作者: raiderho@smth.edu.cn
標題: LANGUAGES silverharpe(轉寄)
時間: Fri May 7 08:16:45 2004
LANGUAGES
The Old Speech, or Language of the Making, with
which Segoy created the islands of Earthsea at the
beginning of time, is presumably an infinite
language, as it names all things.
This language is innate to dragons, not to humans,
as said above. There are exceptions. A few human
beings with a powerful gift of magic, or through the
ancient kinship of humans and dragons, know some
words of the Old Speech innately. But the very
great majority of people must learn the Old Speech.
Hardic practitioners of the art magic learn it from
their teachers. Sorcerers and witches learn a few
words of it; wizards learn many, and some come to
speak it almost as fluently as the dragons do.
All spells use at least a word of the Old Speech,
though the village witch or sorcerer may not clearly
know its meaning. Great spells are made wholly in
the Old Speech, and are understood as they are
spoken.
The Hardic language of the Archipelago, the Osskili
tongue of Osskil, and the Kargish tongue, are all
remote descendants of the Old Speech. None of
these languages serves for the making of spells of
magic.
The people of the Archipelago speak Hardic. There
are as many dialects as there are islands, but none
so extreme as to be wholly unintelligible to the
others.
Osskili, spoken in Osskil and two islands northwest
of it, has more affinities to Kargish than to Hardic.
Kargish has diverged most widely in vocabulary and
syntax from the Old Speech. Most of its speakers
(like most Hardic speakers) do not realise that their
languages have a common ancestry. Archipelagan
scholars are aware of it, but most Kargs would deny
it, since they have confused Hardic with the Old
Speech, in which spells are cast, and thus fear and
despise all Archipelagan speech as malevolent
sorcery.