Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 1 Jul 2004 to 2 Jul 2004 (#2004-136) From: Automatic digest processor Date: 03/07/2004, 17:00 To: Recipients of MYSTARA-L digests Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There are 21 messages totalling 1083 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Things I Hate in Mystara - Thyatian Languages (6) 2. The Linguistic and Ethnographic issue, 1 (long) (4) 3. Thing I Hate in Mystara: the Pan-Traldarism (3) 4. Red Curse (3) 5. Mystara Fragmentation 6. The Linguistic and Ethnographic issue, 2 (long) (2) 7. The Linguistic and Ethnographic issue, 3 (long) (2) ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.dnd.starflung.com/ To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 05:28:30 -0500 From: "Ron Rogers Jr." Subject: Re: Things I Hate in Mystara - Thyatian Languages la Volpe wrote: > Every Mystara-fan knows that consistency is a huge > problem throughout the campaing. Fan work hasn't > helped in that direction - and I know, being a > prolific writer, that I have been one of the guilty > ones, here. Unfortunately, when we have to describe, > to complement, to expand on previous canon work, we > find ourselves with problems that we will never be > able to overcome without bending (or deleting whole > parts of) canon. > > I take some examples that I am particularly "worried" > about. > > THYATIS > The problem of thyatian language, customs, and names > is impossible to solve. Just taking in consideration > canon strictly, we have celtic (Korrigan, McRhoomag), > german (Oesterhaus, Von Hendriks, etc.), latin > (Docerius, Lucinius) and greek/byzanthine > (Karagenteropolous, Demetrion) sounding names in the > same country, referred to the same population (I am > not taking in consideration those names that have a > reasonable origin, like ylari names, hinterlander > names, nuari names). Thyatians, Kerendans and Hattians were all Antalian tribes moved south by the Nithians, right?. Made contact with the Milenians. The Hattians were purists (and still are) keeping their original "Germanic" language. The Thyatians were heavily influenced by the later Milenians with their Emperor and are therefor more "Latinized" The Kerendans on the other hand were more enamored of early Milenian culture and thought it was better and therefore were more enamored of "Greek-like" things. Which also explains why they settled to the west. They would understand/get along with the Traldar/Traladarans better. > > Moreover, the thyatian culture seems to be a mix of > medieval feudalism and a senatorial monarchy similar > to that of the old roman empire. Antalians were probably very early feudal culture until they contacted the Nithians/Milenians. Their governmental structure is probably a mix of ancient traditions with what they picked up from the Milenians. > > The language is "thyatian", common both to the > thyatian/kerendan ethnicity, and to the hattian one; > however, they have very different type of names, and > are different physically, although they share the same > ancestry. The Thyatian language should probably be treated as a Milenian ofshoot and not as a language in it's own right. Ethnically Thyatian's and Kerendan's should probably be considered Milenians too for the most part. The Thyatians essentially became the Milenians or what the Milenians would have been had they stayed in the Outer World. Hattians however are your basic heel clicking, militaristic, stereotypical Prussian types. That's what their Antalian culture evolved into. As for the "Scots/Celts" on the IoD, I thought they were expatriate Glantrians from Klantyre (and therefore are actually Scots) who left Glantri when Glantri became a Magocracy. Ron Rogers Jr. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 13:40:29 +0200 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: Things I Hate in Mystara - Thyatian Languages Ron Rogers Jr. wrote: > > The Thyatian language should probably be treated as a Milenian > ofshoot and not as a language in it's own right. Ethnically > Thyatian's and Kerendan's should probably be considered Milenians > too for the most part. The Thyatians essentially became the > Milenians or what the Milenians would have been had they stayed in > the Outer World. Uhm... the main problem is that from the later evolution of Mystara a strongly byzanthinized Thyatis doesn't seem too likely: all the nations that derive from Thyatis (Savage Baronies, Caurenze) speak neo-Latin languages, so Kerendan language should be something related to Italian, Spanish and Portuguese (these being the RW counterparts of "Caurenzan", Espa and Verdan). Latin looks the most likely solution, while Greek is much different. That is also the reason why it is better, from a linguistic point of view, to keep the origin of Thyatian divided from Milenian -- there must have been influences, but the core of the languages are different. > As for the "Scots/Celts" on the IoD, I thought they were expatriate Glantrians > from Klantyre (and therefore are actually Scots) who left Glantri > when Glantri became a Magocracy. There are lots of other Celts in Mystara who were not originally Klantyrians, so this doesn't solve the problem. It is also hard to explain how the Klantyrians could take over such a large area that was/is under Thyatian control and keep to their language. One would rather think that their colonization of the region was quite older, and that they were related to the Thratians/Hinterlanders -- who by the way have similarly a Celtic culture (and names like Dylan or Penn) and are somewhat related to the Thyatians (adding one more layer of cultural diversity to the empire's background). Bye, GP -- Giampaolo Agosta http://digilander.iol.it/agathokles ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 13:50:55 +0200 From: =?iso-8859-1?q?la=20Volpe?= Subject: The Linguistic and Ethnographic issue, 1 (long) THE LINGUISTIC AND ETHNOGRAPHIC ISSUE PART 1 The ideas and issues brought by Agathokles, Francesco & James bring forth an even more complex issue I chose to leave out of my first post, although I knew that probably it would come out sooner or later. When we consider Mystara as a setting, one of its most important, peculiar, noteworthy and (often, not always) appreciated characteristics is the fact that most human cultures (and many non-human too) are the fantasy equivalent of real Earth ones. Thus, the first thing one should do when confronting the mystaran ethnography and its linguistics, is to decide how much one wants to base it on the real world one. James's suggestions, for example, not differently from those presented in the past by Chris Cherrington and others, lack the correspondance with real world that I search for. A correspondance that for me is an important prerequisite to any hypothesis of solving the contraddictions in the system of mystaran human languages. I pointed out the example of the contradictions in Thyatis. This is particularly evident because of the drastic change in nature of the Empire during the canon era, and in the fan era too. In GAZ1 Thyatis is a feudal empire, a sort of cross between feudalism and byzanthine empire, at a time when the idea of making each country a RW-equivalent was not very focused, and not so present. Karameikos was simply a generic fantasy setting, with some vaguely slavic ideas regarding the population. German elements like Von Hendriks were present. In GAZ3 the Caurenzans were of Thyatian heritage, but were clearly renaissance-italians in style and customs. Then with DotE there was a classical roman style and culture that was in contradiction with much of the other products published so far. Not to mention fan based material. James Ruhland and me, and to a lesser extent Agathokles, were responsible of a clear steer away from canon, that in part I regret. Not because I think we wrote bad stuff, but because we stretched too much from canon for our personal taste (Solarios, the religion), without programming a more radical and planned rewriting, and without explaining the logic behind the changes. Linguistically and ethnically, there are equally many problems that we just recently discussed here on the list. ____________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Companion - Scarica gratis la toolbar di Ricerca di Yahoo! http://companion.yahoo.it ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 14:07:07 +0200 From: =?iso-8859-1?q?la=20Volpe?= Subject: Re: Things I Hate in Mystara - Thyatian Languages Heavy snipping from Ron Rogers' message: > Thyatians, Kerendans and Hattians were all Antalian > tribes moved south by the Nithians, right?. Made contact with the Milenians. > The Thyatian language should probably be treated as > a Milenian ofshoot and not as a language in it's own right. Ethnically Thyatian's and Kerendan's should probably be considered Milenians too for the most > part. The Thyatians essentially became the Milenians > or what the Milenians would have been had they stayed in the Outer World. > This is a viable solution, I think. It would not be very difficult to re-write thyatian material in the wake of this hypotesis. It is simple and effective. Probably more than my complicated takes at ethnography. I only want to point out a fact: I insist on the fact that latin and greek cultures are incompatible, they are not in any way related with each other regarding language and ethnicity. In the real world the greeks had an influence over the romans, then the romans influenced the byzanthines, but the cultural influence is something very different from the ethnical one. I know that this is something that is considered important by people like me and Agathokles that are italians, and thus much more into the classical history and culture than most english mystarans (I'm not trying to offend anyone - it's just like the norwegians and danes in this community look with more interest to the northmen and are more critical regarding those traditions because they know them better than most of those who belong to other cultures - it's a normal thing, I think), and thus less prone to accept such a direct relationship between the two cultures. It seems that most of the mystaran community has no problem to accept the fact that thyatians (latins) and milenians (greek) are not only related with each other, but that the language and culture of thyatians are, partly or totally, descended from the milenian ones; but that is something that, for a true RW compatibility, is impossible. If Thyatis is really so descended from Milenia, then it must be de-latinized. Otherwise, the reverse is, at least partly, necessary. That is, if we stick to the fact that RW must be the guideline to how mystaran things work. It's perfectly legitimate to say: "I don't care", but I am working using RW as a basis that can't be neglected. The solution adopted for the kaelic cultures could be used, too, although the dunael idea brought by James Mishler is fascinating. Giulio ____________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Companion - Scarica gratis la toolbar di Ricerca di Yahoo! http://companion.yahoo.it ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 14:11:54 +0200 From: =?iso-8859-1?q?la=20Volpe?= Subject: Re: Things I Hate in Mystara - Thyatian Languages Ok, thanks to Agathokles that put my previous posts in a better perspective. I forgot to mention the facts that he mentioned: the fact that Thyatis must be latin, or it wouldn't make sense the presence of those races that trace their origin to Thyatis. Ron's klantyrian idea would not necessarily have to be dropped, but it presents problems (that I didn't think of prior to Agathokles' posts) that probably make more logical the introduction of Mishler's Dunael populations. Giulio ____________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Companion - Scarica gratis la toolbar di Ricerca di Yahoo! http://companion.yahoo.it ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 14:23:59 +0200 From: =?iso-8859-1?q?la=20Volpe?= Subject: Thing I Hate in Mystara: the Pan-Traldarism Another BIG problem in the setting is what I call the "pan-traldarism". It may be divided in two separate problems, one of canonical nature, the other of fan-based nature. 1) Traldar is both greek and both slavic. This is a problem very similar (but maybe even worse, from some points of view) to the Thyatian one. Traldar are ancestors both of the Traladarans, the Boldavians and the city state cultures (RW slavic), and of the Milenians and Minaeans (RW greek cultures). In the RW, however, there is no possible relation between the two cultures. Moreover, there is a minor problems: 1a) Traldar must be a Neathar (rw indoeuropean) race, and not a Nithian (rw egyptian) race. I solved this problem by deciding, more or less arbitrarily, that the Traldar were a subject race of the Nithians that suffered more or less the same fate of the Thyatians (were deported or sent to Karameikos to settle/explore/colonize). 2) Traldar Traldar everywhere The Traldar are everywhere in Western Brun, as described in many fan products. Several writers are guilty of this "Traldar Traldar everywhere": Christian Constantin (the Converted Lands and the Nine Kingdoms in the Midlands, north of Hule); Adrian Mattias (Zuyevo); I me myself (Klagorst and Brasov). In my opinion we made some excesses (myself included), but it's less problematic than point 1. It could need some careful re-reading to solve minor incompatibilities, but if point 1 is solved, this is really nothing in comparison (also because, being fan based material, it's much less painful to bend it and change it than it is with canon material). I'd like to know what you think of this, and how it could be possible to solve especially point 1. Giulio ____________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Companion - Scarica gratis la toolbar di Ricerca di Yahoo! http://companion.yahoo.it ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 10:34:19 -0400 From: Chris Cherrington Subject: Re: The Linguistic and Ethnographic issue, 1 (long) ============================================================ From: la Volpe THE LINGUISTIC AND ETHNOGRAPHIC ISSUE PART 1 <> Aha, I was waiting for my name and Celtic/Anglo-Saxon ancestry to be drawn into the debate. No flames, No flames! ;-) One of the most fascinating facets of linguistical history in the RW is it is bizarre. English is one of the most bizarre, you have over 80,000 words, yet in everyday common speech we would only use 20,000 of those words over our lifetime. The Angles, Saxons, and Norse conquered and intermarried into the Celtic tribes, and yet we can only pick out a few words or phrases considered slang in English (English Smashing = Scottish Sma’thing, “it is good”). While Norse “hole in wall” translates to English Nostril, “hole in face”; where did “window” come from? Many of my posts reflect to Mishler’s work, sorry I like his fantasy ideas. His non-canon work on the Espadi is the best explanation I have seen, if not just for entertainment. I took his Dunael and turned them in an offshoot of my Carnuilh. This made the Celtic sounding Dunael on the Isle of Dawn cousins of the Celtic worshiping Robrenn of the Savage Coast. There are other inconsistencies in other races, how do you get an Egyptian based race turn Slavic and create the Greeks? But then again it is a fantasy world. The Traldar had to re-invent themselves 3 times. You are right, I do hold my Celtic ancestry in higher esteem than my Italian ancestry; that is why I post more on Carnuilh than Thyatis, and I tie more Carnuilh influences in my non-canon work like the Oghriz, the Brythoni, and Redstone. Its association I am guilty of, as I also put a lot of work on the Azcan Lich (my wife is Mexican, no relation to anything that rhymes with lich, possessive tongue, or anything “controlling” in dreams, or the fact I have a wooden leg). I would like to see a final version of the languages and there cultural influences on each other that we could all agree on. The main problem is the Hollow World, if we had so many proto-races like the Amencerian, Tamor, and Doulakki; where are they in the Hollow World, and if they are not there, where are they still living on the surface facing the sun? ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 10:55:48 -0400 From: Geoff Gander Subject: Re: Red Curse Havard wroteL > > Hi, > I was just wondering which version of the Red Curse > people use, the version presented in VotPA or the > version presented in the Red Steel boxed set. I tend to use the VotPA version, myself, but should I ever have a campaign set in the SC region, I may consider importing some elements from the RS boxed set. The thing is, I think the original version designed by Bruce works fine - not too much detail, and easy enough to understand and explain. Geoff -- Geoff Gander, BA 97, MPA 02 Carnifex Loremaster/Mad Roleplayer Master of the Elemental Plane of Bureaucracy au998@freenet.carleton.ca : www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Realm/2091 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 11:08:08 -0400 From: Geoff Gander Subject: Re: Mystara Fragmentation I'm a bit torn on this one. On the one hand, I agree that it would be great to see Mystara in print once again (if only a portion of it) - so long as new material is released as well. If it turned out to be a rehash of existing material, then it would be a waste of money for people such as ourselves, who probably have most of the original materials (or know people who do). Such a product (which would almost certainly be in 3E) would, however, be a useful tool for reeling in some converts - particularly newer gamers who likely do not have the original Mystaran works, and probably haven't even heard of them, either. There would be product out there that they could buy, which we could then use by saying, "See how cool that is? Guess what? It's only the tip of the iceberg - there's even more out there! Let me show you where you can find it..." This would, of course, work only if said product is well-written. On the flip side, I have to say that, IMO, releasing (or re-releasing) Mystara in this format runs the risk of diluting the game world precisely by presenting it piecemeal, likely by different publishers and in differing formats. It would be difficult (but not impossible) to get newcomers to draw the connections between the supplements to help them piece together the Mystara setting - if they even want to do so. All this to say that I wouldn't stand against it, but I'm really not sure how well it would work. Personally, I think an integrated approach, like James Mishler's Hackmaster version, is probably the better way to go because it presents the world as a whole. Geoff -- Geoff Gander, BA 97, MPA 02 Carnifex Loremaster/Mad Roleplayer Master of the Elemental Plane of Bureaucracy au998@freenet.carleton.ca : www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Realm/2091 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 17:09:23 +0200 From: Francesco Defferrari Subject: Re: Thing I Hate in Mystara: the Pan-Traldarism ----- Original Message ----- From: "la Volpe" > I'd like to know what you think of this, and how it > could be possible to solve especially point 1. Well, I think that you search for a strictly adherence of the setting to RW cultures that simply doesn't exist and never existed in Mystara. I use the RW cultures only as guidelines and so for me It's not a problem if in RW german and latin are very little related (even if are both indoeuropean languages): for me in Mystara they are related, and that'all. Those languages don't have to be exactly like they real world equivalent, they are only similar. The same goes for greek-slavic-italian ethnicity correspondent to milenian-traldar-thyatian. But for me the problem is easily solved: as you said traldar were not nithians, but neathar sent to Traladara by Nithians. Like all Brun Neathar they spoke a sort of proto-saxon/proto-slavic like language (yeah two very different languages but I don't care) but then the language evolved meeting elven and taymoran aborigenal population of traladara. The followers of Milen developed a greek-like language and a greek-like ethnicity simply merging themselves with native humans populations of Davania, and maybe with a bit more taymoran than the others traldar too. IMC slavic-like people are everywhere in Brun because they evolved from Brun neathar exactly like the original Traldar. BTW slavic languages are very very different languages (like croatian and albanian, and so on) and some oriental-european languages are not even slavic, like rumenian (neolatin) and hungarian (ugro-finnic). IMC in Karameikos there are rumenian-like traldar (south and east, heavily influenced by thyatians) and slavic-like traladarans (north and west) and I use different slavic languages for those peoples, and many more slavic-like languages and people are possible: Croatian - Slagovich and surrounding nations Bulgarian - west Traladara Rumenian - south and east Traladara Serb - north Traladara Moldavian - Boldavia Russian - Zuyevo Slovenian, Bohemian: free for use with any slavic-german like people Hungarian: free for use with any slavic-mongolian like people Albanian: free for use with any slavic-turkish people like one of those nations of the Great Valley Polish: free for use with any slavic-nordic like people and so on... bye Francesco ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 17:24:21 +0200 From: =?iso-8859-1?q?la=20Volpe?= Subject: The Linguistic and Ethnographic issue, 2 (long) THE LINGUISTIC AND ETHNOGRAPHIC ISSUE PART 2 Let's take a look at the origin of some neathar cultures as it is presented in canon material. Antalians-->Thyatians/Kerendans/Hattians--> Thyatians --> Caurenzans --> Espa/Verdan --> Heldannic --> Heldanners --> Wendarians --> Northmen Traldar --> Traladarans ---> Traladarans ---> Slag (1) --> Milenians ---> Minaeans (Note 1: I don't remember wheter the correct name for the culture and language is slag or slagish; the other one is used as the name for the thyatian descended common language of the Savage Coast, if i recall correctly.) Regarding the Traldar, I'll immediately remember that I am going to refuse the idea that Traldar are a Nithian race, and I will include them among the Neathar tribes. The Daro are considered a mix of various tribes, although nothing has been written in canon about them before 200 BC, I think. The other canonical cultures are not Neathar related, or at least not pure Neathar cultures, so I will not consider them now. I don't remember what canon says about Eusdria and Robrenn. Can someone (Agathokles?) be of any help, here? Anyway, when looking at these informations, there are at least three possible approaches to it: 1) The table is ok. It is not relevant or important to the setting that there is an effective, logical way to explain how, say, caurenzan, that should be italian, is discended from antalian (ancient german). Who cares? It's a game, after all, and there is no reason why the languages must be the same of those in real world, and there's no reason for all the grammatical and ethnical movements in the real world to be mirrored in Mystara. (CANON over REAL WORLD) 2) The table must fit, at least to some extent, the real world languages, so where canon contradicts real world history as far as we know it, it should be dropped. It must be done wisely, not to disrupt completely the setting, but everything must be motivated in a logical way. (REAL WORLD over CANON) 3) I'll decide arbitrarily what must be changed and how. (MY CAMPAIGN approach) En passant, I'll notice that most of the ways used to explain the "linguistic problems" in Mystara by people of the MML belonged partly to the second and partly to the third group of answers. However, I want to have an approach that is completely of type 2 (REAL WORLD over CANON). To do this, however, it is necessary to study at least in part the current status of the real world linguistical studies. ____________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Companion - Scarica gratis la toolbar di Ricerca di Yahoo! http://companion.yahoo.it ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 17:34:00 +0200 From: =?iso-8859-1?q?la=20Volpe?= Subject: Re: The Linguistic and Ethnographic issue, 1 (long) > Aha, I was waiting for my name and > Celtic/Anglo-Saxon ancestry to be drawn into the > debate. > No flames, No flames! ;-) Certainly not! My mention included probably 90% of the list, that is made mainly of people with english mothertongue. I hope it was not perceived as offensive in any way, as it wasn't. 8-) > Many of my posts reflect to Mishler’s work, sorry I > like his fantasy ideas. I like some of his ideas too, like the Dunael. > just for entertainment. I took his Dunael and > turned them in an offshoot of my Carnuilh. This > made the Celtic sounding Dunael on the Isle of Dawn > cousins of the Celtic worshiping Robrenn of the > Savage Coast. Yes, I liked this idea too, as reflected in the Ethnography I begun to work on more than a year ago, where both Carnuilh and Dunael are present. > I would like to see a final version of the languages > and there cultural influences on each other that we > could all agree on. The main problem is the Hollow > World, if we had so many proto-races like the > Amencerian, Tamor, and Doulakki; where are they in > the Hollow World, and if they are not there, where > are they still living on the surface facing the sun? Interesting problem...and from what I read I see you know at least a bit about linguistics, or am I wrong? 8-) Giulio ____________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Companion - Scarica gratis la toolbar di Ricerca di Yahoo! http://companion.yahoo.it ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 11:40:38 -0400 From: Chris Cherrington Subject: Re: Red Curse Havard wroteL > > Hi, > I was just wondering which version of the Red Curse > people use, the version presented in VotPA or the > version presented in the Red Steel boxed set. I own the boxed set, but never read the mechanics of the Red Curse, I always assumed it was the same and continued using my tatered copies of VotPA. I will have to crack open that box and take another look. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 17:53:43 +0200 From: =?iso-8859-1?q?la=20Volpe?= Subject: The Linguistic and Ethnographic issue, 3 (long) I am NOT a linguist, but I have degrees in ancient greek and latin, and I have read a fairly good number of books dealing with the issue of ancient indoeuropean languages, and on the relations between genes, languages and races. Most of my past ethnographic projects have been based on material from the italian genetist Luigi Luca Cavalli Sforza, and on the french professor Georges Dumezil, and on the spanish indoeuropeist Francisco Villar. The following informations are mainly taken from Villar. The issue of indoeuropean races/languages have not been solved in real world. It's not important to the mystaran community (although it would be wonderful if it happened, and more important than what I am trying to do for Mystara currently), however. What I will be doing now is to take one possible solution of the indoeuropean problem, and use it for Mystara. Moreover, I will try to use only the details of the indoeuropean history that are believed to be 99% accurate by most (if not all) of the current scholars in the field - as far as my knowledge goes, that it. If anyone in the Mystaran community can contradict me and explain better than I, a simple "dilettante" (amateur in italian) , can, I'll be happy to listen, to read and to learn from those who know more than me. I think I've written enough for today. If anyone is interested, I'll continue tomorrow. If noone is interested...well, I think I'll continue anyway in the next days. Greetings until then, Giulio ____________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Companion - Scarica gratis la toolbar di Ricerca di Yahoo! http://companion.yahoo.it ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 18:16:49 +0200 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: Things I Hate in Mystara - Thyatian Languages la Volpe wrote: > > If Thyatis is really so > descended from Milenia, then it must be de-latinized. > Otherwise, the reverse is, at least partly, necessary. Indeed. James Ruhland (http://www.dnd.starflung.com/jruhland.html) went on with the first idea, basically, while I'm always been more for the second. This is because I think the "Latin Thyatis" idea has an additional merit: since it assumes that the original and current Thyatian language and ethnic stock are different from the Milenian, it justifies the large differences between the two people, yet the fact that the Thyatians were for a time under the cultural influence of the Milenians justifies the fact that many Thyatians have partially Milenian names (most of them actually have latinized Greek names, which would be inappropriate in a byzanthine Thyatis anyway. Concerning the Traldar evolution from Greek to Slavic, we must consider that the original Traldar population was vastly reduced by the war against the Gnolls. The full Slavic Traladara did not exist for centuries. The only problem is deciding why the Traldar changed their language completely (not something unheard of -- people in Southern Italy spoke Greek, then migrated to Latin). One possibility is that the Traldar were influenced by some other (disappeared) population (from the Canolbarth area, for example). Bye, GP -- Giampaolo Agosta http://digilander.iol.it/agathokles ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 18:25:14 +0200 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: The Linguistic and Ethnographic issue, 2 (long) la Volpe wrote: > > Traldar --> Traladarans ---> Traladarans > ---> Slag (1) > --> Milenians ---> Minaeans > > (Note 1: I don't remember wheter the correct name for > the culture and language is slag or slagish; the other > one is used as the name for the thyatian descended > common language of the Savage Coast, if i recall > correctly.) You remember correctly, except that the names are swapped. > I don't remember what canon says about Eusdria and > Robrenn. Can someone (Agathokles?) be of any help, > here? They are related, and descend from barbarians living in the Midlands area. > En passant, I'll notice that most of the ways used to > explain the "linguistic problems" in Mystara by people > of the MML belonged partly to the second and partly to > the third group of answers. Well, that's not surprising, since those subscribing to group one would not have much to explain... > However, I want to have an > approach that is completely of type 2 (REAL WORLD over > CANON). To do this, however, it is necessary to study > at least in part the current status of the real world > linguistical studies. That's more or less my position as well. Bye, GP -- Giampaolo Agosta http://digilander.iol.it/agathokles ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 18:33:00 +0200 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: The Linguistic and Ethnographic issue, 3 (long) la Volpe wrote: > I am NOT a linguist, but I have degrees in ancient > greek and latin, and I have read a fairly good number > of books dealing with the issue of ancient > indoeuropean languages, and on the relations between > genes, languages and races. Most of my past > ethnographic projects have been based on material from > the italian genetist Luigi Luca Cavalli Sforza, and on > the french professor Georges Dumezil, and on the > spanish indoeuropeist Francisco Villar. Same more or less here, though my high-school knowledge of Greek has faded quite some time ago :( > I think I've written enough for today. If anyone is > interested, I'll continue tomorrow. If noone is > interested...well, I think I'll continue anyway in the > next days. As you know, I'm interested. Anyway, I'll be leaving for Ireland tomorrow, so I might not be able to comment soon -- will be back on Thursday, though, and might be able to get access to the mail during my stay. Bye, GP -- Giampaolo Agosta http://digilander.iol.it/agathokles ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 11:28:13 -0500 From: "Ron Rogers Jr." Subject: Re: Things I Hate in Mystara - Thyatian Languages la Volpe wrote: > Ok, thanks to Agathokles that put my previous posts in > a better perspective. I forgot to mention the facts > that he mentioned: the fact that Thyatis must be > latin, or it wouldn't make sense the presence of those > races that trace their origin to Thyatis. > > Ron's klantyrian idea would not necessarily have to be > dropped, but it presents problems (that I didn't think > of prior to Agathokles' posts) that probably make more > logical the introduction of Mishler's Dunael > populations. > > Giulio I had an idea, Something like this: Glantri becomes a Magocracy and the claymore wielding warriors and nobles of Klantyre are not happy. Some of them and their people bug out to find someplace more hospitable to great warriors. They end up in Thyatis. Thyatians now have a bunch of near refugees with their own distinct culture and language, so what to do with them? Suppose the Klantyre reminded them of certain cultures on the IoD. They suggest to the Klantyre, "You can go here, these people are a lot like you. but they resist our bringing our Imperial goodness to them. If you can defeat them we will make you their lords." So that's what the Klantyre do. And in the end, rulership by people who are at least somewhat similar to them is more acceptable to the IoD "Celts" So the Celtic regions of the IoD are like AC 900 to 970 Traladara. Non Thyatian natives ruled by Thyatians, in this case Klantyre immigrants enfieffed by Thyatis. And whose to say that the IoDawners weren't the result of an earlier migration of Celts/Gaels/Brython's etc from "Earth" Perhaps when Christianity began making inroads. Ron Rogers Jr. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 12:38:15 -0400 From: Chris Cherrington Subject: Re: The Linguistic and Ethnographic issue, 1 (long) ============================================================ From: la Volpe Interesting problem...and from what I read I see you know at least a bit about linguistics, or am I wrong? 8-) Linguistics has always been a hobby, I studied German, French, Latin, and Spanish in High School; but can't carry a conversation. I meddled in Old English and Russian, but only to pick unique passwords and names. I studied Gaelic, because I like things Scottish and since I am heavily involved in Boy Scouts, I have picked up Lenapi (a Native American language). I did however take a couple of college courses on anthropology and European history, just so I could map out cultures in Mystara (how is that for a fanatic, taking courses to improve my own campaign). Some languages don't change much over the course of centuries, others happen to devolve drastically from town to town. There are some 200 dialects of German (in Germany alone, not in their neighboring countries or the US). Is there a Romance/German language? That is what I imagine Hattian being. We can see how other cultures influence each other, but we can't imagine how Elvish could influence Daro, or Dengarian influence Ylari, but that is how my campaign is run. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 11:43:20 -0500 From: "Ron Rogers Jr." Subject: Re: Thing I Hate in Mystara: the Pan-Traldarism la Volpe wrote: > Another BIG problem in the setting is what I call the > "pan-traldarism". It may be divided in two separate > problems, one of canonical nature, the other of > fan-based nature. > > 1) Traldar is both greek and both slavic. > This is a problem very similar (but maybe even worse, > from some points of view) to the Thyatian one. Traldar > are ancestors both of the Traladarans, the Boldavians > and the city state cultures (RW slavic), and of the > Milenians and Minaeans (RW greek cultures). In the RW, > however, there is no possible relation between the two > cultures. Moreover, there is a minor problems: I don't consider the Milenians to be "Greek" at all. The Hollow World set makes it quite clear that Milenian and Traldar are two very different languages with two very different alphabets. To me, the Traldar speak a Greek style language, but the Milenians use a Latin style tongue. Mystara is not RW Earth so it's okay for that to be, just like it's okay for Arabia inspired Ylaruam to be directly south of Viking inspired Ostland, Vestland and Soderfjord. > 1a) Traldar must be a Neathar (rw indoeuropean) > race, and not a Nithian (rw egyptian) race. I solved > this problem by deciding, more or less arbitrarily, > that the Traldar were a subject race of the Nithians > that suffered more or less the same fate of the > Thyatians (were deported or sent to Karameikos to > settle/explore/colonize). For my sake I consider the Traldar to be Neathar who were conquered by the Nithians but never really assimilated. So the Nithians used them as "colonization fodder." > > 2) Traldar Traldar everywhere > The Traldar are everywhere in Western Brun, as > described in many fan products. Several writers are > guilty of this "Traldar Traldar everywhere": Christian > Constantin (the Converted Lands and the Nine Kingdoms > in the Midlands, north of Hule); Adrian Mattias > (Zuyevo); I me myself (Klagorst and Brasov). In my > opinion we made some excesses (myself included), but > it's less problematic than point 1. It could need some > careful re-reading to solve minor incompatibilities, > but if point 1 is solved, this is really nothing in > comparison (also because, being fan based material, > it's much less painful to bend it and change it than > it is with canon material). > > I'd like to know what you think of this, and how it > could be possible to solve especially point 1. > > Giulio Traldar have a reputation for "Heroic journeys" so just imply that the Traldar took a liking to "colonization" after the Nithians put them up to it. That could also create more justification for King Milen's journey to Davania. Why didn't he stay with the Halav, Petra and Zirchev? Because he thought they were going to lose but... He'd been planning on a journey anyway. So the gnoll invasion made a good impetus for him to go. Ron Rogers Jr. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 11:54:17 -0700 From: Joe Kelly Subject: Re: Red Curse Actually I'm reading a fantasy novel right now that mentions a dreaded Red = metal. It is magical proof and can slay wizards. Very Cool. Makes the = Psionics of the Savage Coast more understandable as the Red steel would be = seen as wizard slaying weapons. Just an idea. JK Wolf >>> au998@FREENET.CARLETON.CA 07/02/04 07:55AM >>> Havard wroteL > > Hi, > I was just wondering which version of the Red Curse > people use, the version presented in VotPA or the > version presented in the Red Steel boxed set. I tend to use the VotPA version, myself, but should I ever have a campaign set in the SC region, I may consider importing some elements from the RS boxed set. The thing is, I think the original version designed by Bruce works fine - not too much detail, and easy enough to understand and = explain. Geoff -- Geoff Gander, BA 97, MPA 02 Carnifex Loremaster/Mad Roleplayer Master of the Elemental Plane of Bureaucracy au998@freenet.carleton.ca : www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Realm/2091=20 ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp=20 The Mystara Homepage: http://www.dnd.starflung.com/=20 To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM=20 with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 1 Jul 2004 to 2 Jul 2004 (#2004-136) **************************************************************