Posted by Terry on July 14, 1999 at 13:01:56:
In Reply to: Re: The Languages of Pao posted by Martin G. on July 13, 1999 at 14:55:41:
: Vance, in Pao, was embarrassing, since he concentrated only on vocab, which doesn't mean much -
: if you don't have a word for something in your language, it doesn't mean that you can't think about the something, and invent a word for it [and to be fair, Vance did raise that point] -
: and because Vance in Pao was like Tim Powers at his worst; those mechanised sky-horses! etc.! ugh ugh ugh!
I reread _TLoP_ a year ago but I don't recall Vance limiting the 3 languages to simple vocab differences. Certainly never an assumption I would have made. Sounds like Orwell's Newspeak where the vocab was simplified and simplified until complex thoughts (supposedly) couldn't be voiced and probably not even thought. Can't believe someone as aware of language as JV would commit such a solecism.
Seems to me S-W is plausible because we think in large part in our native language. Surely the structure, grammar, syntax, and vocab all contribute to the way we think and limit our choices of what we can say, think and do.