This is topic Where will they find so many kids with different accents that are understandable??? in forum Discussions About Orson Scott Card at Hatrack River Forum.
Bean=Greek (grew up in Rotterdam) Ender=American Uphanad=Indian Petra=Armenian Dink=Dutch Han Tzu=Chinese Alai=blast this memory of mine... I know he's Muslim... Vlad=Russian Crazy Tom=I dunno... Nikolai=Greek Achilles=Belgian (grew up in Rotterdam)
Where will the producers for Ender's Game/Ender's Shadow find children and adults of such varying nationalities that can clearly speak English? I'm sure that they can do it, I'm not doubting anyone, but don't you think that it might be a bit difficult? The age thing is already enough to make me scared at night... That was supposed to be funny^^^^.
"Remember, the enemy's gate is down"
Posted by Fitz (Member # 4803) on :
I imagine thousands of eager parents and children will solve that particular problem by auditioning. And after all, it's America, so I don't think the various nationalities issue is an issue.
Posted by Catseye1979 (Member # 5560) on :
Not to mention you don't have to worry much about accents. I think the Kids in the battle school have their own accent.
Posted by Mikal (Member # 5564) on :
Also, the children in the future will have been taught I.F. common pretty much since they could talk. Learning a language that early usually eliminates any accent.
Posted by Kayla (Member # 2403) on :
I thought Stark is what they all spoke. I think I.F. is short for International Fleet.
Posted by wieczorek (Member # 5565) on :
Isn't Stark the language that was developed on Lusitania? In SFTD, I thought it said that Ender easily spoke Stark because it was so close to Fleet Common and English. And that's right, I forgot. The U.S. is the melting pot, right?
"Remember, the enemy's gate is down"
Posted by Kayla (Member # 2403) on :
Ahh, you're right. It was Common. For some reason, the I. F. part threw me. In Ender's Shadow, though, it said when Sister Carlotta taught, it was in I. F. Common. Silly me.
Posted by wieczorek (Member # 5565) on :
Now that makes me think about something, Kayla. You're right, it says in Ender's Shadow that Sister Carlotta taught Achille's family fleet common in the classes. But, Ender's family speaks English in Ender's Game. In Ender's Shadow, it mentioned that common was developed so that every nation could speak together without confusion, meaning after the time of other languages (English, etc). So, why does everyone in the U.S. in Ender's Game speak English instead of common? Is that an error? I realize that Sister Carlotta taught them common, maybe b/c she thought that Achilles or Bean might go to battle school, but I didn't think that common was developed until after the third bugger war...hmmm...also, remember how everyone in battle school spoke the same language? Then...that would mean the battle schoolers were speaking common, but it wasn't made until later, and how would Ender know how to speak common if he spoke English and not common???
"Remember, the enemy's gate is down"
Posted by Kayla (Member # 2403) on :
No, you misunderstood me. She taught them in Common. Everyone already spoke it. I think they make reference that because the US was the superpower when the Buggers first attacked, it was English that was most influential in the Common language, which must somehow be related to Stark? Maybe Stark and Common were basically the same? Kinda like English and American English are? I don't know. I look it up tomorrow, unless someone else answers it first.
Posted by Mikal (Member # 5564) on :
OK, Im pretty sure that I.F. common and stark are the same thing, or at least almost. And I also remember reading at some point that english and common are basically the same thing, the reason being that the U.S. was still the most powerful country at the time the language was created.
Posted by En Vista (Member # 3848) on :
The thing about the character's races in the movie is that they will not be extraordinarily faithful to the exact text of the books. Particularly in the cases of the child actors, you take the talent over the look and trust your make-up and wardrobe departments to do their best.
At EnderCon, Scott revealed that he tried to get a clause built into his contract that the races/nationalities of the children in the battleschool reflect, approximately and proportionally, the races/nationalities of the world. In other words, only about 25% white, if that; it is after all a worldwide school, taking only the twenty brightest children, culled from the entire world, about every 3-6 months.
He was flat out told "Not a chance in hell. There will be a handful of token characters from other races but every other child will be white." In the view of the studio, if there are too many non-caucasian background characters, then white people will take offense. But I would make the argument that in the Zion of the Matrix movies, Neo is pretty much the only white character in most of those many scenes, and that didn't seem to hurt the movie's box office pull one bit.
It's not that white people would take offense, it's that they think white people are only comfortable watching other white people. They're wrong and stupid, of course, but ...
I got the impression that I. F. Common was revised and renamed "Stark" once Starways Congress became the governing body of humanity. Since they had to rename the language anyway to reflect the change in the name of the political organization ("Stark" is an abbreviation of "Starways Congress Common" I believe), I'm thinking they probably made a few cursory changes to simplify it and make it more universal. But by and large, it's the same language. Ender and Valentine certainly showed proficiency with it, since they both made a living from the spoken or written word.
Posted by Julie (Member # 5580) on :
I always thought that Stark and I.F. Common were the same language, which was supposed to be a phonetically spelled version of English. Also, in Ender's Game they make a point of saying that the French don't start teaching Common until age 4, so Bernard has an accent, so I would assume that the other children don't have accents because they started learning the language earlier. Also, I don't think they should decide how much of the cast is going to be white until they see the kids and see which ones are the most talented.
Posted by wieczorek (Member # 5565) on :
That's a good point, Geoffrey. Thanx. I was thinking that English was mainly put into I.F. Common, b/c Common is the language that the battle school kids spoke. Then Stark was created from Common (which was based mainly on English), so in a way, they are all interconnected.
![[Angst]](graemlins/angst.gif)
![[ROFL]](graemlins/rofl.gif)
That was supposed to be funny^^^^. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
Silly me.