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.

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!!

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.

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. 🙂

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.

Good point; whatever happened at our Babel to create different languages, the fact is that for ages the language of the earth world was mutually understandable. So the universal language in Narnia could possibly have been preserved since the days of King Frank with no Babel curse to cause language shift and new languages to emerge.

Regardless of whether altogether new languages were ever made, I can't believe that the language would have undergone no shifts whatsoever over time - you make new words when you discover new things (were there any plants or animals in Narnia which weren't carbon copies of Earth? Unusual biological needs connected to the mythical creatures, or connected to having beings that were people and trees at the same time? Weather-terms for underwater phenomena since you have naiads, mermaids, and possible some Talking Beasts spending a lot of their time underwater - or detailed flight-related terms from the Birds, Bats, and Fledgelings?). You make new words via slang, when somebody shortens a word for ease of use or adds a new ending to make it sound fancy or a large group of people share a joke in common. Folklore and historical anecdotes lead to phrases and metaphors which, while not strictly New Terms, would be more likely to be understood quickly by people who grew up In a culture than otherwise. And you also have the question of whether any of the persons in places other than Narnia besides the Telmarines came through chinks and chasms from non-Narnian worlds - and whether any of them gave Narnia loanwords through trade routes.

Lily, Lewis did create some new words for the Narnian world - pavender doesn't exist here.

I do understand your point, though - I'm surprised that there wasn't /more/ of a language shift than what is (barely) obvious in the books.

There is always the question of who is the narrator, in the Watsonian - if it is Lewis narrating, and he learned the story from one or more participants, might he or his source be changing the wording a bit in places to make it more easily comprehensible?

Ohhhh... I hadn't thought of that! Lewis does make it sound he's had interviews with the characters....

^_^ It is a possibility which is fun to think about. 🙂
Of course, that would leave the question of how we got The Last Battle - but the hypothesis works well up to a point!

Same way we got The Great Divorce 😉