Languages in PE, how are they made?

[Merlkir]

I don't think it's a rightful argument against made up languages, if anything it's hysteria against a poorly researched/implemented game.

 

Ah you just mentioned the crux of the whole problem.

 

It's a game ... it's not a thesis, it's not a research paper, and it's not an exercise in linguistics ... it's. Just. A game.

 

"It's just a game" has always been a baaaaad argument. Good design comes from knowledge, practical use and research. Notice that successful games often have hundreds of hours of research behind them, they're not just made up ****.

[Amentep]

I think "biamhac" comes from the sound people make when the soul sucking winds kills them...

[nikolokolus]

"It's just a game" is perfectly valid reason not to spend 500 to 1000 man hours of develpment time, for a project with an extremely modest budget and roughly 500 days to get everything done.

[Merlkir]

Meh. Why bother with good writing? It's just a game? Better spend that money and development hours on graphics!

[kenup]

Anyone played Jade Empire? They created an entirely new language for that game and it made the game sooooooooooooooooooooo much better for it. If they can afford/have time to do it I really hope they will.

No. The only thing that was good for, was to make your ears bleed after hearing it for the 100th time... in the same conversation. Same went for aliens in both Kotor games.

 

In gameworld names, nouns etc should be consistent though and not just random syllables put together.

Edited October 12, 2012 by kenup

[nikolokolus]

Meh. Why bother with good writing? It's just a game? Better spend that money and development hours on graphics!

 

Nice straw man

[Merlkir]

Meh. Why bother with good writing? It's just a game? Better spend that money and development hours on graphics!

 

Nice straw man

 

It was, yes. "It's just a game" means nothing in itself, it's what you say about something you're not interested in and what you think can be cut without any impact on the quality of the game.

 

Which is quite the thing I'd expect from a game publisher. PE is supposed to be a game made right, properly. Your strawman was equally ridiculous - simply stating languages don't matter and that they take too long to make for too much money.

 

None of that is backed by anything. In fact, one person can do a pretty good job of building a foundation for languages in the world, in reasonable time. And it's done, it's there, you can use it anytime in the future while making sequels.

 

It's a part of the world, just as monsters, religion or geography. Let's have a tropical beach next to a tundra, that'll be just fine. It's just a game, we JUST need some friggin' locations for players to murder mobs in.

[Amentep]

When I was a kid I pestered my older brothers to allow me to create a dungeon. It had an elephant in it. They didn't appreciate my level design. But it was only a game (and I spent a full day working on it! That was like months in kid-time! ) I said. They left the room.

 

Sometimes it is nice to get some realism (but to be fair to my youthful self, I had thought the Monster Manual listed underground as a possible dwelling place for Elephants. Yes I knew elephants lived above ground in the real world even at that tender age, but how was I supposed to know D&D elephants weren't subterranean?)

 

Given the limited budget and time, is a full language something I think is essential for the realism...I don't think so. But if it was something they could do easily and within the budget, its not something I'd be against.

Edited October 12, 2012 by Amentep

[Merlkir]

Bumpa, would be really interested in the Dev's take on this.

 

Good night!

[ddillon]

Getting ready to log off for the day, so I must keep it short, but:

 

For magic runes, I say use the Elder Futhark.

 

For magic spells and chants, I say use Latin.

 

These can be used without tying PE to the associated cultures and will likely invoke a stonger feeling of the mystical than a fictional language.

 

(Doublepost of doom, sorry.)

 

That is certainly doable and would indeed save resources. BUT, in my eyes that's a bit unprofessional.

There are students of linguistics who'd probably create a usable language for a reasonable fee. (good grief, am I advocating the abuse and exploitation of students and undercutting freelancing linguists?! How utterly wrong of me.)

 

The lore of any RPG eventually becomes the subject of player disputes and fan creations. They'll start caring a lot about this world where they experienced many adventures. If they find out the writing system and magical language are not original and straight out ripped from our world (and not even very interesting/unusual choices of earthly languages at that), they'll be disappointed.

 

I'd be.

 

My initial thought: A few people having nerdgasms because they can learn the language of the boreal dwarves (or whatever) isn't worth the cost of creating and implementing fictional languages and symbol sets.

 

(Why not devote the time and effort required to learn a fictional language to learning a current foreign language or an interesting dead language?)

 

Using the Elder Futhark (with Old Norse) and Latin gives us two distinct sounding cultures with little effort. Both are dead languages (or precursor languages to modern families of languages) and thus not likely to be spoken by most players. Both have strong associations with magic, mythology, religion, etc and invoke those things in our imaginations.

 

As a bonus, fans who learn either will have learned something at least somewhat useful...

 

And: Other than magic and general inspiration for naming people and places, what role would language play? Does PE actually need fully developed fictional languages?

 

Often, a good sounding name in the language of the player can be preferable. For example, "the Deep Roads" is better than "the Tunnels of Random-mishmash-of-syllables". For longer spells, a well-written spell in the player's language can sound better than an "exotic" foreign language.

 

And as several have mentioned, simple naming conventions can go a long way: I like how in Morrowind all Telvanni towers are prefixed by "Tel". Simple but effective.

 

---

 

I will admit that I don't care for the sound of some of the names (Readceras, svef, Vailians) announced in the recent update about lore, and some of the conventions are questionable* at best, but I'm not sure that a full-blown fictional language is the solution.

 

* "Hylspeak"? The lore indicates that the name derives from it being the language of rural folk... or "people of the hills". Just call it "Hillspeak". It looks idiotic with the "y". Or come up with something better.

Edited October 13, 2012 by ddillon

[Merlkir]

The problem I have with Latin is - this is Latin. How come they speak Latin in this world that's not Earth where the Latins lived? It's tricky, we're used to English, we see this as an immediate translation from whatever native language. But Latin? We don't speak Latin (mostly), yet we know it when we hear it.

Combined with names clearly coming from the native languages, this would be a bit confusing.

 

Tolkien used a similar approach, but less obviously.

 

1) He used names and other bits from old Earth languages like OE, Gothic etc. This is often misinterpreted (the Rohirrim being explained as Anglosaxons with horses), but his idea was that using these old languages actually shows the reader their respective relationships. Ie the language of the men of Dale is related to the language of the Rohirrim in a similar way as Old Norse is to Old English. So in a strange way, these were translations - translations from languages we've never heard of read into languages which haven't been spoken on Earth for hundreds of years. Is that mad or what?! :D

 

2) He invented his own languages. Sure, they use similar syntax to Finnish and Welsh, but they're a very distinctly different case to the ones in 1). These languages we get to hear and read in their original form.

 

Why on earth this double standard? I honestly don't know. I just know I never wondered about it while reading Lord of the Rings, I simply accepted it.

 

What I'm saying - Latin for magic would be a lot like the languages in 1) of my Tolkien example. But WHY are we using this double standard for languages in PE? Can we explain that in the game? In the manual? At all?

 

(I realize not many players would care. But some might. )

[Wombat]

Well, I don't believe anyone can build a language totally from thin air... What we could do for an imaginary setting is to take some factors from our own histories/realities and use them to build a world with focused themes.

 

"Nay, I can tell you more," said Wamba, in the same tone; "there is old Alderman Ox continues to hold his Saxon epithet, while he is under the charge of serfs and bondsmen such as thou, but becomes Beef, a fiery French gallant, when he arrives before the worshipful jaws that are destined to consume him. Mynheer Calf, too, becomes Monsieur de Veau in the like manner; he is Saxon when he requires tendance, and takes a Norman name when he becomes matter of enjoyment."

I know this is from 19th century novel on Early Medieval England but I think it's more likely for us to see such language divisions between classes in the PE, considering the info so far. In Late Medieval Europe, there was a transition period of Middle English to Early Modern English but...what made the shift dramatic is, of course, King James' version and the printing press. Chaucer and Shakespeare precedent them, though. Also, I suspect there must be a Latin-like language shared by intellectuals through much wider areas. I wonder what kind of organization is keeping it since there is no Christianity.

[Merlkir]

Well, I don't believe anyone can build a language totally from thin air

 

Depends on what you mean by "totally from thin air". You can create a language with sytax rules that are unheard of in our history and with pronunciation suited for beings without teeth, who have pedipalps instead.

 

As for the language of intellectuals, often it's some kind of elven language in fantasy worlds. Not sure about PE, the elves of old seem to have been quite alien and not that advanced as a culture.

[Merlkir]

Bumpa before I go to bed, still hoping to hear some official person tell me I'm too nerdy for Obsidian.

[Rabain]

* "Hylspeak"? The lore indicates that the name derives from it being the language of rural folk... or "people of the hills". Just call it "Hillspeak". It looks idiotic with the "y". Or come up with something better.

 

I prefer Hylspeak, to me that sounds kind of nordic whereas Hillspeak doesn't conjure anything for me. So already I am seeing these people as a nordic type hillfolk. They are elves and we have Eir Glanfath that sounds gaelic, the gaelic and scandinavian cultures have often intermixed over millennia with trade, exploration and some pillaging... They mentioned that it is generally used in folk song and poem that I imagine to be something like Beowulf which again links to Scandinavia and if you aren't familiar with the literature perhaps you have seen the CG movie. This is the kind of thing that feeds imagination, that is why I like it.

 

So yeah I prefer Hylspeak.

[JFSOCC]

You don't need extensive dictionaries of arane languages, fun as it may be to those inclined, amongst I would count myself.

What you need is consistency.

If you're going to do an "elivish language" that's fine, make it sound like it is a real language, like arabic or swahili, people will pick up on clichéd overly florid sounding languages for elves, deep booming words for dwarves. THAT is a cliché.

But I do believe that it is not worth the effort I think would go into such an endeavour. I'd consider it a bonus, not something essential.

[Ausir]

Seems to me like Aedyr names sound roughly Anglo-Saxon, Glanflathan ones sound Celtic and Vailian ones sound Italian.

Edited October 13, 2012 by Ausir

[JFSOCC]

I haven't seen them yet. (how dare I!?) So I was arguing with just random suggestions, since there was a wide range to select from.

[Wombat]

Seems to me like Aedyr names sound roughly Anglo-Saxon, Glanflathan ones sound Celtic and Vailian ones sound Italian.

There doesn't seem to be Norman/French influence, which puzzles me. Quite many people in the second big city argument, including myself, think Vailian is roughly based on Italy, though.

[Ausir]

Perhaps the Old Aedyr was Anglo-Saxon while the language spoken by the Kulklin elves was the equivalent of French, and thus, after these kingdoms became one, the modern Aedyr is depicted as modern English, even though some old Aedyr names and terms remain in use.

 

That's just a fun speculation, since there doesn't really need to be a reason for one of the cultures to speak a rough equivalent of Old English in this world.

Edited October 14, 2012 by Ausir

[Wombat]

Perhaps the Old Aedyr was Anglo-Saxon while the language spoken by the Kulklin elves was the equivalent of French, and thus, after these kingdoms became one, the modern Aedyr is depicted as modern English, even though some old Aedyr names and terms remain in use.

 

That's just a fun speculation, since there doesn't really need to be a reason for one of the cultures to speak a rough equivalent of Old English in this world.

Haven't thought of that. Yeah, the update says they merged 600 years ago, roughly equivalent to Norman Conquest to the late Middle Age.

[Rostere]

How are the languages of PE's world being made? We've gotten quite a bit of the lore yesterday in the 20th update and I had a mixed reaction to the names in there.

Some sound vaguely Earthly (especially the elven ones remind me of Gaelic or something like that), others are quite alien.

 

Do you guys have a linguist on the team, or are the writers "just winging it"?

 

Certainly I can understand that most players won't be ever able to tell the difference, but there are advantages to creating the whole thing the "proper" way.

(it's easier to scale it up later, or add cultures or cultural evolution)

 

Especially since PE aims to be a long series of games (if all goes well), doing this part of the worldbuilding in depth might be a good move.

 

(if anyone's read Neal Stephenson's ReamDe, there's quite a funny subplot about a writer taking over a fictional MMORPG's lore and rewriting ALL THE NAMES, because he's a linguist and the names don't make sense.)

 

Someone posted this in comments under a RPS article about the screenshot, I wonder if you're familiar with this language development kit:

 

http://www.zompist.com/kit.html

I'm very interested in linguistics, and I've been studying lexicographical and phonetic Markov models for language (as some project in Numerical Analysis). I definitely second this. I think Obsidian should create very ambitious languages for their new setting, even if the languages are just used for naming places. I'm sure you and I and other fans would be very glad to help.

[PaganPoetry]

I'm a linguist!! I would love for PE to have a detailed, realistic and most of all consistent system of language since I think it's so rarely seen in fantasy games. I think the most important place to start is with the phonetics and the alphabet, since those are the most prevalent things one would come across. I don't believe that syntax would be as important, but... maybe a few morphological rules. I really don't see it as hyper-nerdy or even that time consuming; I remember speaking to someone at my school about how there used to be a class dedicated to creating artificial languages.

 

Also, I for one am sick of Latin being the default language that people turn to. I think it's such a boring language compared to much more intriguing possibilities.

[Veeno]

I'm not saying characters ingame should speak in these artificial languages (however cool that would be).

That would be very cool indeed... especially if our characters had to take the time to learn a certain language in order to interact with a group of NPCs. It's something i've always wanted to see in a fantasy RPG, but as far as I know, it's only ever been touched on very lightly.

 

There is a character whose "language" you have to figure out in order to be able to converse with them in SW:KotOR.

[metiman]

I'm not saying characters ingame should speak in these artificial languages (however cool that would be).

That would be very cool indeed... especially if our characters had to take the time to learn a certain language in order to interact with a group of NPCs. It's something i've always wanted to see in a fantasy RPG, but as far as I know, it's only ever been touched on very lightly.

 

There is a character whose "language" you have to figure out in order to be able to converse with them in SW:KotOR.

 

And also in Ultima Underworld. I don't usually like puzzles, but decoding Lizardman was fun. And the language sounded great. Very reptilian with lots of Sthsss kind of sounds. A faux language wouldn't have to be global in scope. It could just be used in one particular quest for attempting to speak with some apparently friendly monster.