#I don’t know if it’s because sandersons second language is korean (that differs a lot from english)

[shouldprobablybereading]

Did sanderson change his mind on the vorin languages?

In the wok annotations he describes jah keved, kharbranth and alethi to more or less be the same language and more resembling different dialects that are “closer than Spanish and Portuguese”. This checks out given how shallan, jasnah and taravangian seem to have no issues communicating with each other

Yet in ob dalinar describes veden as a foreign tongue and has to use his bondsmith abilities in order to communicate, in dawnchard rysn and cord speak with each other in veden since cord struggles with the alethi (I’ll come back to this because it confuses me greatly)

While I am willing to bet that shallan and jasnah have had significantly more language education than dalinar, he’s still a native speaker, not only that one who spent significant time at the borders between jah keved and alethkar. Even if we say that he prefers to use his bondsmith abilities to make communication smoother, the description of veden as foreign doesn’t seem to fit at all. (It’s also not a question of class since shallan and dalinar was raised in roughly similar dahn)

Going back to cord, the way that she struggles with alethi is also interesting. She keeps talking about how alethi uses the wrong words and struggles to find ones that fit. But sanderson himself describes the languages as mostly differing in pronunciation with only small changes in vocabulary. Realistically wouldn’t she just fill in with the veden words hoping that alethi speakers would understand by context? The countries are geographically close its not as if there wouldn’t be a lot of overlap. Now this one makes somewhat more sense given that she appear to struggle in veden as well, and that it’s likely not a native language for her either. But again if she knows veden why isn’t she just speaking veden with the alethi?

From what I can see it appears as if sanderson is making veden and alethi as far more separate languages then what he suggested early on, either that or he’s just being inconsistent on accident