01-06-2020, 12:15 AM | #21 |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: New Orleans, LA
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Re: 5 Point Languages
To the OP, most games ignore language differences because (as you can see from the thread) it gets complicated.
If language is a factor/focus in your game and you want to "feel realistic" then I wouldn't change the rules. |
01-06-2020, 03:10 AM | #22 | |
GURPS FAQ Keeper
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
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Re: 5 Point Languages
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Well, people do spot things that are off now and then, and of course I am worse at communicating in real time, as that doesn't let me look into a dictionary mid-sentence. |
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01-06-2020, 06:14 AM | #23 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
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Re: 5 Point Languages
This alphabet is quite phonetic - it's just that it was never well suited to English and has been in use long enough for sounds that were consistently matched to have shifted, without getting a spelling reform. For lack of a formal regulatory body I suppose. Hey even the languages that use Chinese characters have tried something like a spelling reforms in the last century or so.
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01-06-2020, 06:25 AM | #24 | |
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
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Re: 5 Point Languages
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01-06-2020, 04:38 PM | #25 | |
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Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: 100 hurricane swamp
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Re: 5 Point Languages
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If we're going to be frank about [it], I blame the Germans. ;) Last edited by evileeyore; 01-08-2020 at 05:18 AM. Reason: missing word |
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01-07-2020, 04:26 AM | #26 | |
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: France
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Re: 5 Point Languages
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好 hǎo (good) for instance, is made with two key-ideograms, 女 Nǚ (women) and 子 zi (child). And as we can see, there is absolutely no common phonetic between Nǚzi and hǎo. In modern Chinese, "thank you" is translated 谢谢 xièxiè (approximately read sheeshee). In Shanghaiing, it is pronounced ʒaʒa. We can see some common phonetic (sh and j), but it is still impossible to guess the good pronunciation if you don't know it, even if you speak hànyǔ. Ancient Egyptian has some phonetic in their hieroglyphs because they can be used as words as well as letters. Katakana and Hiragana are phonetics (syllabic) writing. They look like ideograms but are not. True ideograms (Chinese, Kanji) are really impossible to read if you don't know how to read them by heart, and can be read very differently from one language to the other. Last edited by Gollum; 01-07-2020 at 05:09 AM. |
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01-07-2020, 06:11 AM | #27 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: 5 Point Languages
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But, with experience, and with a bunch of known characters under your belt, you can often take a good educated guess at the pronunciation of a newly encountered character, and even get it right much of the time. (That word "guess" is key, though, so you're not entirely off the mark!)
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01-07-2020, 06:33 AM | #28 |
Join Date: May 2007
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Re: 5 Point Languages
With English, you can generally spell a word as it is pronounced, or pronounce a word phonetically, and be eventually understood, albeit at the cost of being perceived as uneducated, whereas, as mentioned, many Chinese characters provide no hint as to their pronunciation.
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01-07-2020, 08:18 AM | #29 | |
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: France
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Re: 5 Point Languages
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Have you got some examples, please, or, at least some bibliography to help me improve my general knowledge about that topic? Last edited by Gollum; 01-07-2020 at 09:05 AM. |
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01-07-2020, 09:05 AM | #30 | |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: 5 Point Languages
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