I learn how to speak a forgotten language

[sovay]

(In which I draw too many conclusions from etymology.)

Is the world of Ancillary Justice our far future? When people in this setting say human, do they mean Homo sapiens? It only occurred to me to wonder last night after I realized that Radch is cognate with Raj and Reich; before that I would cheerfully have assumed the story was taking place anywhere with comparably hominid sexual dimorphism, in the same way that secondary-world fantasies never worry about parallel evolution. I'm still not sure it's relevant. Nice way of embedding echoes, though.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

The funny thing was, I was talking about the story all the time to Wakanomori, and he totally heard "Raj" when I was saying "Radch"--and when I realized that, I asked Ann if that had been her intention, and she said no! But who knows how the subconscious affects one's word choice.

But yes, it's definitely our far future. In a part you'll get to, there's a joke about how difficult, or not, it is to find the home planet whence sprang all humans.

[lauradi7.livejournal.com]

I kept thinking of McCaffrey's Helva, the ship who sang. She and Breq are really not much alike, but I can't control my free-associations.