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Midaja · **07-25-2010, 07:27 AM**

Alright, I think its time to talk about ingame languages (I havent seen any other thread about it here...)

I was surprised to see, that the game has been completely translated into german in the german client (what wouldnt be a surprise, if it hadnt been different in FFXI, where the "german" version merely was an english one with a german manual). Im still confused why for example "conjurer" is translated with "druid" and "seekers of the sun" with "goldpaw", but anyway this is going to lead to some confusion in the further game... For sure there will be similar translation differences for the sake of better sounding names ("Sucher der Sonne" isnt halfway as smooth as "Goldtatze") and since not everyone in the world speaks english there are going to be many people speaking japanese / german / french (I even saw people speaking italian yesterday). Soooooo...

How are we gonna deal with it IC? :cat:

Aveline · **07-25-2010, 08:10 AM**

"Goldpaw!" That is actually really cute sounding. I may have to use that as an in-character slang for Seekers. Big Grin

/tangent

I'm not entirely sure I know what you are getting at but.. are you referring to trying to roleplay in multiple languages? My Spanish & French are both sadly not up to it (though I am working on learning Spanish right now so it could be seen as a good learning opportunity haha).

I don't think in FFXI the multiple languages were ever a problem for RP.. we had European roleplayers in our shell but they all were fluent in English as well as their birth-language, so it was never an issue. I guess if it came down to it, we could rely heavily on emotes & carefully selected auto-translates? :3

Hmm maybe we should make an International Roleplayer's Emergency Phrasebook. With stuff like "I roleplay my character" or something translated into all the available game languages.

Midaja · **07-25-2010, 08:29 AM**

Well... Of course, if two people are able to speak the same language they could RP in that one, but Im more interested in clarifying how they will be embeded in our RP-lore (since there probably wont be an official "yes, there are different languages in eorzea") and the resulting possibility of making a different one my characters native language (of course Ill do my best to stay in english, but it would be easier to have an RP-conform reason for asking "Err, I dont know, Id say its Hanfgarn (hemp yarn), but how do you call that stuff?" (I thought about that yesterday while crafting Smile

) instead of browsing to the online dictionary and hoping that they translated it literally.

I got a bit frightened after reading

Xaefan Wrote:Characters who speak in tongue outside of regular chat. Accents are cool, overused of course, but cool. But, WE DON'T SPEAK FRENCH IN THE WORLD OF FINAL FANTASY. (This coming from me, who considers "Oui?" and "Non" a piece of the francais/cajun accent.)

DAISHI · **07-25-2010, 08:46 AM**

I don't think there's an RP reason for designating terms different things. This is an English dominant board and the term will be Keeper of the Sun, not Goldpaw.

Midaja · **07-25-2010, 09:22 AM**

Its not that I want to adopt a different language as the main language on this board or ingame... But by playing on a german client I just wont be able to know every items / faction / npc / place etc. english name (except if I checked every single thing I wanted to write before typing it). I dont know if there is a possibility to change the client language later on (and if there is I might do it in the end-game).

I just want to know if its going to be officially ok to IC ask "I dont think I know what youre talking about, would you mind explaining?" or if were expected to know english like a native speaker.
Another scenario might be two characters meet at an event or something are they allowed to talk in a different language together (in /say) or do they have to do that in /tell and ooc (what would be a bit ridiculous in my opinion...)

DAISHI · **07-25-2010, 09:26 AM**

If someone said something to me like "Goldpaw" I would ask them in a /tell OOC what they were talking about.

BTW I'm not sure there's an "official" anything since this board is only a coalition of groups. Anything "official" would rather be fittingly handled by the guild to which you belong.

Renaise · **07-25-2010, 09:34 AM**

DAISHI Wrote:If someone said something to me like "Goldpaw" I would ask them in a /tell OOC what they were talking about.

BTW I'm not sure there's an "official" anything since this board is only a coalition of groups. Anything "official" would rather be fittingly handled by the guild to which you belong.

Yeah I concur with Mr Daishi Big Grin

If it were me I'd ask OOC in /tell or whatever what it was. And we could always add in a bit of our own mini lore that the different names in different countries are also nicknames for the same thing. Happens regularly in real life so can't see why it wouldn't in Eorzea Smile

Tadir · **07-25-2010, 09:42 AM**

I know it hasn't been mentioned in official lore, but there could always be subcultures in the different countries. Try and have a person from Alabama talk to a person from Minnesota. There can be serious language barriers. I know that is a bit of an exaggeration, but the point is that people from the same country can be fully capable of not understanding each other. No reason it should be any different in game.

Asyria · **07-25-2010, 09:43 AM**

Exactly!

I think that everyone use the names they are getting in their language version of the game (if they like them!) and if there's misunderstandings about it, ask IC.

Ex: "I'm a Goldpaw" "A what?" "Oh right, we're usually called Seekers of the Sun, we call ourselves Goldpaws in my tribe"

One name is the name usually given to those people, and the other is the name they took for themselves locally.

If anything, it adds to the RP.

DAISHI · **07-25-2010, 09:48 AM**

This probably will get sorted out among ourselves within the context of our linkshells anyway.

Kylin · **07-25-2010, 09:50 AM**

I think it's important to take into account the true size of each city-state. Even though there may only be 150 or so visible NPC's running about, that doesn't mean there are only 150 citizens of the city-state. SE can only program so many NPC's into the game after all. There are in fact probably hundreds of thousands, if not millions of citizens in terms of real lore. As such, it's perfectly believable that different cultures exist within each city-state.

That said, there technically is no such thing as "German," "Spanish," "Japanese," or even "English" languages in this world. The primary language (English in this case), would probably be considered simply "Eorzean." But it's perfectly reasonable to have different variations of the language. Just look at American English and British English for instance. There are some words that mean entirely different things. So someone using "goldpaw" instead of "seeker of the sun" wouldn't be too contradictory to lore in my opinion. As for other completely different languages, they could always just be considered tribes of some sort.

Aveline · **07-25-2010, 09:52 AM**

Ohh ok I get what you were asking now, sorry about that.

Asyria Wrote:Exactly!

I think that everyone use the names they are getting in their language version of the game (if they like them!) and if there's misunderstandings about it, ask IC.

Ex: "I'm a Goldpaw" "A what?" "Oh right, we're usually called Seekers of the Sun, we call ourselves Goldpaws in my tribe"

One name is the name usually given to those people, and the other is the name they took for themselves locally.

If anything, it adds to the RP.

Yeah I would agree with this. Differences in regions are what makes a world vibrant. I would have no problem asking IC if I was confused about a term.

Side note: to something quoted above about not speaking French in Vana'diel: Actually there was at least one (I think more than that) chef NPC that spoke with a ridiculous French accent and peppered his speech with French words, and there were some Mithras who would speak with a Western "cowboy" accent and said things like "pardner," so I don't see what the problem would be if a roleplayer did the same thing. >_>

DAISHI · **07-25-2010, 09:56 AM**

Not to mention French derivative "Chateau d'oraguille"

Rikitiki · **07-25-2010, 11:02 AM**

DAISHI Wrote:Not to mention French derivative "Chateau d'oraguille"

And French-derivative <almost every NPC Elvaan name>. Tongue

Asyria · **07-25-2010, 12:19 PM**

Being French Canadian I'm looking forward to show off my french, personally. Tongue

People seem to like it, for some reason. ^^

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RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes