if you guys follow my Will Byers blog [@williamsbyer], here's a guide for the tags I use
#mike <3 #platonic!! <- I use these tags whenever Will is talking about Mike :)
#will's rambles <- I use this one whenever Will is discussing his own thoughts/feelings. I often crosstag with this one, fyi
#will meta <- I use this one for whenever Will breaks the fourth wall [block this one if you have issues with unreality!] I tend not to use this one too much though :)
#williamsbyer <- I use this one when I talk about that blog on this blog
actually, that's kind of all of them! I'll update if I add any new ones :)
This is the anon from earlier :) I don't think your response was rude at all! I also didn't mean to come off as anti-Eddie or blaming him in any way bc I love these characters and their dynamic. It likely didn't come across very well, but I don't believe Buck blames Eddie for anything. When I said "resentment" I meant more of a nihilistic resentment; one focused on the self but displaced on the other. I understand that I likely came off as cynical at best and disparaging to the characters at worst when explaining my interpretation, and I didn't mean for that at all. Admittedly, 5x08 and the mirrors had me thinking of Lacan and how to interpret what's happening this season through a philosophical lens, which I think is why it sounded so harsh. I apologize if I said anything upsetting, and I really do appreciate the response and think you're doing fantastic work
Hey! No worries — you didn't upset me at all!
This is an interesting point, though I'll admit I'm not very well versed on the intricacies of philosophy (I took an intro class once and it frustrated me more than anything, haha). But to the question of nihilism, I do see where you're going with it. I hope that isn't the case, since it would demean Buck's character development, but I do see the worry there.
I truly wonder if the entire season was meant to be nonsensical, in a way. Because to you, who knows philosophy, and to me, who doesn't, it's incredibly frustrating for there not to be any verbalized reason for this distance.
it's mind-boggling to think of how differently s1 would've gone if Will didn't get encephalitis
because the second he gets treatment for it, he becomes so ungovernable you can see even master-manipulator Hannibal getting exasperated and flustered, trying to handle him 👀
One of my major lasting feelings from Loser Like Me is being exceedingly happy for Will. Having a child is something he has been desperate for the entire show, it was a major part of the first season, in many ways it caused the strength with which he formed attachments with those original New Directions.
There were many parallels to the pilot - one is the incoming Glee club coach talking to the previous one, but Will here is nothing like Sandy Ryerson. He has a child, he has a job that pays well and allows him to do what he's best at, he's in what we can presume is still a satisfying relationship. Much as the idea of him slipping Rachel some weed is hilarious, his advice is very, very different.
We see that Vocal Adrenaline don't seem to especially care much about what Will says, they leave while he's still talking. Overall? I think this is probably very good for him. He's their teacher, and he may not be The Teacher for them the way Will was for Finn, and is for Rachel and Sam (and Ryder? I wonder how he feels now), but that's ok. He doesn't need to be that.
I'm not sure what the end of the season will bring. I honestly wouldn't be that surprised to see the New Directions win and have Will go back to McKinley, but I also at this point wouldn't be shocked to see Rachel stay, so we'll see. But whatever happens, Will, who has always been a deeply tragic character, seems to finally have reached beyond that. He has grown so very much - that he so immediately told Blaine that he couldn't be on the wrong side of history shows how much he has learned from his time at McKinley (something we also saw in the Unique bathroom story).
I think Will Schuester may actually be a grown up now.
Okay, I know a big debate used to go on about what language the characters in the Shingeki no Kyojin universe were speaking. I've touched on it before once on a different account, but now that I know a lot more about both language and the SNK universe as a whole (from what information has been released), I'd like to try to cover my theory for the existence of languages in the series, including the so-called "titan language."
Please note: The following are opinions with some educated guessing involved. They could turn out to be false. Also, no one else is obligated to agree. I merely want to share and give food for thought.
Okay, so what's the big idea?
The basic premise of my theory is that it's impossible to know specifically what language(s) would be spoken without more background information. However, we can make some conjecture about some trends we would likely see based on what we know language has done in the past. We can also make guesses about what we probably won't see. All of this assumes that SNK takes places in some future version of our universe. However, take that away and then only the basic principles apply as opposed to specific influences. For our purposes in this meta, we shall assume a future "earth" as we know it.
What about the titan language?
Just wait. We'll get there.
Alright. Get on with it.
Okay. Cool. The first thing we need to get down that all human languages change over time. Nothing can really stop this process. It's natural. It's what language does, much like living organisms change over time. It can even happen fairly quickly, over a relatively short period, even a hundred or fewer years, radical differences can occur. Think how different Modern English is now from the Modern English spoken in 1900. You can also see this in organisms such as the rapid changes of species when they become domesticated like the silver fox, cattle, sheep, dogs, and so forth.
Of course, there are exceptions where language changes more slowly, such as the case of Modern Russian which is more conservative than English in how many words it borrows from other languages throughout its history.
This property of being able to change over time is called in linguistics 'mutability.' This is a fundamental property of language. This is really important to remember when talking about language over time. We know that language has a tendency to become more steam-lined (not simpler, per se, but more efficient) over time. We also know that isolation or separation of some sort leads to changes in language due to a lack of contact or influence from other sources. However, contact and influence also fuel changes but in different directions than if a population had been isolated.
Summary: Language becomes more steam-lined over time, diverges with isolation from others, but becomes more mixed with contact. Sometimes there are also influences from social class.
Okay. Language changes. Big whoop.
It's important because of the following:
Isolated pockets within the walls
The entirety of known humanity is in itself isolated
More specific sizes for the math savvy
Okay, so we have really isolated humans. Not only are they isolated from any potential outside populations, but with the way the districts and walls are set up, the populations inside the wall are separated from one another either by distance or the walls themselves. We also know that the richest, most affluent humans live closer to the center where they're even more isolated.
We also know that humans have been beset by the titans for at least 107 years (scroll down to Ep. 13 part 1, regrettably I could not get the translated card). That's plenty of time for language change to occur. Though we're not entirely sure when after the appearance of the titans people disappeared into the walls.
What sort of influences might there be?
We, however, are not entirely sure where on Earth these walls come from or where they are located. We are under the impression that the walls were there when the humans arrived "across the sea" and settled within the walls. This assumption comes from these translated images. Knowing the location of the continent could give us some hints on some influences. Unfortunately, due to the lack of specific places (though there are only a handful of likely regions), we are left to guess.
We can guess that whatever language is spoken is common among the people with varying dialects (such as when Ymir commented on Sasha trying to overcompensate for her rural dialect from Dauper). A dialect is a specific variety of a language. We can also guess that the concept of nationality likely no longer exists, partially due to destroyed records of the "outside world" and because these are no indicators of any sort differing national identities beyond names, which really don't indicate much of anything.
However, what we can infer is that there are likely lots of influences from Indo-European languages. This sort of thing can be evident in names, unlike national identity. We see high concentrations of names of Germanic origin (English, German, and the North Germanic languages) along with obvious French names, names originating from other Indo-European languages (or that are shared among many), and even more names that are just sort of dubious in origin. We also do see at least one name of Japanese origin, but as opposed to being indicative of much linguistic influence, it could be a sign of more traditional names having been carried down in Mikasa's family. Of course, that doesn't rule out influence at all. We can just guess that if there was influence, it was probably less.
There is also the possibility of influence from local languages from any people that may have already been in the area when the refuges arrived. However, there is no evidence for this as of yet.
Don't they just speak Japanese? The show is in Japanese.
Given that the walls are too big to fit on the Japanese islands and the fact that it is known that people of Asian decent are rare in the SNK universe (some of their boats were possibly lost to storms or some other hazard at sea), it's not likely. The show is in Japanese because the intended audience of the show and manga are Japanese-speakers. This is commonly done in media with an intended audience. Do you think shows about Hercules being in English means that Hercules would speak English? No, of course not. That'd be silly.
So what do they speak then?
Well, I kind of already said it's impossible to know. We have lots of potential influences and what's spoken may not even be a specific descendant of just one language. What we could be looking at is a creole language. A creole language is when a pidgin language has native speakers (through children learning the tongue as their first language) and becomes a properly grammatical language in its own right. Think of Haitian Creole, for instance. Over time, of course, creole languages can also develop their own dialects, much like any other language given enough time and space.
A pidgin language isn't entirely a language in it's own right, so much as a relatively small set of vocabulary used by groups of people who may not be able to understand each other due to a lack of a common language. Pidgins may have many different, unrelated languages contributing to their vocabulary. The first refuges that entered the walls may have developed something like this to facilitate communication.
So the most likely prediction for the language spoken by the "last bastion of humanity" is probably some creole language that has become incredibly diversified. Possibly not to the point of branching into separate languages yet, but definitely into dialects. This is partially supported by the fact that the Ape Titan only refers to "language" (I couldn't grab the official translation unfortunately) as though there were only one that the humans could possibly speak. Though, the titan doesn't seem entirely sure.
What about the titan language?
Well, you waited patiently enough.
I don't think there is one, not specifically a language of "titans" per se. Partially drawing from above about the Ape Titan's possible uncertainty about what the humans are speaking, it is possible that the language the humans currently speak is not native to it. It might have learned it long ago. However, it could merely be used to an older version of whatever language the humans speak as the Ape Titan seems to have been away from the humans for a fairly long time, perhaps decades. There is also the fact that (if you flip around through the pages linked above) the Ape Titan could command the titans nearby in the language of the humans without any difficulty (whether due to the fact that the original humans knew the language or whatever other possible reason, we can't entirely be sure).
There is a reported instance of Ymir potentially speaking something that wasn't the common language of the humans in Chapter 50, but there are translations that just have her saying "Sorry" in the common tongue. So that's entirely up in the air.
If there were a language spoken only by the titan shifters, it would probably be a descendant of some local human language that existed before the isolation of mankind behind the walls.
