Multiple Worlds

[gowph3ar]

In my story the main character is a world walker. It is a special type of person now but once it was as easy as breathing. Since the universe was populated by humans who could world walk and they all came from one central planet do you think over time their languages would develop differently? The people were created by another race to be slaves. However they were created outside of the Aether instead of being born as a part of it. Since they were created outside they can see and use the Aether differently, one being using the Aether lines that connect all worlds together and walk those lines to different planets. If my main character is a world walker and he goes to a different planet that his own do you think their language would differ alot from his own since all humans came from the same area? Would it just be varying accents like going from Boston to Texas or something? I'm thinking in the span of a thousand years. Due to breeding habits alot of humans have lost the ability to world walk and its like a faerie tale now though some remain so it isn't like they are getting outside influence all the time.

 

[Aosto]

If all Humans came from one planet, you have to look at the geographical locations of the planet they hailed from. Let's say we on our planet separated out to different planets. It would be apparent that we would have different languages.
Now, if everyone on the original planet spoke the same language, then the most I could see is a difference in accents.

 

[gowph3ar]

Thanks thats kind of the impression I got aswell. I was just overthinking the situation.

 

[Scribble]

Look at all the languages on the earth, how different they are. They've all diverged from basic root languages that are lost in pre-history.

All groups form their own lingo, look at teenagers, professional jargon, sub-cultures... languages grow naturally. Popularity causes them to spread. Roman conquest spread Latin, leading to French, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, as well as English, mixed in with Teutonic languages.

When you put kids together they end up communicating. The lingo they develop carries into their adult life and is taught to the next generation.

I would think of the history of these people and how these forces might exert themselves to evolve language.

There are two other cases to consider for a language resistant to change:

The French are working very hard to preserve the language from these forces of linguistic change. The language and it's use is very controlled.

Then, there are dead languages like Latin which does not change because nobody is using it in daily life to communicate.

 

[Asura Levi]

As Scribble pointed out, the languages will differ if enough time without constant communication between the worlds has passed. And even if the words are kept, their meaning would change through the years.

Take the word Bisogno (italian) and Bisonho (portuguese), the sound is exactly the same, yet, the italian means 'to need' while the portuguese means 'untrained' (officially) and 'weird' (commonly).
(As a side note, I do not know if bisogno and bisonho came from the same root, it is just to show my point)

All that just to say, it would lead to very complicated situations, funny or otherwise, when the MC visits another world.

 

[Trick]

Just look at the English language. It was born from German and has gone through several evolutions. Old, Early, Middle, Early Modern and Modern English are all different enough to render conversations with an English speaker of the past much the same as speaking to someone speaking French. You'll pick up on similar words but there are going to be lots of charades. I've done a lot of research on this front and the level of complication is immense. Shakespeare wrote in Early Modern English and for some people he is unintelligible. He did not even live that long ago! 1000 years could take a language from what you know and love and evolve it into ten different languages, with different alphabets and grammar and vocabulary and new meanings and .... you get the point.

I have one suggestion that you can obviously take or leave, since I don't know your story like you do. Some people have a gift for dialects. I can mimic any English dialect instantly and with practice can fool native speakers. My Father couldn't order fast food in Louisiana because he couldn't understand anything the woman behind the counter said (his hearing is fine), let alone speak back to her in her native dialect. In America we tend to think of our Dialects differently than we do when contemplating other languages but they are more similar than most think. You could easily remedy your situation by adding a gift for dialect to your world walkers; it could be a common trait among them, even if they are now rare. Or, you could make that unique to your MC and thus open the door to a myriad of hysterical comic relief scenes.

Check out the below articles.

History of the English language - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Language change - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[gowph3ar]

Thanks guys. You all make some very good points. I think I might add in some different languages/dialects and such just to add some depth into the universe also I might add in interaction with a teacher or something so he can grasp different languages easier.

 

[Trick]

In doing some Q&A with you I find that your MC is telepathic? If that is the case, language need not be a barrier for him. I always imagined telepathy being beyond language. We may convey it with words but perhaps he can hear people speak and understand what their mind is saying... Just a thought

 

[gowph3ar]

My MC is telepathic at the end of his journey. At the start of the story he is a child who doesn't learn to use Alter or Aether proficiently until much later.