Languages in Glorantha
- Thread starter Rurik
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Just a general opinion about languages.
Treatment of languages in RPGs tends to be pretty cursory. there are good reasons for this. Nobody wants their game to grind to a halt with the protagonists pantomiming to each other. On the other hand, language difficulties or opportunities can add a lot to a game.
Personally I've got a dead ear for languages, which is a real impediment when you're wife is Chinese and your children are bilingual so i know how difficult learning a new language can be, nevertheless I think they should be represented in the game, and made pretty cheap too.
I've read enough history to know that it's not impossible for someone to learn several languages with some fluency, and in some parts of the world it's actually the norm. Also it weakens the impulse to just ignore the whole issue as an annoyance. If languages are reasonably cheap and everyone knows a few then they become in interesting part of play.
Just an opinion.
Treatment of languages in RPGs tends to be pretty cursory. there are good reasons for this. Nobody wants their game to grind to a halt with the protagonists pantomiming to each other. On the other hand, language difficulties or opportunities can add a lot to a game.
Personally I've got a dead ear for languages, which is a real impediment when you're wife is Chinese and your children are bilingual so i know how difficult learning a new language can be, nevertheless I think they should be represented in the game, and made pretty cheap too.
I've read enough history to know that it's not impossible for someone to learn several languages with some fluency, and in some parts of the world it's actually the norm. Also it weakens the impulse to just ignore the whole issue as an annoyance. If languages are reasonably cheap and everyone knows a few then they become in interesting part of play.
Just an opinion.
Part of the reason I ask is that Glorantha had a "common" tongue in Tradetalk, the language of merchants, that I believe was common throughout western and central Genertela at the least - I'm not sure about it's use in the east or Pameltela. Likewise, if you knew Darktongue you could communicate with Trolls just about anywhere.
In any game GM's include language to their level of preference - some ignoring it completely. Considering the detail of Glorantha, and the fact that previous RQ's included languages, I was wondering if they are going to be covered in any upcomming release. I for one like languages in my game.
In any game GM's include language to their level of preference - some ignoring it completely. Considering the detail of Glorantha, and the fact that previous RQ's included languages, I was wondering if they are going to be covered in any upcomming release. I for one like languages in my game.
Exubae said:
...sort of. Tradetalk is the magical (?) language used by Issaries to communicate. It is extremely syncretic and was spread far and wide by the Middle Sea Empire about this time. It was one of the reasons that the cult was so throughly embraced by the God Learners.
There's an "Honorable East India" campaign waiting to be played out there, I think.
Jeff
Utgardloki
Mongoose
For those interested in a detailed modelling of languages in their games, I can recommend a couple of non-Runequest books.
The Power of Babel is a good nonfiction book about different languages, and the theories of how they evolve. One point made in this book is that technically there are not different languages, but only different dialects.
The Iron Kingdoms Campaign Guide is a D&D setting sourcebook (boo, hiss on D&D
) which is very detailed. The section on languages provides a very well thought out example of how languages can be implemented with a great deal more detail than is commonly provided in a setting.
For myself, one of the things I've been doing is frequently writing down just a couple of notes about languages that are used in a setting. For example, in my homebrew, I note that the Kosaka language has a number of instances where words sound similar but mean slightly distinct things (similar to "lie down" and "lay down" in English). I sometimes make up just a few words to give a feel for the language ("tritiana" (woman), "tritiyana" (beautiful woman) in Kosaka, for example).
Some notes I've made for languages in different settings:
Nomofra -- this language has a sacred alphabet and more pronouns than anybody knows what to do with. Each word and name is considered to have a sacred meaning, based on the letters that make it up. (Hebrew is a little bit like this, with the Hebrew alphabet being the basis of the Cabalah.)
Draconic -- is actually two languages. The language spoken by dragons is pretty much impossible for humans to pronounce, so there is a form that has been developed that most races can at least approximate.
Kosaka -- has different words for siblings, depending on whether they are children of the same mother, children of the same father, or playmates from the same clan. Has different pronouns for the feminine gender, where human and closely related humanoid females are referred to with different pronouns than those used for animals, and those used for other humanoid and sentient races. Different inflections also indicate age, status, and in the case of animals and nonhumans, "kind".
The Power of Babel is a good nonfiction book about different languages, and the theories of how they evolve. One point made in this book is that technically there are not different languages, but only different dialects.
The Iron Kingdoms Campaign Guide is a D&D setting sourcebook (boo, hiss on D&D
) which is very detailed. The section on languages provides a very well thought out example of how languages can be implemented with a great deal more detail than is commonly provided in a setting.For myself, one of the things I've been doing is frequently writing down just a couple of notes about languages that are used in a setting. For example, in my homebrew, I note that the Kosaka language has a number of instances where words sound similar but mean slightly distinct things (similar to "lie down" and "lay down" in English). I sometimes make up just a few words to give a feel for the language ("tritiana" (woman), "tritiyana" (beautiful woman) in Kosaka, for example).
Some notes I've made for languages in different settings:
Nomofra -- this language has a sacred alphabet and more pronouns than anybody knows what to do with. Each word and name is considered to have a sacred meaning, based on the letters that make it up. (Hebrew is a little bit like this, with the Hebrew alphabet being the basis of the Cabalah.)
Draconic -- is actually two languages. The language spoken by dragons is pretty much impossible for humans to pronounce, so there is a form that has been developed that most races can at least approximate.
Kosaka -- has different words for siblings, depending on whether they are children of the same mother, children of the same father, or playmates from the same clan. Has different pronouns for the feminine gender, where human and closely related humanoid females are referred to with different pronouns than those used for animals, and those used for other humanoid and sentient races. Different inflections also indicate age, status, and in the case of animals and nonhumans, "kind".
Durand Durand
Banded Mongoose
Exubae said:
I believe you are correct. I think he also said something like Tradetalk being good for barter, accounting and not a lot else. Sure, I imagine it would have great terms and symbols for business practice, like lay-away, hire-purchase and such, but it's not really a language build for other tasks.
One thing I would like to see a little more of mentioned in fantasy literature is mixtrues of languages appearing together in towns and in documents. Many ancient scholars freely mixed languages in documents where the right words could not be found in their own language. The same thing happens today.
Also, I'd like to see some evidence of seamans pigin tongues and stuff, character learning enought to get by bot not enough to appear couth. Have PC's learn commoners dialects rather than noble ones, perhaps some impolite forms, or formal forms and not common usage ones being taught by scholars. PC's could study up and still have problems speaking Pavis 'Jive' as opposed to ritual Praxian forms they've learned.
Language can be a lot of fun in game.
"This human concept of WUB confuses and angers us!"
DD
Tradetalk wasn't really a construct, but the God Learners modified and propagated the Issaries Cult in order to take advantage of it's communication and trade magic, including Tradetalk. For example the 'proved' that many local trade, travel and talking gods were relatives or aspects of Issaries.
homerjsinnott
Mongoose
Didn't Cruclble of the hero wars deal with the language families of Glorantha? (pretty well if I remember right)
Think it did, but it didn't give a real world comparison...
The %bonus granted to langauages of the same branch doesn't really give a feel for the differences.
If you look at terestrial Germanic languages as a guideline,
Is the relationship between the languages of Esrolian and Tarshite comparible to:
Dutch and German?
English and German?
or more English(English) and English(American).
Utgardloki
Mongoose
I think the way to answer that question is to consider real world languages and try to guage what %bonuses would be given to those.
For example, American English to British English would be so close that you could use one and get by in the other without very much difficulty at all (especially since thanks to TV, most Americans and British are very familiar with the other's dialect, even if they don't use it in every day conversation). So if there is a very large bonus between languages, the relationship is like that between dialects of English.
English to German would be a very small bonus, perhaps no more than 5%. So if that's the bonus between two languages, then there's your relationship.
It's a little harder when comparing the European languages. How much of a bonus would there be between Dutch and German, or between French and Spanish? However, to keep things simple, I'd just intuitively assign 5%, 10% or 15% bonuses between different languages. Anything more than a 25% bonus would indicate a different dialect rather than a distinct language.
There was a comparison in RQI and II about language compatibilty and various families which dealt with actual % comprehension. The 3rd Age is infamous for the diversion and digression of its languages from the relative simplicity of the 1st Age - where most people were descended from a handful of Great Darkness survivors and thus shared a common language.
However, during the Imperial 2nd Age there are several wide spread languages which are spoken as a matter of course. Tradealk and Justreli being the ones of the Middle Sea Empire and the otherwise incomprehensible Auld Wyrminsh which unites the Dragon Speakers of the EWF. Kralorela and the Dara Happans both have their own imperial tongues as well.
I suspect that the reduction in languages during the 2nd Age might also be a result of God Learner meddling. Honest. (Houwever, out in the real world, the Roman Empire managed to reduce the number of languages spoken in western europe dramatically in a very, very short timeframe. A time frame similar to that of the Imperial Age.
Voriof
However, during the Imperial 2nd Age there are several wide spread languages which are spoken as a matter of course. Tradealk and Justreli being the ones of the Middle Sea Empire and the otherwise incomprehensible Auld Wyrminsh which unites the Dragon Speakers of the EWF. Kralorela and the Dara Happans both have their own imperial tongues as well.
I suspect that the reduction in languages during the 2nd Age might also be a result of God Learner meddling. Honest. (Houwever, out in the real world, the Roman Empire managed to reduce the number of languages spoken in western europe dramatically in a very, very short timeframe. A time frame similar to that of the Imperial Age.
Voriof
All in my opinion, as I know very little about linguistics, unfortunately.
The easiest way to do this is to decide what category the languages fall into.
Are they Related, Similar or Dialect?
Related are languages such as German-English, Dutch-English, French-Spanish and have a 10% rating, so someone with Speak English 50% could perhaps Speak German 5%, although Understand German 5% would probably be more likely.
Similar are languages such as German-Dutch, possibly Spanish-Italian, possibly Spanish-Catalan or possibly French-Catalan and would have a 20% rating, so someone with Speak Spanish might have Speak/Understand Italian at 10%.
Dialects are sub-varieties of a single languages and give a 50% rating. I can't think of any off-hand, but I have heard that speakers of some Dutch and German dialects can understand each other quite easily, perhaps as easily as understanding the main dialect of their own language.
There might be a category between Similar and Dialect with a 25% rating, for languages such as Russian-Polish, Russian-Ukrainian, Polish-Czech. I can muddle through reading Polish and some Czech and listening to Polish/Czech using my rudimentary Russian, for instance.
As for Gloranthan languages, all Western tongues are Dialects of Western, Dragon Pass Heortling tongues are all dialects, Pelorian Heortling tongues are all dialects and Dragon Pass/Pelorian Heortling tongues are Similar. The further away the region, generally, the further apart the language, with some exceptions.
The easiest way to do this is to decide what category the languages fall into.
Are they Related, Similar or Dialect?
Related are languages such as German-English, Dutch-English, French-Spanish and have a 10% rating, so someone with Speak English 50% could perhaps Speak German 5%, although Understand German 5% would probably be more likely.
Similar are languages such as German-Dutch, possibly Spanish-Italian, possibly Spanish-Catalan or possibly French-Catalan and would have a 20% rating, so someone with Speak Spanish might have Speak/Understand Italian at 10%.
Dialects are sub-varieties of a single languages and give a 50% rating. I can't think of any off-hand, but I have heard that speakers of some Dutch and German dialects can understand each other quite easily, perhaps as easily as understanding the main dialect of their own language.
There might be a category between Similar and Dialect with a 25% rating, for languages such as Russian-Polish, Russian-Ukrainian, Polish-Czech. I can muddle through reading Polish and some Czech and listening to Polish/Czech using my rudimentary Russian, for instance.
As for Gloranthan languages, all Western tongues are Dialects of Western, Dragon Pass Heortling tongues are all dialects, Pelorian Heortling tongues are all dialects and Dragon Pass/Pelorian Heortling tongues are Similar. The further away the region, generally, the further apart the language, with some exceptions.
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