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Main Forums => General Discussion => Topic started by: Howlando on June 21, 2011, 06:18:03 PM

Title: Foreign Languages used IC'ly
Post by: Howlando on June 21, 2011, 06:18:03 PM
Until further notice, please do not use incorporate the use of japanese, spanish, french, or any other IRL foreign language into your character's IC speak.

The DM team and most players find it jarring.

If you wish to make an exception for a particular word or phrase or language, which under certain specific circumstances can be OK, consult with a DM.

Thanks!
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Post by: Howlando on June 21, 2011, 06:19:39 PM
For example, "Sahib" is okay.
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Post by: Jayde Moon on June 21, 2011, 07:09:17 PM
What about Pig Latin?  I don't know if I can continue to play on a server where they have disallowed Pig Latin.
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Post by: Nuclear Catastrophe on June 21, 2011, 08:04:34 PM
Quote from: Jayde Moon;246035What about Pig Latin?  I don't know if I can continue to play on a server where they have disallowed Pig Latin.

Uck-fay ing-nay oll-tray.
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Post by: The Old Hack on June 21, 2011, 09:30:14 PM
How about accents, or trying to use dialects? And please, I am not trying to troll, I genuinely want to know. :(
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Post by: Barber on June 21, 2011, 09:52:17 PM
Accents are mandatory for all dwarves, everyone knows that dwarves are Scottish, to claim otherwise is just silly.
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Post by: Garem on June 21, 2011, 10:02:40 PM
Accents have always been alright. That being said, accents can easily become irksome and detrimental to the character since it often makes people focus on something that really isn't that important. Clever dialogue > Accents.

Use tastefully.
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Post by: lovethesuit on June 21, 2011, 10:07:57 PM
Wakarimasen, Howl-tan.
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Post by: Jaws That Thirst on June 21, 2011, 11:33:11 PM
"Kanichiwa Annette-san"

"Oui"
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Post by: Luke Danger on June 21, 2011, 11:40:54 PM
I'm with Garem. Use it tastefully. With Gloin, it was a stylistic choice and I did my best to keep it as comphrendable as possible. Example:

"I'll bust you good!" goes into "Oi'll bust ya good!" A few minor changes, but otherwise readable. And only when the character spoke. Gave Gloin a flavor, but left him generally seeming easy to understand despite the accent.

Ex 2:

"I am Gloin, Honorguard of Fellhammer Hold. Treat us dwarves honorably and we shall treat you likewise. Cross us, and you will learn dwarven courage the hard way."
Into
"Oi'm Gloin, Honorguard of Fellhammer Hold. Treat us dwarves honorably and we shall treat ye loikewise. Cross us, an' you'll learn dwarven courage the hard way."

Or a few minor mispellings for flavor, and only in verbalization. In letters it remains normal english. (Or basic. Or common. Or whatever)
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Post by: Kinslayer988 on June 22, 2011, 12:26:12 AM
I believe dwarven accents should be okay.
Also, would elven terms count as foreign? (Tel'quessir and such)
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Post by: Joe Desu on June 22, 2011, 03:31:40 AM
I have always had trouble understanding dwarven accents and "the" main reason why I will never play a dwarf. I will not understand half the crap the other dwarves are saying.
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Post by: Ebok on June 22, 2011, 05:58:03 AM
Elvan isnt an IRL language, it's fine.
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Post by: Egon the Monkey on June 22, 2011, 09:08:20 AM
Quote from: Joe Desu;246097I have always had trouble understanding dwarven accents and "the" main reason why I will never play a dwarf. I will not understand half the crap the other dwarves are saying.
The whole "Scottish accent" thing is a bit overdone, and plenty of players don't bother. I've always imagined dwarves as sounding Northern English, or Olde Viking Saga. Hell, I was contemplating trying a mock-Swedish accent on Aorli, but LiS would have FDed me for it :D.

I always think you can go a lot further with a style of phrasing than by typing accents. I tend towards my dwarves using stodgy phrase and flavourful profanity. There's the classic Illiterate Stargazer Phrasing, too. Neither are accents, but they do indicate a culture. It's easier to read as well. If you do use an accent, the odd "Talking like zis" word or two in a conversation works better than a whole paragraph of it. Hints at the voice without making it illegible.
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Post by: The Old Hack on June 22, 2011, 09:26:54 AM
Quote from: Egon the Monkey;246129The whole "Scottish accent" thing is a bit overdone, and plenty of players don't bother. I've always imagined dwarves as sounding Northern English, or Olde Viking Saga. Hell, I was contemplating trying a mock-Swedish accent on Aorli, but LiS would have FDed me for it :D.

Hey, what's up with that? Isn't he supposed to listen in silence? :shock:


QuoteI always think you can go a lot further with a style of phrasing than by typing accents. I tend towards my dwarves using stodgy phrase and flavourful profanity. There's the classic Illiterate Stargazer Phrasing, too. Neither are accents, but they do indicate a culture. It's easier to read as well. If you do use an accent, the odd "Talking like zis" word or two in a conversation works better than a whole paragraph of it. Hints at the voice without making it illegible.

Probably better, yes. The one character I did who had a really thick accent, I tried to emulate Phil Foglio's Jägermonsters. Hard to do on the fly and a lot of people had trouble following it. I'll avoid that in the future.
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Post by: Wafflecone on June 22, 2011, 09:56:09 AM
Can I still roll a goosestepping Damarran with a huge mustache? JA MEIN HERR! *clicks heels, salute*
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Post by: Draon17 on June 23, 2011, 12:24:01 AM
I'm with Howland here all the way. I love speaking what little french I know, but when I saw people using it IC it bothered me a bit.

Although there are certain phrases that have become part of the english lexicon, RSVP, C'est la vie, raison d'être. Some of these we use for the novelty, or perhaps the phrase first introduced to english speakers in another language (could be we didn't say "that's life" until we heard the french do it, I have no clue). Raison d'etre is listed as an english phrase (when missing the accent mark) and while the words are french the first recorded usage of the phrase in English dates back to 1864. This sort of complicates the issue, because these examples have an established place in our language (where as "oui" means yes in french, and if we want to say yes, we just say yes unless we want to go "ha ha francais!" (which isn't to say I don't do that IRL)).

Also does the server use the NPC voice set that says "Bonjour, hello." anywhere?
Title: Mostly Agree
Post by: MalkavianMilkBalls on June 23, 2011, 03:16:05 AM
Mostly Agree

I largely agree with the basis that many people don't understand the languages when used. My only problem is that canonically we sometimes see that Forgotten Realms cultures reflect rl cultures.

I'll point prominently to Kara'Tur being heavily influenced by japanese culture. A prime example for this is in Baldur's Gate 2, the character Yoshimo will use japanese phrases ranging from "Thank goodness" (Yokatta) to "I understand" (Wakarimasu). That aside, it is commonly accepted that the katana in the forgotten realms setting is derived from Kara'Tur.

The point of all that being that while I agree that we shouldn't be holding long drawn out conversations, I *do* think that characters speaking different languages is part of rping.

While most people speak common there are many who have other languages and it has been established that many languages mirror or draw from irl ones. It seems to me that we need to build some langauge base for the server. Something that has some guide to elvish, dwarfish, and other established forgotten realms languages, that way these lapses outside of common aren't so jarring.
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Post by: Disco on June 23, 2011, 12:44:03 PM
Finaly! No more silly words we can not understand. I suguest we also put a ban on elven. Who in their right mind understand elven!?

P.S No offence intended.
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Post by: Howlando on June 23, 2011, 01:18:59 PM
QuoteI'll point prominently to Kara'Tur being heavily influenced by japanese culture. A prime example for this is in Baldur's Gate 2, the character Yoshimo will use japanese phrases ranging from "Thank goodness" (Yokatta) to "I understand" (Wakarimasu). That aside, it is commonly accepted that the katana in the forgotten realms setting is derived from Kara'Tur.

The base item "Katana" in efu is typically used as some kind of exotic calimshan or even netherese blade-type, nothing to do with Kara'tur and not something to be called a "katana" IC'ly.

I have never found Japanese used IC'ly to be anything but cringe-worthy, personally...
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Post by: Aethereal on June 23, 2011, 01:32:36 PM
I use Elven IG. But only with elves and if I do use it with non elves I include an IC correction or notification of what it means. Its mostly for flavour though and shouldn't be overused as to annoy folks!
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Post by: Haromaro on June 23, 2011, 09:51:43 PM
Quote from: Aethereal;246324I use Elven IG. But only with elves and if I do use it with non elves I include an IC correction or notification of what it means. Its mostly for flavour though and shouldn't be overused as to annoy folks!

The big difference between elven and French/Japanese is that elven is an established language in the setting. Even then, excessive use of such can become grating. I feel like flavor is fine so long as it coincides with the setting, which Japanese and French do not. Even worse is the fact that the words being used are translations of extremely common, easy to pronounce English (common) words, which makes absolutely no sense. Really, I might as well be playing a half-orc who slams a closed fist against his chest and shouts "Lok'tar ogar!" in greeting to everyone; it's the same concept.

It bothers some people while others don't mind it, but I think the integral issue here is that there's a pretty vocal majority that feel seeing real life foreign languages is jarring. The server always asks us "how will x that you do cause y to make other players happy?" and the fact of the matter is that foreign languages ruin immersion more than it helps the fun factor of the game. If you want flavor, do some research on where your character comes from, maybe find a few common phrases or terms your character might take a preference for. Something as simple as the difference between "shopping cart" and "buggy" would do fine. Personally, I thought some of the things that sprung up from the DM's discouraging the use of the F-bomb were pretty spiffy.
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Post by: MalkavianMilkBalls on June 23, 2011, 10:07:38 PM
Whatever you call the weapons on the server or where ever you base them seems a bit off the point of language. The point made was that there is at least some evidence of real world language and culture being mixed with purely fictional ones.

While I'll be the first to agree that anyone attempting Japanese without an understanding of spelling and grammar is painful, to deny it's viability over any other language seems wrong. In truth though, isn't it true that *any* language spoken poorly is painful, common included? I think rather than banning languages based in the forgotten realms, it should be second in getting people who *do* attempt them, to do it well.
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Post by: Garem on June 23, 2011, 11:26:26 PM
Kara Tur is not based on Japan. =( It's based on this planet's biggest continent. =( =( And they were really lazy/uncreative about making them, because the similarities are loldiculous. Really, WotC wasn't even trying to make them unique.
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Post by: Howlando on June 23, 2011, 11:35:48 PM
I'm aware that Kara'tur is the continent, and agree that a main issue with it is that WOTC just didn't do a good job with it.

Seriously.... KORYO for Korea?

TABOT?
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Post by: Big Orc Man on June 24, 2011, 12:09:05 AM
Free Tabot!

It is pretty lazy.  Usually they at least renamed a nation beyond moving a couple letters.
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Post by: Drakill Tannan on June 24, 2011, 03:12:29 AM
Quote from: Haromaro;246398(...) I feel like flavor is fine so long as it coincides with the setting, which Japanese and French do not. (...)

French fits perfectly when you take a good look at the numinous order. Honestly, when i think numinous order french cruzaders is the first thing that comes to mind.

Spanish makes the PC sound exotic imo. Though i wish people would use it correctly.

Japanese... i personally hate it. It irritates me. But that's just me.

Honestlly i think it's about "accents" more than speaking the language. A few words wich meaning everyone knows, like "Bonjour", "Señor", etc. Don't seem to harm no one more than "Vedui" does. This mostly so that players know your character uses the accent of that language, rather than speaking it often.

imo
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Post by: LAwfulGoodThief on June 24, 2011, 04:08:42 AM
Quote from: Garem;246408Kara Tur is not based on Japan. =( It's based on this planet's biggest continent. =( =( And they were really lazy/uncreative about making them, because the similarities are ridiculous. Really, WotC wasn't even trying to make them unique.

You can't blame WOTC. Kara-Tur goes all the way back to Gary Gygax and the 1st edition AD&D Oriental Adventures book. Kozakura and Wa were the two Japanese-themed island nations.
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Post by: chezcaliente on June 24, 2011, 05:00:46 AM
If you have access to some of the third edition splat books for the forgotten realms, I highly recommend them. Almost all of them include a few words from the various faeurunian cultures that the book pertains to.

And even though I know we're not in 4E here on EfU:M, the 4th edition FRCG contains a few words in a glossary that could definitely be used for flavour here I think.
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Post by: Decimate_The_Weak on June 25, 2011, 03:47:18 PM
Accents can improve the atmosphere created around a character as well as make the character itself more flavorful & interesting.

Use accents, but don't use languages that aren't canon to the FR setting. It's "jarring" as some of us have put it & doesn't do a lot of good in terms of flavoring your PC.

As posted previously, with the dwarven accents; "Oi", and things similar make the game more immersive because it gives races & cultures an actual difference in their dialogue.

Accents, not language.
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Post by: cladwig1 on June 25, 2011, 04:25:26 PM
ùNot that it bother me much. But i prefer no ''accent speling'' myself. And just write in Bio or Emote that *Jim speaks with Rusian accents* instead of writing everything really wierd.