(04-28-2015, 01:44 AM)Faye Wrote:Virtually all Elezen have French names but don't show any sign of having French accents or speaking anything akin to French do they? It's also a bit odd that Roegadyn who pronounce their full names flawlessly also don't have hints of accents either. (For example, people with French or Italian names in America often don't pronounce their names the same way they're pronounced in the language because the language their name comes from isn't one they speak; whereas people like Merlwyb -specifically- pronounces her name differently than she normally speaks). Less so than full on French names, though. I would've at least hoped that some noble Elezen somewhere would retain their whole language and be speaking it.(04-28-2015, 01:34 AM)ForbieJD Wrote: Can also confirm that the SPANISH language exists in-game. An Elezen is teaching/flirting with a girl in the Gold Saucer and translating a Spanish word for her.
"El Coloso" is the name of something in the Golden Saucer (the giant cactuar statue?). It doesn't necessarily mean Spanish is a spoken language in the game any more than Latin is, given the Latin roots in Garlean naming conventions. Plus, his translation is pretty shoddy--telling her that "El Coloso" means "the Coloso."
(Another example: Bastien often being pronounced 'Bast-ee-an' rather than 'Baes-teeoh' or 'Baes-teeohn')
So far the most frequent characters I've seen (one of my own, included) that had a 'native language' RP-wise are miqo'te. Something about them being tribal and potentially reclusive through generations, I suppose, makes that seem somehow more likely.
I still dream of a reclusive Duskwight family somewhere out there who still speaks some variation of a previous tongue and since they might abstain from trading often and prefer to communicate among themselves, have thick accents when speaking the widely accepted dialect.
Some might argue that the generic Eorzean speech has been going on so long that no surviving individuals would be speaking 'native' tongues still or perhaps they never even -had- native languages but that just doesn't make a ton of sense to me. Miqo'te clearly did/do. Roegadyn clearly did/do. Elezen clearly did/do. Garlean-Latin and Spanish or what appears to be Spanish might share roots in some older language. Maybe they're even shared with the original Elezen language. For the more scholarly or historically inclined individuals, being fluent or at least learning those old languages seems like it would be a rather fulfilling goal.
