I'm confused about the Grounder language in The 100. It's been 100 years (more or less) since the nuclear apocalypse, yes? How did the Grounders' language change so fast? I mean, the branches of Vulgar Latin took 300-400 years to go from "dialect" to "distinct language," so I would think that after 100-ish years, the Grounders would still only speak heavily-accented dialects of American English. Am I missing something?
First, it is basically a heavily-accented dialect of American English. I’m actually surprised when people working on the show don’t pick up on it (I think it’s the use of a standard romanization as opposed to using conventional English spellings). I think a couple people have picked up on it (Ryan Causey, script coordinator for The 100, has got it), but for the most part, the actors have been approaching it like a totally foreign language—which I think is cool (gives it more of an other-worldly sound), but unnecessary. I think it takes very little work for a native English speaker to understand all of it.
Now, regarding language change, if I can refer back to the last question asked by an anonymous user, let’s look at why English stayed pretty much the same in Mount Weather and aboard the Ark. In truth, it probably would’ve changed a little bit more (consider how different English is in 2014 vs. 1914), but that would’ve been tough to accomplish, since all the writers would need to be on board with it—and would’ve had to’ve been in the beginning. And it might’ve been a little disorienting for the audience. Even so, you can see how naturally new lexemes crop up and mean something different just through separation. For example, “float” now means something different to everyone aboard the Ark than it does to anyone else. An obvious enough innovation, but examples like that plus time produce new dialects.
The difference between the Ark/Mount Weather and the Grounders is non-linguistic. Specifically, society remained pretty much intact on the Ark and in Mount Weather. Yes, they had to change the way society worked, but, for the most part, they were all safe and could retain social institutions like education, recreation, etc. In addition people had the ability to live quite a bit longer in both locales, provided they followed the rules. There’s certainly no one there who will have been alive during and remembered the old world (or most likely? Perhaps if they were very young, they could’ve survived in Mount Weather), but I bet there are a few that are one generation removed. I doubt if that’s true on Earth. Everyone on the ground had to worry about the very basics of survival. All social institutions were overturned. Mortal danger became a real part of everyone’s everyday lives, and illnesses could run rampant. Frankly, it’s quite surprising anyone survived at all. (And, as we’ve seen, not everyone survived perfectly; some have mutated.) It’s my guess that there are few if any second generation Grounders alive.
The result is that not as much information is passed from generation to generation. Furthermore, innovations from the younger generations are much more likely to stick around if there are fewer older speakers to gainsay them. There’s less push for them to assimilate to any cultural norms if (a) they’re not being passed on as readily, and (b) they’re just as likely to be creating it on their own. Thus the language evolves a bit more quickly.
Recall that with Latin, as much as society back then was less technologically advanced, the social institutions were just as strong as they are now. There was no societal collapse the way there was on Earth 97 years before the setting of The 100. It’s a different environment.
The last piece of the puzzle is a bit of fiction we concocted. Given that we’re in a small geographical area, there are features that are present in the modern language that are a direct result of conscious change on the part of early speakers. In the chaos that prevailed in the early days, there were direct innovations created so that survivors could determine if someone new they came across was one of them or wasn’t. Those that organized early developed vocabulary that would allow them to easily identify other group members—in addition to being able to communicate with group members without giving away what they were talking about. It was basically a code. Many of these old code words eventually became the new words for what they referred to—defeating the original purpose of the code, of course, but by then it no longer mattered. The fittest had survived.
Lastly, the warriors specifically retained their fluency in English in order to be able to understand everyone else (e.g. the Mountain Men). They’re reluctant to speak English in front of outsiders, though, because they don’t want to tip their hand. This is why it took Lincoln so long to actually speak in season 1: He was gathering information on the 100.
Hopefully that answers your question. Of course, there’s more to be revealed throughout season 2, and hopefully even more in the many, many seasons to come (fingers crossed!).
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