What Language was Spoken in Narnia?

[Benisse]

Intriguing thread --
Although this may sound like a cop out, if Narnia did not undergo a linguistic Babel (Genesis 11) the linguistic principle of all peoples understanding one another may still have been in effect in this magical world (c.f., Tooky's suggestion mentioning an absence of Babel in Narnia).

I think of the scene in Charn, in which the words inscribed on the pillar on which the golden bell and hammer were written in some unknown script. Yet as Digory and Polly looked at the message they found they could understand it after all (and they also understood Jadis also after the ringing of the bell woke her from her enchanted sleep).

' "There seems to be something written here," said Polly, stooping down and looking at the side of the pillar.

"By gum, so there is," said Digory. "But of course we shan't be able to read it."

"Shan't we? I'm not so sure," said Polly.

They both looked at it hard and, as you might have expected, the letters cut in the stone were strange. But now a great wonder happerned: for as they looked, thought the shape of the strange letters never altered, they found that they could understand them.'


Although their understanding the foreign script may be explained by enchantment, the principle of being able to understand other peoples when the children of Adam and Eve visited may have also been a property of deep magic, an effect of breathing Narnian air, perhaps?

(And as a side note, I expect that in the future in heaven, linguistic barriers will again be broken down so that we may all worship together in our own languages yet all be able to understand one another.)
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I think they would call it Narnian, just as we call English English, not Anglo-Saxon-Norman. Somehow America hasn't started calling American English American, but we might if England wasn't a place that we could go.

And that is an interesting question about what Caspian was speaking. Perhaps the high born of Non-Narnian countries had distinct dialects by the time Telmar took over?

While linguistic evolution didn't seem to take place in Narnia (Must have driven Tolkien mad ) one reason for there only being one language and a slowing of the language changing would be that there's no equivalent of the tower of Bable in Narnia so there would be no reason for there to be a massive language shift due to mingling with people that spoke something different.

[hansgeorg]

Before Babel, people also lived longer and in one single society (not sure this was the case before Flood, like one single society).

In Narnian world you do have Calormen, Archenland, Telmar and Islands as fairly distinct societies. And in punishment of Babel the ... well, you might have a point too.

[sochi602]

I would assume English because when Narnia was born, it's first king and queen were English. They may be different languages from other regions such as Calormen but I think that NARNIA'S language was English.

[hobbit_of_narnia]

Plus, Aslan seems to have spoken English so that the children and the cabby and Uncle Andrew and all would understand Him. It may be He kept English alive in Narnia so Lucy and Tumnus could hold a conversation when Lucy came in LWW. If Lucy couldn't understand Tumnus, then the whole plotline of the rest of the series would be seriously messed up. And Aslan wouldn't want that, if you understand what I'm saying.

[sochi602]

Plus, Aslan seems to have spoken English so that the children and the cabby and Uncle Andrew and all would understand Him. It may be He kept English alive in Narnia so Lucy and Tumnus could hold a conversation when Lucy came in LWW. If Lucy couldn't understand Tumnus, then the whole plotline of the rest of the series would be seriously messed up. And Aslan wouldn't want that, if you understand what I'm saying.

That's an interesting theory! It may be true too! I wouldn't be surprised if Aslan knew more languages (especially if he is based off of Jesus).

[jesusgirl4ever]

And when Peter says "language" in PC, he may just mean "style of speaking or writing." For example, we might say, "The language of Shakespeare can be difficult to read," but we don't mean that he didn't write in English, only that his style can be difficult.

[sochi602]

And when Peter says "language" in PC, he may just mean "style of speaking or writing." For example, we might say, "The language of Shakespeare can be difficult to read," but we don't mean that he didn't write in English, only that his style can be difficult.

Y'all have such good theories!!

[hansgeorg]

For example, we might say, "The language of Shakespeare can be difficult to read," but we don't mean that he didn't write in English, only that his style can be difficult.

Actually we do mean his English was a slightly different English than we speak.

Of course, still on our side and not Anglo-Saxon side of that divide, but even so, slightly different. If all of his English counts as "our" language*, that means that since his plays are literary canon, they are with all their language part of our literary language.

But his language would have been very much more difficult to grasp at hearing, since some sound changes had not yet happened. These are not reflected in spelling changes.

English has a miniature of the situation** where Greek is with katharevousa (NT Greek, basically, and even as old as LXX Greek) counting as literary canon in a community which mostly speaks dhimotiki (the words mean "pure" and "popular"). But Greek dhimotiki is as far from real NT Greek as Italian or at least Roumanian from Latin - and the distance between NT and us in time is like the distance between King Frank and King Caspian X.

And as for Calormen, even if names and titles and place names are totally non-English, they had no problem talking with Pevensies Susan and Edmund who thought they were talking to someone from Archenland.

It may be He kept English alive in Narnia so Lucy and Tumnus could hold a conversation when Lucy came in LWW. If Lucy couldn't understand Tumnus, then the whole plotline of the rest of the series would be seriously messed up. And Aslan wouldn't want that, if you understand what I'm saying.

Indeed, but part of the problem is He would be doing it in ways not known from our world.

If Hebrew of Abraham was identic to that of Adam, most generations had lived lots longer than those after Babel. And at least from Abraham it is preserved in a writing while changing pronunciation : Shepharads and Ashkenasim pronounce it differently, if it is Biblical Hebrew - though the real Hebrew of Abraham and Adam could have been Aramaic.
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Notes:

* Our - if I may presume to call it mine too, I started learning it at 9 minus a few months.
** Both English and Greek (as it was up to "dhimotiki only" political reform of 70's) resolve part of the difficulty by pronouncing the older canonical language after the pronunciation rules valid for the new one. "oikos", "oikon" is pronounced "ikos", "iko", like a modern Englishman pronouncing Chaucer:

"Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote"
Chaucer pronounced: "Whun thut Upreelluh with his shooress sawtuh"
We pronouce: "When thet Eypril with his showers soot" and only stumble on the word "soot" for "sweet".

Obviously, Digory and Pevensies had no such pronunciation gap at all, and language spoken by King Frank would also have SOUNDED like that of King Caspian X, 2000 years later AND like that of Aravis about right in between.

[Shield Maiden]

I wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of magic hard-wired into Narnia that allowed everyone to understand eachother (kinda like the TARDIS' translating feature). I'm pretty sure that Lewis simply didn't account for language shifts over time, but this would be an interesting explanation.

[hansgeorg]

I am very certain if God ever did create such a universe, it would be for specific purpose of showing certain truths in a simpler manner to visitors from ours (do you think there was a world of Pathmos, which St John visited?) and that Tower of Babel might for Narnia have been one complexity too much.

But I do not think there is any reason to doubt that as one-language-ness pre-Babel in our world had a non-magic explanation, if God had created Narnia, its one-language-ness all through history would also have a non-magic explanation.