Eliminate Humanish

[FireHorse]

Originally Posted by hcobb

Example of cross-language understanding from a guy you'll are following anyway, right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2T5edAGu1s

Never heard of him before, but yeah, that's exactly what I was talking about.

I experienced the same phenomenon while getting my (nearly worthless) degree in German. Not to the same extent as Italian and Spanish, but there are an astonishing number of words that are identical (or nearly so) in German and English, and many more that are similar and obviously related. There are also many German formations that make perfect sense if you're familiar with what we would call antiquated old-style English.

But anyway, the point is valid even when the two parties speak languages that are more distant, but still related. You can get by without really being 'fluent' at all.

[larsdangly]

I think of languages in games as a little like jobs or other campaign-scale activities: If the group at your table likes running campaigns with an element of versimiiltude and a broad consideration of your character's lives, then of course you should have specific language groups that make cultural sense and keep track of who knows what language, and enjoy roleplaying what happens when people can't understand each other. If none of that sounds fun to you, then obviously ignore it.

But I do think three things are always stupid, in all games:
1) assuming non-humans know 50 different non-human languages. Also stop giving them all infravision or whatever.
2) using alignment languages.
3) acting like it's a big deal if an adult character is expected to normally know 3-4 languages. If you ever have that thought you will know you were educated in the united states.

[FireHorse]

Originally Posted by larsdangly

But I do think three things are always stupid, in all games:
…
2) using alignment languages.

Yes. What a stupid concept. Possibly the dumbest idea ever. Even dumber than alignment itself.

Originally Posted by larsdangly

…3) acting like it's a big deal if an adult character is expected to normally know 3-4 languages. If you ever have that thought you will know you were educated in the united states.

Which is how we may deduce that an RPG was probably written by Americans, if character creation in that RPG gives only one language by default. Very few non-Americans would make such an assumption.

And I have never met any non-Americans who would be impressed by someone simply knowing more than one language. I tell a fellow American that I speak German and Japanese (and a tiny bit of Chinese too), and I get responses like "Wow, it must have been hard to learn all that". I tell that to anybody else, and I get "Yawn. That's nice. Only three (and a fraction) languages? I speak six."

Well, okay, that's not really what they say, but you get the idea.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by FireHorse

Yes. What a stupid concept. Possibly the dumbest idea ever. Even dumber than alignment itself.

In their slight defense, the concept might be based on liturgical languages.
A lot of religious groups historically (and still) have a language commonly learned across cultures by members of that faith - Hebrew, Latin, Sanskrit, Sumerian after it had been replaced in daily life by a mix of Akkadian and Aramaic languages....

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by malloyd

In their slight defense, the concept might be based on liturgical languages.
A lot of religious groups historically (and still) have a language commonly learned across cultures by members of that faith - Hebrew, Latin, Sanskrit, Sumerian after it had been replaced in daily life by a mix of Akkadian and Aramaic languages....

Good point as far as it goes, though to elaborate on the "slight" part, there are still a few logic chasms that alignment languages need to cross before making sense, such as:

* "Do you speak Evil? I speak Chaos." "No, I just know Neutral." The liturgical languages were actual cultural languages.

* IIRC, those games suggest that not just clergy but everyone of a moral alignment know that language, including those games' bizarro monsters. Because yup they just do.

* Ok, I have to stop thinking/ranting about this...

[Skarg]

The point about people casually knowing multiple languages also brings up that knowing languages does not seem to have the TFT effect of "using up IQ points", from a realism perspective. People, especially children, who spend enough time in the society of people speaking other languages, and making an effort to talk to them and learn, tend to pick up those languages, in a way that seems to me not to involve TFT mechanics . . .

... Or, if converted to a house rule along the lines of TFT mechanics, I might estimate and note the time spent communicating and trying to learn a language, and say the language gets learned (to some degree, anyway) after what seems like an appropriate amount of time trying to learn.

Though it also brings up the notion of knowing some of a language but not most/all of it. Maybe it does take more serious study and a TFT learning point to fully learn a language, but it's possible to know enough to communicate without doing that.

[FireHorse]

Originally Posted by malloyd

In their slight defense, the concept might be based on liturgical languages.

That seems like a fair assumption, but that's still an insufficient rationale. As presented, the idea was ludicrous. Among the many nits one could pick:

Exactly when and where does one learn such a language in the first place? At your family church / temple, where you were taught to be Lawful Good (or Neutral Evil, or whatever)? What happens if you change alignments? How do you learn the new alignment's language? And do you forget the first one? If not, these languages aren't the least bit secret, are they? And if they're not secret, then what good are they?

And so on…

[FireHorse]

Originally Posted by Skarg

* IIRC, those games suggest that not just clergy but everyone of a moral alignment know that language, including those games' bizarro monsters. Because yup they just do.

Yes, you are remembering correctly. Evidently the local community colleges offered nine different Alignment Language courses, and admission was open to all sentient creatures — all they had to do was present their official, un-forgeable Alignment _X_ Membership Card, to make sure they weren't cheating by learning one of the other eight.

[hcobb]

Originally Posted by malloyd

In their slight defense, the concept might be based on liturgical languages.
A lot of religious groups historically (and still) have a language commonly learned across cultures by members of that faith - Hebrew, Latin, Sanskrit, Sumerian after it had been replaced in daily life by a mix of Akkadian and Aramaic languages....

Isn't that exactly the same as Thieves’ Argot?

So just learn Streetwise to know the language of your local cult.

[TippetsTX]

Originally Posted by hcobb

So just learn Streetwise to know the language of your local cult.

I ruled that Streetwise only provides casual familiarity with Thieves’ Argot in my game. Only members of the Thieves' Guild (aka. the Longfinger's Guild) are fluent in the language.