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[Discussion] Language barriers and rp - Printable Version

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Language barriers and rp - Kurt S. - 01-21-2017

Curious if you guys like work that into your -insert foreigner status- character too? I mean like help add weight to the whole concept of being not really part of Eorzea. The language barrier I mean. I like to think it captures the whole idea of being a foreigner too, because it isn't enough to just be culture shocked and clueless.

I mean one of the key points of my coast skink (Thanks KISS) is that she can't for the life of her speak Eorzean. Stuck with the old tongue that I'm probably assuming is going strong in all the tribes. 

Also curious, for those who do this anyway, if that affects your chances of getting rp? Walk-up mainly because planned is convenient in its own way.

RE: Language barriers and rp - Nebbs - 01-21-2017

About as far as I went was for my Au Ra tribe girl, where I changed the way she spoke to be more foreign. I borrowed a lot from working and living with people who's spoken English was still heavily influenced by their native one. This is essentially dropping some of the world and swapping around the phrasing.

I am a failure at languages so for me it was more a sense of a foreign sounding phrasing than anything grounded in real languages.

So..

"Why are you sitting under that tree? That's typical of all males, lazing around while there is plenty of work to be done."

became something like

"Why sit under tree? Lazy male should do work, you see this need doing, yes?"

I didn't notice any problems with RP, except when she didn't understand things and that just meant more fun in explaining. She was very good at "womansplaining".

RE: Language barriers and rp - Varinh - 01-21-2017

I did this with a past xaela of mine, though very sublty, so as it didn't seem burdensome to read. Some words would rarely get out of order or sentences just didn't sound right like "Where did you put book, I cannot find it." She had troubles with bigger Eorzea words, like "consequently" and would ask people to "put it to small words", oftentimes getting frustrated with herself for not being able to express herself like she might in her native tongue. She probably sounded very simple in Eorzean. Then one day, she spoke with a highlander who possesses the echo,and Sharn just let loose all these pent up words she's had since she left home. xD

RE: Language barriers and rp - Maril - 01-21-2017

With my Au Ra, I have decided to work more on displaying a cultural difference rather than having the language barrier be heavily impairing. At times he will forget a word, and use other words to describe it (sometimes ineffectively), but more often it'll be a failure to understand why people do certain things in certain ways that he is unfamiliar with and even disagrees with. Learning common eorzean in the time he's been in Eorzea (bit more than a year) is something I attribute to the want to survive, as such adapting so that he can more easily find work. He does remain illiterate for the most part, however. I also chose not to alter the way I write out his speech to make it more obvious that he has an accent, which comes down to me not feeling confident enough with English to feel like that I could consistently and realistically pull one off. I also really wanted to avoid doing things like having him speak about himself in third person. Rather I describe it on occasion in emotes that he speaks with a hint of an accent, and leave it at that.

RE: Language barriers and rp - Kismet - 01-21-2017

I play a young Xaela from the Orben tribe, so I'm operating under the impression that sailing around Othard for the majority of her life would've given her a wider exposure to a variety of dialects than the average Xaela. I haven't completely settled on how she talks as a result of that (she's literate because her mother was, so at most she probably has a faint accent)... but I don't think it'd be unreasonable for her to at least have a good understanding of many different accents/dialects she hears. She can speak whatever the 'common Xaela tongue' is fluently.

As for my Raen, there will be certain slang terms and expressions she won't get, and she has trouble pronouncing Elezen names/words. But it ends there.

RE: Language barriers and rp - Unnamed Mercenary - 01-21-2017

I'm kinda iffy about language barriers because they're never really represented in FFXIV at all beyond say, beast tribes and dragons.

All of the Domans who sailed over appear to be speaking the same common language as Eorzeans, albeit a dialect that's a little different. (But still intelligible!)

People from Sharlayan and Thavnair appear to have no issues with communication as well. Heck, even Garleans appear to be mostly speaking the language right, although one could imagine that they'd of course have studied the common language of any lands they were going to conquer.

So far, the only "people" we've seen speaking another language have been some tempered souls from Meracydia that Sophia had gotten control of. And Urianger was first to claim that it was an archaic dialect at that.

For the most part, I think people are pretty much speaking the same language all around. At least currently. Rather than a language barrier, I would suggest a language impediment. (And for the love of the Twelve, not a s-s-stutter because they really don't work that way.) Perhaps your character had never been formally educated. Or never learned to speak correctly. Or perhaps she has difficulty pronouncing things because she didn't speak very often. Or she has trouble generating the speech sounds themselves. There are a variety of ways you can give a character difficulty using a language without just "not knowing it." Because as far as we see, all the spoken races that have made it to Eorzea aren't really having trouble with it. (Even the beast tribes are basically fluent, even if they have some quirks).

RE: Language barriers and rp - Seye Qhesu - 01-21-2017

I do much of what Maril does and have my character easily know the language but have trouble placing it in to sentences that make sense. Then again, I have her background as she wasn't meant to speak much if at all due to her position in her clan.

Slang throws her off. Badly. She will question it as well as try to repeat it but obviously there is a loss in translation.

RE: Language barriers and rp - Kilieit - 01-21-2017

I have two characters who were not raised speaking Eorzean.

Both have the Echo, but only one has the language comprehension component of it. (I understand the only Echo power that every single Echo user gets is the tempering immunity.)

Aghurlal only knows Eorzean through the Echo. He picked up phrases before he made the trip, but since landing he's relied on his Echo almost entirely to get by day-to-day. It brings his speech its own quirks... he's naturally inclined to do this anyway, but it helps him copy the speech mannerisms of the people around him. His accent changes based on his present company, but with no clear pattern it just cuts to "received pronunciation". His vocabulary choices are not his own - he doesn't tend to make puns or understand wordplay. He speaks with words which most effectively communicate his meaning to the people he's speaking to. He cannot read or write Eorzean fluently.

Cinu-a does not have the language comprehension component. However, he's Malaguld, and has been exposed to odd end phrases of Eorzean since 15-20 years ago when the Raen recruits to his tribe first started bringing the language into contact with it ("Otter what are you on about--" Here). He's not much of a talker anyway, but I intend to portray his lack of grasp on the language through his misunderstanding of similar-sounding words and his habit of displaying the majority of his intent through his actions and not his speech. He'll be much more comfortable speaking Doman or Steppes languages.

Haven't roleplayed him publically yet... so we'll have to see how that goes, aha.

I'm not one for phoneticised accents, or for using IRL languages as real-time stand-ins for Eorzean ones. In fact, the latter is my pet peeve. Especially when most people I've seen doing this are blatantly using Google Translate to do it. Don't make me (or anyone else whose character can understand the language yours is meant to be speaking) whisper you just to understand WTF your character's on about. Just use (some) {sort} <of> [brackets] around plain English like the rest of us, or a quick [Doman] (or whatever) at the start of your sentence like we used to do in WoW.

RE: Language barriers and rp - Kurt S. - 01-22-2017

Ah thanks for the input. All since I don't really use stand-ins for the words i just...

Close them in <> or () or {} or [] and write normally. That way anyone with the echo could understand right away. I'll probably move on up to really broken common once she's gotten her bearings on it.

Also the way I understand it is that these differences could be as wide as say Mandarin to Cantonese, or as narrow as uhh Australia to New Zealand. 

I mean I'm sure the difference between Aldenard regions with other Aldenard regions follows more pronunciation than anything else. 

Meanwhile say Othard to Aldenard could be mandarin to cantonese. There'd be similarities but it'd still be hard to get a grip on the language entirely without some time to get accustomed to it. 

Also let's not forget that we have the echo.

Anyway just thought that maybe it'd be an interesting thing to add. A language barrier. Even though my timezone screws me out of it and it's not the smartest thing to do with my characters.

RE: Language barriers and rp - Faye - 01-22-2017

I don't have any characters who aren't native speakers presently, but like Unnamed Merc pointed out, I'm kinda iffy because it's not really represented with Othardian NPC's and the like. That being said, I think it does add a bit of depth to the RP, but I see most people do it so poorly that it comes off as more offensive than flavorful. I don't think there's a single language where the first-person pronoun is replaced with the speaker's name, and yet I see so much dialogue that's the equivalent of Faye Covington: "Faye thinks that's a good idea!". Language difficulties shouldn't be played off as nonsensical caveman talk. I don't mind people RPing out language barriers, but I think it does merit a shred of research or firsthand knowledge in secondary languages and language barriers, and a bit about the basic structure of whatever language is the closest real world equivalent (so Japanese for Doman, for example).

RE: Language barriers and rp - Kismet - 01-22-2017

(01-22-2017, 12:18 AM)Kurt S. Wrote: Also the way I understand it is that these differences could be as wide as say Mandarin to Cantonese, or as narrow as uhh Australia to New Zealand. 

I mean I'm sure the difference between Aldenard regions with other Aldenard regions follows more pronunciation than anything else. 

Meanwhile say Othard to Aldenard could be mandarin to cantonese. There'd be similarities but it'd still be hard to get a grip on the language entirely without some time to get accustomed to it. 

Also let's not forget that we have the echo.

Throughout various quest lines, foreigners have been conversing with native Eorzeans who do not possess the Echo just fine.

To my knowledge, the only confirmation we have of an entirely different language being spoken in the PRESENT day is whatever the 'Xaela common tongue' is that most Xaela used for cross-tribe communication in Othard (I suppose one could also count the whistle and click system of the Geneq). And even then, we have no idea if that language is necessarily just straight-up Mongolian or not.

Anything else is speculation at this point. (And yes, this even applies to Doma. Any Doman terms are highly implied to be part of a dialect.)

All of that being said, I think you can still effectively RP a character that has difficulty with communication. Unnamed Merc pretty much already gave most of the suggestions I would've thrown out there. But at the end of the day, you ultimately do you, of course.

RE: Language barriers and rp - Kilieit - 01-22-2017

The lore book's passage on Othard says that Doman culture developed for 2000 years with no influence from the West. I don't disagree that most Domans probably speak (and have done for the last 20 years) what the Eorzean authors of the book call "the common tongue of the Hyur", but I do assert that it's as a trade language, not their native ancestral language. "2000 years separate" and "same language" are mutually exclusive concepts, and TBH 20 years is an entire generation - plenty of time for Eorzean to become widespread and develop into a local dialect.

We can ascertain from their naming conventions that the Lalafell and (ofc) the Roegadyn have their own languages. Roegadyn is cited as being a dying language, but I can't remember anything about Lalafellin. It's possible it's still spoken in the Cieldalaes, and we know it influences both their own names and the names of things like species of fish. We can also extrapolate that Elezen likely have (or had) a language in which their names are based, and we know Miqo'te have a "hunting language" comprised of clicks and whistles. And the existence of a "common tongue" of the Xaela "used for cross-tribe communication" necessarily confirms the existence of tribe dialects, and possibly completely separate languages like the Geneq, Moks, and arguably Qalli are confirmed to have.

There's a lot of diversity, and the PoV character being an Echo user/most of the NPCs surrounding them being well-travelled scholars certainly doesn't make it easy to apply an MSQ point of view in confirming or denying the existence (or lack thereof) of a variety of languages in the wider world.

Personally, I'd argue it's best to assume there's a diversity similar to IRL until confirmed otherwise - that languages diversify on a similar timescale to IRL - and that the reason why MSQ NPCs all seem to be able to communicate is because plot devices enable them to.

(3rd thread I'm saying this in lol I'm such a broken record)

RE: Language barriers and rp - Kurt S. - 01-22-2017

So reading re-reading everything. And everyone's made good points by the way. 

After all that and poring through a logs I could dig up.

I'm wondering what they refer to as "dialect." Again my question feeds back to my earlier post, and I don't seem to find much clarification on other sources. Would the dialect be as simple as say. How New Yorkers speak English versus say the English speaking English.

Or do they mean dialect in the context of say, Mandarin to Cantonese or Fookien. Or in a more personal setting, Bisaya to Tagalog. 

Because the Philippines needs so many dialects they're pretty much indistinguishable to each other. Someone from the northern islands will never understand someone from the southern islands unless they undergo at least a year of study. And yet they're still called "dialects."

Another bit of language barrier rp that I'd like to touch up on, this coming from someone who used to live and breathe language barriers because I had to spend more than 12 years trying to learn English, is sentence structure. It kinda struck a cord because for the longest time my grammar was (probably still is) horrible. I think it can excuse the Caveman talk. More on that at the bottom.

As as an aside, I can't really count Sharlayans as a reliable benchmark seeing as they're the de facto "nerd" nation. Or so it is painted out. It would be remiss of them to NOT know other tongues. Of course I could be wrong. 

<<<THIS IS A PRODUCT OF MASSIVE HEADCANON>>>>

As for Garleans they seem so widespread (Holdings in both Othard and Eorzea) and they strike me as so technologically advanced that the dissemination of information would be easy enough to achieve. That maybe it's easy or relatively easy enough to gain access to some database of languages within the provinces. No doubt dubbed "Dialect" too.

<<<ALSO SPECULATING IF THIS WERE IN FACT DIALECT IN THE SENSE OF MANDARIN TO CANTONESE OR EVEN TAGALOG TO BISAYA TO ILOCANO>>>

Also as another observation. I think Caveman talk is quite acceptable, BUT easily rectified. The thing is, and I'm just regaling how our English classes taught English because we didn't know how English, it all depends on how they'd pick up the common tongue.

I mean sentence structure's got Subjects and Predicates, right?

Now if you take away the concept of pronouns or haven't introduced, say the Eorzean variant, to said character yet. Which I believe may happen. You're left with no substitutes but what you can comprehend out of the structure. 

It'd be rude to say the equivalent of "I" in your language to someone who doesn't already understand it. The idea is that you're probably going to want to be inclusive so everyone understands. Even if it's grating to ears or in this case, making the eyes bleed.

So how's that going to play out? 

"Kurt think that good!"

Simply because you're limited in your understanding but you still want that idea to come across as complete. Being messy is just a price for that.

/rant

Just in case anyone else would like to know from the perspective of a non-native English spokener. (bwahahaha)

RE: Language barriers and rp - Marisa - 01-22-2017

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that the races of men in Eorzea have largely adopted a universal language. I mean you of course have your region-specific words, like the Garlean psuedo-latin or the occasional japanese or french the Domans and Ishgardians (respectively) like to throw in, but those are likely hold-overs from their ancestral languages, or divergent dialects resulting from geographic isolation or local culture.  

Anyway, I'm not away of any race of men that actually has a unique language at this point. Am I wrong?

RE: Language barriers and rp - Kurt S. - 01-22-2017

(01-22-2017, 03:39 AM)Marisa Wrote: Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that the races of men in Eorzea have largely adopted a universal language. I mean you of course have your region-specific words, like the Garlean psuedo-latin or the occasional japanese or french the Domans and Ishgardians (respectively) like to throw in, but those are likely hold-overs from their ancestral languages, or divergent dialects resulting from geographic isolation or local culture.  

Anyway, I'm not away of any race of men that actually has a unique language at this point. Am I wrong?

Isn't Eorzea part of Aldenard, a continent? Doma to Othard, another continent? And Aldenard and Othard being continents of Hydaelyn which just happens to be named the same as the Mother Crystal?

I mean at least I think that's how the flow goes. Could be (horribly) wrong.