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High Gothic, a scholorly tretes.

4K views 5 replies 5 participants last post by  Bawdymonkey 
#1 ·
What little we know about the structure of the language comes from the brief notes about it scattered in the text of the Black Library novels. though these scraps are rare there is enough for a diligent reader to build a set of fairly reasonable extrapolations which can provide a fleeting glimpse of the 41st Millennium.

Indications culled from the Shira Calpurnia, Caliaphas Cain, and Esenhorn novels, along with Codex: Witch Hunters, have given us the following facts to work with.
1: High Gothic has changed little in 10,000 years of the Emperors reign.
2: High Gothic is an exceedingly precise language which is one reason why it is preferred for administrative work.
3: High Gothic is both complex enough to encompass almost anything which the Imperium should have need to converse or write about.
4: High Gothic was the dominant language used by the population of Earth before the Emperor united the tribes.
5: And finally High Gothic is simple enough that the rudiments of it are easily taught to peoples with no previous exposure.

Even with only these five solid planks to build off we can nail together a very solid platform about what High Gothic is. To start with the first and second points are mutually reenforcing, exacting languages change less than those which are more fluid, as illustrated by a comparison Latin versus English. Also the second point adds weight to the third, exacting languages are usually more complex than ones which are less precise.
Our fourth point is rather unassuming, it does not contradict any other of our pieces of data.
However at the fifth point we hit a snag. Complex and Exacting languages are usually very hard to learn. So we must move to the next part of our ‘construction project’. Now we begin to extrapolate from the given data to form a cohesive platform. The new ‘plank’ is this.

High Gothic is not a natural language, it was deliberately created by the Emperors linguistics experts based on the dominant language of his subjects around the time of the unification of Earth.

Now that we have that piece in place we can proceed. Knowing that High Gothic is an artificially constructed language we can examine its structure a bit. First we know based on point five that it has a very consistent internal framework, verbs will be in one place in the sentence adjectives another, nouns placed still a third and this will not vary. This internal consistency eases learning. As we know it is exacting we can understand that it will have ad-verbs and noun modifiers in plenty, as well as an exceedingly large store of narrow purpose words, especially adjectives.

Going further into the grey zones around our construction site in search of timber we find hundreds of historical examples of feudal languages which have complicated sets of word modifiers which denote such things as whether one is addressing a superior or inferior individual. This is especially relevant as some of the better known examples of these languages come from the region of Mesopotamia and Anatolia where the Emperor is said to have been born. Several also date from that approximate time period, perhaps nostalgia would make Him-On-Earth more inclined to inculde such features. Our structure is looking fairly stable now, time to paint it. While we know how the language was changed to make it fit the Emperors needs we don’t know what the basic language was. Of course most every one will have a favorite choice and who am I to ruin the fun, but there are a few things to keep in mind. History has seen the rise and fall of many languages, and none of the ones which have made a mark on the world stage and then faded away have come back around. Greek to Latin to French to English and soon enough over to Chinese. Now what could be the trade tongue of the 31st Millennium no one can say but I have a soft spot for one presently extinct language, Gothic.
Yes you heard that right, Gothic is an actual language! Though no one presently speaks it there are quite a few manuscripts written in it and several once extinct languages have made big comebacks in recent years. It also makes allot of sense, a revived Gothic gets retooled and expanded becoming High Gothic.

Well there you have it, not to bad for 30$ worth of books and several hours of hard labor is it?
 
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#2 ·
high gothic and low gothic are bastardisations of latin, the novels are "translated" into english but the people in them are speaking low gothic
 
#3 · (Edited)
Incorect.

As quoted from Rogue Trader:
LANGUAGE, NOTE ON

The common language of the Imperium is represented by English, proper names have been rendered in an anglicised form. Many of the titles of ancient institutions and organisations are presented as Latinised English (such as the Adeptus Terra). This represents an older tongue, itself a development of Twentieth Century languages, not necessarily Latin as such.

As you can see the oficial word on the subject is that High Gothic is not Latin.
 
#4 ·
Cool... You have touched on a very interesting subject, one that I admit I have spent some time pondering, although never having researched. You make some very good points. However, I do feel that although if we were some how transplanted into the 40K universe, it would not take too long to learn the language. There are many roots to any language, and one language to bind together a universe, and survive 40 000 years of evolution, well, it has to be unique. And simple. And if so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned, well, who needs an exact language then anyways?

But I know one thing that will not change, ever, and that is mathematics. Love it or hate it, even 40 000 years, v=ma. (velocity equals mass times acceleration.)
 
#5 ·
Very interesting stuff. Do you know if there is a High Gothic dictionary/lexicon? I'd be interested to see it.

Anyhow, rep for you for comming up with an interesting read on something most people never take the time to look at.
 
#6 ·
High Gothic is probably the Queen's English. But it might be Latin. Considering all the GW artists know latin and scrawl it all over space marine armor and standards, it is probably latin. Although, as already mentioned, it appears it is clean and plain english. Not pigieon english or american english or cockney.
 
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