you" which had its origins in Appalachia.

Chuck

Considering it'll be only 150 years, despite the traumatic changes in society/societies, I feel the differences in language would be in the colloquial end of the word pool. Meanings of common terms might change with a new slang association. With the withering of mass communications, lots of local terms in one settlement might have a vastly different connotation in settlement #2. Double negatives, litotes (A figure of speech consisting of an understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite.), ironical intonations, associated gestures modifying meaning, all may serve to cloud the true message intended, yet be perfectly understandable to the locals.

Depends on what you project the die off to be, but realistically if you do a real TEOTWAWKI event, say 90% dead, with termination of international and national media (and possibly severe attenuation of literacy at all in a lot of places), 150 years isn't too long to get you to a US map now occupied by numerous mutually unintelligible languages all based on 20th century English.

It's a profound punctuated equillibrium event -- no more equillibrium, 150 years of free falling scattered tribes and statelets. Put that in a beaker, shake and "everybody mostly speaks English" coming out the other end is unlikely.