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Sacrieur
2015-07-22, 10:40 AM
This is a little thing I've started doing in my group just out of whim. I'm turning it entire an entire system to improve world immersion.

Normally speaking other languages is simply a matter of, "Oh, you understand what they said if you know the language." And that's it. Pretty immersion-breaking. Unless you're actually having sessions with people who are all fluent in fictional languages. But it occurred to me when describing what an enemy was saying Orcish, what if I were to just translate it literally? What kind of features would the language have?

While I am by no means a linguistic expert, it seemed pretty clever. My Orcish now has a few set of linguistic rules and guidelines that separate it from languages. I normally play in Roll20, but this completely applicable to tabletop stuff. Here are some rules I created for myself:


Orcish

- Omit articles. "a", "an", and "the" aren't distinguished.
Example: "This is rock." instead of "This is a rock."

- Omit first person pronouns. "I" is translated as "This one" or the speaker's own name.
Example: "This one needs strong drink." instead of "I need a strong drink."

- Omit second person pronouns. "You" doesn't exist; instead, apply descriptive modifiers or the person's name to refer to them.
Example: "This magic-man's offer is not fair." instead of "Your offer is unfair."

- Avoid prefixed words, instead using adjectives to modify the base one.
Example: "That little-man is not fight-worthy." instead of "The halfling is unfit to fight."

- Based on the setting, DO use overly verbose ways of describing words that would describe battle, honor, or combat. As multiple words exist in the language to describe various types undistinguished in English.
Example: "back-turned-coward" to mean a specific type of coward who turns his back to the enemy.

- Be literal and direct, avoid ambiguous language that relies on context.


Elvish

- Speak in metaphors often.
Example: "Your face is a radiant sun!" instead of "Your face is glowing!"

- Favor larger and more complicated words over smaller ones.
Example: "Your malevolence must cease." instead of "Your evil must be stopped."

- Use multiple words to mean "magic", same as for Orcish.
Examples: "light-magic", "heal-magic", "enhanced-magic"

- Use ambiguous meanings, so that context is required.

---

I'm still working on it, but by all means share your own stuff.

Flickerdart
2015-07-22, 10:53 AM
You might benefit from stealing other languages' quirks. For instance, Russian has no articles (a/an/the) and conflates a lot of words that are separate in English. So your example of "this is a rock" would literally translate as "is rock" or "this - rock." German likes to string words together, so instead of an enchanter you might say "enchantment-magic-user." Most non-English European languages assign genders to all sorts of things, so a language based on that would refer to the rock in question as "he" instead of "it." Different languages also have different ways of ordering words in a sentence, so going Yoda could work in small doses.

LibraryOgre
2015-07-22, 11:22 AM
You might benefit from stealing other languages' quirks. For instance, Russian has no articles (a/an/the) and conflates a lot of words that are separate in English. So your example of "this is a rock" would literally translate as "is rock" or "this - rock." German likes to string words together, so instead of an enchanter you might say "enchantment-magic-user." Most non-English European languages assign genders to all sorts of things, so a language based on that would refer to the rock in question as "he" instead of "it." Different languages also have different ways of ordering words in a sentence, so going Yoda could work in small doses.

An example of word order is Spanish tends to go noun-adjective, rather than English's standard adjective-noun... tarjeta rojo instead of red card. I find that a lot of folks who speak Spanish as their first language carry this forward into their English... it doesn't make them incomprehensible, but does add a distinctness to their speech (and writing).

Spojaz
2015-07-22, 11:27 AM
Talk like Yoda, these gnomes do.:smallamused:

AceOfFools
2015-07-22, 11:43 AM
Word-man is smart. This one will do in own play-battles now.

Your methodology has lovely blossoms, and will bear much fruit. I forsee much use of kindred methodologies by those who I name friend.

Thrudd
2015-07-22, 11:51 AM
Now you just need to teach your players and convince them to stick to the appropriate conventions for their characters.

Red Fel
2015-07-22, 12:04 PM
I like the linguistic options presented above. And they're good points. I've studied languages, for example, that commonly omit the subject of a sentence. (See Japanese for an illustration of this.) The sentence "Going to the store," may imply "I'm going to the store," "He's going to the store," or "We're going to the store." It's easy to work that into a language.

I've also seen languages where the second person pronoun ("you") is considered a rude or personal thing to use. It exists, but one doesn't employ it except in particular circumstances. You might have a language that works that way. In a related vein, rather than using "this one" in place of the first person, you can omit the first person outright. (See omitting the subject of a sentence, above.)

Still another particularly amusing quirk is to omit the present-tense of the verb "to be" (is, am, are). I know some languages like this. I've often heard Orcish presented like this, for example. ("Thog sad now" instead of "Thog is sad now.")

Another option is to have things that are thematically oriented. For example, say Dwarves in your setting are exclusively cave-dwelling miners and craftsmen. You might construct their language in such a way that it is primarily rock- and cavern-based. Not puns, and not metaphors, but they actually use stone terminology to describe non-stone things. A few examples: Bedrock (adj.): Stubborn or unyielding. "Don't be so bedrock about this." Avalanche (verb): To completely dominate at an activity; to destroy an opponent. "We completely avalanched those Orcs, didn't we? Deepcave (adj.): Dark, frightening or eerie. "This castle is really deepcave."

Yet another is to simply have words that do not translate at all. Either present them in their native tongue, devoid of translation, or have a visibly awkward and insufficient replacement. (See the Orz from Star Control 2 for great illustrations of this. "You are so many *lonely* *juicy* *bubbles*. It is so sad.")

Lvl 2 Expert
2015-07-22, 12:22 PM
Still another particularly amusing quirk is to omit the present-tense of the verb "to be" (is, am, are). I know some languages like this. I've often heard Orcish presented like this, for example. ("Thog sad now" instead of "Thog is sad now.")

On a not very related note (but I thought of it because of this comment): English does not have a lot of verb conjugations to work with, but you could eliminate them even further.

For instance, a simple but maybe kind of weird version could go like this: Every verb has only two forms. The simple present 3rd person for all things now and future (I is sad, you is sad, they all is very sad) and a present perfect-like form for all things past, using the same 3rd person simple present with the word "has" in front of it (I has is angry, they has is so angry they is calm now).

That example sounds like the language of creatures that are not so much stupid as used to speaking a language very different from common, and maybe a tad primitive, something like lizardfolk maybe. But since reptillians speak draconic, setting-wise it probably fits better into a goblinoid language.

Vitruviansquid
2015-07-22, 12:29 PM
Don't forget that the names of people and places can be slightly changed from language to language when the languages don't share the same sounds. In Fantasy Wars, the human protagonist is named Derrick Pfeil, but the orcs call him "Big Derrig," presumably because they don't have the "ck" sound.

Draconium
2015-07-22, 12:31 PM
That example sounds like the language of creatures that are not so much stupid as used to speaking a language very different from common, and maybe a tad primitive, something like lizardfolk maybe. But since reptillians speak draconic, setting-wise it probably fits better into a goblinoid language.

Personally, I always thought of the reptilian races, or at least the less intelligent ones, would speak a broken, more primitive version of Draconic, while true dragons spoke the only complete version of the language.

Which is another idea for languages as a whole - just because several different species speak the same language, that doesn't mean they all speak the same dialect. For example, while maybe goblins and hobgoblins share a language, perhaps they sound bizarrely different to the untrained ear.

LibraryOgre
2015-07-22, 12:55 PM
I've also seen languages where the second person pronoun ("you") is considered a rude or personal thing to use. It exists, but one doesn't employ it except in particular circumstances. You might have a language that works that way. In a related vein, rather than using "this one" in place of the first person, you can omit the first person outright. (See omitting the subject of a sentence, above.)


You also run into honorifics and status-relative pronouns; the German I learned in college and high school was pretty big on using "Sie" as a formal version of "du/ihr"... so if I'm addressing a bunch of kids, they'd be "ihr" (2nd person, informal), but addressing a group of managers would be "Sie" (the formal version). You see honorifics all the time in a lot of older animes, as well... -kun, -san, -senpai, etc., added to the name to indicate relationship and formality.


Don't forget that the names of people and places can be slightly changed from language to language when the languages don't share the same sounds. In Fantasy Wars, the human protagonist is named Derrick Pfeil, but the orcs call him "Big Derrig," presumably because they don't have the "ck" sound.

My older brother Mike was Mikey to Koreans, because (IIRC) they don't end words on a hard consonant, or something (it's been 25 years and I wasn't as into languages then).

Sacrieur
2015-07-22, 01:14 PM
Wow these suggestions are fantastic!

Thanks so much.

ExLibrisMortis
2015-07-22, 01:18 PM
You can simplify your syllables a bit. English allows (C)3V(C)5 syllables*, whereas, say, Hawaiian allows (C)V only. By inserting short vowels and simplifying consonant clusters, you can change your pronunciation without having to learn new grammar or vocabulary. For example, setengethese rather than strengths. Yes, you end up with loads of syllables.

On the other hand, English (like Mandarin, although not quite as much) loves (mostly) unconjugated monosyllabic words, and many exceptions are loanwords, for example scientific terms from Latin, or compounds. Nearly all the Old English head words have been worn down to one syllable. If you use long words to sound foreign, take care not to use obscure synonyms, but to combine common words into compounds.


*Consonant and Vowel respectively, brackets indicating optionality. Wiki gives strengths/strɛŋkθs as example. Take care not to confuse letters and sounds - they don't neccessarily match.

Red Fel
2015-07-22, 01:22 PM
You also run into honorifics and status-relative pronouns; the German I learned in college and high school was pretty big on using "Sie" as a formal version of "du/ihr"... so if I'm addressing a bunch of kids, they'd be "ihr" (2nd person, informal), but addressing a group of managers would be "Sie" (the formal version). You see honorifics all the time in a lot of older animes, as well... -kun, -san, -senpai, etc., added to the name to indicate relationship and formality.

It's funny that you mention anime, because Japanese actually has cultural rules with respect to second-person pronouns. It is considered culturally appropriate (although this convention isn't always followed among youth) to either refer to a person you're addressing by name, or to simply imply the pronoun. For example, if I'm speaking with Kageyama and asking if he's doing well today, I could either say "How is Kageyama-san today?" or "How is, today?" It could be taken as rude to say "How are you today?"

Similarly, certain words take on unique connotations. For example, the word anata ("you") takes on a more formal quality, and use of that particular word tends to be cold and off-putting. Somewhat relatedly, the word is sometimes seen used by wives to address their husbands (which leads into an issue of gender relationships that we really don't need to raise in this thread, except inasmuch as they impact language). Contrast that with omae ("you"), which is considered coarse, rude language, generally very familiar, and primarily used by men. In short, it's easier to use a person's name, or not to use the second person at all.

Bringing it back to point, that's always an option; having words that exist in the language, but are considered impolite to use outside of certain contexts. It can create unique (and possibly entertaining) cultural misunderstandings as well. Say, for instance, you have a race for whom it is only appropriate to address someone in the second person if you are romantically involved, or desire to be. Even if they understood that other races use the word differently, it would still be disconcerting; if they didn't understand it, slapstick ensues.

Segev
2015-07-22, 03:26 PM
Highly formal Japanese also uses a construction that sounds very strange to English-speaking ears in place of the first person: "Kono Segev," if I were using it, which almost literally translates to "This Segev."

So, if I were saying "I am going to the store," the literal translation of hte highly-formal way of saying it would come out more like: "This Segev is going to the store."

I have never seen "Anata" used as "cold" or "off-putting;" I've seen it mostly in the wife-to-husband sense, and thus used as a term of endearment. (That said, I am not at all fluent in Japanese; I just watch a LOT of subtitled anime. So this is all observation and hardly scholastically backed.)



In my longest-running campaign ever (I think it ran weekly - with its share of missed sessions - for close to 5 years), a very subtle thing I did was always have counts and measures when given from the human perspective in English units (feet, yards, miles) and in dozens (because, unstated, I had humans operating on base 12, culturally), and elves using metric (meters, grams) and referencing numbers more normally (because I had them using base 10).

LibraryOgre
2015-07-22, 03:56 PM
In my longest-running campaign ever (I think it ran weekly - with its share of missed sessions - for close to 5 years), a very subtle thing I did was always have counts and measures when given from the human perspective in English units (feet, yards, miles) and in dozens (because, unstated, I had humans operating on base 12, culturally), and elves using metric (meters, grams) and referencing numbers more normally (because I had them using base 10).

Heh. I once playfully argued with my wife that a) we should be using the metric system and b) we should be using base 12.

Needless to say, this was annoying.

Segev
2015-07-22, 04:10 PM
Base 12 has some interesting properties. You can count to 12 on one hand if you use your thumb to point to individual finger-bones (which is the densest hand-based counting system I've yet found), it is divisible by more numbers than 10 (and several of those numbers are close together: 2,3,4,6), we have a convenient word for clustering by 12s (dozen), and of particular linguistic interest to me, our WORDS for 10, 11 and 12 do not follow the "-teen" formulation of the rest of that stretch, which means you can count thusly and have it not be awkward in construction (though it sounds weird to those used to standard base-10 counting): ...twenty-eight, twenty-nine, twenty-ten, twenty-'leven, twenty-twelve, thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two,...etc.

Not that I'm advocating changing real-world number conventions. Just interesting bits for use in a fictional setting where you want to depict a base-12 culture while using english as your medium of communication to your audience.

mikeejimbo
2015-07-22, 04:51 PM
Base 12 has some interesting properties. You can count to 12 on one hand if you use your thumb to point to individual finger-bones (which is the densest hand-based counting system I've yet found), it is divisible by more numbers than 10 (and several of those numbers are close together: 2,3,4,6), we have a convenient word for clustering by 12s (dozen), and of particular linguistic interest to me, our WORDS for 10, 11 and 12 do not follow the "-teen" formulation of the rest of that stretch, which means you can count thusly and have it not be awkward in construction (though it sounds weird to those used to standard base-10 counting): ...twenty-eight, twenty-nine, twenty-ten, twenty-'leven, twenty-twelve, thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two,...etc.

Not that I'm advocating changing real-world number conventions. Just interesting bits for use in a fictional setting where you want to depict a base-12 culture while using english as your medium of communication to your audience.

I must look high right now. I was staring at my hand, counting as you mentioned and going "Whoa, I never even thought of that!"

Malimar
2015-07-22, 04:57 PM
I once wrote a blog post (http://luduscarcerum.blogspot.com/2012/04/metaphors-other-people-live-by.html) about metaphors and using alien metaphors to make alien cultures feel more alien. (I later expanded it slightly to be the final paper in my Philosophy of Language class.) Things like how we in English have metaphors like "up is good" and "things are containers" that the whole language rests on, and if we want other races to seem more alien, we should be conscious of our foundational English metaphors and switch them out for more unusual metaphors.

I don't know to what extent I stand by this point three years later, but it's probably worth thinking about even if it's wrong.

Flickerdart
2015-07-22, 05:15 PM
You can count to 12 on one hand if you use your thumb to point to individual finger-bones (which is the densest hand-based counting system I've yet found)
Surely, 16?

Four tips
Four first joints
Four second joints
Four bases of the finger

Hawkstar
2015-07-22, 08:46 PM
Base 12 has some interesting properties. You can count to 12 on one hand if you use your thumb to point to individual finger-bones (which is the densest hand-based counting system I've yet found), it is divisible by more numbers than 10 (and several of those numbers are close together: 2,3,4,6), we have a convenient word for clustering by 12s (dozen), and of particular linguistic interest to me, our WORDS for 10, 11 and 12 do not follow the "-teen" formulation of the rest of that stretch, which means you can count thusly and have it not be awkward in construction (though it sounds weird to those used to standard base-10 counting): ...twenty-eight, twenty-nine, twenty-ten, twenty-'leven, twenty-twelve, thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two,...etc.
I've also had fun experimenting with base 12 for one of my setting's more primitive races. One of the unusual quirks is "0 is ten, not Nothing." - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0, X, R (Actually, X and R are just the closest I can type to the symbols used to represent 10, 11, and 12). And instead of ending in "-ty", when translated the second digit is "-tlve" or "-tle". (11 is "Ontlve-One", and is equivalent to 13 in base-10). There tend to be communication issues with hand signals between cultures, because a single raised finger is "Three", not "One" (A single raised knuckle is one. Two fingers is six, two knuckles is two. Three raised fingers, one raised knuckle, and an extended thumb is eleven - the thumb only ever represents one digit). There's also a bit of tripping-up because "30" follows "39," (etc), and 41 follows 3R (etc).

Xuc Xac
2015-07-22, 10:07 PM
My older brother Mike was Mikey to Koreans, because (IIRC) they don't end words on a hard consonant, or something (it's been 25 years and I wasn't as into languages then).

But the South Korean word for their country is Hanguk.

Shadowsend
2015-07-22, 10:23 PM
This is a little thing I've started doing in my group just out of whim. I'm turning it entire an entire system to improve world immersion.


Elvish

- Speak in metaphors often.
Example: "Your face is a radiant sun!" instead of "Your face is glowing!"

- Favor larger and more complicated words over smaller ones.
Example: "Your malevolence must cease." instead of "Your evil must be stopped."

- Use multiple words to mean "magic", same as for Orcish.
Examples: "light-magic", "heal-magic", "enhanced-magic"

- Use ambiguous meanings, so that context is required.

---

I'm still working on it, but by all means share your own stuff.

I don't know if these are Pathfinder or wood elves you are describing, but if not, my personal choices with regards to elves is that they reference their actions and feelings with the natural world. So happiness might be The deer leaping over the brook. Elves are typically also represented as capricious and or uncaring, but I think it has more to do with that time moves very differently for them. It might be perfectly reasonable for them to spend a day looking into a lover's eyes, or equally as reasonable as a human spending that time stargazing. The human will have looked at many more objects, but the desire might have been similar.

It really does depend on setting though, as there are some very different things that can be at play (such as the bleaching for gnomes). One good way for a person to behave as a gnome would be to never say any uncommon word twice in the same conversation. So they're constantly having to think of synonyms.

I guess draconics might consider warmth and chill to express themselves, and may have far more words for these temperatures than we do.

Then maybe the kinder/halfling/kenku language has no possessive words. (No his, hers, ours, etc). It's a lot harder to rationalize/understand punishment for stealing when no one actually owns anything.


Some of these language conventions really do need to be sociological.

Then there's THIS (https://vimeo.com/9172863).

Mr Beer
2015-07-22, 10:51 PM
I would definitely use real world language languages for this purpose, a major advantage is that you can adopt the accent as well, which has an immediate impact upon the listener.

TheThan
2015-07-22, 11:04 PM
I've had players get annoyed when they found out there as no "common" language and they had to learn multiple languages if they were traveling between countries. I would drop the idea, I mean it's neat and all but sometimes you have to make sacrifices. So I would stick with Common, racial languages and secret languages and leave it at that.

Shadowsend
2015-07-22, 11:08 PM
I'm not sure the idea is "no common language" but rather what should make the other languages different (aka why be there at all?).

Flickerdart
2015-07-22, 11:09 PM
I would definitely use real world language languages for this purpose, a major advantage is that you can adopt the accent as well, which has an immediate impact upon the listener.
It's only a "major advantage" for the first 30 seconds, and then listening to someone do a fake (and probably offensive) foreign accent gets mighty tiring.

goto124
2015-07-22, 11:24 PM
Use the accent for only the first 30 seconds then, and take note of your players' nationalities before using a foreign accent.

Shadowsend
2015-07-23, 02:18 AM
It's only a "major advantage" for the first 30 seconds, and then listening to someone do a fake (and probably offensive) foreign accent gets mighty tiring.

Agreed, this is why changing the actual words to reflect the sociology of the race in question is actually stronger than giving them accents.

Sacrieur
2015-07-23, 07:01 AM
I would definitely use real world language languages for this purpose, a major advantage is that you can adopt the accent as well, which has an immediate impact upon the listener.

I use accents to voice certain characters, but it's by no means expected from my players. I play over roll20 anyway so they can just type out "(Elvish) ...". I may, for instance, have Elves pronounce "either" as "eye-ther" and not "ee-ther".



I've had players get annoyed when they found out there as no "common" language and they had to learn multiple languages if they were traveling between countries. I would drop the idea, I mean it's neat and all but sometimes you have to make sacrifices. So I would stick with Common, racial languages and secret languages and leave it at that.

There is a Common language. Not everyone in the campaign is going to know it or choose to speak it. I give a circumstance bonus for threatening Orcs in Orcish, for instance.

---

There is a limit to how much you can change it; mostly you want to stick to minor edits that are just different enough so that everyone knows its different and interesting without confusing them about what you're saying. It should also be very easy to pick up and use, so players can get involved with minimal effort.

goto124
2015-07-23, 07:06 AM
I give a circumstance bonus for threatening Orcs in Orcish, for instance.

That is genius. I've never seen such creative uses of language before. Any more of such examples please? /sincerity

Sacrieur
2015-07-23, 07:29 AM
That is genius. I've never seen such creative uses of language before. Any more of such examples please? /sincerity

It's very setting dependent.

But drawing from real world experiences, people react better to other people who know their own language. Say you go into a magic shop run by an elf in my setting as a human, where elves and humans have issues getting along. Speaking Elvish to him may demonstrate respect and he may sell his goods to you at a reduced price.

goto124
2015-07-23, 07:31 AM
So... bonuses to Charisma checks and social skills?

Sacrieur
2015-07-23, 07:38 AM
So... bonuses to Charisma checks and social skills?

Well that's why circumstance bonuses are the thing. DMs are encouraged to use them liberally whenever they think they may apply, not just where it says under the Acrobatics page in CRB.

Mechanically, his starting offer may be lower (read the Diplomacy skill for more information on how bartering works). Although it's not universal, sometimes a half-elf really isn't going to care if you speak his language, or may have been raised by humans and doesn't even know it.

Razanir
2015-07-23, 08:44 AM
Talk like Yoda, these gnomes do.:smallamused:

Not so strange is the way he speaks. In the Original Trilogy, like medieval poetry are many of his lines. As an example, when equating two things, OVS, he uses, not OSV. Although in other sentences, use OSV, he does.
A source (http://fd.noneinc.com/secrethistoryofstarwarscom/secrethistoryofstarwars.com/yodaspeak.html), I have. (And yes, prefer the Original Trilogy, I do)

Sacrieur
2015-07-23, 09:08 AM
Not so strange is the way he speaks. In the Original Trilogy, like medieval poetry are many of his lines. As an example, when equating two things, OVS, he uses, not OSV. Although in other sentences, use OSV, he does.
A source (http://fd.noneinc.com/secrethistoryofstarwarscom/secrethistoryofstarwars.com/yodaspeak.html), I have. (And yes, prefer the Original Trilogy, I do)

Inverted syntax for Gnome? Awesome.

LibraryOgre
2015-07-23, 09:09 AM
But the South Korean word for their country is Hanguk.

Like I said, it's been 25 years and I don't remember the precise reason why anymore.

Flickerdart
2015-07-23, 09:20 AM
If you wanted to be annoying (which gnomes already kind of are) you could just reverse word order entirely.

LibraryOgre
2015-07-23, 09:41 AM
I give a circumstance bonus for threatening Orcs in Orcish, for instance.


So, playing a 4e game, our group comes upon a group of orcs at a campsite. My gnome feylock, incapable of making a decent roll against the enemies, turns to the party and says, "I've got this; I know orcish."

I do not know orcish. I do, however, know Bluff quite well, and manage to destroy everyone's resistance to my lies with a well-placed 20. Even the half-orc was willing to believe that, yes, this gnome spoke orcish.

So, I turn to the orcs, draw myself up to my full 30 inches of height, and say "ORC ORC ORC ORC ORC ORC ORC!"

Then turn invisible. And run away from the fight I started.

Knaight
2015-07-23, 09:49 AM
It's only a "major advantage" for the first 30 seconds, and then listening to someone do a fake (and probably offensive) foreign accent gets mighty tiring.

It can work if all of the players who have a PC who speak a shared language also speak a shared second language with enough fluency. Generally this only works in the context of games played in areas which are largely multilingual with a relatively short language list in the game, though if you have only two languages in play this covers a lot of area.

Red Fel
2015-07-23, 10:03 AM
If you wanted to be annoying (which gnomes already kind of are) you could just reverse word order entirely.

Actually, a component-based language for tinker-type Gnomes makes a lot of sense. By component-based, I mean a language that involves parts of a sentence as components that can be reassembled in any order, as convenient. It helps if you have a particle indicator to designate what part of a sentence a word is. (For example, in Japanese, the particles wa or ga follow the subject of a sentence, if it is stated, while the object may be followed by wo; a destination or location may be followed by de, e, or ni; to is used as a conjunctive to connect a list of items; and so forth.) This fits the Gnomish mindset of piecing things together to build new things. It also means that one sentence could be perfectly comprehensible, and the next utter chaos, depending entirely upon the speaker. Someone fluent in the language who was not a Gnome would understand all the words, with the particle indicators telling what each one's function is within the sentence, but might still need a moment to parse the unusual order.

Segev
2015-07-23, 10:38 AM
Actually, a component-based language for tinker-type Gnomes makes a lot of sense. By component-based, I mean a language that involves parts of a sentence as components that can be reassembled in any order, as convenient. It helps if you have a particle indicator to designate what part of a sentence a word is. (For example, in Japanese, the particles wa or ga follow the subject of a sentence, if it is stated, while the object may be followed by wo; a destination or location may be followed by de, e, or ni; to is used as a conjunctive to connect a list of items; and so forth.) This fits the Gnomish mindset of piecing things together to build new things. It also means that one sentence could be perfectly comprehensible, and the next utter chaos, depending entirely upon the speaker. Someone fluent in the language who was not a Gnome would understand all the words, with the particle indicators telling what each one's function is within the sentence, but might still need a moment to parse the unusual order.

Combine particle-based grammar of Japanese or Russian with the German tendency to construct compound words out of simpler ones (so really German sounds a lot like Buffy-speak: the mill might be a "wheatcrushingwheelhouse"), and you have a very utilitarian but complicated and potentially confusing linguistic structure for anybody who isn't a native speaker.

Razanir
2015-07-23, 01:31 PM
Inverted syntax for Gnome? Awesome.

How I would do Yoda speak. You don't have to mess with every sentence, but if you do, these rules keep it fairly understandable, while still feeling Yoda-like.


1. Move everything after the verb to the beginning.

"The man sees the dog" -> "The dog, the man sees".

2. Phrasal verbs (to be X-ing, to have X-ed) are "Object be/have Subject participle" OR "O S be/have participle"

"She has eaten the cake" -> "The cake, has she eaten" OR "The cake, she has eaten"

3. If you want to be emphatic with phrasal verbs, use "Verb object subject be/have". Be careful not to leave too much between the verb and the subject.

"Eaten the cake, she has"

4. The equivalent for simple tenses is "Verb object subject do"

"The man kissed his wife" -> "His wife, the man kissed" (non-emphatic) or "Kiss his wife, the man did" (emphatic)

5. Feel free to use 3 or 4 non-emphatically if the object is incredibly short.

"I see him" -> "See him, I do" (Not "Him, I see")

6. For perfect tenses (to have + participle), feel free to use "to be" instead of "to have" if it's a verb of motion. (See German, Spanish, French, or Italian, to name a few)

"Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

7. If the verb is "to be", just switch the subject and object.

"I am strong with the Force" -> "Strong am I with the Force"
(Actual example, and note that "with the Force" didn't move)
(This rule is huge, it's part of why PT Yoda sounds different than OT Yoda)

R&J Act 2, Scene 2, Lines 2-6:

But soft! what light through yonder window breaks.
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon
Who is already sick and pale with grief
That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she

Yoda-fied version:

But soft! what light through yonder window breaks,
The east, it is, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who sick and pale with grief already is,
That far more fair than she art thou her maid.

From the Gettysburg Address:

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

Now in a great civil war, we are engaged, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. On a great battlefield of that war, are we met, and to dedicate a portion of that field, have we come, as a final resting place for those who here their lives gave that that nation might live. Altogether fitting and proper, it is, that we should do this.

Beleriphon
2015-07-23, 03:03 PM
Another very simple though is that a language doesn't differentiate between green and blue. There are a few Amazonian native groups that don't differentiate between blue or green. Essentiall the same word represents the entire colour range most languages represent with two separate words.

Another thought is that a group has dark vision and lives underground all of the time they're going to have trouble describing red/orange/yellow to somebody that sees pumpkins, roses and sunflowers as three separate colours. As such they might be more inclined to use textural words for colour rather than what English uses. Yellow might be flat, rough, and crunchy depending on what you think think the language should include to describe colours that are only seen in shades of grey.

Another thought, combine sounds that are similar in English into the same sound in for your racial language. For example in Spanish there isn't that much difference between B and V sounds. My grandmother was call "Birginia" by her father because he pronounced V sounds the same as B sounds. You can also use aspirated sounds where there normally aren't any, although these can be much hard to detect.

Razanir
2015-07-23, 04:56 PM
Another very simple though is that a language doesn't differentiate between green and blue. There are a few Amazonian native groups that don't differentiate between blue or green. Essentiall the same word represents the entire colour range most languages represent with two separate words.

Another thought is that a group has dark vision and lives underground all of the time they're going to have trouble describing red/orange/yellow to somebody that sees pumpkins, roses and sunflowers as three separate colours. As such they might be more inclined to use textural words for colour rather than what English uses. Yellow might be flat, rough, and crunchy depending on what you think think the language should include to describe colours that are only seen in shades of grey.

This one! 80% of languages follow these rules:

Everyone distinguishes light/warm from dark/cool. The most common advancement from there is distinguishing red/yellow as a color. After that, you typically either separate the two or turn blue/green into a color. Then you make the advancement you didn't. And finally you distinguish white, red, yellow, green, blue, and black.

JBPuffin
2015-07-23, 05:28 PM
I must look high right now. I was staring at my hand, counting as you mentioned and going "Whoa, I never even thought of that!"

I did the exact same thing :smalltongue:.

You know, I was gonna invent a whole new language. Now, I'll settle for speech quirks, a completely different set of common names, and a different alphabet. Thanks, GitP.

I like the idea of characters who are technically hiveminds, such as Shardminds and such, using I as a collective noun. Strangely, it doesn't change very much.

Lvl 2 Expert
2015-07-24, 06:17 AM
You can simplify your syllables a bit. English allows (C)3V(C)5 syllables*, whereas, say, Hawaiian allows (C)V only. By inserting short vowels and simplifying consonant clusters, you can change your pronunciation without having to learn new grammar or vocabulary. For example, setengethese rather than strengths. Yes, you end up with loads of syllables.

Mildly impractical for speaking to your players on a regular basis perhaps, but if you are going down this road think about implying these people use a syllable based writing system. At least some types of cuneiform writing (those ancient symbols consisting of pin shapes stripes and triangles) for instance (my example is the Hittite language, no, I have no clear idea why I ever looked that up) have symbols for every separate V, every CV combination (using the C's and V's they know), every VC combination and a limited number of CVC syllables that often have meanings as the most important words. Allowing more complex syllables would result in too many different symbols (like Chinese has), so a simple syllable system is often (but not nearly always) a result of a writing system based on syllables. If a culture has a letter based writing system strict limits on syllable construction just lead to words that are longer than necessary both in spoken and in written form (or to a very simple vocabulary).


Base 12 has some interesting properties. You can count to 12 on one hand if you use your thumb to point to individual finger-bones (which is the densest hand-based counting system I've yet found)

You could use binary and get to 31 with nothing more than bending and stretching your fingers, but I've never met anyone who could actually use that system well and see what number they had ended up with in one glance, so your base 12 system probably works better. Since I'm used to base 10 anyway, I think I'll keep advocating the abacus-style system with the thumb being 5.

Segev
2015-07-24, 09:42 AM
You could use binary and get to 31 with nothing more than bending and stretching your fingers, but I've never met anyone who could actually use that system well and see what number they had ended up with in one glance, so your base 12 system probably works better. Since I'm used to base 10 anyway, I think I'll keep advocating the abacus-style system with the thumb being 5.

Oh, sure. For real-world use, I, myself, count in sign language rather than anything else (it's still base-10), which only lets me get up to 10 on one hand. (There's technically ways to go higher, but I don't know them well enough to use them well.)

I learned the base-12 one-handed counting because I heard that, supposedly, it was the standard counting-by-hand system that ancient Babylon (which supposedly had a base-60 system, and is the source of our 60-second/60-minute conventions) used.

VoxRationis
2015-07-24, 12:34 PM
I've had players get annoyed when they found out there as no "common" language and they had to learn multiple languages if they were traveling between countries. I would drop the idea, I mean it's neat and all but sometimes you have to make sacrifices. So I would stick with Common, racial languages and secret languages and leave it at that.

There's an easy way for realism while retaining common. There's usually some sort of lingua franca even in realistic environments with linguistic diversity. What I did for my current campaign was have the Latin-equivalent stand in for Common. Certain populations which never had major contact with the Empire didn't speak it, but most people did.

Admiral Squish
2015-07-24, 03:25 PM
I always love messing around with languages when I'm making a setting. But I've never actually tried speaking differently at the table, apart from horrible attempts at accents.
Also, I support base-12 as a numeric system in general, so I always try to introduce it in settings. You can get up to 24 on one hand if you count bones and knuckles.

Let's see, some interesting things I've done with language...

Dwarven written language combines syllabic runes with pictograph nouns (supplemented with runes for specific nouns). The script is used in many other languages, so, even if you don't understand the language, you can get some info out of some writing. For example, 'Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water'. Would be written as "(Young Boy)jack and (Young Girl)jill went up the (Hill/Mound) to fetch a (Bucket/Vessel) of (Water)".

Elven uses tone to add context to a word, but the basic meaning is carried through without it. They wrote with two systems, one 'shorthand' that simply spelled out the sounds, and one elaborate, artistic 'longhand' that included tone notations.

Halfling uses pitch and rhythm as part of its grammar. Pitch is also important, as there's a pattern of tones that goes along with sentence structure. Speak too fast and you sound angry. End on a higher pitch and your statement becomes a question. Halflings don't distinguish between song and poetry.

Orc is agglutinative, so they just add syllables and suffixes to a word to form a complete thought. It also has a lot of word-bits that can give pretty great nuance to different combat-related ideas. Like, a few syllables could describe the distinction between 'advancing boldly with confidence in your overwhelming force', 'advancing boldly to intimidate your opponent', and 'advancing boldly because you have to keep the pressure on'. Actually a pretty common language for serious students of warfare and tactics.

Illithid can't vocalize anything more complex than a hiss, but they communicate telepathically using pure thought. Makes everything they do seem eerily silent. As such, it's impossible to actually quote them, you just have to describe the message they intend to convey. Like "This illithid, who conveys his identity as the five-time employee of the month of this inn referred to as 'K'arl' in common, greets you and wishes you to feel at home. You're reminded of the smell of your parent's cooking."

Oh, Dragons name themselves, and refer to themselves in grand, sprawling terms, with many titles. For example, She Who Has Seen Truth, Keeper Of The Candle Of Knowledge, Guardian Of One Thousand Secrets, Teacher Of Kings, Font of Endless Wisdom. Or Beautiful Undying Queen of Night and Shadow Who Soars in Silence and Brings Death to All Foes, Mistress of the Arcane, She Whose Name is Whispered in Fear. They like to force other to use their full names to show respect and deference.

A couple languages that are simply impossible for humans to approximate or spell due to incompatible biology/insufficient writing systems.

One language used body language pretty extensively, which actually used chest-thumps, stomps, and similar as punctuation.

Cealocanth
2015-07-24, 03:54 PM
For languages from creatures with non-human biology (such as dragonkin or kobolds) that somehow still manage to speak Common, you could attempt to replace some sounds with things that come 'easier' in their languages. English barely scratches the surface of what the human voice can make, and a number of foreign languages make use of them.

A lot of romance languages roll their Rs. This is because in their languages, the R sound is not made with the lips, but with palpitations of the tongue. I use this trait for reptilian-type accents, because such creatures usually don't have lips.
The glottal stop. This one is seen in a lot of native African languages formally, but leaks its way into local accents all over the world. If you have a standard Western American accent, you use a glottal stop whenever a T is followed by a consonant. (The phrases 'mint condition' and 'pet dog' are pronounced 'min' condition' and 'pe' dog'. I often use this one with Dwarves, just because this is associated with the stereotypical Scottish accent.
The soft CH. In a lot of languages that come from Hebrew, Aramaic or Arabic, there is an additional sound that comes from the wiggling of the palette against the back of the throat. It's often associated with guttural languages, but it's actually considered quite elegant in some places of the world. To someone who has never heard someone speak Hebrew before, it will sound like you are using the sound you make to clear your throat as a letter. (How you pronounce the CH in Bach). Because I'm pretty practiced in Hebrew, I use this one to denote a foreign-ness to someone's accent, replacing the H sound.
Clicks and whistles. If you use this one, be knowledgeable and respectful of the languages they come from. These are used as sounds in numerous languages (including a lot of African tribal languages), but are used by modern culture as a means of talking to animals because they recognize sharp tones better than most human language. I usually only use this one if a druid is speaking to an animal or a plant because it reminds some players of actual animal tamers.


That's just a few off the top of my head. I find these add a bit of spice to fantasy accents.

VoxRationis
2015-07-24, 09:36 PM
For languages from creatures with non-human biology (such as dragonkin or kobolds) that somehow still manage to speak Common, you could attempt to replace some sounds with things that come 'easier' in their languages. English barely scratches the surface of what the human voice can make, and a number of foreign languages make use of them.

A lot of romance languages roll their Rs. This is because in their languages, the R sound is not made with the lips, but with palpitations of the tongue. I use this trait for reptilian-type accents, because such creatures usually don't have lips.
The glottal stop. This one is seen in a lot of native African languages formally, but leaks its way into local accents all over the world. If you have a standard Western American accent, you use a glottal stop whenever a T is followed by a consonant. (The phrases 'mint condition' and 'pet dog' are pronounced 'min' condition' and 'pe' dog'. I often use this one with Dwarves, just because this is associated with the stereotypical Scottish accent.
The soft CH. In a lot of languages that come from Hebrew, Aramaic or Arabic, there is an additional sound that comes from the wiggling of the palette against the back of the throat. It's often associated with guttural languages, but it's actually considered quite elegant in some places of the world. To someone who has never heard someone speak Hebrew before, it will sound like you are using the sound you make to clear your throat as a letter. (How you pronounce the CH in Bach). Because I'm pretty practiced in Hebrew, I use this one to denote a foreign-ness to someone's accent, replacing the H sound.
Clicks and whistles. If you use this one, be knowledgeable and respectful of the languages they come from. These are used as sounds in numerous languages (including a lot of African tribal languages), but are used by modern culture as a means of talking to animals because they recognize sharp tones better than most human language. I usually only use this one if a druid is speaking to an animal or a plant because it reminds some players of actual animal tamers.


That's just a few off the top of my head. I find these add a bit of spice to fantasy accents.

Bit of linguistic pedantry: Rs aren't made with the lips in (American) English either. Both are alveolar sounds made with the tip of the tongue. The difference is that the English R doesn't involve movement of the tongue once it's in place, whereas the alveolar trill (the rolled R) does. Intriguingly, if you make the same movement of the tongue from the rolled R, but only once, it's the 'tt' in 'butter,' which forms R-equivalents in several languages.

Xuc Xac
2015-07-25, 02:50 AM
In the field of language instruction, the phenomenon of phrasing things the way your native language does is called "L1 interference" (L1 being the student's first language and L2 being the target language they are trying to learn). This would be things like Russians forgetting to use articles or Chinese forgetting to use "to be" with adjectives. They might learn those words, but when they try to use the language they forget about them because their first language doesn't use them so their brains just aren't tracking that information. "Fluency" is saying all the words you want to say without having to stop and think about it. "Accuracy" is saying all the words a native speaker would say. They rarely go together until a student is at a higher level.

Here are some ideas of possible L1 artifacts that you could toss into a game to make a character sound "foreign" without funny accents:

No apposition. They don't say things like "My friend, Bob, is a fighter." Nouns and pronouns must be connected with a copula (like "to be"), so they would say "Bob is my friend. He is a fighter." or even "My friend is Bob is a fighter."

Limited vocabulary. Some languages have many words for something where other languages only have one. Vietnamese has several words that are all "rice" in English. Arabic has several words that are translated as "sand dune". Perhaps a character's L1 has few words for something that has many words in Common, so they always use the most basic and vague term. For example, they might call any item of clothing that covers the torso (jackets, dresses, tunics, vests, chainmail hauberks, etc.) a "shirt", possibly with adjectives to specify. So a dress is a "long shirt" and a jacket is "a shirt with arms" and a coat of chainmail is "a soft iron shirt" and a breastplate is "a hard iron shirt".

Extensive vocabulary. Sometimes the same language that has limited vocabulary in one area has a huge number of words in another area. When talking about something that their L1 is very specific about, they might constantly over-explain. A race hyper-focused on archery to the exclusion of other styles of combat might refer to all polearms or two-handed weapons as "spears" with no further detail, but they feel the need to be very specific when talking about bows or arrows or crossbows. They might not know words like "broadhead" or "bodkin" but they will never say "arrow" when they can say "wide-tipped heavy war arrow" or "light-shafted needle-tipped arrow".

Gender is relative to the speaker not the object. In English, you call a man "sir" and a woman "ma'am" but the equivalent terms in Thai are determined by the speaker and not the addressee. Thais who are first learning English often make the mistake of calling everyone by one form of address (i.e. men call everyone "sir" and women call everyone "ma'am"). You could take this to a greater extreme. Perhaps male orcs call everyone "he" and females call everyone "she".

Topic prominence. Some languages have grammatical ways of marking the topic of a sentence. This isn't necessarily the subject of the sentence, but it's the important part. This tends to come out as awkward Yoda style phrases where things seem out of order. For example, "This book, I have read it already."

Adjectives are verbs. In some languages, adjectives function as stative verbs (verbs that describe a condition rather than an action, e.g. the English verbs "know", "have", and "seem"). This is why many speakers of East Asian languages say things like "My brother tall" or "the wall red".

No copula. The copula is the word used to equate two nouns or pronouns. In most languages, it's the equivalent of "to be". Without a copula, a language might use apposition: "My brother, a doctor." Or an action: "My brother works as a doctor." "This is my sword" would be just "My sword" or "My sword here".

Different syntax is. Many languages use the Subject-Verb-Object word order. SOV and VSO are also fairly common. In languages with extensive use of case declension like Latin, the syntax doesn't really matter because the word form tells you its function in the sentence. This even works in English if you use pronouns (which are the only part of modern English that still use case). In sentences like "Her saw he" or "Him she saw", you can tell if the man or woman did the seeing by which one is a subject pronoun (he/she) and which is an object pronoun (him/her). Some languages are much stricter about word order and their speakers might default to that order when speaking another language and come across like Yoda.

Redundant pronouns. In some languages, there are many pronouns that convey a lot of information about the noun they replace, so they are used in addition to the noun and not just in place of it. When speaking in Common, the extra information is lost when "young woman", "old widow", and "sister" all get reduced to "she", but the speaker still feels compelled to phrase things with the "noun, pronoun" construction: "Ellen, she knows the way" or "Rodrek, he fights well".

Gendered objects. Some languages ascribe masculine and feminine (or other) genders to inanimate objects and tend to use the gendered pronouns to refer to them instead of calling them "it".

No tenses. Some languages don't conjugate verbs for tenses and they mark the time of an action in other ways. For example, in English, there is no future conjugation. Actions in the future are either marked with a future particle like "will" or a present tense is used with a future time (e.g. "Next week, we are going to the beach." or "Tonight, we dine in hell!"). Some languages work like that for all tenses, so they would say things like "Yesterday, I go" or "Before, I go" instead of "I went".

Razanir
2015-07-26, 01:51 PM
I've had players get annoyed when they found out there as no "common" language and they had to learn multiple languages if they were traveling between countries. I would drop the idea, I mean it's neat and all but sometimes you have to make sacrifices. So I would stick with Common, racial languages and secret languages and leave it at that.

I am removing Common from my game, but I'm also setting it before kingdoms and empires really started forming, so there being a decent number of local/indigenous languages is part of the setting.

LibraryOgre
2015-07-27, 11:15 AM
There's also "Common" and "Effectively Common where you are." The Kingdoms of Kalamar setting doesn't have a common, but there's a few "safe" languages you can pick that give you a good chance of being able to talk to a lot of people... Kalamaran and Baparan are mostly mutually intelligible. Brandobian is the core language west of the Legasa Peaks.

Red Fel
2015-07-27, 12:11 PM
Even without a "common" tongue, it's reasonable to assume that people of a similar background or in adjoining regions may have developed linguistically from the same source. Even if you want to give them distinct languages, as opposed to merely dialects, it's not unheard-of to use cognates.

For example, say you have Kobolds; as a race ostensibly descended from and ruled over by Dragons, even if they don't speak Draconic themselves, it's not unreasonable that their native tongue be a bastardized version of Draconic, with similar grammar or vocabulary. Likewise, if you have a lost tribe of Elves (or Drow), separated from the main population across centuries, their language would still bear certain recognizable similarities to Elven, or at least "Old" Elven.

You might also see some hybridized languages. For some real-life examples, consider Aramaic (Judeo-Arabic), Ludino (Judeo-Spanish), and Yiddish (Judeo-German). Each is a hybrid language, combining the host population's grammar and accent with the speaking population's writing system and pronunciation quirks. The result is a unique language, spoken by a distinct subculture, yet recognized as a somewhat bastardized form of the local tongue. By way of example, Dwarves who had lived among Humans for centuries might have developed a form of accented Manspeak, using words in both Dwarven and Manspeak, as well as Manspeak grammar, but Dwarven runescript.

Princess
2015-07-27, 04:55 PM
You also run into honorifics and status-relative pronouns; the German I learned in college and high school was pretty big on using "Sie" as a formal version of "du/ihr"... so if I'm addressing a bunch of kids, they'd be "ihr" (2nd person, informal), but addressing a group of managers would be "Sie" (the formal version). You see honorifics all the time in a lot of older animes, as well... -kun, -san, -senpai, etc., added to the name to indicate relationship and formality.



My older brother Mike was Mikey to Koreans, because (IIRC) they don't end words on a hard consonant, or something (it's been 25 years and I wasn't as into languages then).

More likely it was because the long "I" vowel is more awkward for Koreans, and making that name multi-syllabic makes it easier to say. Tons of Korean words end in 'k.'

Also, speaking of Korean, that language uses three different levels of formality in pronouns. Where English has "you" and used to have "thee/thou" and Spanish uses Usted/Tu, Korean has three different words to indicate an elevated, equal, or reduced status. There are separate pronouns for intimating things like politeness, submission, dominance, and potential disrespect. To a child you use one pronoun, to a spouse another, and to a judge or leader yet another still. The fact that English uses "You" in both "I respect you, sir" and "You disgust me, pig" is initially confusing to a monolingual Korean learning the language. I imagine a language like Draconic or Elvish would have at least as complex a use of pronouns as Spanish, possibly as many as Korean, or even something more nuanced than that. That might require actually making new vocab for your game, with either totally new words or consistent adjectives - "High(est) You" or "Lowly you" could work.


Totally unrelated to that, I've always pictured Gnome and Halfling languages starting with the verb, then the subject and object, a bit like Irish does. (There are a number of ways in which Tolkien's Hobbits resemble Irish stereotypes, and it's no secret that D&D based its own Halflings on them). I started to make my own language for RPG use and made it verb first.

Flickerdart
2015-07-27, 05:06 PM
That might require actually making new vocab for your game, with either totally new words or consistent adjectives - "High(est) You" or "Lowly you" could work.
Something as simple as "your worship" or "your excellency" can convey elevated status without making your players wonder what's going on. Lower status could be harder, but if you're willing to fudge with the phrasing, you could have higher-status people refuse to acknowledge lower-status people with the use of a first-person pronoun. So they could say "this peasant disgusts me" or even "I am disgusted by this peasant" if you really wanted to place the emphasis on the person of higher status.

Hell, in a super status-conscious society like the Drow's, you could have both participants using the first person exclusively for the higher-ranked speaker. So if a farmer is speaking to a priestess, he might say "your holiness" to refer to her, and "this peasant" to refer to himself. For extra points, have the higher status person always come first, such as "your excellency honours this peasant" being said by the farmer as thanks.

Socksy
2015-07-27, 06:30 PM
Personally, I always thought of the reptilian races, or at least the less intelligent ones, would speak a broken, more primitive version of Draconic, while true dragons spoke the only complete version of the language.

Which is another idea for languages as a whole - just because several different species speak the same language, that doesn't mean they all speak the same dialect. For example, while maybe goblins and hobgoblins share a language, perhaps they sound bizarrely different to the untrained ear.

I have them speak Draconic, but their Draconic is spoken with a very strong dialect, enought to make dragons wince at the pronounciation and for kobolds, lizardfolk, etc to have issues understanding each other some of the time.


This one! 80% of languages follow these rules:

Everyone distinguishes light/warm from dark/cool. The most common advancement from there is distinguishing red/yellow as a color. After that, you typically either separate the two or turn blue/green into a color. Then you make the advancement you didn't. And finally you distinguish white, red, yellow, green, blue, and black.

http://www.omniglot.com/blog/?p=821
Maybe this is relevant and helpful? :D

LibraryOgre
2015-07-27, 07:55 PM
More likely it was because the long "I" vowel is more awkward for Koreans, and making that name multi-syllabic makes it easier to say. Tons of Korean words end in 'k.'


That might be it. Thanks, Princess.


Totally unrelated to that, I've always pictured Gnome and Halfling languages starting with the verb, then the subject and object, a bit like Irish does. (There are a number of ways in which Tolkien's Hobbits resemble Irish stereotypes, and it's no secret that D&D based its own Halflings on them). I started to make my own language for RPG use and made it verb first.

I use a lot of stereotypes in making my default races. I tend to have gnomes be stereotypically Jewish, for example (though Tolkien had said his dwarves were supposed to have that influence).

Lvl 2 Expert
2015-07-28, 06:58 AM
From the Gettysburg Address:

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

Now in a great civil war, we are engaged, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. On a great battlefield of that war, are we met, and to dedicate a portion of that field, have we come, as a final resting place for those who here their lives gave that that nation might live. Altogether fitting and proper, it is, that we should do this.

To get back on the Yoda speak: I don't think the rules really are that important to it. Yoda himself can't really be pinned down to any rules. But to replicate the feel of it, maybe try shorter sentences, and avoid big words and complicated constructions (other than the constructions that appear because you're speaking Yoda speak). You wouldn't try to turn a speech like the one above into Hulk speak by adding "Hulk thinks" in front of any sentence. The language use doesn't fit Hulk speak, and it feels a bit bulky for Yoda speak as well. How about something like this?

In a great war engaged we are. Testing our nation, it is. Its strength, and endurance. On this field, a great battle we fought. Bury those who fell, on this field we must. The only fitting way, it is.

To have further fun with it, Hulk might shorten the speech to this:

Hulk fight here, Hulk stomp puny enemies. But many Hulk friends die, this make Hulk sad. Hulk bury friends where they fight now.

It's the great headache of any translation work, even between similar dialects: whichever way you'd pick to state something in language 1 probably doesn't suit language 2 very well. It's even worse with jokes and punch-lines. The "easiest" way around it is probably not to translate, try to know which character is going to say something, and think about how they would say whatever you're trying to get across.

For roleplaying games this means it's really hard to make rules for these accents, to tell someone else how to speak a certain way. It's more about having a brilliant GM who can juggle several of these characters just by the feel of their speaking patterns while improvising how to react to the actions of the players.

Hulk give two puny cents, cents make Hulk angry, Hulk pound cents until they pennies!