(01-22-2017, 03:58 AM)Kismet Wrote: The part that I put in bold is what I was going for when I said "dialect". Kind of like how American Southerners have their own slew of accents, expressions, and colloquialisms that Americans from the North may not understand. It's the exact same language, but different rhythm and sayings.
Ah well for that bit, I was wondering more on the universe's scope. Not "they" as roleplayers. But they as in all the other characters within the game and universe. Since we're pretty much variables that change with the definitions set in by the lore book or whoever's in charge of the lore.Â
Like, if there's been any in game/universe evidence to support or refute that the dialect that they refer to is just as simple as slang/accent variations say between how two Americans from two different parts of America were to speak English. Or if they mean the broader scope when it's easy enough to think they're different languages.
It's more of something that could incite further speculation. Maybe someone somewhere noticed something that might help support or further refute the lack of unique languages. Â
(01-22-2017, 03:58 AM)Kismet Wrote: The most I'm able to gather from what I think you're going on about here is that, in short, you just really really want your character to talk weird. Specifically, you want language to be the catalyst for this oddity in their speech. And you think that due to the wide spread of various languages, dialects, and accents there are in real life... that it must obviously be present in the game's world, too.
On a fundamental level, I get that. I really do. But sadly, there just isn't much support for unique languages apart from the common tongue that are currently being used en masse -- with the exception of Xaelan tongue(s). Every race does have their own individual languages, that was never in question. But it's heavily implied that those are outdated and not widely used anymore, outside of a handful of terms. (Someone please correct me if I'm wrong on this.)
Personally, I'm of the opinion that the concept of a character with 'caveman-esque speech' seems kind of weird and/or unnecessary, unless your character has some really funky backstory that justifies it (like being sheltered their whole life or something)... That's just me, though.
If that's truly what you want to do because it'll make you happiest, then go for it.
Now this bit is just me showing how one could flow from not being able to speak the language to speaking like everyone else. My Xaela doesn't even understand a lick of Eorzean yet, much less speak it. So caveman speech is out of the question. Not that I'd do it for more than one session, my brain cries when I do it.
If anything I want her to be fluent in it like the rest of my roster, but I feel like hand waving it feels like cheating when I can try to suffer my way to it. That there's hooks for scholars or cunning linguists to bite into it. Of course it's pretty obvious not everyone's into it.Â
Workflow as follows:
>Not being able to understand anything. (Like eyes glazed over and general anxiety that you might be wasting someone's time.)
>Being able to understand it to some degree, that you finally put some words out. (Essentially caveman speech. At this point you'd probably know that Asshole doesn't actually mean Hello in Eorzean and that's probably why you were punched in the first place.)
>Being able to pass for a normal speaker. (That you finally end up speaking like everyone else barring certain syntax errors.)Â
I just thought maybe, in the vein that this is about language barriers, I could at least show a brief process of how I, as a non-native English speaker, got to the level of proficiency I do now.
^^^^^This bit here is the point of that section of the rant to begin with. If the conditions were as follows down here. vvvvv
Again with the header above my little rant, it is all under the assumption that the scope of "Dialect" isn't as small and convenient as differing slang and accent of the same language. Under the assumption that no it isn't just as slight as North and South US English. That it may be like say, and I feel like a broken record, Mandarin and Cantonese.
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