Adumar and the Old Republic.

was re-reading Starfighters of Adumar last night.

From Page 8:
Cracken: "The world of Adumar is on the near edge of Wild Space. It was colonized as long as ten thousand years ago by a coalition of peoples who had staged a rebellion against the Old Republic, been defeated, and been spared... so long as they went far away and never caused any more trouble."

"According to what we've been able to gather, their spirit of rebellion and divisiveness when they found a world worthy of settling. Their history suggests they fought among themselves a number of times, eventually reducing themselves to poverty and barbarism--not once, but twice at least. Though apparently their ancient teaching-recordings survived for thousands of years; their language is recognizably a dialect of Basic."

"Anway, they were completely forgotten by the Old Republic. There is no mention of them in the Imperial archives, either. We were fortunate that one of our deep-space scouts stumbled across them when returning from a mapping mission into the Unknown Regions."

--
Do we know any more about the rebellion that led to the exile of the proto-Adumari? at ten thousand years ago, hyperspace lanes were still being mapped... is it possible that travel to that part of Wild Space involved slower-than-light space travel?

also, considering the length of time that passed, and their history of repeatedly falling back to barbarism, i find it pretty unlikely that their spoken language would sound remotely like Basic, even if their written language was based on the same script, and they kept sound recordings and managed not to destroy them or have them degrade over 10 millenia.

further, why would the Basic that the main galaxy uses not have changed so much over that same timespan. earth history shows that spoken and written language can change quite a bit over the course of centuries - we may not have vocal recordings of Old English or vulgar Latin or Middle French or ancient Chinese but we do see the results of linguistic groups becoming isolated from each other and becoming incomprehensible to each other, despite common roots.

 

Timetales has nothing apart from the information given in Starfighters of Adumar.I would assume, however, that it would have taken some time to travel to Adumar at that time, and without sublight or hyperdrive technology, the Adumari would have no way of returning. Also, at that same time in the continuity, 10,000 years before ANH, there's this, from Cracken's Rebel Operatives:

A young warlord named Vall Kumauri seizes several dozen star systems in an attempt to forge an empire in the outlaying regions of the Republic. His upstart fleet was surprisingly effective thanks to the ?Kumauri Battleship?; a revolutionary capital ship developed in the outer systems and modestly named after the young would-be Emperor. The ?Kumauri Battleship?, practically the last series in the line, the ?Cal? ? class battleship, was a terror in its? day due to its primary weapon ? the huge mass driver slung over its main hall. This weapon tractored asteroids and other space debris into the rear end of the huge armoured cylinder and shot them at tremendous speeds out of the canon at the front. During this period of time, shield technology was unable to stop this type of weapon. A well ? aimed asteroid could level an entire city, while a large asteroid could completely upset the ecological balance of the planet. Kumauri?s empire imploded within a few years, but the ?Kumauri Battleship? lived on as a legacy to his efforts. The ships of this line saw service in hundreds of navies, including the Republic starfleet that defeated the Kumauri Empire. Only when planetary shielding became practical and widespread was the ?Cal? ? class warship rendered obsolete as a terror weapon.

A possibility, perhaps? Can anyone with more knowledge on this expand on it?

With the language, yes, 10,000 years is a very long time, and if we look at our history, yes, a language should change drastically over that period. I'd say that the colonists continued to use Basic as their primary language, without the influence of say, Huttese, Rodian, or other galactic languages, resulting in their Basic not changing much over the years, without the influence of a differing speech. Over time they evolved their accent, like how Scottish English has a distinct sound and accent to it, but still uses English words and structure. Or you can simply say it's in a different galaxy far far away and they tend to keep static languages.

I_F

 

Iron_Fist: good catch on the Kumari! I like that...

But, just an FYI - "Scottish English" is rather a misnomer, and might offend some people...

Scots is a distinct language from English, and has been ever since the earliest usable records in the C13th; probably ever since it became widely spoken - and it's likely that there's at least some direct derivation from the language of C9th-13th Viking and Flemish settlers, without passing through England...

True, the two languages are very similar, and most Scots are capable of speaking and writing in a register that can pass for English... but as a Scot who's lived on and off in England for ten years, I'm pretty convinced that I speak a different language from them...

Sorry to be a pedant...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

Don't feel bad about it, Thrawn...us Yanks are often lumped into the same pile as the Scots when it comes to our glotting of the Queen's English.

We just took the English language and made it USEFUL, in much the same way that we invented better techniques for rifling, mass production, steel-smelting, and redcoat-sniping. Unfortunately, Californians have degraded the language considerably in recent decades, apparently due to the rapidly-decreasing cortical capacity of the more recent generations of "homo californicus postsapiens."

What annoys the Welsh, Scots, Irish and the English is the American way of saying "England," when they mean "the UK." The easiest way to look at it is that the UK has four states like the US has fifty.

(Of course, Scotland's Major Contribution To World Culture being "Irn-Bru," and all...)

[image=http://www1.kingston.net/~mcgaw/irn-bru.gif]

 

Unfortunately, Californians have degraded the language considerably in recent decades, apparently due to the rapidly-decreasing cortical capacity of the more recent generations of "homo californicus postsapiens."


excuse me? we didn't introduce the word "y'all" to the english language. Of the top ten world universities as compiled by the Times of London in 2004, 3 were in California (and 4 others were in the US). and at least 7 states are below us in the "Smartest state rankings 2004-2005) - beating out such education states like alabama, arizona, and louisiana. besides, at least we still teach evolution in schools.

 

>>"as compiled by the Times of London"<<

I lost all faith in The Times when it became a shrunken broadsheet.

But that's for another day, another topic.

 

While the English spoken in this country has changed since the time of the Revolution, I'm sure if some of the people from that time were to be magically teleported to the present we would be able to understand them. While not as great a time difference as the one being faced with the questiion of the Adumari being able to speak a distinct dialect of Basic, it does suggest the possibility of being able to maintain a fairly close sembelence of modern Basic.

 

The Duros of KOTOR spoke with a syntax. It kinda matched the Asian way they spoke, which I thought was great as the game had many non-Eng accents, and with that in mind, also styles of speech. And an equal balance of dark skinned characters, that was good too.

I haven't read a SW book with characters that "sound" different from one another. It's not difficult to pull off, just more work. You have to remember how they spoke and remain consistent. I've noted that Song of Ice and Fire's cast have thier own unique voices.