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Thread: Familiar or Alien Languages
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2018-06-11, 01:54 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2015
Familiar or Alien Languages
For some time now I've faced a conundrum with my longest running project (a setting). In brief, I feel that creating new, unique languages for the world would help add distinctness and verisimilitude to it (two of my primary goals with the project as a whole). It would also allow me to avoid stepping on any toes from an accidental mistranslation of a real world language. I also have means available to make the process relatively easy, albeit time consuming. This last point is of particular note as I'll have to arrange for 8+ languages.
On the other hand, I have already invested a great deal of time and energy naming places and NPCs in a variety of existing (read: real world) languages. Where possible, the new names would ideally be changed to terms that have similar, if not identical, translations. However, by the same measure that would mean that the change is largely cosmetic on my end and may simply be wasted effort. Additionally, I fear that the addition of a dozen or so unique languages could be too alien for most people's taste. And, of course, it would take me quite a bit of time to get used to the new names myself, many of which I've used for 5+ years at this point.
So, my ultimate question is: would unique, custom built languages be too alien for most players to enjoy, or would is it worth the time investment?
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2018-06-11, 02:39 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2006
- Location
- NYC
- Gender
Re: Familiar or Alien Languages
My usual compromise is to have familiar vs. alien names for people & things (including place-names).
Those, plus (outrageous) accents, are usually sufficient to convey what I want.
Going full Tolkien and writing a language might be overkill.I want you to PEACH me as hard as you can.
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2018-06-14, 04:54 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2018
Re: Familiar or Alien Languages
Actually creating those language is overkill. What you want is names (of creatures and locations) that sound differents.
Additionnally, if a language is central to your campain you may want:
+ The alphabet to look different
(Note that the look of the alphabet is usually linked to the traditionnal way of writing. If it is on rock, you use mainly straight lines and simple symbols, if it is on papyrus, you may use curved lines and complex symbols)
+ Choose what kind of alphabet you want (does it have symbols for letters, for concepts, ... ?)
+ Some numbers (1 to 5, or to 10)
+ The religious / ideological symbols.
+ And if you have some strong knowledge about language structures, you can choose some language features that explain their society.
(Exemple: this civilisation has 4 genres, the Immortal (for angels), the Betrayer (for diables), the Mortal (for humans/elves/...), and the Object (for objects/elementals/demons/...). Meaning that the society does not give different roles to women and men, and is probably oblivious to this cultural aspect of humans)
(Another example: instead of past/present/future, this society has "near past"/present/"near futur"/"far futur OR far past", since it believe that time is a loop, so future and past is the same)
However, if you do like creating languages, do it. Since training is always good (the first few languages you create will probably be crap anyway).
Just be aware that the details will be useless to your campain, and that if you try to force it into the campain, it will most likely slow down the pace and/or bore your players.
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2018-06-14, 10:07 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2015
Re: Familiar or Alien Languages
I suppose at this point it would probably be overkill to mention that I have a program that will do most of the heavy lifting. I got it originally just for the word generation, but the full on grammar rules and other features were certainly nice benefits. I can literally just click once and it'll shoot out a whole new language in a couple seconds. The real difficulty would be in rooting through a few dozen to pick ones I like, assigning them to the custom races, and then renaming the 120+ cities, and probably a similar number of NPCs of various states and statures.
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2018-06-14, 04:05 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2014
- Location
- Los Angeles
Re: Familiar or Alien Languages
If it's just generating random strings and tying those to English dictionary words... that actually sounds like a pretty bad way to generate a fantasy language. But I can't really judge without seeing the specific tool.
It's worth noting that covering a few key points can be almost as effective as writing an entirely new language. A few culturally interesting words that don't translate neatly into English, or an example of how some things are lost in translation or how caveats of the language affects social interactions (like Japanese honorifics, for example), can do a lot more to make a world feel real than doing a word replacement exercise (which isn't how real foreign languages work anyways).Last edited by LudicSavant; 2018-06-14 at 04:08 PM.
Originally Posted by ProsecutorGodot
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