More on difficulties reading in the Land

[deer of the dawn]

In the discussion about the dream-likeness of the Land (which makes it hard for Covenant to accept its reality) someone brought up the fact that no one seems to read anything in the Land, and that they had trouble deciphering the scrolls of the Wards.

I'm currently in the Illearth War. Covenant asks Mhoram what makes the Lords so weak, and Mhoram is explaining why they do "not suffice" to grasp the Lore. He remarks that they "translate the speech of the old Lords". BUT, When Linden meets Berek Heartthew in Fatal Revenant, they have no problems communicating. The "speech of the Old Lords" appears to be American English.

What's going on here?

It seems too glaring to be a mistake on SRD's part.

The Seven Wards, and the Lords' 'insufficency', remain an unanswered question. There is a lot of emphasis on it in the First Chronicles. Yes, wild magic came in and messed everything up in unlocking the krill and releasing Amok and all that, but then in the Last Chrons we get a tantalizing glimpse of the other Wards when Liand finds the orcrist, so you have to think there will be more on that.

Another possibility is that the Old Lords had a kind of "King James Version" ceremonial speech that was difficult to grasp. But the Seven Words do not come from them; the Theomach had to sit down and translate them for Linden; he presumed that their meaning was unknown.

Is the Lords' difficulty in understanding the Old Lords' writings another 'dream-like' quality? I sure hope it's a RAFO!!

[Mr. Broken]

Perhaps the land strictly utilizes oral tradition, the Giants are an excellent example of this. Here in the real world the story of the Illiad has survived through oral tradition, be that as it may we're still not certain that Homer was a real single person, and not just the family name of those that handed down the tale. Details over time slip through the cracks.

[wayfriend]

Here's my take on it.

The New Lords didn't have a problem understanding the speech of the Old Lords. What they had was a common context problem.

The New Lords had not only taken the Oath of Peace, they had assimilated it into their very thought patterns. The Old Lords had not. Compared to the New Lords, the Old Lords were wild and reckless and dangerous. They did things and dared things that no New Lord could even understand never mind consider.

Perhaps Donaldson overblows the effects of this context problem. But then again, we're talking about magic here, not science. Magic is, to use a modern term, faith-based. It deals with mental states, ritualized attitudes, incantations and pure gestures. Whose to say that such a context problem couldn't totally wreak havoc on the transmission of such lore? It's plausible, I think.

Second, it seems to be Donaldson's theory that the writings of the Lords is just about the only kind of writing there is in the Land. Therefore, the representation of thoughts on paper is not the common, work-a-day thing that it is to us. It was probably highly specialized, non-rational, non-intuitive, and ad hoc. It probably wasn't even designed to convey general speech, but can only convey lore.

Such a writing system would be torn apart by centuries of lost knowledge. Consider a pictorial writing system like chinese, where every glyph is a different word. Now imagine what would happen if knowledge of 90% of the glyphs was lost. It's not so easy to reconstruct! It'd be guesswork. Trial and error.

And that's where the common context problem wreaks havoc. How can you guess that a rune or a glyph might mean "unleashed passion" when "unleashed passion" is not even part of your mental mindset any more? It'd take you a lot longer to figure it out than someone who shares the common context.

That's my theory anyway ... Donaldson doesn't actually say anything about how writing in the Land works. But I mention it because I think the theory goes a long way to making the Ward problems plausible.

[Mr. Broken]

So your saying the Lords had no Rosetta stone. (not sure about that spelling)

[deer of the dawn]

Well said, Wayfriend.

Mhoram specifically stated that they "translate the speech of the Old Lords". Perhaps I mistook that statement. Obviously, by 'speech', Mhoram has to mean their writings. And what he says does not have to mean that they transcribe the old writings in the new 'speech'. They may just be reading as well as they are able, and interpreting as best they can understand. So what you say makes sense.