Peace Talks snippet on Entertainment Weekly

[Arjan]

No, go to the dictionary, almost all the words and their meanings have origins in older words and older meanings, which come from older words yet..  The words didn't die, they evolved..

And some branches die out. All these branches are unique languages with their own culture and stories and songs.

And yes thes languages evolved much like living creatures out of other languages but the intermediate stages are lost so it is correct to speak of different languages.

[g33k]

No, go to the dictionary, almost all the words and their meanings have origins in older words and older meanings, which come from older words yet..  The words didn't die, they evolved..

OUR language -- our languages -- are the survivors, that evolved.  Some do this, as OldEnglish-->MiddleEnglish-->ModernEnglish, or similar for German, or French (all of which ALSO borrowed words amongst one another, especially English taking in words from all over).

This is called "language change," and it's a known thing; as is a language fragmenting into several "daughter" languages, with the original "mother tongue" not surviving (such as the Romance Languages and their ancestor, Latin).

I'm happy to consider all of these as languages "evolving."

But speaking of those lovely islands where English was born... who speaks Pictish, again?  What did Pictish "evolve" into?  It may have -- MAYBE -- been a (minor) contributor to the Scots' version of Gaelic.  The point is debated; but as a language, Pictish didn't evolve, it died.

Languages DO die.  Maybe a few loan-words survive in other cultures, or maybe related languages survive... or maybe not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_death

Eyak is a dead language, from the Athabascan family of languages; there is no descended or "evolved" form.  Other Athabascan languages still survive, but many are dying out, with only a few speakers left.

Basque is a famous language-isolate.  Presumably there once were many related languages, but they all died out -- I don't think it's supportable to suggest that they all "evolved into" Basque; rather, Basque is the last survivor of a once-broad group.  And if I had to guess, I'd guess that Basque itself is in the process of dying out:  less than 1/3 of the Basque people speak it, so its use within the culture is shrinking.  Of course, that's still almost a million people worldwide, so it's not in any imminent danger of dying out!!!

Ainu (from Japan) is another language-isolate, with no known related languages.  It had several variations/dialects/sublanguages (including Sakhalin Ainu, on the mainland in coastal Russia), but only one dialect survives; and it IS in danger of dying out, with only 15 speakers in the world.  There are no surviving related or "descendant" languages, though presumably there once were more.

Etruscan is another great example, and very Dresden-y!  It's believed to be a NON Indo-European language, although it had some input into Latin:  Latium (the home of Latin) was adjacent to the Etruscans.  Up in the Alps is another dead language, Rhaetian, than many suspect is related to Etruscan.

But Latin is very much an Indo-European language, and non-IE Etruscan really did "die out," rather than "evolve" into Latin.
 

[Bad Alias]

I don't think an actual "ring" or other item was meant, just  a magical mechanism or method, something that could be passed on.

Correct. Not that it couldn't literally be a ring. Maggie has twice used jewels/jewelry as magical means of passing knowledge on to Harry.

(click to show/hide)

The ruby with the ways knowledge and Harry specifically says at some point about how the pentacle necklaces were a part of their soul gazes.

[Bad Alias]

Forgot to mention my thoughts on Merlin.

Maybe Odin is Merlin after an ascension of some kind and that's where the Odin taught Merlin legend came from; maybe Merlin was Odin's child and Harry's ancestor; I can totally see Harry being displaced in time and becoming the original Merlin, but don't think that's how it's going to turn out; maybe Merlin shows up in the story because he never died in the first place; maybe we never find out much more.

Jim could pull any of these off really well and effectively. (Except maybe the last. I can only imagine how that could be done really poorly to just not being done).

[g33k]

Forgot to mention my thoughts on Merlin.

Maybe Odin is Merlin after an ascension of some kind and that's where the Odin taught Merlin legend came from; maybe Merlin was Odin's child and Harry's ancestor; I can totally see Harry being displaced in time and becoming the original Merlin, but don't think that's how it's going to turn out; maybe Merlin shows up in the story because he never died in the first place; maybe we never find out much more.

Jim could pull any of these off really well and effectively. (Except maybe the last. I can only imagine how that could be done really poorly to just not being done).

I believe we have WoJ that Merlin is "REALLY dead, not-coming-back dead" or words to that effect; but IIRC he then modified that by noting that "dead" is kind of a "wibbly-wabbly" sort of thing in the Dresdenverse, so maybe we'll see some bit of Merlin, eventually.

Hmmm... come to think of it, I believe I can make a case that Alfred is a little bit of leftover Merlin!   

[Bad Alias]

I remember that. Wasn't that something fairly recent? I don't recall the "not-coming-back dead." So I think I would have to scratch the Merlin is Odin theory.

No effect on Merlin being Odin's descendant and Harry being Merlin's, thus Odin's.

If Merlin=TTHarry, then Harry eventually goes back in time, becomes OG Merlin, then dies. Merlin is dead, Merlin is Harry, Harry is alive, and no conflict.

The maybe Merlin shows up in the story because he never died in the first place reasons is less likely now.