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Old 10-12-2020, 07:23 PM   #11
dcarson
 
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Default Re: Banestorm language question - english?

There are people that do Shakespeare in the original pronunciation as best as it can be reconstructed. One thing that helps get it right is when you get things rhyming that should rhyme, also more bad puns and innuendo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQc5ZpAoU4c
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Old 10-12-2020, 09:48 PM   #12
Fred Brackin
 
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Default Re: Banestorm language question - english?

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Originally Posted by Maz View Post

How well would a person with modern day english be able to understand Anglish?

Before 4e the answer used to be "At a -4" but languages were Skills then and Anglish was a skill that defaulted to modern English at -4.

When Yrth got a re-tooling for 4e the point that Anglish and English diverged from each other halfway between Beowulf and Chaucer carried the day and now officially there is almost no connection between modern English and Anglish.

The logic of this is unarguable but they speak modern English in the United States of Lizardia so sometimes logic gives way to other forces.

If you want a simple option you can give Broken Anglish to any speaker of modern English. This woudl let a new group comunicate some with a lot of gesturing and making of IQ rolls and sets the group up for going from Broken to Accented over a reasonable amount of time.
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Old 10-13-2020, 02:28 AM   #13
Phil Masters
 
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Default Re: Banestorm language question - english?

The thing in games is that language divergences have the potential to be a huge roadblock for characters, and a royal pain in the butt for GMs. Players (and writers) hate having to deal with those sorts of realistic problems. So writers tend to handwave them away at every opportunity. The original idea that Yrth spoke, basically, variant English with a funny name (and, doubtless, a few “prithees” and “sirahs”) was, shall we say, all part of the general pulp-fantasy ambience of the place.

But Banestorm was a reboot of the setting, for a new edition of GURPS with new language rules, and we cracked and made the languages material a bit more plausible. Just a bit, and maybe inconsistently at times. Writers may be lazy, but we also suffer suspension of disbelief problems when we’re thinking about our material.

My little joke when talking about the Infinite Worlds framework is that Infinity have determined that English is a strange attractor in linguistic space; languages keep evolving towards it for no comprehensible reason. After all, Centrum also speak modern English, which is actually almost as bad as Yrthians doing so. But what I like to think about Yrth (and also Discworld) is that they’re not speaking English, but they’re speaking an oddly similar language with very similar grammatical structures and in the case of Yrth, a lot of the same word roots. So although it’s technically a different language, English-speaking out-timers can learn to communicate with locals reasonably quickly, and every time a rhyme or a pun happens to work the same in both languages, well, that’s just a plausible coincidence.
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Old 10-13-2020, 03:45 AM   #14
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Default Re: Banestorm language question - english?

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Since the Banestorm happened in 1050, the "medieval English" mentioned is Old English, just prior to the Norman Conquest.

How well do you understand this? https://youtu.be/oFX1nbD3dV0
But the book still say it is heavily influence by norman language.
And actually, being danish, knowing english and a little german, I can understand some of what he say.



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Originally Posted by Phil Masters View Post
[...] So although it’s technically a different language, English-speaking out-timers can learn to communicate with locals reasonably quickly, and every time a rhyme or a pun happens to work the same in both languages, well, that’s just a plausible coincidence.
I am going to go with this. Thanks!
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Old 10-14-2020, 11:12 AM   #15
Alden Loveshade
 
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Default Re: Banestorm language question - english?

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The thing in games is that language divergences have the potential to be a huge roadblock for characters, and a royal pain in the butt for GMs.
Obviously Phil Masters as co-author of Banestorm is going to know a whole lot more about the development of the book than the rest of us.

But from a cultural development point of view, there's a few other points I thought of. (I have to use my college minor for something!)

1) Humans came to Yrth from another world. There are other types of intelligent beings here. On that basis, I think it's quite reasonable, even in a realistic sense, for humans to "stick together." That includes having a common language that spreads further than it would have otherwise.

2) These societies primarily began at TL 3, not TL 0. They formed a few hundred years ago, not tens of thousands of years ago. There's bound to be less change within a society, including in language (other than adding words and concepts from non-human races and to describe things new to the humans).

3) Long distance communication generally becomes more important the higher the TL. Even Earth societies that started at TL 0 were moving toward a shared language by TL 3. I think societies that started at TL 3 would be even more likely to do so.

I posted a similar version of this in another thread, but it seems to fit here better.
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Old 10-14-2020, 07:02 PM   #16
Þorkell
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Default Re: Banestorm language question - english?

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How well do you understand this? https://youtu.be/oFX1nbD3dV0
Probably I am getting more of this than the average native English speaker.
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Old 10-15-2020, 08:00 AM   #17
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Default Re: Banestorm language question - english?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Maz View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stormcrow View Post
Since the Banestorm happened in 1050, the "medieval English" mentioned is Old English, just prior to the Norman Conquest.

How well do you understand this? https://youtu.be/oFX1nbD3dV0
But the book still say it is heavily influence by norman language.
And actually, being danish, knowing english and a little german, I can understand some of what he say.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil Masters View Post
But what I like to think about Yrth (and also Discworld) is that they’re not speaking English, but they’re speaking an oddly similar language with very similar grammatical structures and in the case of Yrth, a lot of the same word roots. So although it’s technically a different language, English-speaking out-timers can learn to communicate with locals reasonably quickly, and every time a rhyme or a pun happens to work the same in both languages, well, that’s just a plausible coincidence.
I am going to go with this. Thanks!
I find Phil's solution simplest as a GM to implement without making game play just about language rolls. (and forcing me to figure out how/what to communicate to the players when they fail). This opens up something Im interested in trying out soon.

Pursuant to the videos about "Old English" (not Banestorm necessarily):
I reviewed most of the videos posted by the same person (it was darned interesting) and I would say that in conversation, with some context I was hovering somewhere in the 3-4 points of understanding. The few times he simply gives a word with no context I was hard pressed to get much more than 2.

I speak American/British English (I grew up with both) at what I would say comes out to 6/5 in point value (British has the occassional difference I'll sacrifice a point for).
I also speak Welsh 3 points (somewhere between broken and accented)
Spanish 2-3 (haven't used in in quite a while but years ago when using it more I would have said 4)
German 4-5 (I have a broad vocabulary and some dialects/accents but stumble on grammar for longer sentences, spent 8 years living there)

For sure German helps with this, in fact I think modern German speakers, with todays English influence in TV and radio, would have a MUCH better chance at understanding than modern English speakers with no German.

I would suspect that Dutch might have a better than average chance as well, to me it has similar mouth/ear sounds and a similar blend of English and German.
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Old 10-15-2020, 08:38 AM   #18
johndallman
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Default Re: Banestorm language question - english?

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Originally Posted by bocephus View Post
I would suspect that Dutch might have a better than average chance as well, to me it has similar mouth/ear sounds and a similar blend of English and German.
A friend of mine was taught Anglo-Saxon by a Dutchman, who said he found it very easy to learn to pronounce. Someone else on the same course found it possible to read Dutch menus and similar things, purely on the basis of knowing A-S.
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Old 10-15-2020, 09:35 AM   #19
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Default Re: Banestorm language question - english?

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Originally Posted by Maz View Post
...I know I could just rule anything from "not at all" to "somewhat" to "perfectly well", depending on what I want. But I am unsure what I actually want yet, so going with "how would it be per the rules" is as good a guideline as any.
By the RAW, "not at all", as people in this thread have pointed out, but I'm not so sure. I think a good model for what Ynglish might end up like is Yola, a now-extinct Anglic language that developed in Ireland, diverging from the 14th-century Middle English spoken by Norman settlers from the first time England invaded Ireland, with additional influence from Flemish Dutch and, of course, Irish. It survived all the way into the 19th century. Watching the above-linked video, much of it may as well be Gaelic, but I can pick out words here and there, and occasionally even an entire sentence. That's Broken-level comprehension:
Quote:
Originally Posted by B24
Broken: You can recognize important words and understand simple sentences if they are spoken slowly.
The Banestorm was most active during the High Middle ages, so the Middle English from which Ynglish diverged is no more than a couple of centuries older than that from which Yola diverged. That's good enough to logically justify a free Broken-level default.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil Masters View Post
The thing in games is that language divergences have the potential to be a huge roadblock for characters, and a royal pain in the butt for GMs. Players (and writers) hate having to deal with those sorts of realistic problems. So writers tend to handwave them away at every opportunity.
You mean you don't invent constructed languages, complete with both diachronic and synchronic variation and loanwords borrowed from one another, and then do all your worldbuilding around them? Cowards, the lot of you!
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Old 10-15-2020, 11:07 AM   #20
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Default Re: Banestorm language question - english?

If Yola counts as English, then apparently I'm not fluent in English. I lack even Broken in that. I literally could not understand a single word in that song. Unless near the end, he sang the word, "many"?
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