A Collection of Ranger's Apprentice Theories

The Bi-Tongual Phenomenon

The Ranger's Apprentice books are set in a fictional universe based directly off the medieval histories of this one, where Araluen is the knock off England. Canonically, these books are written legends of the Rangers during King Duncan's reign that survived 1200 years into their future ('The Lost Stories'). The result of shameless promotion, a direct quote from the Brotherband series is canon to the fictional universe, found by the archaeologists in the afterword, implying the rest of the books also exist word for word in that universe as Flanagan wrote them, whether or not they survived until the 1800s intact. Since Flanagan wrote these series in English, the main characters may be assumed to speak English.

However, Skandians speak a different "tongue" [language] than Araluens—similar, so that regular Araluens can pick up on it by listening to Skandians, and Cassandra could guess Skandian words based on her knowledge of Araluen ('Slaves of Socorro'; 'The Battle for Skandia'), but distinct enough to be a separate language. Skandians can also speak the common-tongue, though it is not often clear when the switch happens because both dialogue languages, and internal thoughts, are translated for the reader. The book logic of "main character perspective" applies; when the native language of the plot is something the main character can follow, it is written out in the novel's primary language for readers to understand. Flanagan wrote these series in English, and so all the Ranger's Apprentice tongues are "translated" as applicable into English.

Araluen as a tongue is mentioned in 'The Burning Bridge,' 'The Battle for Skandia,' and 'The Siege of Macindaw,' and then gradually dropped, with mentions of common-tongue becoming more regular by 'The Emperor of Nihon-Ja.' Seeing as English is a common language worldwide, it again may be deduced that Araluen is essentially English that sometimes is referred to as the common-tongue. And once again, this proof can be disproven. In 'Slaves of Socorro,' a conversation is had between an Araluen and Skandian in the Skandian tongue, where a third person fluent in common-tongue was unable to understand them or detect that the tongue being spoken wasn't Hellenese, the Skandian tongue being uncommon outside the country of origin. If Araluen and Skandian are similar enough tongues to gather context clues and pick up the other language without formal lessons, then Araluen and common-tongue cannot be the same tongue, or else the third person would have understood at least bits of the conversation to know he was being fooled. The native Araluen speaker even relays the conversation in Araluen to his companions and the fooled guy was not mentioned to react in a way he understood that tongue either, assuming anyone in the immediate area could overhear the conversation.

Sometimes, the series involves tongues which are unfamiliar to the main characters, and to provide the same effect on readers, are left untranslated. The Toscan military, an equivalent of the Romans, used commands in their own tongue to confuse other countries ('The Emperor of Nihon-Ja'). The novel gives examples of the commands, for example "pronto" and "doppio di corsa" which are real-world Italian. "Nihon" translates to "Japan," and the characters discuss "S'mimasen" translating to "Pardon me," which is true in Japanese, according to Google Translate. Even Halt's undercover name, allegedly mispronounced Gallic, the equivalent of France, uses real-world French to arrive at Arratay.

In 'The Burning Bridge,' Will mentions Espanard as a tongue; the name sounds like a corruption of the word "Spaniard," which means a habitant of Spain. Later, Flanagan created a country called Iberion in the relative location of Spain to England, where the local tongue 'Iberian' is based on Spanish ('A New Beginning'; 'The Outcasts'). One town, Alto Bosque, described as getting its name from being on a high, wooded hill, is Spanish for "high forest."

Through the fact that countries in the Ranger's Apprentice universe such as Gallica, Toscana, Iberion, and Nihon-Ja use their related real-world languages, it can be assumed that Araluen uses English as its primary language. Another proof is that Cassandra mentions "stand" as similar between Araluen and Skandian ('The Battle for Skandia'). The English word compared to Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish translations are similar: all "stå" with varying pronunciations that mainly sound like a heavy accent dropping the "duh" in stand.

The inhabitants of this book universe are inventive, with a common-tongue, a Hemisphere-wide trader's language similar to real-world Esperanto that's a grammarless mix of Gallic, Teuton, and Temujai, and a trading sign-language ('The Battle for Skandia'). The implication is that most individuals learn a minimum of two languages, becoming more important the higher the status—for example, the Araluen Crown learning Iberian to converse with Iberian royals as a sign of respect—or the greater the travel and interaction with different countries, such as traders or diplomats.