Anna Heath

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Anna keeps a picture of her children on her desk; she says they inspire her to keep learning how to communicate, even if that's just saying "Dada".


General

  • 37 years old
  • Was married in August of 259
  • Has three children, 6-year-old twins Otto and Pip, and 1-year-old daughter Eve
  • Fellow of the Academy
    • Known for always being available to students who need her
    • Academy insiders suggest she has the drive and potential to be a future Master of the Academy
  • Cube Retrieval Project's expert from the department of languages and second-in-command
  • Fan of the Nomads
  • Old friend of Cymbalisty


  • Has "ailihphilia," the love of palindromes, and is a fan of Earth writer Georges Perec, who created the longest palindrome in history.
  • Her favorite card is 002 - Designer Flakes.


Gallery

  • Anna2.jpg
  • Anna3.jpg
  • Anna4.jpg
  • Anna5.jpg


Scholastic Record

  • Gave talks on the ancient languages of the region and the beginnings of written script discovered on bone fragments in the Academy Lunchtime Lectures / Evening Courses.
  • Was spotted when she was only 8 years old by Professor Estelle Sedgewick
  • Legend has it that Anna corrected one of her teachers' spelling during a spelling bee
  • At 18, Anna was offered a place at the Academy
  • Became a fully-fledged puzzle scribe by the age of 22
  • Her multi-language crossword puzzles are particular objects of dread among her students


Anna's Cards


Anna on Earth Linguistics

As a scholar of language, the question of why Perplex City seems to share a language with some geographies of Earth is one that pulls me back again and again. An itch that can't be scratched, if you will.

It bears noting that in the seventy-some years since the Centre for Reality Research first discovered Earth, the language Perplexians speak has been profoundly influenced by Earth, so the overall level of similarity has been growing; new words, slang, and figures of speech have been borrowed, and pronunciation has been altered to some degree, though some researchers believe some of the pronunciation shifts were already under way before the discovery.

As you know, the late and much-lamented Academicians Ruth Coralhouse and Horatio Flynn developed CF Theory together. This convergent development model suggests that that the two worlds began development from widely different points, but that we are at a point in our histories in which we very coincidentally use very similar language. This model is considered the best contender as the truth, though other theories still have their adherents.

Karel Panaya, for example, suggests that language is strongly shaped by a culture's environment and internal development, and posits that this is evidence that the culture and environs of Perplex City must therefore be extraordinarily similar to certain locales on Earth. I have my doubts about this, based on my long exposure to Earth culture. We simply don't seem that fundamentally the same to me.

Other, less reputable sources suggest any number of other wild theories: that the Earth and Perplex City share a resonance in the fabric of reality that has an effect on the brain, and therefore on language (though no evidence of such a resonance has been found); or that this is evidence that Perplex City and Earth were somehow once part of the same physical world (despite the known fact that language is evolutionary, and a point of divergence would make the languages very different by now); or that this is evidence of an intentional design by a cosmic maker (a point that may or may not be disputable, but is a tenet of faith not of science; and yet does not explain the mechanism by which it came to pass).

Controversy aside, the discovery of Earth has been an unbelievably rich treasure for the linguistics department at the Academy. The array of languages spoken on Earth is so rich and varied compared to our own world that we are making vast strides in understanding. There has never been a more exciting time to be a linguist than now.


source: Anna Heath's Personal Site


References

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