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There's a similar phenomenon of terminology creep with language terms like 'High German' and 'Low German'. This nomenclature has been adopted into fantasy liter
by idlewords 3y ago
There's a similar phenomenon of terminology creep with language terms like 'High German' and 'Low German'. This nomenclature has been adopted into fantasy literature to suggest a more noble vs. fallen version of some ancient dialect, but all it meant originally is that 'high' speakers were upstream (and therefore uphill) from the 'low' speakers.
- Exoristos 3y agoGreat example. And the Alemannisch dialect is "hoch hoch Deutsch," or extra-high German, being from way up in the German-speaking Swiss Alps.
- YurgenJurgensen 3y agoThis is one of those 'common misconceptions' where I hear about its refutation more often than I encounter people who believe the supposed misconception. Much like anything talking about map projections, in fact.
- idlewords 3y agoYou may need to read more crappy fantasy books. To cite a completely representative example, consider 'High Valyrian' from Game of Thrones https://gameofthrones.fandom.com/wiki/High_Valyrian https://gameofthrones.fandom.com/wiki/High_Valyrian, a liturgical language that of course is contrasted with Low (or Bastard) Valyrian, a degenerate family of dialects.
- YurgenJurgensen 3y agoI don’t doubt they exist, but the only two examples I ever hear are the GoT one you mentioned and High/Low Gothic in WH40k. But I see that factoid about High/Low German repeated multiple times a year. It was a common entry on ‘fantasy cliche’ lists even in the dial-up era of the Internet.