Losing the Speech?

[Nerine]

There's something about the Speech that I don't understand. Almost every other species that the wizards meet seems to know the Speech -- not just the wizards of the species, but everyone. But other humans don't understand the Speech (or do they? At one point it's implied that humans hearing the Speech would hear only gibberish, but in WH it's implied they'd hear their own language. This isn't entirely clear.)
Anyway, the rowan tree in Nita's backyard specifically tells her (in SYWTBAW) that all humans are born knowing the Speech, but they all lose the ability to speak it as they grow up. Some gain it back by becoming wizards, but otherwise, it's gone.
So, why does this situation seem to be unique to humans? Why hasn't any other species collectively "lost" the Speech?

Nerine

[Fox]

All the other cultures are advance people, they sound like they re-discovered the speech as they need to discribe stuff more and more indepth. But also when you have planets where the wizards are known they would work to make sure the speech is understood!. good point though and I'm proberly wrong!
Fox

[talkingbeast]

It would be interesting to think of this in terms of the Tower of Babel. Wouldn't it make sense to think of pre-ToB society as communicating with the Speech, since everyone understood each other?
Does anyone know of any other traditional (i.e., myth and story) explanations for why people speak different languages?

[alla]

I heard the australian aboriginal one a year or so ago... what i can remember:

There was only one tribe an they all spoke the same language. Their Dream Time spirits forbade them from doing something (crossing a river to go somewhere, I think it was) and they lost their language, and all went off to different places to start new tribes because they couldn't communicate.

That is a very interesting point though, TalkingBeast.... hmmn...

[Nella]

Personally, I think that humnas loose the speach, because when you think about it, DD never says that there is any other spices that doesnt know aobut wizards. I think that because of humans are so ignorant with magic etc. I think that they just dont remember the speech because they just wont admit in magic and stuff. I know that that view of why only humans loose the speech isnt very clear. But its difficlult to put into words...

~Nella~

[Peter Murray]

DD may not have mentioned other species who don't know about wizards (even non-wizard cats on Earth know about wizards), but the Speech has the word sevarfrith which is an abbreviation for the kind of world Earth is, where wizards have to practise in secret. If Earth is the only such world, they wouldn't need a word for it.

However, it could still be the only world where the Speech isn't in general use - there's not enough evidence either way.

[talkingbeast]

Leah has a good point. I had forgotten-- Nita used to talk to the Rowan in her yard as a little girl. So perhaps we should look at it as an individual loss rather than a species loss.

[Fox]

Maybe DD will come in this one and answer it for us!Its her world after all! She is the founder of this little universes we live in!! hahah PM would'ant the word still be known if there was no such world? My understanding was the speech has a word for everything. Does that included every possibility?
Fox

[Hogosha]

As children we have an arcane sense that the world of logic overcomes as we get older. Humans are so wrapped up in worldly logic, we forget what once we knew at the deepest level of understanding.

[alla]

and then there is those (like us), who have forgotten, but then realise they don't want to forget and join a message board like this one

[PK]

At one point it's implied that humans hearing the Speech would hear only gibberish, but in WH it's implied they'd hear their own language. This isn't entirely clear.

I think this varies based on circumstance and knowledge. For instance, people who aren't expecting anything else might hear it in their own language (see bus in WH); I suspect that people who are alert or specifically paying attention, but either not open to hearing or not being spoken to, might hear the sounds but not comprehend; and we know that Nita's mother, at one point in WD, both heard that Nita was speaking with unfamiliar sounds and understood clearly what she was saying.

I suspect that any group that doesn't actually use the Speech on a regular basis will lose it while growing up, really....

[Gibby Gibson]

[Gryphon]

Hogosha:
As children we have an arcane sense that the world of logic overcomes as we get older. Humans are so wrapped up in worldly logic, we forget what once we knew at the deepest level of understanding.

I remember taking everything so literally. There's this one memory, had to have been third grade, where my teacher always played classical music when we worked. I didn't really understand the meaning of the word 'relax.' I thought it meant vacation and no work, and the teacher said the music was to help us relax when we worked.

Funny, those little kids.

Wouldn't switching from literal to figurative be the opposite of this? From Speech to English?

Gibby! You've come out of the dark. Welcome!

I gtg

[Birdhead]

Read at your own digression..

Err, discretion?! Sorry.

I think it has more to do with personal experience. there's an example often given, can't remember where I read it last (probably somewhere in YW that I can't remember. *eyeroll* My memory is going all to pot since exams.) But it's the one about people's reactions. If an adult comes downstairs to find their spouse not sitting in chair to eat breakfast, but rather floating above the table, they're going to be slightly freaked and extremely surprised- because in forty years they've never seen anyone do so, and therefore they think it should be impossible. Their three-year-old child, however, would not be so surprised- because their limited experience has not yet shown that nobody eats breakfast like tht.

[Ankaa]

Look at what else is unique to humans.
We wear clothes.
We have created permenant dwellings.
We have millions of languages of our own.
We can read and write, and in lots of societies those are common knowledge.
We have opposable thumbs (OK, that's not entirely unique, but...)

I think it's sorta a trade-off. Like in Eden when there were the trees of life vs. knowledge. Our eyes were opened, but our lives are short. Maybe it's like, if we're superior in most other aspects, we need to have a weakness, a lack of something. Maybe that's what being an irresponsible dominant species does...