We are the children of time

“We are the children of time” is a phrase Shevek speaks in Pravic near the end of the novel, and Ketho immediately repeats in Iotic. The exchange turns an abstract idea into a shared utterance across languages: each life belongs to time, and each can begin something not tried before.

The Exchange Between Shevek and Ketho

Ketho explains that his people have been civilized for a thousand millennia and have histories spanning hundreds of those millennia. They have tried many ways of living, including anarchism, but he himself has not tried it. He questions the claim that nothing is new under any sun by asking why people are born if each individual life is not new. Shevek answers in Pravic: “We are the children of time.” Ketho repeats the sentence in Iotic, preserving its sense across the difference between their languages.

The sentence answers Ketho’s question without promising that a political experiment will succeed. Its emphasis falls instead on the newness of each life: a history of past attempts does not determine what an individual must experience or choose. Ketho’s repetition makes the thought part of their conversation rather than a pronouncement that remains Shevek’s alone.

Language and Shared Meaning

The brief change of language matters. Shevek speaks in Pravic, the language associated with Anarres, while Ketho repeats the words in Iotic, the language of Urras. The exchange does not erase their different histories; it demonstrates that a thought can cross that difference and be taken up by another speaker. Ketho does not merely hear Shevek’s answer but restates it in his own language, making translation an act of participation.

Elsewhere, the novel shows how language can carry social assumptions. Shevek finds that Urrasti ideas such as status and hierarchy are difficult to explain in terms he recognizes, while Pravic lacks proprietary idioms for sexual relations. Against those instances of mismatch, the shared sentence offers a concise moment of mutual understanding. It does not settle every difference between the societies, but it shows that their speakers can create common meaning without becoming identical.

Consequence and Significance

After repeating the phrase, Ketho says that he will speak to the commander. His voice carries a slight tremor of excitement and hope. The exchange therefore stands beside a consequential decision: Shevek has warned him that joining the Anarresti would mean becoming one of them, with the same options and risks, and that he would find himself very much alone. Ketho’s response follows his recognition that a new life cannot be replaced by inherited accounts of what has already been tried.

The phrase also resonates beyond the immediate choice. Later, aboard the Davenant, Shevek looks toward Anarres and wonders whether Takver will meet him at the port. The novel thus places the words within a larger movement of departure and return: lives unfold through time, but their possibilities are made real through particular choices and relationships. Ketho’s Iotic repetition makes that idea a shared, unfinished beginning rather than a conclusion about history.