'Him'
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While the Allison Janney character may have been there for a couple of thousand years, I really didn't think that the boys had been. I mean, when did Spanish develop as a language separate from Latin and whatever the original Spanish people spoke?
On the other hand, I think that the Island has too many time oddities to make a straightforward chronology possible.
The wiki page on Senet (the board game that appeared) has some very interesting details about the game and its significance:
It was found in graves dating from about 1500BC. Thing is, where the game and Latin would coexist would be closer to 400 BC, IMO. I'm not sure the game was around for those thousand years in between though.
On the other hand, I think that the Island has too many time oddities to make a straightforward chronology possible.
That's a good point. Once the donkey wheel was built, who knows what might have happened.
If Allison Janney really did leave the Senet board for the kid to find, it wouldn't have to be contemporaneous with the ship people. She could have had it for a long time.
Were they speaking Spanish? I thought so initially, but my ear for languages is atrocious
Were they speaking Spanish? I thought so initially, but my ear for languages is atrocious
I thought it was Latin. It wasn't Spanish as far as I could hear - but then my Spanish is basic.
Reading up on the game of senet. It's thought to be the ancestor of backgammon. Huh.
I'm pretty sure it was Latin. Or, at least, it was supposed to be Latin, though some of the pronunciation might have been dubious.
Latin was a lingua franca for a long time, too. "CJ" could have been around since ancient days, and had it for her native language, until Claudia was shipwrecked in more modern times....
(My roommate's uncle, a nice Irish Catholic boy from Boston, was with a lost patrol in WWII Algeria, and was able to get aid & directions from a small mission of native Catholic nuns... the only language they had in common was Church Latin.)
they were speaking Latin before switching to English...i can only assume for our ease in understanding. Or maybe that was when the realized they both spoke and understood the same language? Up till the last century everyone with an education learned Latin as a base, so educated folks from all over the world could communicate to an extent via Latin even if they didn't share a spoken language.
Claudia's garment and hair were pretty darned Hellenistic, so i'd buy 400BC for Jacob's birth-era.
eta: heh, maybe i should have read all the comments. Bit of an overlap.
There's discussion in Lightbulbs about setting an end date for this thread. Go and discuss if you have an opinion (maybe even if you don't).
If Allison Janney really did leave the Senet board for the kid to find
I assumed she just said that because she didn't want the boys to know that any other humans existed.
Per Mark Pellegrino, at least part of the episode takes place in 43 A.D. From other things I've read (that I've absorbed but not noted), Claudia landed on the island about 1 A.D. I explain this in the recap (which has been filed and should be up tomorrow).
Latin was the lingua franca of the western provinces. Koine Greek was the lingua franca of the eastern ones. There's a whole other bunch of stuff, too. I don't think the episode meant to give specific answers about it, though. This is an origin myth. It tells you what it tells you, but it never intends to tell you everything.
Seska, the episode grew on me as I wrote it up (which is unusual -- usually I hate the best of episodes by the time I'm done). I'l link to the recap, tomorrow. It's a long one, though.