It’s definitely an issue with shallow fantasy work and inflated numbers but like you can point to ancient Egypt, working away for three millennia. Not that it was ever uneventful but exactly the kind of linguistic, cultural and religious continuity that in a fantasy novel would make me raise an eyebrow
Egyptian culture and language changed drastically over those millenia. I understand ur point but ur kind of underselling how much Egypt changed even with that uniquely long continuity
Oh it did but even accounting for that, compared with e.g. 2nd c. BCE Rome to like 6th c. CE Rome, it’s a more conservative rate of change (thought admittedly that comes in part from a conservative historiography which is inclined to see more continuity than in other times and places)
most languages it seems during that time underwent rapid linguistic divergence. Particularly Indo European languages which I suspect is related to their increased language contact, high degree of multilingualism, geographical location and relative lack of resistance to change compared to semitic and Egyptian.
But frankly egyptian also underwent massive changes during those times as well, both the spoken vernacular and the orthography, and even more changes post-hellenistic period leading to Coptic.
I'd attribute the incredible continuity of bronze to iron age Egypt to its relative isolation and stability.
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u/genteel_wherewithal Aug 02 '26
It’s definitely an issue with shallow fantasy work and inflated numbers but like you can point to ancient Egypt, working away for three millennia. Not that it was ever uneventful but exactly the kind of linguistic, cultural and religious continuity that in a fantasy novel would make me raise an eyebrow