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What’s with this “Wren” thing?
The oldest extant version of the fable
we
are presenting here appeared in 1913 in the first volume of a two-volume anthology
of Low
Saxon folktales (Plattdeutsche
Volksmärchen “Low German Folktales”)
collected by Wilhelm Wisser (1843–1935). Read
more ...
Riddleyspeak
Language information:
Riddley Walker is a post-apocalyptic book by Russell Hoban, set in Kent, England,
somewhat over a thousand years in the future where civilization has reverted
to an Iron-Age culture and where the few literate people desperately try to
recover ancient technological wisdom from garbled
texts and legends.
The dialect in the book is somewhat related to Kentish dialect, with a mixture
of technical and legal terms that the people in the book use as part of their
vernacular without being aware of their origins (program > progam = decide, plan; datter > data; blip = a significant occurrence, pronounce judgement > pour
the ounts of judgd men).
Riddley, taught
to read and write by his father, puts his words down as best as he can, apparently
unaware of the use of commas other than for speech
separators. Some words are always capitalised, as if they held some particular
cultural significance (trouble > Trubba, Bad Luck; Plomercy < diplomacy, now with a connotation of “mercy”). Some phrases are hard to recognise
without a lot of context: sharna pax and get a poal < sharpen the axe and get a pole (to stick the victim’s head on); evacuated > vackt your wayt > he vackt his wayt. Click here to read more about Riddley Walker.
Genealogy: Indo-European > Germanic > Western > Anglo-Scots > English > Constructed
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