Dungeon Fantasy Language Murphy?

[vitruvian]

[QUOTE]nobody is artistic in itQUOTE]

Well, except maybe the Bards - after all, it's the language that gives them the largest possible simultaneous audience for their performances.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by martinl

Here's what I'm gonna try:

Every PC has Native/Native in their native cultural language....
This is OK though, because every PC also speaks "Trade Tongue" at accented/accented....

That... is... BRILLIANT.

I'm gonna nag Harald387 and see if I can get him to adopt this.

[Harald387]

Consider me nagged and adopted.

[martinl]

Originally Posted by vitruvian

Well, except maybe the Bards - after all, it's the language that gives them the largest possible simultaneous audience for their performances.

Actually I strongly suspect that there would be quite a lot of popular "low" art in trade tongue - bawdy songs, jokes, travel guides, references, etc. - it's a medium that can reach a wide array of audiences. However, if you allow respect for that, it's a step in the direction of people wondering what point of the native languages is at all - you can do anything important in TT.

No, I thinks it's more fun if anything done in TT is regarded as trash, and snobs just don't accept it. It adds colour and adventure crunch.

That said, I wasn't clear in the original post: Trade Tongue is culturally despised, along with the merchants, mercenaries, and bandits ahemImean adventurers who use it. There are historical reasons for this (the Ancient Phalutins were a bunch of complete gits who forced all the conquered peoples to watch <shudder> High Phalutin Opera and the virtuosos were first up against the wall when the revolution came) but in practice, this is just justification for a status quo that has a flavor I like.

[martinl]

Originally Posted by Bruno

That... is... BRILLIANT.

Thanks.

890

[vitruvian]

However, if you allow respect for that, it's a step in the direction of people wondering what point of the native languages is at all - you can do anything important in TT.

Well, perhaps the *respected* sagas and tales told and sung by the bards, that aren't in other 'native' languages, are actually in High Phalutin, which means that all the people with just Low Phalutin or trade talk understand most but not all of it... kind of like how Shakespeare is for much of modern audiences, or Homer might have been heard by later classical Greeks.

But there should definitely be *some* things to perform that are both widely respected *and* widely understood, again parallel to Homer or Shakespeare.

Bottom line, when I'm running a bard, I'm going to want to know which language I need to buy to be able to play both in taverns and at court, and get a good reaction either way.

[martinl]

Originally Posted by vitruvian

Well, perhaps the *respected* sagas and tales told and sung by the bards, that aren't in other 'native' languages, are actually in High Phalutin, which means that all the people with just Low Phalutin or trade talk understand most but not all of it... kind of like how Shakespeare is for much of modern audiences, or Homer might have been heard by later classical Greeks.

But there should definitely be *some* things to perform that are both widely respected *and* widely understood, again parallel to Homer or Shakespeare.

Bottom line, when I'm running a bard, I'm going to want to know which language I need to buy to be able to play both in taverns and at court, and get a good reaction either way.

I understand what you're getting at, but I think it's a *feature* that bards need to learn the local lingo to enter local high culture. A PC level bard in DF would be the best performer wherever she went, with rare exceptions, otherwise. That said, that can be a feature too. I'm not calling HWF here, just explaining my motivation.

I also like that most bards' most beautiful high culture performances will be in languages most of the audience doesn't understand. This pushes fun "music as a universal language" buttons for me.

It's also neat that most of the stuff the bard sings that everyone understands is lowbrow. This fits in with most players' inclinations, IME.

That said, if a PC bard wanted to revive Old High Phalutin Opera, more power to them. Just keep in mind that some of the longer lived races still have grudges, and and that dragon is still around somewhere. ;)

Regards,
martinl