Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 24 Jun 2005 to 28 Jun 2005 (#2005-132) From: Automatic digest processor Date: 29/06/2005, 17:00 To: Recipients of MYSTARA-L digests Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There are 4 messages totalling 136 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. My language is the hardest!!! (Was: New Heraldry Style) (2) 2. (Slightly OT) Re: My language is the hardest!!! 3. On the newbie guide ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.pandius.com To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 05:54:30 -0700 From: Geoff Gander Subject: Re: My language is the hardest!!! (Was: New Heraldry Style) An interesting point raised by John on the difficulties of French and German. I'm also a Canadian Anglo, but for me it was the opposite - I had a hard time learning French in school, but found German to be much easier - it just sort of "clicked" for me. More recently, however, I underwent extensive French language training through my employer, and somehow it all made more sense. I don't know whether it was because I was more mature, or because of the quality of the instruction, but I swear I learned more in the first two months than I did during ten years of French in school - and this was despite suffering from chronic sleep deprivation due to a 5 month old son who wasn't sleeping through the night. Some of the most bedevilling grammatical problems vanished, and for the first time I finally felt more comfortable with it. Anyhow, all this to say that, IMO, assessing the difficulty of a language is highly complicated - a combination of subjective (e.g., attitude, affinity), and external factors (e.g., life situation, quality of instruction), as well as the learner's own native language and its relation (or lack thereof) to the language being learned. That said, maybe we should look at this discussion and see how it applies to the already extensive work that has been done on Mystara's languages...IYC, have you made some languages more difficult to learn than others? Geoff ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 16:58:54 +0200 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: My language is the hardest!!! (Was: New Heraldry Style) Geoff Gander ha scritto: > > That said, maybe we should look at this discussion and see how it applies > to the already extensive work that has been done on Mystara's > languages...IYC, have you made some languages more difficult to learn than > others? Uhm, only by allowing characters to learn related languages at a reduced cost (e.g., Thyatian, Espa and Verdan can be bought for 2 skill slots rather than 3 IMC). Other than that, the issues that have been raised within this thread are more than enough to discourage such kind of considerations. One point that may be worthy is the fact (at least in my experience) that it is much easier to understand written language than it is to speak or write a foreign language -- with a little practice, one should be able to understand most "simple" phrases, especially when dealing with languages related with a known one, and using a known alphabet. Bye, GP ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 20:42:26 +0200 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: (Slightly OT) Re: My language is the hardest!!! Brendan Corliss ha scritto: > > To get things back on topic somewhat, I've given some > thought to the whole Darokinian/Thyatian language > thing. As I've stated before, I use Esperanto for > Thyatian, but on further consideration, Esperanto may > be more appropriate to Darokinian, as that language > represents more of a combination of several others. > Then of course, you can stick with Thyatian as Latin > (obviously). > > What do you guys think? I use Latin for Thyatian, but consider that being Italian makes this a more interesting choice: for one, Italian is a direct descendant of Latin, so using Latin as Thyatian makes Italian a viable choice as a "Low Thyatian" Common. In the end, I can have the out-of-game language match the in-game common tongue, which is IMO nice. Also, non-vocational secondary school in Italy includes a compulsory 5-year course of Latin, so many of us know at least some Latin, adding to its usefulness in gaming. In other countries, things may be different, and Esperanto may be easier to pick up. For Darokinian, I think it as a mix of Traladaran, Thyatian and Antalian, which makes Esperanto a good choice, indeed. However, I have some doubts on the existance of a single Darokinian tongue: Selenica and Akesoli at least seem too different from the heartland region: IMC, in Selenica is a dialect of Thyatian, with a lot of words from Alasiyan, Traladaran and Traldar, while in the heartlands the common tongue is more like English (Antalian + lots of Thyatian words). There are tons of dialects, of course, and the upper class tend to speak both the local dialect and a form of simplified Thyatian. Bye, GP ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 14:38:33 -0700 From: Dave Keyser Subject: Re: On the newbie guide On 6/17/05, Giampaolo Agosta wrote: > =20 > I like this. I know some people think that the Immortals are so involved > with the mortal world that they wouldn't let such arguments grow among > their followers, but I prefer to have Immortals not that much involved > on such things, so I definitely agree that there is much space for > theology debates. > =20 > GP The idea that if Immortals or gods existed they would tell their followers the way it is and there would be no debate, argument or dissent is very common among fantasy gamers and I have never understood why. There is no basis for that viewpoint except the belief, "Well, if I was God, that is what I would do." ------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 24 Jun 2005 to 28 Jun 2005 (#2005-132) ****************************************************************