See Below. >From: Robert Sallade <zardoz at weirdness.com> >To: dragaera at dragaera.info >Subject: Re: Linguistics and population >Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 23:03:34 -0700 > >At 05:23 PM 7/22/04, Mark A Mandel wrote: >># As far as the language goes, drift creates accents first, >>dialects >>#second, and new languages third. >> >>Eh, that's in lay language. "A language is a dialect with an army." The >>progression is generally right, -- though there may be some exceptions >>-- even though you cannot draw any clean boundaries between the >>"levels". > >Yeah... there is also the flux from popular usage and slang that sometimes >blurs the distinctions. > >># Even with a common dictionary English >>#speakers have managed to create three distinct dialectic groups: British, >>#American, and International. >> >>Far, far more. American English is no more unified than American chili, >>and British English is orders of magnitude more diverse. [...snip...] > >Just trying to be general. Guess I was way too general > >>#(Now we hit the generalities. The numbers that follow are a bit arbitrary >>#and probably fall quite short of the actual numbers.) >># Think about the size of the armies Morrolan and Fornia raise. >>Not >>#all of the Dragons will be in on that fight because of familial >>#obligations that preclude siding with either of the leaders, so possibly >>#one quarter of the House was involved. Each army was numbered in the tens >>#of thousands so let's call it 50,000 each. That's 400,000 in the House. >>#Times 17 Houses (yeah the Phoenix have a grand population of One, but it >>#should average out) makes 6.8 million. And that's the extremely >>#conservative estimate. This would indicate the Empire is the dominant >>#culture, at least in the immediate vicinity of that continent. >> >>Someplace or other Vlad says that the Teckla constitute 90% of the >>population. > >The number of Dragons in the army is inflated anyway. The conscripts >(Teckla) helped fill out the numbers, but I think about 7 to 10 million is >a good guess. you mentioned in another post: > > Now, *something* has held back technological evolution for both >races, > so maybe there is something. But it's not in the nature of human > language (counting both races as human) to be so stable. > >I believe that in Dragon, Vlad relates why armor and the technology of >battle has been held in check. Basically because of the sorcerous arms >race. As technology is mostly driven by the need to improve defensive >capability, and the Dragaerans rely on sorcery, it is only logical that >they would stay much the same. Also look how many lifetimes we are seeing >in since the beginning of the Empire: about 100 lifetimes (at 2000 per). In >our terms that is about 7000 years (at 70 per). It's taken us about that >long to get where we are and we were lucky enough to have brilliant people >looking for technological answers to problems. The Dragaerans have >brilliant people looking for sorcerous answers to problems. > >Where am I going with this? Not the foggiest...no wait, oh, yeah... > >The technological state assumes that the Empire is still agrarian and >therefore cannot sustain an extremely large population so I'd think that 15 >to 20 million would be the best it could do. With that number of people >there is bound to be socio-economic and geographical differences in the >manner of speech. > >># Documentation is the one good way to preserve language. >> >>Written language, yes. The stabilizing effect of a writing system on >>spoken language is much, much weaker; and remember that many Dragaerans >>are illiterate. > >Most, I would think, as most Teckla are illiterate (with notable >exceptions) and they constitute the majority of the population. The nobles, >including those at Vlad's low rank (read that how you will), seem to have >all their letters. I'm sure that there are a few of those that have no >problem having their peasants taught how to read. To allow someone to do >their own paperwork, especially their own taxes, relieves that burden from >the noble's shoulders. It is also evident that there aren't many that do >it, especially with the big turnouts for Kelly-and-crew's classes. Yeah, >enlightened subjugation hardly ever works, but this is fantasy after all... > >>#[...] Now who controls the documentary evidence in the >>#Empire? the Lyorns. Kragar gets almost all of his information from the >>#records that they store. I'm sure that there must be some sort of >>research >>#facility like a library, but I'm also sure that there must be a great >>deal >>#that is meant to be disseminated only to members of the House the records >>#pertain to (hence the buttering-up and bribery). So I think it would be >>#that House that keeps the drift to a minimum. >> >>Vide supra. :-) Visualize (the writing) Superior James Griffin, Still Another Vlad faN See Above >geez...Latin......I barely get English >stab in the dark....."Clearly in Authority"? _________________________________________________________________ Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee® Security. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963