1 | The Audience Chamber, for celebrations » Many Felicitations to Euforic Mania (nee Neco the Nightwraith) » 8/13/2023 10:33 am |
- Elliefint
- Replies: 7
I didn't see this before but I hope you had a good birthday!
| The Cherryh Grove » So my notes on my read through of The first book of foreigner is up » 8/01/2023 11:42 am |
- Elliefint
- Replies: 4
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Ahhh, cool, I'm glad you liked the book!
| The Audience Chamber, for celebrations » welcome and renewing associations » 7/30/2023 7:16 am |
- Elliefint
- Replies: 47
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Hi, Owlcyclops!
| The Cherryh Grove » Is the Earth of the Atevi darker than our Earth? » 7/29/2023 3:30 pm |
- Elliefint
- Replies: 9
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Blond Tekikin wrote:
The thing about the stars was a crack about humans not being able to invent constellations, like they existed on earth?
Very first book. The beginning, sort of prologue
Right, I know that part, but people are telling me that it says it not darker somewhere -- I want to know where they're getting that.
| The Cherryh Grove » C and K in Ragi » 7/27/2023 6:33 pm |
- Elliefint
- Replies: 14
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Is this the reasonable place to post another thought I have about the phonology? Right now I'm thinking about the "ph" sound in "Mospheira". That sound could fall under the rule of "consonant + H makes a palatal" stated in the appendix to the first couple of books, in which case it would be pronounced /mospʲeɪ̯ra/, which is straightforward, if a little unintuitive-seeming to the English-speaking reader (something like "Mospyeira"). However! I think a consideration here is that as far as I recall, we don't see that "ph" in any of the other examples of Ragi text we get to see, right? So I feel like it might be possible that the sound represented is not necessary a Ragi phoneme. After all, Mospheira was where the Edi and Gan lived before everything happened, and they have their own language, so perhaps the "ph" in "Mospheira" exists to transcribe an Edi and/or Gan sound! In that case, we have to consider what sound it might be that's not found in Ragi and maybe not in Mosphei', either! My proposal is that this sound is /ɸ/, the voiceless bilabial fricative. (Pronounce it like a P but without closing your lips all the way, or an F but without using your teeth.) This is the sound of the letter phi in ancient Greek for a certain portion in its history (hence the IPA symbol) and it's traditionally romanized as "ph", as in "philosophy" (pronounced as /f/ since that's the closest sound we have in English) so that's consistent with the spelling of "Mospheira", and would produce the intuitive pronunciation while providing a history that makes sense from a Watsonian perspective. (Does anyone know if we have an official word from Ms. Cherryh as to how "Mospheira" is pronounced? That would be useful in deciding which of these explanations to adopt mentally -- as it stands, I read it as /mospʲeɪ̯ra/ and /mosɸeɪ̯ra/ and /mosfeɪ̯ra/ interchangeably.)
| The Audience Chamber, for celebrations » Today We Celebrate Griffinmoon's Most Felicitous Natal Day » 7/25/2023 6:57 am |
- Elliefint
- Replies: 5
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Happy birthday!
| The Cherryh Grove » Is the Earth of the Atevi darker than our Earth? » 7/24/2023 5:54 pm |
- Elliefint
- Replies: 9
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I'm trying to find the part in question in my ebook of the first book -- do either of you recall any details of what it says about the light?
| The Cherryh Grove » Is the Earth of the Atevi darker than our Earth? » 7/24/2023 5:11 pm |
- Elliefint
- Replies: 9
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That's in the first book, and I can see where it says it's cold, but nothing about whether it's darker or not. I feel like it would be strange for anyone we get a viewpoint from to be able to say one way or another, since no one has been to both planets
| The Cherryh Grove » Is the Earth of the Atevi darker than our Earth? » 7/24/2023 1:44 pm |
- Elliefint
- Replies: 9
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Nope. Cooler but nor darker.
Does it say this somewhere, or are you just disagreeing with the theory?
I got to "speculating" a bit. I wonder if CJC gave the atevi cat-like senses, such as acute night-vision and hearing because she is familiar with cats, having been a breeder, as well as keeping several fur-babies. I have met two of her cats and one of Jane's and you can tell it's a cat-friendly home.
Ahhh, that's an interesting possibility! I have to wonder about that, though, with regards to the fact that cats have their low-light-adapted vision because they're crepuscular, rather than diurnal like humans, because like, if atevi were crepuscular, wouldn't that have effects on their society that might be more noticable than would be compatible with what we see in the books?
| The Cherryh Grove » Is the Earth of the Atevi darker than our Earth? » 7/23/2023 10:13 pm |
- Elliefint
- Replies: 9
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So this is something I've been thinking about. The Foreigner books talk about how atevi have better vision than humans, particularly in dim or dark environments, but they've also mentioned that humans do have the advantage of better vision in very bright conditions, like midday in very clear and sunny weather, but that that just doesn't come up in a way that helps them as often because it's such a specific circumstance. Another thing is that the atevi solar system is described as being particularly "dusty" and full of space debris, resulting if far fewer stars abd constellations being visible than we have on our Earth. I'm not sure what all of the scientific details might be about that concept, but it seems reasonable to assume that if it can, canonically, block out the light of most stars, then it might, perhaps aided by other factors like, idk, the composition of the upper atmosphere maybe, be able to a reduce the brightness of the light they get from their sun. The atevi, having evolved on this planet and adapted to its conditions, would then be better adjusted to its typical light levels than the humans, who have adapted to the lighting on our Earth and might more frequently find that conditions on EotA are a little too dark for them. In other words, the atevi vision thing might be more of a "home field advantage" for them rather than inherently better vision. (This would, of course, probably mean that some artificial human spaces, like on the ship, might tend to be too bright for atevi comfort, which hasn't been mentioned directly but which I think is compatible with the general idea we see of human spaces tending to be visually unpleasant for them, right? The space isn't kabiu, the numbers and colors and whatnot are wrong, so might the lighting be.)
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