on page 15 in book 1, the manual describes the speech as "the magical toungue in which objects and living creatures can be described with more accuracy than in any human language." Is this just the way they say it in the earth manual, or is this excluding the millions of species who aren't humanoid?

I'd say, as it's the introduction, they're letting people in gently. Imagine Nita's reaction if she'd been told at that point there were cats, dogs, raptors and cetaceans that were wizards; and countless different types of alien wizards as well.

I don't know, but I do know that languages are an example of a people's hardship. Language is made as a mean of survival in certain instances. When the African slaves were brought to America they were taken from different tribes. Each tribe spoke a different language. Not only did they not understand the White people but they didn't understand each other. So they made up Creole languages. This is a mixture of things words and sounds. It is hard to explain, but some of that language is still used today in what is called Ebonics.

i think there is because when u first get the manual u still speak your normal language. Even though all things understand the speech to some level, you would still need to get used to it.

there IS human speach in the manual...there has to be! i mean, for one thing, as others have said, you don't know the speach at first, and for a second thing...at least once nita is studying the speach out of the book...how could you do that without english AND speach to read? but most of it's probably speach still...

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Originally posted by young reader:
there IS human speach in the manual...there has to be! i mean, for one thing, as others have said, you don't know the speach at first, and for a second thing...at least once nita is studying the speach out of the book...how could you do that without english AND speach to read? but most of it's probably speach still...

and how would we be able to read it if there wasn't?

First of all, being a wizard allows you to read the Speech. I'm sure there must be some kind of English, at least at first, to explain some things about the Speech's symbols.

Secondly, haven't you noticed that there are many variations of the Speech? The only one I can think of off the top of my head is the Enactive Recension. Nita mentions in book 6, when she couldn't figure out why she was having trouble communicating with the "people" in her dreams, that maybe she had been using a version of the Speech that was too local/humanoid, and perhaps she should use a broader version. "THE" broadest version is the Enactive Recension.

So anyway, I hope that answers some of your questions.

Being a wizard doesn't automatically mean you Speak the Speech. You have to learn it. There's definately English in the Manual. For a Young Wizard on some planet, the manual would be written in both the speech and its own native language.

What about explaining some of the concepts? The only example I can think of is if a novice wizard is learning the "beam-me-up-Scotty" spell and has to familiarize him/her/itself with the effects it has on the physical world, while not having enough knowledge of the Speech to understand it if it was explained in the Speech (if this is a possible situation). So the wizard's native language would have to be used to explain, until the wizard has a grasp of the Speech. After all, English does have its limitations...

little kids are suppose to be able to hear the speach like in SYWTBAW it says that when nita was talking to the tree in her backyard the tree tells her when she (nita) was younger and climbed in the tree sometimes nita would talk to the tree and the tree would answer but Nita thought she was just pretending that the tree would talk back

Remember now?

assuming the tree was SPEAKING in speech...could just be tree language. maybe kids can just understand languages as a whole a lot better then adults.

I think DD was aiming for the idea that all living things understand the Speech, it's just that as humans mature, we tend to block our ears it, and wizards have just gained the ability to re-open their mental "ears".

would it kinda be like the idea of that as you get older you start to lose the innocence in things but when your young your still innocent. i mean when most of us were young didnt you always have a fantacy or somthing that somthing impossable happend. i think that when your young (just like maxxrox said) your ears arnt 'blocked' from the speech so you can hear it but when your older you become for lack of better words a sheild to it. like you dont belive so when somthing unexplainable happens you pass it off as your imagination. and for the book itself how do you know that it isnt made from 'speech' if its a universal langage they should be able to read it(at least the simpliar one's or the beginning to read the oath. but still it would apper to be what ever langage they speck at the time(english).

The problem with people who can't see magic for what it is, i think, and ALSO for not just being able to understand the speech automatically, is that, like wizy said...they grow out of it. I mean, it's easy to not only want for it, but to believe it can be out there when you're a kid, but when you get older, and you still haven't actually managed to find it, you get more and more disappointed with it, and you begin to just think it can't be there, so you shut yourself off from it, not even being able to realize it for what it is when you see it...at least, that's what i think happens. *Shrugs*

ya so whos to say the Manual isnt written in speach. what if the begging is speach that everybody can under stand and everything else is a speach that only wizards or rather more advansed wizards can understand. i mean its just a thought but it would make some kind of sence.

I think there's definitely some level of English in Nita's manual, and Dairine's. Oh, there's so much stuff to build an argument out of! Remember Nita lamenting about her 700 Speech words in AWA? Or, when Nita checked the manual out of the library, and she read some stuff there—she wasn't a wizard then. Dairine had no time whatsoever for learning the Speech after she took the Oath. She dived right in... So I think that her manual had some English. Tom was saying in HW that many wizards get rushed off to Ordeals before they were ready, and the computer Dairine had was supposed to help make spells easier for those wizards who didn't have any time to study the Speech. Definitely, there's time when a wizard starts learning the Speech. I don't think anyone, except for maybe the Powers, the One, and the Transcendent Pig, knows every word in the Speech... So if some wizards came across a word that they didn't know what it meant, they would have to use English, or other Speech words to learn it. For example, Nita and Tom had to look up the word in the Speech for pimple in WAW.

Maybe people just see it in English?

another interesting note on the subject is that there must be some kind of english to speech dictionary, since i believe nita made a habit of studying it at some point, and learning new words. it was also said then that it's not exactly a dead language...new words are always being added. therefore you CAN"T know all the words all the time, unless you happen to know everything...which very few people can mangage, i'm sure, other then those previously mentioned.

dorotheia: it is possible to have english. but also, notice all the new wizards are young!. so again lets think of this, as (previously said) the young have a tast for the speech. so maby it has english but maby not. if it is all in speech and they dont realize it. maby they think its in english at first but as they keep reading it gets harder because its higher level speech. now this is all a guess and i have know clue if its right but its a a=interesting thought

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Moon14:
Maybe people just see it in English?

Well, no. I distinctly remember it saying something about how the Speech looked sort of Arabic, a little. I think there is definately some english. The Manual expands to what you know already and what you need to know, right? So maybe, as Nita gets older and learns more speech, the manual will implement more of it in itself to help explain the complicated subjects that cannot be explained clearly in the English language, if at all.

So... I think there's a little, but as Wizy123 said, maybe it sort of blends together a little. It is, after all, the universal language of the universe!


Hmm...A thought just struck me. If..since the pullulus....is that the reason that people can't hear the speech? But no, that wouldn't make sense, would it, after the whole Ponch thing....Hmmm...ach, weel, that's for another topic, eh?