Languages

[Nick]

Contact has been made, I said..

[Slowness_Incarnate]

I SAW what you said Nick. I am wondering why there isn't WIDE SPREAD news of the CONTACT.

[Nick]

Because people don't spread news IC. They talk about it on the forums, and then everyone magically knows it. This is why no English towns have separate cultures from each other.

[Slowness_Incarnate]

They don't have to have cultures a lot fo cultures. They can't really, because everyone experiences almost the same things from spawning upwards. There aren't any new ideas..because they're all from the same place basically. Of course, some places develop traits, and customs..but that takes time. Most of the towns are just existances. News does travel IC, people who are in the Brunoi area found out real quick after going to Siom that there is Salt in the desert region near Naron..but also that it's in Hilloi..much closer. It travels In Character..but not quickly..or so things seem..

[Junesun]

Well, smiles and mimics in general would be understandable if you typed them as emoticons, e. g.

Code: Select all

:-)   ;-)   :-( etc.

. I usually use those instead of e. g. *smiles* when one of my characters is trying to communicate with a foreigner. For actions there is no solution yet, but yes your character should understand what somebody writes in between * *, even if it means using a translator or typing such descriptions in a language your character normally shouldn't know, e. g. English.

Back to the original question, yes I think we should find in-game names for languages and nationalities. Especially because of the following problem:
Imagine your Dutch character picks up a map, which mentions that Karnon speaks English. Later, that character visits Siom, and the people tell him they speak English. Your character would automatically know that the language spoken in Karnon and Siom is the same, whereas in real life it requires many linguists familiar with both languages to determine that - and it still isn't determined whether some tribal languages in Africa are the same or not, because no linguist ever learned several of them, or described them in enough detail for others to recognise the similarity or differences.
If you ask the people themselves, they'll just say e. g. they are speaking "ki-swahili"(language of the Swahili people) or "ki-shamba"(language of the Shamba people) or "ki-mvita"(language of the Mvita people) or "ki-bajuni"(language of the Bajuni people) or dozens of others -- which linguists found to be the same language, commonly known as "Swahili" in English.

So, keeping this in mind, my explorer characters use prelimitary description-names like "language of <town>" or things of this nature, perhaps write down some remarks about the sound or the common vocabulary and if they find that a certain language is spoken in several towns, they'll note down e. g. "<town B> appears to speak the same language or at least a similar dialect as <town A>".

Another approach at naming your language is the one taken by some Australian and Native American tribes. It's incidentally the same one that was used in Western Europe at first:
When Latin had developed into French, Occitan, Italian and other languages, the first one to describe these popular languages was Dante Alighieri. He however didn't call them "French", "Occitan", "Italian" or the like, he called them "langue d'oil", "langue d'oc" and "langue de si" - referring to the word for "yes", which was "oil" in old French, "oc" in old Occitan and "si" in Italian.
Similarly, some Australian and Native American tribes used a language's peculiarities to make up the names for the language and the people, e. g. creating words that literally mean "those who say '...' for 'no'".

[Jos Elkink]

Junesun on her quest to turn us all into linguists ....

[Slowness_Incarnate]

Uh oh! Well..I know a lot of places that call this "English" Cantrian.Do you all think that works? Or should we not use the word "Cantr" in the name of a language?

[west]

I love this kind of discussion. Shows we're using our noodles. I've often wondered the same thing.

[Lumin]

English doesn't exist (neither does French, Dutch, etc.) I figure just about anyone could get away with calling their language "Cantrian." At least until they run into people who speak some other form of Cantrian and have to make up a name to differentiate.

It'd be like some isolated tribe saying they spoke "human" or the language of "the people", which is of course the only language there is because animals don't talk. Then one day they run into some other culture and have to revise their thinking, even though it could be a slow process - they may have never even considered the fact that other people might speak differently, so are these guys making the weird noises even people, or some kind of animal or what? They don't even look that much like normal people.

Heck, if I remember right Columbus said something like "These people have no language," when he first met the Arawaks, even though obviously they did (and were probably thinking the same thing about him), and this is with him already being familiar with the concept of different languages in Europe.

Of course, when different language groups do meet for the first time I'm betting there weren't be a fraction of the problems we've had in real life history, because the players are going to know what's going on and transmit that to the players. (Just like so many suddenly knew what currency was when the coin press was added, everyone will automatically know that these strange people are really perfectly nice and just need to be understood so we can all start RPing love affairs and weddings together.)

[Pie]

I love this kind of discussion. Shows we're using our noodles. I've often wondered the same thing.

he he. noodles.
________________

pie will rule you all.

[the_antisocial_hermit]

*watches the intellectual level of the discussion drop instantaneously*

[west]

It'd be like some isolated tribe saying they spoke "human" or the language of "the people", which is of course the only language there is because animals don't talk. Then one day they run into some other culture and have to revise their thinking, even though it could be a slow process - they may have never even considered the fact that other people might speak differently, so are these guys making the weird noises even people, or some kind of animal or what? They don't even look that much like normal people.

If I recall, most people who called themselves the People (and it was most tribes, really), when they met other tribes or groups of people, either called them other-people or not-people. Or just enemy. I seem to recall that in some cultures the word for stranger and the word for enemy were the same.

[Talapus]

If any of my characters run into a foreign language group, I think I might become a xenodochiophobe just for fun (afraid of foreign hospitality)!

[Nick]

If any of my characters run into a foreign language group, I think I might become a xenodochiophobe just for fun (afraid of foreign hospitality)!

My character detest foreigners quite a lot.

[Dee]

Is it possible that any of my english speaking characters meet any foreign language speaking characters?