2. Dame, certainly Dame. „Dame” was an equivalent of a title “Knight” in times were knights were real knights, in particular when orders where not only high class medals, which is what interests us. Lady is an equivalent of a lord, which refers to feudal superiority. > Or does Narnia follow the British tradition and use "Dame" for female knights? It’s not the point of British or not British tradition. We’re using English language and in that language words Dame and Lady have specific meanings (despite British being slightly inconsistent in the matter of titles associated with certain awards nowadays). A question which should be ask is why Narnians use English language (except for the fact that Chronicles... where written by British author for British children). Explanation which I created for my own use is that Narnia is a world “in which there was no Tower of Bable”. In other words: creatures living there (including all humans) are not even aware of possibility of existing different verbal communication systems, but they all use what could be described as a sort of universal langue, as it would be carried out in acts of speech. Sounds a bit like a contradiction in terms, I know. But to describe fantastic situation one has to use some unorthodox methods. Otherwise, how would you explain that Narnians and Calormens, centaurs and lions use the same language? Person from the outside would subconsciously perceive langue as a language which is most natural for him/her, ie. his/her mother tongue. Therefore, when we quote utterances made in Narnia, when we talk about its titles etc. we in fact translate or rather: use a representation of certain part of langue in our language or sometimes idiolect. In such a case asking “which word would Narnians use for...” is pointless. What matters is what we want to describe and which word English language (as the language of Ruth’s fanfiction) uses for that. That’s at least how I see it. But I would gladly read some other explanations for a phenomenon of communication in Narnia. Best, Krystyna
Re: All your Narnia fiction
> Or does Narnia follow the British tradition and use "Dame" for female knights?
It’s not the point of British or not British tradition. We’re using English language and in that language words Dame and Lady have specific meanings (despite British being slightly inconsistent in the matter of titles associated with certain awards nowadays). A question which should be ask is why Narnians use English language (except for the fact that Chronicles... where written by British author for British children).
Explanation which I created for my own use is that Narnia is a world “in which there was no Tower of Bable”. In other words: creatures living there (including all humans) are not even aware of possibility of existing different verbal communication systems, but they all use what could be described as a sort of universal langue, as it would be carried out in acts of speech. Sounds a bit like a contradiction in terms, I know. But to describe fantastic situation one has to use some unorthodox methods. Otherwise, how would you explain that Narnians and Calormens, centaurs and lions use the same language? Person from the outside would subconsciously perceive langue as a language which is most natural for him/her, ie. his/her mother tongue.
Therefore, when we quote utterances made in Narnia, when we talk about its titles etc. we in fact translate or rather: use a representation of certain part of langue in our language or sometimes idiolect.
In such a case asking “which word would Narnians use for...” is pointless. What matters is what we want to describe and which word English language (as the language of Ruth’s fanfiction) uses for that.
That’s at least how I see it. But I would gladly read some other explanations for a phenomenon of communication in Narnia.
Best,
Krystyna