part 353 whalers on the moon

[aphanon_meme]

We've been here over a year now! I can hardly believe it! Dreamwidth's been pretty good, I'd say, with almost no downtime to speak of and all that! Anyway... how is your spring going? Or I guess it's almost summer, isn't it? Hopefully it's been well! I've been catching up on work and new movies, all very exciting stuff, I'm sure.

Enjoy part 353!

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Comments

Re: ooc

[dererste]

wouldn't it just start to sneak into their language gradually and wouldn't instinctive code switching come into play? Like for instance, think of slang on the internet, it just creeps its way into our vocabulary when it's cool, and sneaks the fuck back out when it's not.


your major is scary and confusing answer my questions

Re: ooc

[wild_kuken]

Well it depends the scale we're talking about. If it's just the vocabulary then yes people gain and lose words and grammar bits all the time. Preussisch for example had lots of words with Lithuanian influence (including a different word for bier!!) that I could see Prussia dropping as soon as he permanently relocated to Berlin. And at least with learning Hochdeutsch the Germans are probably all bidialectal at the least.

But phonology is a lot harder. Like take for example a change that happening in the US at the moment, we call it the caught-cot merger. Are the words caught and cot pronounced the same for you? For me they're not, and for most people in NY/NJ and northern PA they're not. But for most Americans, at an increasing rate they are (I was always a guinea pig to explain this at Uni because I went to school in Mass lol). But the thing is I've lived in places with the merger more than without, I have full academic knowledge of it, and of the fact all Americans will probably have it eventually the way dialect change is going, and yet I can't pronounce them the same if I tried. They're just naturally different.

Now that is just one little change to one little word, but consider at the time of the American Revolution America and England would have sounded exactly the same. And in 2014 America likely speaks General American English and for simplicities sake we'll say England uses Received Pronunciation. That's a lot of changes going on, I mean RP English has ~7 more vowel sounds than we do!!

Codeswitching will almost assuredly occur to a degree but it's a matter of when. Neither of us speak General American English but America wouldn't need to codeswitch for us, but if he still sounded like he did at the Revolution he would have to to not sound 'foreign' and it's worse with England, after all Shakespeare is Modern English, the transition from that to what we speak today was slow but with nations' fucked up sense of time it could have been in the blink of an eye for them.

And the thing is, even if you take the approach that they just adopt every sound/vocab/grammar change they come across (ludicrous!!) and they're polydialectal, all languages even your native one need use to maintain, so it's very possible they can't understand their past selves at all!! (sidenote: Germany could, he's too young. But Teuton and HRE are likely incomprehensible) And oh god, Germania probably sounds like a mix of all of their dialects plus weird sounds and words they think they've heard before but don't understand of jesus he might as well be speaking chinese!

Re: ooc

[dererste]

oohh, this is all very interesting but I'm too dead inside to really respond in depth. I actually pronounce caught/cot the same unless I really focus on saying them differently and I grew up in NJ/NY for most of my life. But I'm a rule bender bc I have phonetic issues anyhow. I think if we're just talking about how nations pronounce words, i can't imagine if I was an immortal being, I would bother to change my pronunciation just to suit the place I was in. I wonder if someone of them just have a funny way of pronouncing some things some times. Maybe all nations have quirks that kinda give their timelessness away.

BUT THIS is all over my head too but definitely some food for thought. I do think they'd be capable of fluidity with it. It's really a tricky thing to attach human limitations to nations, especially since they all seem to fuck reality and understand each other regardless of language differences...unless they all pick a sole language to speak in but idek. CONFUSING CANON THINGS THAT WILL NEVER HAVE A CLEAR ANSWER

I like the idea of them having a dormant ability to return to languages/dialects that have gone into retirement, but I do also really really love the idea of them having trouble speaking to their little selves and being rusty and having to get back into the swing of things and then getting all confused over it and mixing things up. TORN TORN TORN but interesting, shit will keep you up at night.

Re: ooc

[wild_kuken]

Phonology and sound inventories are considered the most important criteria when talking about language change so that's why I'm focusing on that, but really it's combination of pronunciation and grammar, then with vocab being like the least important thing because of how volatile it is (think slang) but can still make a difference if there's enough permanent ones (think regionalisms).

To massively simplify, imagine language change is a color scale from red to purple to blue, where each generation is a little less red and a little more blue. A person who speaks red language (say Old English for example) would have kids who speak red with just a speck of blue. The parents wouldn't adopt that speck of blue though, everyone understands them and that's just kids these days rabble rabble! Then those kids have kids who speak red with two specks of blue, and so on and so forth. If we look at one language over its lifetime we might say pure red is Old English, pure purple is Middle English, and pure blue is Modern English (with blue-violet being Shakespeare) but how to classify the gradients and how to say when exactly one language became the other is something linguists fight about all the time.

As you say the natural thing is to not change your own speech (beyond slang usually, within one dialect anyway) just because there's a new generation, everyone around you can understand you after all!! But with an immortal being like the nations, the question is at what point in the gradient do they give in and learn the change? And is it like learning slang or do they hold out so long it's like learning a new language? To what degree do they remember the old versions the further they get away from them?

I handwave canon with nation language just so I can think more in-depth about them with human limits but obviously that's because I love this shit lmao

BUT YES I'M OF TWO MINDS ABOUT IT TOO I love the fact that all Ludwigs I've ever played with figure out who Julchen is by 'dat German' and I like Teuton being lost about all the things, but on the other hand I always assume they can talk to Germania fine oops. this keeps me up so often you don't even know sob

Re: ooc

[dererste]

WHAT A GREAT EXAMPLE. I think Language is a living thing and maybe it just depends on the nation how long they hold out to the old?? I can imagine there's not much resistance to change, though. I think it's just within a nation's nature to just adjust constantly, to play all roles and speak all tongues. Even within human limitations, the brain has amazing capability for language. We're built to communicate and modern trends probably sneak into their lexicon without an issue. If it's all on a range of colors, then nations must be an equal gradient of red and blue, right? I think it's something they probably have a lot more awareness about than we do and a longer memory for older versions. They have to remember an eternity of events, why not a lifetime of languages too? with degrees of rustiness though...but YEAH it's realy hard to even pick at this topic because it can go either way.

FOR GERMANIA THOUGH, since in canon, he and Rome sit around in heaven watching the living world and apparently watching TV, I like to think he adjusts his language to the kids, but the more angry he is, the more archaic he gets until he's 99% incomprehensible to his children. Interesting though /pats your passionate head and gives you a sticker

Re: ooc

[wild_kuken]

Oh yes totally, my absolute favorite thing is language as a living thing with its own behavior, adaptions, changes, history, routines, etc etc I'm such a nerd when it comes to this. Linguists are a lot like language biologists!!

It's also interesting how having a Standard language effects their adaptions, because that's relatively new for all of them as well. Especially our precious baby who is probably so thrilled Hochdeutsch is basically Hannover German /sarcasm

I AM DYING IMAGINING GERMANIA RANTING AT PRUSSIA IN OLD GERMAN AND PRUSSIA JUST LIKE IN MUTE HORROR BECAUSE ONLY EVERY FIFTH WORD MAKES SENSE AND THE REST SOUNDS LIKE DRUNK TONGUES AND ffffff /sticks sticker on forehead =3=