Jitterbug Perfume
question
The language in the ancient part
Barney
(last edited
May 22, 2012 02:41PM
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May 22, 2012 02:04AM
I am reading this now, and even though I am not a native English speaker, I am under the impression that the language used during the ancient part (with Alobar) is deliberately exaggerated. The vocabulary sounds completely anachronistic. Please confirm or share your thoughts, I am only asking because my English vocabulary has been largely shaped by fantasy literature and computer games :-)
EDIT: Check the beginning, after the introductory pieces. The part is entitled "The hair and the bean". It continues for about 40 pages.
EDIT: Check the beginning, after the introductory pieces. The part is entitled "The hair and the bean". It continues for about 40 pages.
Hi, Mikey - Actually, the speech of Alobar et al. is only a play on modern English, made to sound a bit Shakespearean. People often think Shakespeare is old English, but it is modern (even though some syntax and vocabulary has changed over the past few hundred years). The birth of the English language is usually dated at or around the Norman Conquest of 1066. Anything written in early or middle English, (i.e. Chaucer's 14th century writings) reads like a foreign language with some recognisable cognates, but largely untranslatable to modern readers without studying it. If Robbins had written in the form of English that was actually spoken at that time, most of us would not have been able to understand it at all.
Page numbers and/or chapters would help. I have a copy of this book upstairs, but it would take me too long to skim through the whole novel to give you an answer.
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Jul 19, 2012 02:57AM · flag