Languages

[Trifletraxor]

My mind is slipping a bit as I forgot my copy of Glorantha.

Does the book have a list of gloranthan languages, and the relationship between those?

SGL.

 

[Rurik]

Mongooses Glorantha the Second Age does not have any discussion on languages (other than Auld Wyrmish and its' relationship to the EWF)

AH Glorantha, Crucible of the Hero Wars has an extensive section on languages and their relationships to eachother.

Hopefully MRQ will give a similar treatment in some future supplement (players guide maybe?).

 

[Trifletraxor]

Wouldn't even need to be as extensive as in RQ3, but some sort of attention to the languages is sorely needed.

SGL.

 

[weasel_fierce]

yeah, I was kind of surprised at the lack of mention. I figure when I get around to running it, I'll figure a main language for each empire, and then local tongues for each nation.

 

[ninthcouncil]

This seems like an error, since G2A is the obvious place for this information to have been included. Is there any intention to make this available elsewhere, e.g. a download on the website? Not everyone has access to earlier editions, after all, and some of what can be gleaned there is going to be anachronistic in a 2nd Age context anyway.

 

[weasel_fierce]

didnt Glorantha have "trade talk" which is kinda like Common in Greyhawk ?

 

[Trifletraxor]

Tradetalk is not like common. No people spoke it as their first language, as it is a very simple language meant mainly for trade, but it was very common as a second language.

SGL.

 

[Exubae]

Tradetalk is not like common. No people spoke it as their first language, as it is a very simple language meant mainly for trade, but it was very common as a second language.

Sounds about right...
Trade talks good for hangling and arranging prices - possibly good for working out travel between markets.
Lousy for anything else, kind of see trade talk having a high degree of hand signing and augmenting with other languages.

How far to the city of xxx?
How much for xxx?
HOW much!
Don't you want haggle?
I'll throw in the Donkey
etc

 

[weasel_fierce]

Well, thats the kind of stuff that comes in handy for adventurer types. Find directions, closest place to obtain ale and whores, and finding a doctor after visiting that who... nevermind

 

[Utgardloki]

I've never seen rules in any game system or setting for misunderstanding languages. The only thing I've seen is making a language check to see if you can understand a language or (in the Top Secret rules, but could also apply to any setting -- if you read the Bible you'll see an instance of this), faking an accent of a specific region.

Rules for misunderstanding would have to be language specific. Perhaps on a roll that just barely fails, a person would say something like "I am a jelly donut" -- the GM could make up something. The reasoning for going to a barely fail roll rather than a fumble roll is that a fumble would probably mean the person could not get anything, while a barely fail (say within 5-10%) would mean a person knows enough to say something meaningful, but not enough to say the right thing.

As for tradetalk vs other languages, I don't know if I'd provide for making things easier or more difficult, except perhaps speakers of the dominant nation's language might get a 10% bonus because the current Tradetalk dialect would probably be based on the language of the most dominant nation in trade.

 

[Trifletraxor]

I've never seen rules in any game system or setting for misunderstanding languages. The only thing I've seen is making a language check to see if you can understand a language or (in the Top Secret rules, but could also apply to any setting -- if you read the Bible you'll see an instance of this), faking an accent of a specific region.

Someone quote this guy the "How many moneys for leg of lamb?"-table! 8)

SGL.

 

[Licheking]

Ralian is the main language of Ralios, which is related to Seshnela, and finally Western. I usually apply Seshnela at 1/2 of Ralian and Western at 1/4, since they are similar. Also i have Dark Tongue as another common language within Ralios because of its connections with the Stygian Empire, particularly amongst those who don't follow the Godlearners and might be considered rebels.

The old Gloranthan box set had all the languages and their relations to each other listed, and i will dig it out and put it here for everyone's use.

 

[Iyan]

Language table

01-10% : "I want food"

11-30% : "How many moneys for leg of lamb?"

31-50% : "But that was only three coppers yesterday."

51-80% : "That lamb was rotten before it was butchered, and it never was worth the spit it took to hit the tax collector's eye last month."

81-100% : "Surely the assessment for this specimen of decomposing provender could be reevaluated in consideration of its advanced state of putrefaction."


If I just broke some kind of licensing rules I'm sorry, but it's such a great table!

 

[Fishy]

Ralian is the main language of Ralios, which is related to Seshnela, and finally Western. I usually apply Seshnela at 1/2 of Ralian and Western at 1/4, since they are similar. Also i have Dark Tongue as another common language within Ralios because of its connections with the Stygian Empire, particularly amongst those who don't follow the Godlearners and might be considered rebels.

If I remember correctly (need to go find the box now) Ralian is the language used in, say Sefelster, but the Orlanthi (in Lankst for example) would speak something from the Ralios sub-family, which descends from Theyalan. Same area, similar name, totally different language. Now from here on in things get confusing...

 

[Rurik]

If I remember correctly (need to go find the box now) Ralian is the language used in, say Sefelster, but the Orlanthi (in Lankst for example) would speak something from the Ralios sub-family, which descends from Theyalan. Same area, similar name, totally different language. Now from here on in things get confusing...

I have just been reading up on this. You are correct, there is both a Theyalan and Western Dialect both called Ralian. For simplicity's sake I refer to the Theyalan language as 'Ralian' and the Western Language as 'Safelstran' as it is primarily spoken in Safelster.

To me Safelstran is probably the least like other western languages because of both the Stygian influence as well as the Theyalan influence. RQ 3 puts it no closer to Shesnegi than any other western language (which is to say 1/5 or 1/10 skill in other western languages - can't recall which at the moment - and 1/3 in Brithrini), all of which are descended from Brithrini, which is derived from the lanuage of the Kingdom of Logic from before time.

 

[atgxtg]

I think it would be difficult to work up rules for misunderstanding a language, since the sort of misunderstandings one would get depend on the languages involved and how the interact.

In real world Earth, there is a story about a US diplomat in a diplomatic function who wanted to complement the Japanese ambassador's wife on her "very colorful" dress, in her native language. Unfortunately the Japanese word for "colorful" and the word for "erotic" have a similar pronunciation.

Something like that would be hard to work up with rules, especially for fictions languages. I'd just consider it a possible outcome of a fumbled language skill test.