History Main / LanguageDrift

* The "lyrics" in ''VideoGame/{{Nier}}'''s soundtrack are written in futuristic versions of French, English, Japanese etc. (and despite sounding like gibberish, you can actually tell which language they're been based upon), because the game itself takes place around the year 3465.

** It would be unwise for a modern {{UsefulNotes/Australia}}n to rely on old newsreels and early television to chart the evolution of the Australian accent and pronounciation. Until well into the 1970s, Australian newsreaders and announcers, especially on Creator/TheABC, were expected to use the [[UsefulNotes/BritishAccents "BBC English"]] accent and pronounciation, and both Broad and even Standard Australian English accents and pronounciations were strongly discouraged. Of course ''all'' Australians said things like "charnce" and "darnce" until the advent of television.

** To show how much the Chinese language has changed, historical linguistics has hypothesized that Creator/{{Confucius}} (which is just a Latinized form of ''Kǒng Fūzi'' from Mandarin) would have been called ''*kʰˤoŋʔ kʷʰə'' during his lifetime.[[note]]In modern english this would sound something vaguely like "kong kwuh"[[/note]] His courtesy name was even more different -- ''*truŋsnˤərs'' instead of Zhòngní (as in Mandarin).

** To show how much the Chinese language has changed, historical linguistics has hypothesized that Creator/{{Confucius}} (which is just a Latinized form of ''Kǒng Fūzi'' from Mandarin) would have been called */kʰˤoŋʔ Kʷʰə/ during his lifetime.[[note]]In modern english this would sound something vaguely like "kong kwuh"[[/note]] His courtesy name was even more different -- */truŋsnˤərs/ instead of Zhòngní (as in Mandarin).

** To show how much the Chinese language has changed, historical linguistics has hypothesized that Creator/{{Confucius}} (which is just a Latinized form of ''Kǒng Fūzi'' from Mandarin) would have been called /Kʰˤoŋʔ Kʷʰə/ during his lifetime.[[note]]In modern english this would sound something vaguely like "kong kwuh"[[/note]] His courtesy name was even more different -- /Truŋsnˤərs/ instead of Zhòngní (as in Mandarin).

--> Because obviously, real knights from the 11th century didn't speak English as anyone without a degree in history or linguistics would recognize, and weren't knights basically cowboys? And the one-size-fits-all RP accent was just as unrealistic as any other dialect that English could spit out, especially since this knight was French, and everyone knew how much the English and French hated each other.

* ''Fanfic/AGameOfCatAndCat'': As noted in Chapter 8, language does change over time:

** To show how much the Chinese language has changed, historical linguistics has hypothesized that Creator/{{Confucius}} (which is just a Latinized form of ''Kǒng Fūzi'' from Mandarin) would have been called Kʰˤoŋʔ Kʷʰə[[note]]in IPA; In modern english this would sound something vaguely like "kong kwuh"[[/note]] during his lifetime. His courtesy name was even more different -- Truŋsnˤərs instead of Zhòngní (as in Mandarin).

** To show how much the Chinese language has changed, historical linguistics has hypothesized that Creator/{{Confucius}} (which is just a Latinized form of ''Kǒng Fūzi'' from Mandarin) would have been called Kʰˤoŋʔ Kʷʰə during his lifetime. His courtesy name was even more different -- Truŋsnˤərs instead of Zhòngní (as in Mandarin).

* The later books of the ''Literature/EndersGame'' series take place thousands of years in the future, and there are subtle hints that none of the characters are speaking modern languages. Those who sound like they're speaking English are mentioned to be speaking "Stark" (likely a descendant of Starways Kommon, which itself was a phonetic, simplified variant of English). The appendices also mention that the languages identified as "Portuguese" and "Chinese" are descendant tongues, which sound nothing like their modern equivalents.

* ''ComicBook/StarTrekDebtOfHonor'' has Gillian Taylor, who had time-traveled from the mid-1980s to the 2280s with Kirk et al. in ''Film/StarTrekIVTheVoyageHome'', mention she had to partially re-learn English because the language has changed so much since her home time period ([[ContinuitySnarl there's no sign of this in the film]], where Kirk and the rest speak to 20th century people in San Francisco with no problem-her included).

* [[Website/SCPFoundation SCP]]-[[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-411 411]] is a man from 400 years in the future with MerlinSickness. In addition to answering questions before they're asked, conversations with him are difficult due to speaking a dialect of English that has severely deviated from Modern English, containing elements of Spanish, Chinese, a [[ClassifiedInformation classified]] third language, and Haskell - a ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haskell_(programming_language) programming language]]''.

* ''Literature/TheGeneral'' uses this for comedic effect. Several words in the languages spoken in the setting (Sponglish and Namerique) are immediately recognizable to those who speak their parent languages (Spanish and English). For example, the Sponglish word for ''officer'' is ''brazaz'' (from the English "brass-ass") and their name for a particularly foul form of invertebrate bottom-feeding fish is ''avocato'' (from the Spanish "abogado", meaning "lawyer").

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': In "State of Decay", the Doctor explains how linguistic drift caused the names of the primary officers of the ''Hydrax''-- Captain Miles Sharkey, Navigational Officer Lauren [=MacMillan=] and Science Officer Anthony O'Connor--to gradually change into the names of The Three Who Rule--Zargo, Camilla and Aukon--in the centuries since the three of them were turned into vampires.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': In "State of Decay", the Dcottor explains how the names of the primary officers

* The "lyrics" in ''VideoGame/{{Nier}}'''s soundtrack are written in futuristic versions of French, English, Japanese etc. (and despite sounding like gibberish, you can actually tell which language they're been based upon), because the game itself takes place around the year 3465.
* [[TimeSkip 200 years pass]] between ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'' and ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]''. Though you can still understand the Imperial tongue perfectly, the names used by some ethnicities indicate that the language has evolved. Many Imperials now use Italian-like names instead of CanisLatinicus, and the Redguards are mainly a mix of Arabic and Moorish instead of the {{ghetto|Name}}-ish ones they had in ''Oblivion''.

* In the ''[[VideoGame/{{X}} X-Universe]]'', both the Earth State and their [[LostColony 700 year long lost]] Argon Federation speak Japanese, but with the grammar completely turned on its head; translated graffiti NoseArt on Pirate ships and warnings on docking bays reveal that the order of words is backwards. When the Earth State makes contact with ''another'' lost colony in ''X3: Terran Conflict'' the colonists are shown to use more archaic Japanese words which are not translated by the game's TranslationConvention.

* ''VideoGame/ExaPico'': The various {{conlang}}s in the series are all implied to be related to each other across many millennia: with Ar Ciela being the original language, Carmena Foreluna being a simplified version of it, and Hymmnos and its dialects being descended from that. Some commonality can be seen between the languages, showing the relation. For example, the word "hymmnos", meaning "song", appears back in Ar Ciela passages virtually unchanged.
* In ''VideoGame/ShadowOfTheTombRaider'', Lara Croft is perfectly able to understand and (at least implied) speak Quechua and Mayan. However, she struggles a lot with reading ancient texts of the same language, and needs plenty of practice before she can make things out.
* DownplayedTrope in ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'', where FirstContact with a LostColony is significantly easier than with a fully foreign empire... But a formal First Contact mission is still required before understanding develops.
* ''VideoGame/AgeOfEmpiresIV'' implements this in the form that every unit has different voice lines for each Age. For example, the English civilization has its units speaking Old English in the Dark Age, and eventually they speak Early Modern English by the time it reaches Imperial Age.

* In ''Webcomic/QuantumVibe'' 500 years into the future most of the cast apparently speaks English, though there may be some extent of TranslationConvention, while the Lunar Republic has developed a patois resembling [=LOLcats=] speak. Another 500 years later English seems to have been forgotten by the general intergalactic populace except for the "Loonie" dialect and the CommonTongue is a pidgin of English and Portuguese called "Portanglo".

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}:'' In the 30th century, while English remains recognizable to 20th / 21st century speakers, there are a few occasions when pronunciation has changed (Christmas is now exclusively X-Mas, and ask is pronounced "aks" (axe).)

%% Image chosen per Image Suggestions crowner: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/crowner.php/ImagePickin/ImageSuggestions132
%% Do not remove or replace this image without starting an Image Pickin' thread.

[[quoteright:321:[[{{Website/TED}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_drift_7.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:321:Left: Old English, c. 500-1000 CE. [softreturn] Right: Modern English.]]

* ''ComicBook/StarTrekDebtOfHonor'' has Gillian Taylor, who had time-traveled from the mid-1980s to the 2280s with Kirk et al. in ''Film/StarTrekIVTheVoyageHome'', mention she had to partially re-learn English because the language has changed so much since her home time period ([[ContinuitySnarl there's no sign of this in the film]], where Kirk and the rest speak to 20th century people in San Francisco with no problem-her included).

* The Creator/RamV run of ''Comicbook/DetectiveComics'' introduces a mysterious family named Orgham, who have a centuries-old connection to Gotham City that they are finally collecting on. It's eventually revealed [[spoiler: that the branch that settled in Gotham became known as Arkham]]. The 18th century flashback in the 2022 Annual features several other characters with somewhat similar names (and personalities) to prominant Gothamites of the 20th and 21st centuries, but it's not clear if they're actually ancestors, or [[spoiler: just fit the same roles in the pattern created by the Orgham "reality engine".]] The town itself was apparently known as "Gathome" at that time.

* ''Fanfic/{{Naming}}'' explores how Hylian has changed a lot throughout the centuries. Zelda has awaken after a millenia and can't understand most people. Even her distant niece, the current Zelda, can't communicate casually, because she learned Ancient Hylian through formal texts.

* ''Fanfic/AGameOfCatAndCat'': As noted in Chapter 8, language does change over time:
--> Because obviously, real knights from the 11th century didn't speak English as anyone without a degree in history or linguistics would recognize, and weren't knights basically cowboys? And the one-size-fits-all RP accent was just as unrealistic as any other dialect that English could spit out, especially since this knight was French, and everyone knew how much the English and French hated each other.
* In ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'' fanfic ''Fanfic/ABoyAGirlAndADogTheLeithianScript'', Noldor Elves note Sindar speech has evolved into a completely different language after several millennia.
-->'''Luthien:''' [to Finarfin] My mother didn't speak Quenya. Not until your family taught us.\\
'''Steward:''' [wry aside] The which surprised no few of us; countless assumptions in those days were shattered no sooner than revealed.\\
'''Finrod:''' I told 'Tari it didn't exist when our ancestors began the great journey.\\
'''Luthien:''' Yes, but I don't think it had fully impressed itself upon her.

[[folder:Film]]

* ''Literature/ACanticleForLeibowitz.'' By the time the events of the novel take place, English had long splinted into various successor languages. And the only ones speaking it are in the Catholic Church. After [[AfterTheEnd post-nuclear-war society]] decides that ScienceIsBad and undergoes what is called "The Great Simplification," it becomes common to call someone "my good simpleton" as a polite greeting.

* Creator/IsaacAsimov:
** ''Literature/FoundationAndEarth'': As a historian, Pelorat is familiar with the effects of time on language, and he discusses language speciation with Trevize. Their initial arrival on Solaria is complicated by the fact that the house robots only speak the Solarian dialect, which Pelorat can only barely fake as it is a static instance of language from ''Literature/RobotsAndEmpire''. However, Bander and the Guardian robots have watched hyperwave communications and have learned modern Galactic Standard.
** ''Literature/PebbleInTheSky'': The protagonist, Joseph Schwartz, inadvertently [[TimeTravel steps into the future]], where his 20th century English is so different (he says Chicago, [[IstanbulNotConstantinople they say Chica]]) that it is unintelligible to all except a few historical linguists. Bel Arvardan recognizes Schwartz's English due to his specialty as a prehistory archeologist.
* Creator/GregoryBenford's ''Literature/FoundationsFear'': Early in the book, two quotes about Rome are misquoted due to the intervening millennia since humanity left Earth; "Fiddling while Roma burns" and "All worms lead to Roma". They're distortions of "Fiddle WhileRomeBurns" and "All roads lead to Rome".
* In the ''Literature/LegacyTrilogy'' by Creator/WilliamHKeith Jr ([[PenName writing]] as Creator/IanDouglass), due to relativistic travel, characters come back to Earth after many years away and find that they're unable to understand what people are saying or be understood themselves without special translation software.
* In ''Literature/TheForeverWar'', by the mid-21st century, pronouns have already begun to shift. Centuries later, 20th century English has become the Lingua Franca of the Force, since most of the military brass, having lived hundreds of years through relativistic travel, speak it.
* ''Literature/CourtshipRite'': It becomes a major plot point when the inhabitants of the LostColony of Geta finally decode ancient documents, including a history of Earth, and learn, among other things, that their word for "God" used to mean "ship". Which puts a whole new perspective on the legend that the God in the sky that they can see every night brought them to Geta.
* ''Literature/HeraldsOfValdemar'': In the "Mage Storms" trilogy, a minor plot point involves the Kaled'a'in clan, who are the only speakers of their language. They pride themselves on keeping it "pure" and unchanged over the millennia -- so naturally two native speakers are dismayed to find they cannot read a very important set of inscriptions in ancient Kaled'a'in.

* The later books of the ''Literature/EndersGame'' series take place thousands of years in the future, and there are subtle hints that none of the characters are speaking modern languages. Those who sound like they're speaking English are mentioned to be speaking "Stark" (likely a descendant of Starways Kommon, which itself was a phonetic, simplified variant of English). The appendices also mention that the languages identified as "Portuguese" and "Chinese" are descendant tongues, which sound nothing like their modern equivalents.
** In the ''Ender's Game Alive'' audioplay, Common is already an existing English-based language, and all Battle School children are required to speak it. Ender initially refuses to use Battle School slang (with words borrowed from a variety of languages, reflecting Battle School's multinational background) but is advised by an older kid to try to fit in.
** At the end of the first book, when Ender is speaking to Peter (thanks to relativity, Peter's an old man while Ender is still a teen), Ender calls out Peter on deliberately using Battle School slang in their conversation. Peter replies he's doing no such thing: the Battle School slang that Ender knew has been incorporated into the standard Common language over the years.
* Mentioned in Creator/OrsonScottCard's ''Literature/PastwatchTheRedemptionOfChristopherColumbus'', where time-viewing technology allows one to see and hear anyone who has lived as far back as the beginning of human history. However, the lack of TranslatorMicrobes means that researchers are forced to learn the language of the people they're studying at a specific point in time.
* In the ''Literature/RevelationSpaceSeries'', no modern-day languages exist unchanged in the 26th century or beyond. Ilia Volyova speaks '[[GratuitousRussian Russish]]', and most of the Demarchists of the Yellowstone system speak 'Norte', which seems to originate from English and Spanish. There were a number of American colonies set up via seeder starship that spoke American English, but none are shown to exist by the time ''Literature/RevelationSpace'' takes place thanks to the first generation of humans being emotionally stunted due to them being raised by robots, and the [[DeathWorld general inhospitable nature]] of the universe.
* ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'':
** ''Literature/TheForerunnerSaga'': The Forerunners use many different languages (only two or three are given any detail, however), with many, many more have been lost over their ten million year history.
** ''Literature/HaloBrokenCircle'': When [[spoiler:Zo and his Sangheili companions]] rediscover the Ussan Sangheili, they find out that the latter's dialect of Sangheili has changed far less than their own in the 3,000+ years since the Ussans became isolated from the Covenant, to the point that they have to use translation devices to communicate properly.
* In the far-future storyline of ''Literature/CloudAtlas'', English has devolved into a near-incomprehensible mess that seems vaguely Creole-inspired. And the ''entire section'' is written in it.
* ''Literature/SixteenThirtyTwo'': The influence of the 20th century Americans on 17th century Germany has led to the creation of a creole known as "Amideutsch". The language is mentioned to lift most of its vocabulary from Hochdeutsch, but uses the grammatical rules of modern English. For example the character "Strong Hans" is "Stark Hans" in Amideutsch and "Starker Hans" in Hochdeutsch.
* ''Literature/TheGeneral'' uses this for comedic effect. Several words in the languages spoken in the setting (Sponglish and Namerique) are immediately recognizable to those who speak their parent languages (Spanish and English). For example, the Sponglish word for ''officer'' is ''brazaz'' (from the English "brass-ass") and their name for a particularly foul form of invertebrate bottom-feeding fish is ''avocato'' (from the Spanish "abogado", meaning "lawyer").

* In ''Literature/TheDivineComedy'''s strange addition to the Genesis story, Adam claims that the original language was extinct by the time Nimrod brought the CurseOfBabel upon humanity.
* Deliberately invoked in Dolton Edwards' 1946 short story ''[[http://www.angelfire.com/va3/timshenk/codes/meihem.html Meihem in ce Klasrum]]''. At first glance, the last few sentences are unintelligible gibberish. However, if you read the story carefully, they become completely clear.
* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}:''
** Suggested in ''Literature/InterestingTimes'' when the subject of Mad Lord Snapcase is brought up, the man having been hung up "by his figgin". A figgin is a small pastry, so a footnote suggests that either there's some very bizarre linguistic drift going on, or there really ''is'' some horrifying element to hanging a man alongside a teacake.[[note]]This is a CallBack to a gag in ''Literature/GuardsGuards'', where it was a set-up to a character thinking he was being threatened when asked if he wanted his figgin toasted.[[/note]]
** In ''Literature/{{Pyramids}}'', only the most ancient mummies understand the heiroglyphs on the First Pyramid, and only the slightly less ancient mummies understand ''them'', and so forth, resulting in a chain of translations to get it into modern Djelibeybian.

* In Creator/RobertHeinlein's ''Literature/TimeForTheStars'', the crew of the ''Lewis and Clark'' find that the language has drifted somewhat as a result of their time dilation. The protagonist asks for directions and is told "Outdowngo rightwards. Ask from allone."
* Played straight in Connie Willis' ''Literature/DoomsdayBook'', where as part of Kivrin's preparations for traveling to the 14th century she is required to learn Middle English, plus also Church Latin, Norman French and Old German. In addition she has a translator installed which is supposed to automatically translate the words she hears plus her own speech when she talks. [[spoiler: Things go awry almost immediately - the Middle English she learnt is totally off on pronunciation which the contemps cannot understand and it takes several days for the translator to build up enough vocabulary to start translating for her (she at least does manage to use some Latin with Father Roche). It's not helped that in the time period there are separate dialects of Middle English in use - the upper classes have a French-syle inflection in their speech whereas the peasantry (such as Maisry) still have a Saxon-influenced dialect.]]
* ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' does this twice with names.
** Lounquawl and Phouchg, who receive the Ultimate Answer from Deep Thought, are presumably the descendents of Lunkwal and Fook, who set the task seven and a half million years earlier.
** Judicary Pag, aka Zipo Bibrok 5*10^8, in ''Literature/LifeTheUniverseAndEverything'' may be intended as a descendent/ancestor (the Beeblebroxes have a weird thing going on there) of Zaphod Beeblebrox.
* In the ''Literature/{{Deverry}}'' books, the Gaulish-descended Deverrians remember the ancient heroes Gwercyngetoryc and Gwindyc, who are the historic Gaulish king Vercingetorix and Gallo-Roman governor Vindex. Other Deverrian words featured in the books are similarly derived from the Gaulish language. The hereditary noble rank of Gwerbret, for example, comes from the Gaulish word "vergobret", which means an elected magistrate, showing how both pronunciation and culture have changed since the Dawntime.
* ''Literature/{{Outlander}}'': When discussing how he knows [[TimeTravelersAreSpies Claire is not a spy]], Jamie points out that she doesn't speak French well enough to be an actual French woman. He does, however, comment that her spoken English is a bit odd as well, despite seeming to be her primary language. This is owed to Claire learning English in the 20th century rather than in the 18th century.
* In ''Literature/HeartOfTheComet'', by Creator/DavidBrin and Creator/GregoryBenford, a 300-strong crew of scientists and miners who have hitched a ride on Halley's Comet find their communications with Earth becoming increasingly difficult as their 75-year long mission progresses. Only a small percentage of the comet crew are ever awakened from cryogenic slumber and active at the same time, and their language drift is kept to a minimum as a result. The Earthlings who serve as the ground crew for the mission have to receive special training in the dialect, slang, and technical language their space-faring colleagues use, which grows increasingly "outdated" from their point of view.
* ''Franchise/StarTrek'':
** In the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' novel "[[Literature/StarTrekExMachina Ex Machina]]" the ''Enterprise'' crew finds that even though the Fabrini tried to plan ahead, the language of those on the ''Yonada'' still experienced some drift during their 10,000 year journey.
** In ''Literature/{{Rihannsu}}: The Empty Chair'', Uhura comments that she doubts the ships the Romulan central government sent to quell the rebellion on Artaleirh will understand "one word in ten" of the local dialect, even though the rebels are broadcasting in the clear. That's how much the local dialect has diverged from that spoken in the Romulan capital system.
* In Creator/JohnMichaelGreer's novel ''Literature/StarsReach'', although the language of 25th-century Meriga is mostly comprehensible, some changes have occurred, such as "general" and "colonel" becoming "jennel" and "cunnel", "llama" becoming "lom", "apprentice" becoming "prentice", and "master" becoming "mister". "Government" is also in the process of becoming "gummint", though some, like Plummer, still pronounce it the old way. This also applies to place names, with Tennessee becoming "Tenisi" and Detroit becoming "Troy". This is not universal; some higher-class characters, such as Jennel Cobey, still write like a modern person would.

* ''VideoGame/ArTonelico'': the various {{Con Lang}}s in the series are all implied to be related to each other across many millenia: with Ar Ciela being the original language, Carmena Foreluna being a simplified version of it, and Hymmnos and its dialects being descended from that. Some commonality can be seen between the languages, showing the relation. For example, the word "hymmnos", meaning "song", appears back in Ar Ciela passages virtually unchanged.

* The archaic Latin [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmen_Saliare chants of the Roman priesthood]] were indecipherable even to Cicero in the 1st century BCE. The only recognizable words are Ceres, Janus, and thunder. The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donation_of_Constantine Donation of Constantine]] was recognized as a forgery when it used 8th century CE Latin words in a document supposedly written in the 4th century CE. See the wikipedia article on [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin Latin]] for a history on the different forms of the language.

* To show how much the Chinese language has changed, historical linguistics has hypothesized that Creator/{{Confucius}} (which is just a Latinized form of ''Kǒng Fūzi'' from Mandarin) would have been called Kʰˤoŋʔ Kʷʰə during his lifetime. His courtesy name was even more different -- Truŋsnˤərs instead of Zhòngní (as in Mandarin).

* When China and Taiwan opened to each other in the early 1990s, the mainland Chinese sounded like old-fashioned hicks to the Taiwanese, while the Taiwanese sounded like fast-talking con-men gangsters to the Chinese.
* An epilogue to Creator/PoulAnderson's "A Tragedy of Errors" (above in Literature) notes that when King James first saw newly-built St. Paul's Cathedral he said it was "awful, pompous, and artificial", meaning "awesome, majestic, and well-made".
* It would be unwise for a modern {{UsefulNotes/Australia}}n to rely on old newsreels and early television to chart the evolution of the Australian accent and pronounciation. Until well into the 1970s, Australian newsreaders and announcers, especially on Creator/TheABC, were expected to use the [[UsefulNotes/BritishAccents "BBC English"]] accent and pronounciation, and both Broad and even Standard Australian English accents and pronounciations were strongly discouraged. Of course ''all'' Australians said things like "charnce" and "darnce" until the advent of television.

* In ''Film/{{Stargate}}'', the crew sent through the titular device is stumped by the language of the locals. This includes our protagonist, who is a linguist and an Egyptologist. But then, one of the local transplanted humans shows him hieroglyphic inscriptions that he can recognize, and together they work out the sound shifts between their language and ancient Egyptian he knew well and from which it originated.[[note]]To be fair, no modern person knows how exactly ancient Egyptian sounded, as Egyptians didn't write down vowels. So Daniel's words were likely spoken incorrectly even in the original ancient Egyptian.[[/note]]

* A more meta case with ''Series/EmeraldCity''. Inha, the language for the MageSpecies, was made by Creator/DavidJPeterson as a singular dialect. Then he, along with Creator/AnaUlaru, who played Mistress West in the show, came up with the idea of having it become four dialects, each one representing the [[FourElementEnsemble four classical elements]], and the language became what is was during the show's run.