Languages

Rhelian · Post by **Rhelian** » Sat Dec 27, 2003 8:47 am

I was tossing this idea around today and thought I'd see what other people think.

One of the things I really like about the mud is the wide selection of languages, and how more and more shopkeeps and quests require certain languages to work. Yet, it got me thinking and discussing with a few friends just how multilingual our characters are - at a rough guess I'd say the wizard language list was up to fifteen or twenty different languages. Similar lists exist for all other classes - yet I've seen some (statwise) pretty average or stupid characters being able to speak upwards of a dozen languages.

So here's my idea, in rough form - languages learnable be limited by intelligence. This would not reduce the list for any class or race, that would remain the same, but simply limit the number of languages able to be chosen.

For example, a person with "average" intelligence would be able to learn up to three or four languages.

Now, there would have to be balances to this as well. A character would learn their "bsae" language free of charge to grandmaster (as it occurs currently) and it would not count towards their language limit. For example, all elves would receive elven as a free language, but not common (the human language base) which would have to be learned ingame and would occupy one language slot. Gnomes would know gnomish, orcs orcish, drow drow, and humans common. Half-elves would get a choice of common or elven, whichever would be more fitting for their background.

Also, the class of a character would determine a "free" or non-counted language towards their limit - a wizard could learn magical (by training it normally) and it would not count towards the limit, while a ranger or druid could learn animal, a thief thieve's cant, maybe a sorcerer could learn draconic in place of magical.

As a character's intelligence stat increases, the number of languages able to be learned would increase as well, to maybe maximum languages at a rank of genuis +1 or +2.

As a character can learn three or four languages with average intelligence, it would not make such a change newbie-unfriendly, as they could learn enough languages to get the "simple" quests - er, that's kind of hard to explain, maybe "low-level training quests" might be a better term? It would mean orc barbarians (or other races/class combinations) with a low intelligence would likely not be able to speak nine or ten languages fluently, and would provide an added spice to RP and characters, and encourage teamwork.

Any feedback or comments?

Beshaba · Post by **Beshaba** » Sat Dec 27, 2003 11:00 am

The only problem I see is that A) Not everyone is a GM in all languages, which is what would indicate fluency and B) How many languages are actually related? and C) Is being multi-lingual actually a function of intelligence?

Fluency would be GM in a language, which is something fairly rare, even with the current learning rates. Logically, most people would not sit around in MS and talk to themselves in a language they have only a basic understanding of. I think that just about everyone could gain a basic understanding of a language so long as they have the proper exposure.

I speak Spanish. This gives me a very basic understanding of French and Italian as well, I don't understand everything, but I can get the basic meaning of what is being said most of the time. All of the romantic languages link back to Latin, where I have a basic understanding of Church Latin, which helps me to puzzle out things that are written. I can't conjugate verbs in any of these languages, but I can make good guesses. Most of my Spanish speaking friends who were looking for a challenge in high school took German instead of French, specifically because they wanted to learn something completely different.

We've never really gotten in to language trees on FK, one of the games I used to play on had them, but they are hideously complex codewise and depend on the ability to link related languages together. I am certain someone out there can speak to how halfling and gnome are related, but that person is not me

Opinions from the other RL multilingual players?

Is language really a function of how smart someone is? It has been proven that children raised in multilingual enviroments learn the languages almost inately, not certain though if I have seen any studies on just how ones ability to learn more than one language is linked to IQ.

Thinking about it though, as I write, maybe making languages linked to points like stat and feat points, where you have a base number to spend and as you grow more experianced as an adventurer you gain the ability to learn more languages as you become exposed to different cultures in your travels.

Stayne · Post by **Stayne** » Sat Dec 27, 2003 2:53 pm

Have had similar thoughts myself, specially since I have charecters who are supposed to be as thick as two-planks and can barely grunt out their own language yet can still speak other languages with ease.

I do not know 3rd Ed rules but I remember 2nd edition you could learn <x> languages based on your Intelligence. In some very interesting compaigns, you could often come across languages barriers which gave both RP opportunities as well as questing ones. If we had the choice to learn any language but only got our starting language free plus <x> number of extra's based of (base)INT this would certainly make things more interesting. Specially if you had to find a PC who spoke a specific language to help you on a quest (though this would only work if MOB's *repeated* stuff they said)

Beshaba wrote:The only problem I see is that A) Not everyone is a GM in all languages, which is what would indicate fluency and B) How many languages are actually related?

While GM indicates fluency - It is very easy to train languages to a point that would represent years of learning and practice. Getting to GM after that is relatively simple and just involves time. The point is that if you want you can speak anything, having limits forces you to make careful choices as well as RP ones.
Language relation is not the same in Faerun as it is in our world. While we can trace languages, as well as civilisations, back to 2-3 founding roots, this is because we are all the same, all human, and all from the same world. Whereas Toril has a host of creatures from different worlds and planes, all with vastly different languages. I remember reading in the monster guide that dragons speak 2-3 different forms of their own language and that 1 type can oft not understand another, yet we as players can understand them all easily? While there are many related languages on Toril, oft most are so vastly different that an understanding of one barely gives comprehension of single words in another (from my understanding).

It would be nice to seperate the classes a bit more out. Wizards, priests and the like (ie. scholars) should get more languages and be able to learn them higher or quicker. Perhaps though the counterpoint of this like to all things, is that with sufficient time and RP anyone should theoretically be able to learn anything (though if I will question a mighty barbarian warrior who is also a talented linguist - which they all can be on FK), though even without the RP - given time you can GM every language on your list easily enough.

Its one of those grey area's I suppose. Where does the line between RP and game go, and when do you have to force the "Just because you can doesn't mean you should" rule....

Ahh well - just my thoughts anyways
-Stayne

Andreas · Post by **Andreas** » Sat Dec 27, 2003 4:20 pm

I'm also a multilingual person IRL. English is my native language, but I'm fairly well spoken in Spanish (Castellano) and I can muddle my way through French, Italian, Latin and Portuguese. I have about a 3rd grade grammer level in Japanese. I know a smattering of Turkish. I can read German and understand it fairly well if spoken slowly, but have a very hard time speaking it (although my father is fluent).

Why do I seem to have a knack for languages? I can't explain it. Math baffles me. I can't get my head around the code side of building to save my life... but drop me in a foreign country and I'll quickly be able to ask for a glass of water and find the bathroom!

2nd Ed (still my first love) allows X number of language slots for intelligence (not counting native language) and THEN you could buy additional languages as non-weapon proficiencies. However, this was only to SPEAK these languages. Reading/Writing was another proficiency slot

Now with having different skill levels on here, I'm not sure how it would work. There are good points made all around. Language skills should be limited by intelligence, and their rate of learning certainly is as the code stands now.

Rhelian · Post by **Rhelian** » Sun Dec 28, 2003 1:58 am

People who are "natively bilingual" or learned to speak two languages by the time they were thirteen or so have the proper neuron pathways that are necessary for language aquisition, and find it easier to pick up other languages. Similar language families also are easier to learn than unrelated ones, for example the Italic family (Latin based), which includes Spanish, Italian, and French

Some people are able to learn languages easily, others cannot. I can understand in general terms a fair few languages, but I would not count myself as fluent.

Like Stayne mentioned, the language trees would not be similar to our own - we have three or so major supergroups including Indo-European, but on Toril halflings and gnomes are seperate species and were formed or brought to Toril through seperate means, which would rule out any base language tree where both tongues originated from.

In response to Beshaba's question on why languages would be limited by intelligence, the reasons have already been cited, in summary because that's how it works in the PHB

I'm happy this received such good discussion because I honestly feel such a change (code permitting) would really enhance a lot of factors on the mud.

Sia · Post by **Sia** » Sun Dec 28, 2003 5:53 am

I speak a little Spanish, can muddle my way through very elementary Latin, and I can understand about the same amount of Romanian. However, it takes quite alot of thinking to compose a sentence in Spanish, and I can forget trying to speak Latin or Romanian.. I can thank High School for the first language, but the other two were acquired by hearing people speak the language around me, then I would relate words I recognized back to either English or Spanish, and with a little luck and someone nearby to translate if I needed it, I could figure out what the person was saying.

Personally, I like the idea of only having a certain number of "slots" with which to learn languages, depending on intelligence.

~Sia

Talos · Post by **Talos** » Sun Dec 28, 2003 5:54 am

As a builder I have often wished languages were limited, because I know that even though someone may have to speak giant, that doesn't make the quest all that terribly challenging because half the pcs already know it, and the rest just haven't found it yet. I think a language limit would be great. Moreover, no matter what language is linked to irl, I think we need this limit to be based off code, and so unless some sort of 'language aptitude' variable is added to every character, Intelligence is just as good as anything else to link it to. Such limits would open the way to feats such as 'natural linguist' or something which would double the number of languages learnable, perhaps, so that if someone really wanted to play up the translator angle, they could.

Beyond this, I would love to see more languages added to the game. Especially regional human dialects. Calimpani, Amnish, Chaundite, Cormyrean, Sembian, Uthgardt, there should be all manner of regional dialects merely among humans. Nevermind elves and dwarves.

If you want to get ridiculous, there might be a separate language for each giant type, and maybe a few regional dialects of goblinoids. Languages for several different underdark races, probably at least two draconic languages, several different ancient languages (including ancient Calimpani and Netherese). Some sort of light-based language for will-o-wisps perhaps.
If FK is anything like some other mud codes I've seen, adding languages to the language file is relatively easy. However, I don't know how difficult the addition of the languages to the rest of code is.

Rhelian · Post by **Rhelian** » Sun Dec 28, 2003 8:08 am

If there were new languages added, maybe Divine and Abyssal could be coded for priests and scholars? I'm sure there are many other languages out there, but I'm unsure if it's a lot of code for each?

Rhytania · Post by **Rhytania** » Sun Dec 28, 2003 8:15 am

Druidic...maybe even Sylvan?
*begs with wide-eyed enthusiasm*

Andreas · Post by **Andreas** » Sun Dec 28, 2003 4:22 pm

I LOVE Talos's idea of regional languages.

The new Forgotten Realms campaign setting gives a list of languages spoken by region (p. 85) along with their appropriate alphabets and it even has another table for ancient languages.

Maybe limit regional languages to a character creation option?

For example...

Joe Farmer creates in Shadowdale, so he would receive Common AND Chondathan (the regional dialect) as his starting languages.

Keri Druid creates in Waterdeep and would receive Common AND have a choice of either Chondathan or Illuskan as her regional dialect.

Ali al Calimport creates in Calimport and would receive Common AND Alzhedo (regional dialect) as his starting languages.

Now let's say Joe goes off to the desert. Nearly everyone is speaking some foreign language, but he can't find anyone to teach it to him. (Remember, regional dialects would only be available through character creation). FINALLY he runs into Ali who also happens to speak common and can translate

Now, it's possible that Ali could teach Joe how to speak Alzhedo, but if the number of languages a PC could learn is limited by Intelligence, Joe just might not be able to grasp the subtleties of Alzhedo even though he's managed to pick up a bit of elven, dwarven and even some orcish along the way.

I think a few changes to languages might make for some fantasic roleplay and more PC interaction/cooperation. I could easily see bards and mages having more language capabilities than say fighters and clerics. So when a party sets out to raid that desert tomb, and the riddles are all enscribed in Alzhedo, either having a native along or that well-traveled bard who just happened to pick it up might just become vital to the quest!

Lea · Post by **Lea** » Tue Dec 30, 2003 8:38 am

I played on another mud a few years ago that was set up that you would get a set number of languages you could learn based on your intel. It would give you your native race language (halfelves would get either elven or common but this was not changed until later) and normally one or two more languages you could speak. If you had a high enough intel you might be able to learn a couple of languages of your choosing. You never knew the other languages to 100 percent unless you practiced or had someone teach you.

I think limiting the number of languages you can learn would be a very good idea and something to lead to more roleplay between people. As it stands now I think there are only 3 or 4 languages that lea could learn that I have not found as of yet. Most of them I barely understand and need to have some of it translated for me when people are speaking in a language other than common.

Also for those people who want to rp a character that can pick up languages quickly can always send in an application to learn more languages but I am sure would have to take a penalty in something else.

Alright I think I am done babbling.

Lea

Ivaldi · Post by **Ivaldi** » Tue Dec 30, 2003 10:42 am

As Talos and Andreas suggested, it would be really neat to have RP centered around the need for an interpreter. If the ideas in this thread came in, I could envision applying to make a translator character--a scholar (probably a wizard) who really focuses on learning as many languages as possible, sacrificing other things if necessary. The character could make a living from fees for interpreting during conversations, or writing translations of popular books.

Plus, if the translator is evil, there could be some interesting RP if he tries to cheat his clients by purposely mistranslating...

Tychina · Post by **Tychina** » Tue Dec 30, 2003 10:58 am

Not just bards and/or scholars, spies would benefit from learning more languages as well. The only question I have, is what of older characters who allready know a lot of languages, I presume they would lose some, would they get the choice which ones they had to 'forget"?

Lerytha · Post by **Lerytha** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 1:29 pm

Hello. As my new character will eventually be making forays into the world of languages, I thought I would ask for some clarification on how we can go about practicing the language we learn.

I have heard some people say it might be "code abuse" for a character to sit down, and speak (on their own) until they master the language. I suppose this would be true if they were hammering ctrl + v with massive paragraphs of pre-typed text, but if a character takes the time to speak to themselves as if reciting lessons in that language, is that counted as cheating?

I have always wondered about that, because to me it makes some sense to have a character sitting there practicing their languages until they are near-perfect.

Any thoughts/imm ruling would be welcome.

Thanks!

Algon · Post by **Algon** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 1:54 pm

Well, I am not a expert in the subject, but if you were to say take a book that was written in a certain language and sit down and rp trying to read it and pronounce the words. I do not see how that would be a bad thing. But it would certainly have to be RPed out. I would not just find somewhere out of the way and just start saying all kind of things just to raise your skill.

You have to think that learning a new language is going to take a long time. I would say it could possibly be abuse if you sit down and train it untill you GM it, without ever actually trying to speak to anyone in that language.

Nysan · Post by **Nysan** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 9:56 pm

Personally, if you are repeating the same word or phrase over and over to master a language I think thats bad. I find a nice quiet place and name the things I'm wearing, that are in my packs and pouches, and read books and notes I have or can see out loud. I've also wandered around cities and country areas and named aloud the things I see. Might not be the fastest way to GM'ing a language, but I feel its good rp.

N.R.

Micheal · Post by **Micheal** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 10:04 pm

That rule was set down so that people didn't just hit enter 50 million times and GM every language. If you type every word it should not be a problem. If you character has a language fetish like this guy I know, I am sure you would spend 4 to 6 hours a day perfecting the langauges you have been introduced to.

Just think you should place a restriction on this because if you start at novice and get to master without every having a teacher or standard to refine your skill, how would you know you were getting the language right?

Nearraba · Post by **Nearraba** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 10:47 pm

Heres a suggestion for her...but would this be allowed..
Say, you have an elven friend and you are human and wish to learn more about the elven langues. Could she role play it out with another charater learning the langue? Have the elf say "Repeat after me..(ect ect ect) Then the human smotes and repeats..Of course only so much can be role played when only learning one langue in a certine amount of time.
-Neara-

Lathander · Post by **Lathander** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 3:31 am

The suggestions given here by players are all valid and acceptable. What we desire to avoid is spamming the same phrase "50 million times" and only having typed.

All of this was well said above, but I thought I'd make it official.

Elwin · Post by **Elwin** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 12:15 am

I like Neara's idea a lot. Mainly, because I have done that with another character. Just sit down and talk with them for a little while, having them repeat things you say. Perhaps use the teach command after a little while to speed up the process. It's all good RP to me.

Languages

How multilingual are we?

RE: Language Skills

Languages...

RE: Regional Languages

Language training: illegal?