Have Star Trek Writers Ever Tried to Create an Unlikable Character?

[Baerbel Haddrell]

Interesting. My mother grew up in a very rural part of Germany in which a dialect called Plattdeutsch was still spoken. She told me when they got American visitors they understood a lot.

When I was a child we were on holiday in Bavaria once and I noticed that for me who grew up with Hochdeutsch (which is the usual German) understanding Bavarian German is even more difficult than Plattdeutsch.

[Nerys Ghemor]

Xeris wrote:

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Because English is derived from Old High German, so that would make sense

Sorry to be nitpicky, but languages (both real and created) are a hobby of mine. English diverged from the rest of the Germanic language group earlier than that. By the time Old High German existed, Old English was already its own well-defined language.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germani...ges#Diachronic

Language shown in a row with each other existed at the same time as each other. Reading from top to bottom, history moves forward.

[BrotherBenny]

That table is somewhat simplistic in nature and doesn't take into account numerous factors, chief among which is the fact that languages do not diverge at set points but in a continual fashion. Old High German and Old English are much closer than a simple language table would have you think. I spent half a semester on a paper on this very subject. I'm not going to go into it in much depth now, but I will say that many words in Old English did not actually evolve from the South Germanic language group itself, but from the slightly newer and diverging Old High German. We sent some words over there as well which have since fallen into the archaic category, but English doesn't tend to drop words from the language, it just adds new ones.

Language as we all know is fluid and English itself is comprised mainly from the South Germanic languages, but as Old English evolved into Middle English, we were conquered several times and adopted Roman words, Greek-Latinate words, French words, and so on. A simple trawl through the dictionary today will show you that very few words from Old/Middle English are actually still used in everyday speech - except those created by Shakespeare, we've kept those.

But we diverge from the OP. I would have to say that of all the hundred and twenty or so ST books I've read, the character I dislike most of all is Jellico. I didn't like him on screen and I haven't liked him in print.

[Christopher]

Xeris wrote:

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A simple trawl through the dictionary today will show you that very few words from Old/Middle English are actually still used in everyday speech - except those created by Shakespeare, we've kept those.

Shakespeare wasn't Middle English. The language spoken (and written) during the Elizabethan era was Early Modern English.

[BrotherBenny]

Christopher wrote:

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Shakespeare wasn't Middle English. The language spoken (and written) during the Elizabethan era was Early Modern English.

As I posted above, language is fluid, but linguistic historians (or whatever the name du jour is) like categories. Early Modern English is a misnomer, and used primarily to teach people about the transition, but it has no place in the real world.

[Dayton3]

How did my thread evolve into something about languages?

[Dayton Ward]

^ You weren't here to remind folks how wrong they were about everything.

[Dayton3]

Dayton Ward wrote:

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^ You weren't here to remind folks how wrong they were about everything.

Clearly an oversight on my part.

[JAG]

Dayton Ward wrote:

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^ You weren't here to remind folks how wrong they were about everything.

Threads in Treklit ebb and flow like the Ganges.

[Christopher]

Xeris wrote:

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As I posted above, language is fluid, but linguistic historians (or whatever the name du jour is) like categories. Early Modern English is a misnomer, and used primarily to teach people about the transition, but it has no place in the real world.

But you agree that there was a transition, that the language of Shakespeare was a part of the evolution of the language we know as Modern English. Indeed, Shakespeare coined or codified more of the vocabulary of Modern English than any other single writer (although the King James Bible was no doubt highly influential too). Granted the obvious fact that language is fluid and categories inexact conveniences, I stand by the assertion that if you have to use a category label, "Modern English" is more appropriate for Shakespeare than "Middle English."

[Andrew Harris]

[quote=Christopher;1991741]

Xeris wrote:

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Indeed, Shakespeare coined or codified more of the vocabulary of Modern English than any other single writer (although the King James Bible was no doubt highly influential too).

Yeah, but wasn't the King James Bible using outdated language, even for its own time? I'm not saying it was, just that I recall.

[Christopher]

Yeah, it did do that deliberately to some extent. But I figure that the KJV was probably the main book used to teach literacy to a lot of English-speaking people in the 17th century or so, thus it stands to reason that it would've been pretty influential.

In fact, the KJV was deliberately given a very limited and basic vocabulary, only about 5000 words aside from proper names, IIRC, so that it would be accessible to people without a formal education. So on second thought, maybe it didn't contribute that much. Which is an interesting contrast with Shakespeare, whose works have the largest vocabulary of any single English author's ouvre.

[KRAD]

Christopher wrote:

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Which is an interesting contrast with Shakespeare, whose works have the largest vocabulary of any single English author's ouvre.

It's spelled "oeuvre." It's French.




("Now his oeuvre's in the Louvre, and he's Paul Cezanne....")

[Christopher]

I knew that... Oeups.

[Andrew Harris]

KRAD wrote:

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("Now his oeuvre's in the Louvre, and he's Paul Cezanne....")

Oh, wow. There's like three levels of irony there. Well done, Keith.