Language in the Seven Kingdoms

[Nihlus]

This has probably been addressed... many times before, but on a re-read it's bugging me severely.

As we all know, Westeros is huge. Including the Canada-sized Land of Always Winter, it's about the size of South America. Without it, it's about the size of Europe. Yet, despite this, everyone appears to speak the same language with little difference even in regards to dialect. Arya, a noble from the North, can converse just fine with random peasants in the Riverlands, a land thousands of miles away. Meanwhile Tyrion has no trouble in the North (the most this oddity receives is an offhand line about him having a Westerland accent) nor does Jon Snow have trouble conversing with peasants from all around Westeros at the Wall. 

This strikes me as very weird. What's going on? How is everyone's speech mutually intelligible on the entire continent? As a matter of comparison the country of Italy alone had seven main languages and many minor ones spoken it in the early 20th century, and languages then were considerably more centralized than they were all the way back in the Middle Ages.

On a related note, what about diversity in physical appearance? Ancient Roman sources are quick to note the physical differences between themselves and Germanic tribesmen on average, and for good reason. There is enough a distinction between people in central/southern Italy and people in northern Germany that you can usually tell a mass of one group apart from the mass of another. Scaling from the maps at the back of the books and the 300-mile wall, the distance from Winterfell to Oldtown is about the same as the distance from Oslo to Tripoli, greater than the distance from Moscow to Baghdad- shouldn't there be a noticeable difference in appearance between these people? It can't just be Dorne.

[Moiraine Sedai]

Common Tongue is the language.  GRRM chose to give them all the same language for smoother storytelling.  Skagos may differ.

On physical appearance, the North have a peculiar look.  The look of the north is long-faced and coarse. 

[Renly's Banana]

I've always wondered about this too, but there are a few possible explanations. Westeros has always been a super isolated continent, for example. Yes there was the coming of the First Men and the Andals and the Rhoynar, but that's actually an extremely low amount of migration for a huge continent that has span for thousands upon thousands of years. You brought up Italy for comparison, but Italy was practically at the heart of the western world and saw a ridiculous amount of shifting demographics. I'd say Westeros is more like South America or Australia: a huge continent that was mostly ignored by the majority of the world, even after the coming of the Andals. 

I don't think it's ever brought up in-text, but I would imagine Northerners speak with a slightly different accent. They would have to. It's almost impossible that the Andals spoke the same language as the First Men upon arrival; the mixing of their languages has to have happened slowly in the millennia that followed. But even when their kingdoms were more intermingled, distance alone would develop different accents and words within each side.
Essos (with the exception of Braavos?) only seems to have one language with slightly different accents within each Free City.. and that makes even less sense, cause Essos is the "heart" of their world. We have this huge map and there's only like 4 known languages: common, valyrian, dothraki and qartheen. So..

tl;dr: GRRM really didn't wanna focus on the passage of time OR languages

[Lion of the West]

Realistically there would have been many languages and dialects of course, but for easy storytelling, just like @Moiraine Sedai wrote, its a single language owing to the fact that GRRM is not a linguist. And I think he has stated such himself on some occasion.

[The Marquis de Leech]

This, along with ecology, is why I am invariably puzzled by people praising Martin's world-building. In reality, characterisation, plot, and theme (in that order) run a long way ahead of world in this series. It's also why it's damn cheeky for Martin to take pot-shots at Tolkien over Aragorn's tax policy.

Martin isn't a linguist. But you don't need to be a linguist to portray a more realistic language situation:

• Have a universal *written* language that is used by both Faith and Citadel (i.e. Westerosi Latin). That ties the realm together.
• Have the POVs in a given area comment on accents (the Manderleys and the Umbers should certainly differ there).
•  The further away you are, the more pronounced the accent. Have Tyrion have to speak slower when he's at the Wall.
• Dorne and the Wildings ought to have separate languages altogether. Have Jon and Ygritte communicate via hand gestures. Have Oberyn use the language of the Citadel. You don't need to actual show these languages, just show their effects. 

[Nihlus]

2 hours ago, Renly's Banana said:

I've always wondered about this too, but there are a few possible explanations. Westeros has always been a super isolated continent, for example. Yes there was the coming of the First Men and the Andals and the Rhoynar, but that's actually an extremely low amount of migration for a huge continent that has span for thousands upon thousands of years. You brought up Italy for comparison, but Italy was practically at the heart of the western world and saw a ridiculous amount of shifting demographics. I'd say Westeros is more like South America or Australia: a huge continent that was mostly ignored by the majority of the world, even after the coming of the Andals. 

I don't think it's ever brought up in-text, but I would imagine Northerners speak with a slightly different accent. They would have to. It's almost impossible that the Andals spoke the same language as the First Men upon arrival; the mixing of their languages has to have happened slowly in the millennia that followed. But even when their kingdoms were more intermingled, distance alone would develop different accents and words within each side.
Essos (with the exception of Braavos?) only seems to have one language with slightly different accents within each Free City.. and that makes even less sense, cause Essos is the "heart" of their world. We have this huge map and there's only like 4 known languages: common, valyrian, dothraki and qartheen. So..

tl;dr: GRRM really didn't wanna focus on the passage of time OR languages

...I didn't even think of that. Essos speaking mostly one language west of Yi Ti is even more ridiculous.

[Renly's Banana]

53 minutes ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

This, along with ecology, is why I am invariably puzzled by people praising Martin's world-building. In reality, characterisation, plot, and theme (in that order) run a long way ahead of world in this series. It's also why it's damn cheeky for Martin to take pot-shots at Tolkien over Aragorn's tax policy.

Martin isn't a linguist. But you don't need to be a linguist to portray a more realistic language situation:

• Have a universal *written* language that is used by both Faith and Citadel (i.e. Westerosi Latin). That ties the realm together.
• Have the POVs in a given area comment on accents (the Manderleys and the Umbers should certainly differ there).
•  The further away you are, the more pronounced the accent. Have Tyrion have to speak slower when he's at the Wall.
• Dorne and the Wildings ought to have separate languages altogether. Have Jon and Ygritte communicate via hand gestures. Have Oberyn use the language of the Citadel. You don't need to actual show these languages, just show their effects. 

While I pretty much agree with you 100%, I'm gonna play devil's advocate and say he's still a fairly good world-builder. Martin doesn't seem to be tied down by the minutia of a hardcore reality playbook, and you can tell that in his writing. It's a sort of lazy approach, tbh. He writes whatever it is he wants to write about and he'll gloss over, or completely ignore, things he doesn't want to deal with. Stuff like economy, languages and ecology don't seem to interest him too much; he avoids them like the plague. So while it can be frustrating for people who want to read about everything in his world, I can't really be too mad at him for it. He's good enough at creating locations and cultures that the little stuff can be forgiven. 

Tolkien had his fair share of world-building issues too. Neither men have a perfect approach to it. 

[Tralalala]

3 hours ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

This, along with ecology, is why I am invariably puzzled by people praising Martin's world-building. In reality, characterisation, plot, and theme (in that order) run a long way ahead of world in this series. It's also why it's damn cheeky for Martin to take pot-shots at Tolkien over Aragorn's tax policy.

Martin isn't a linguist. But you don't need to be a linguist to portray a more realistic language situation:

• Have a universal *written* language that is used by both Faith and Citadel (i.e. Westerosi Latin). That ties the realm together.
• Have the POVs in a given area comment on accents (the Manderleys and the Umbers should certainly differ there).
•  The further away you are, the more pronounced the accent. Have Tyrion have to speak slower when he's at the Wall.
• Dorne and the Wildings ought to have separate languages altogether. Have Jon and Ygritte communicate via hand gestures. Have Oberyn use the language of the Citadel. You don't need to actual show these languages, just show their effects. 

And that would be a little too much.

[Orphalesion]

7 hours ago, Renly's Banana said:

While I pretty much agree with you 100%, I'm gonna play devil's advocate and say he's still a fairly good world-builder. Martin doesn't seem to be tied down by the minutia of a hardcore reality playbook, and you can tell that in his writing. It's a sort of lazy approach, tbh. He writes whatever it is he wants to write about and he'll gloss over, or completely ignore, things he doesn't want to deal with.

He is an adequate worldbuilder for a standard fantasy story of good quality, or at least he was in the beginning of ASoIaF, this has changed by now and I think at this point he's not a good world builder anymore.

However this approach of his is exactly why he should think twice about asking for Aragorn's tax policy. Including Aragorn's tax policy would actually have been a bad move both in terms of world building and storytelling. Aragorn's taxt policies served no point in the story, at all, so there was no point in mentioning them. Tolkien did in fact design coins for Gondor, they just didn't show up in the story, because there was no adequate reason to include them. And Tolkien knew when to trim the fat (unless a tree or an Elf was concerned, then we get a few paragraphs devoted just to them)

What does GRRM want? Tolkien interrupting the War of the Ring to give us seven chapters of Aragorn holding tedious court sessions and wrestling with dry bureaucracy like Daenerys does for a whole book? 

To elaborate: I am a firm believer that world building should not exist for it's own sake it should be there to serve the story. In the early books of ASoIaF we get exactly that, we get world building when its needed to create context, as window dressing or to set the mood.

However with a good chunk of ADWD and FFC I get the feeling that it just exists so that Martin could indulge in world building. I.e. the story serving the world building, which simply is upside down. This, combined with the statement that WoW will be "exploring" (groan) the world beyond the Wall and him asking to see Aragorn's tax reforms makes me think he has lost perspective as to what made ASoIaF good. He fancies himself a gardener, well one of the first things a gardener learns is that plants need pruning to grow well.

Yes Tolkien was not perfect; we have, for example no idea what the various people in Middle Earth dressed like beyond for the most basic of hints ( "grey raiment with a girdle of silver leaves" is one of the most detailed clothing descriptions in the LoTR) but in many other details he was exceptional.

Seriously to me that Aragorn comment just makes GRRM seem so incredibly self-righteous and full of himself.

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

While all those in Westeros speak the Common Tongue, accents among the kingdoms vary:

 

Another of the outlaws stepped forward, a younger man in a greasy sheepskin jerkin. In his hand was Oathkeeper. "This says it is." His voice was frosted with the accents of the north.

 

"A lordling," Pyp observed to Jon. "Southron, most like near Highgarden." Pyp had traveled the Seven Kingdoms with a mummers' troupe, and bragged that he could tell what you were and where you'd been born just from the sound of your voice.

 

"It was an alley. It had no name." Tyrion took a mordant pleasure in inventing the details of the colorful life of Hugor Hill, also known as Yollo, a bastard out of Lannisport. The best lies are seasoned with a bit of truth. The dwarf knew he sounded like a westerman, and a highborn westerman at that, so Hugor must needs be some lordling's by-blow. 

 

At least in Dorne they speak the Common Tongue. Like Dornish food and Dornish law, Dornish speech was spiced with the flavors of the Rhoyne, but a man could comprehend it.

[The Marquis de Leech]

1 hour ago, Orphalesion said:

What does GRRM want? Tolkien interrupting the War of the Ring to give us seven chapters of Aragorn holding tedious court sessions and wrestling with dry bureaucracy like Daenerys does for a whole book? 

I'd also point out that Tolkien does provide plenty of consideration of governance... in The Shire, after our protagonists have dealt with Saruman. Aragorn isn't the focus of The Lord of the Rings - the hobbits are.

[Damon_Tor]

13 hours ago, Nihlus said:

everyone appears to speak the same language with little difference even in regards to dialect

I think we have the Citadel to thank for this. Every castle of any importance employs a man taught at the Citadel, and that man is usually responsible for teaching the children of the Lord of that castle. That kind of monopoly is going to have a powerful effect on culture.

[Orphalesion]

1 hour ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

I'd also point out that Tolkien does provide plenty of consideration of governance... in The Shire, after our protagonists have dealt with Saruman. Aragorn isn't the focus of The Lord of the Rings - the hobbits are.

Even With Aragorn Tolkien hints at years of work where he had to consolidate his power with various peoples living within his realm, that he encouraged people of different cultures to intermingle, particularly when Dwarves and Elves were concerned and that he was a mindful urban planner by restoring parks and public fountains to Minas Tirith. It's just not written out in chapters, because, as you write, it's not the focus of the story.

[Renly's Banana]

@Rhaenys_Targaryen Thank you. I knew there were several mentions of different accents in there, I just could not for the life of me remember where. Even a relatively small neighborhood like Flea Bottom seems to have its own distinctive sound. Their language is somewhat diverse, Martin just doesn't seem to focus too much on it. Which is a shame in my opinion.

@Orphalesion
I think you're looking into that Aragorn comment a bit too much. He made that comparison to highlight the fact a lot of older fantasy writers tended to oversimplify a lot of complex and important issues. I didn't see it as GRRM saying he was better or putting Tolkien down. 
I also don't want to judge all his "boring" stuff before the series is over, because all the lessons Daenerys learned from her "entire book of dry bureaucracy" could be relevant later on. 

Politics aside, though, I will admit that he's stretching his world-building a bit too thin. Especially in the semi-final book, which we know is already extremely cramped and in need of desperate trimming. For example: 

Spoiler

We know Arianne I is almost entirely another traveling chapter that serves very little purpose other than remind us she's going to see Aegon. And about 70% of Arianne II is her going through a forest and describing said forest. Then a cave.. Then the forest some more. Why? 
Compare that to Catelyn's travels in the first two books, where she went from Winterfell to King's Landing then from Riverrun to Storm's End all in record speed for the sake of brevity. 

 

[zandru]

6 hours ago, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:

While all those in Westeros speak the Common Tongue, accents among the kingdoms vary:

Thanks for these quotes! Being from the US, I don't find it at all surprising that all of the 7K speak the same language (with regional accents). In the US, one language is greatly predominant. Westeros doesn't seem to have been the magnet for widespread migration over time that the US has been, but like North America, it was a "new" continent settled from Essos by just a few great waves of migration:  The First Men, followed by the Andals, and then (merely in the southernmost parts) the Rhoynar. And there's been plenty of time for these languages, if they were all that different, to merge. 

Distinct languages are noted for the giants and the children of the forest, who were there first. And back in Essos, there are lots of regional variants of ancient Valyrian (analogous to our European "Romance" languages), as well as totally different ones like Dothraki and the language of the Summer Islands. Note that they view the Westerosi "Common Tongue" as a foreign language.

I don't have any great gripes about George RR's "world building" skills in this regard. And I do appreciate much of his attention to detail. This, applied to various early release chapters of the next book, suggests that what some regard as "filler" will actually have important implications in the story as a whole. (Is that a "spoiler"? Thought it was pretty generic.)

[Orphalesion]

1 hour ago, Renly's Banana said:

 

@Orphalesion
I think you're looking into that Aragorn comment a bit too much. He made that comparison to highlight the fact a lot of older fantasy writers tended to oversimplify a lot of complex and important issues. I didn't see it as GRRM saying he was better or putting Tolkien down. 
I also don't want to judge all his "boring" stuff before the series is over, because all the lessons Daenerys learned from her "entire book of dry bureaucracy" could be relevant later on.

No, I'm not and yes he did and not just with that comment did he compare Tolkien negatively to his own work. There's also his critique that Tolkien handled Gandalf's return "wrong" and how about a story should be "about the Human Heart in conflict with itsself rather than fighting Dark Lords" ignoring both that no, Tolkien handled Gandalf just right for the kind of story he wanted to tell and that yes, the Lord of the Rings has a Dark Lord, but is also choke full of inter-human and internal conflict.

If he meant to talk about lower quality fantasy authors, then he should have talked about them, and not taking Aragorn as an example, because as I already wrote Tolkien did provide examples of things that happened during his rule, he just didn't feel the need to waste a whole book on Aragorn "practicing how to be king" in Umbar. 

I get that it must be frustrating to be constantly measured by Tolkien, but it doesn't put someone in a good light if he counters that comparison by putting Tolkien's works down and making silly demands about how he wants to see Aragorn's tax reforms or how Gandalf should have lost power rather than gained it after his re-embodiment.

[The Marquis de Leech]

12 hours ago, Damon_Tor said:

I think we have the Citadel to thank for this. Every castle of any importance employs a man taught at the Citadel, and that man is usually responsible for teaching the children of the Lord of that castle. That kind of monopoly is going to have a powerful effect on culture.

The Citadel would teach the nobility to write. It doesn't teach people how to *speak*.

[Joy Hill]

I'm also confused that GRRM, who claims he didn't want any french-sounding or italian-sounding names, called the eight Lady Frey Joyeuse.

 

And am I the only one who wonders what an accent that is "frosted with the north" sounds like? Is it like a scottish accent? Or one of the accents from northern England?

[Damon_Tor]

6 hours ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

The Citadel would teach the nobility to write. It doesn't teach people how to *speak*.

Even just having an example of someone speaking Andlish "correctly", especially if that person is regarded as an intellectual authority, is going to have a homogenizing effect on language. And I'm not sure you're correct: if a maester arrived at a castle and found that the children were speaking the language poorly it seems likely they would step in to correct them.

I grew up in a part of the United States were the words "Ain't" and "Ya'll" are acceptable. I had a teacher in grade school who was from another part of the United States, and went on a crusade against the use of those words. Of course language is entirely subjective: there's nothing wrong with "Ain't" (After all, the "correct" word would be "Aren't" as in "Aren't I fancy" but Aren't is a contraction of "Are not" and you wouldn't say "Are I not Fancy" you'd say "Am I not fancy". "Ain't" is a degradation of "Amn't" which is short for "Am I not" so by some measure "Ain't" is actually more correct. "Ya'll" is just a contracted form of "You all") but because our teacher, an authority on the topic took a position on it, it reduced our use of the word. Now imagine that EVERY teacher went to school at the same university, and EVERY teacher had that same opinion on the words Ain't and Ya'll. It's easy to imagine that those words would begin to die out

If some minor Northern house found themselves uplifted and given a major castle and a maester, what do you think the maester would do upon hearing the broken barely-intelligible Common they spoke? I would expect that Andlish lessons would become a part of the curriculum. In the early days of Andalization it certainly would have been.

[The Marquis de Leech]

I would actually imagine the maester being told to get stuffed by the nobles he works for. As far as they're concerned, it's him who speaks oddly. And even if they do accommodate him, that doesn't do anything for the non-nobles - you would end up with the post-1066 English situation of a language for lords and a language for peasants.

You don't have something like Received Pronunciation being bred into the upper classes from birth - no private schools, just tutors. The maesters themselves will come from diverse parts of the realm, and they've only got a few years before they're off to another part of the country.