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.Statistics: Posted by hansgeorg — Fri Jan 15, 2016 10:10 am
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