Speaking in "faux old English" [Poll]

[Mayhawk]

Rarely use the faux old English but...

I rarely use the faux Old English, but I worked on a masters degree in medieval English literature, and when I was studying Beowulf, I did take up a practice, albeit brief, of speaking in real Old English when playing one or two NPCs. It totally freaked out my players. They were asking me what the hell I was saying. So, I switched to a bad faux Irish accent.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Never. I think the mistaken belief that you have to speak in archaic fashion just because you're roleplaying someone from a pseudo-medieval setting is one of the most cringeworthy things in the gaming community.

 

[Piratecat]

Avast, me hearties! I would never speak in a silly accent, devil-a-doubt, harr harr, so doubloons fer all an' nary a "ye olde anything" to be found!

(I am master of the silly voices, but old english pronounciation really is jsut annoying in my opinion. I'd only use it to prove that someone was pretentious.)

 

[Varianor Abroad]

I rarely use the faux Old English, but I worked on a masters degree in medieval English literature, and when I was studying Beowulf, I did take up a practice, albeit brief, of speaking in real Old English when playing one or two NPCs. It totally freaked out my players. They were asking me what the hell I was saying. So, I switched to a bad faux Irish accent.

Cool. I once did an entire SCA demo speaking Chaucerian English (slightly more understandable), and that freaked people out. They just couldn't follow the word choice. The language of Beowulf is odd though - it's poetry, and in an archaic form even for its time. The lingua in the first vernacular bible is more akin to "Old English". I have found you can mix in OE and ME word choices and phrasing to get an "authentic" feel. But you're right that bad faux Irish accents seem to work better.

 

[Volaran]

Faux old english has never been used in my campaign, though people speaking casually or formally depending on the situation as appropriate is common. Accents pop up a lot as well.

 

[Guillaume]

I might in some very special occasions. However, as I game mostly in French and there isn't really an equivalent, I answered Other.

 

[Lord Rasputin]

I think ye as short for you was used

"Ye" is the nominative (subject) form of "you" in Middle English. "Ye" is to "you" as "we" is to "us," for those needing a grammar clarification.

I once did a speech in fairly good Late Middle English/Early Modern English (-ende instead of -ing for the gerund, "hine" for the "him" in the accusative, proper use of thou/ye and thou-related conjugations), and my players laughed at me to no end. You might have better milage if you stick to thou-related stuff only, and start right away in the campaign. But it must have been funny to watch me.

 

[Mark Oliva]

No, hardly, seeing that I run my campaign in German. But I do use bits of various other German dialects as well as things from various forms of old German. My Elminster (Forgotten Realms campaign) isn't beyond calling a young man "Geselle min" or a girl a "Megede."

 

[Shieldhaven]

If I simply have to quote, "Hwæt! Wé Gárdena in géardagum
þéodcyninga þrym gefrúnon·
hú ðá æþelingas ellen fremedon." at my players, they'll be justifiably irked with me for showboating - and then I have to go back and translate it for them anyway.

Once or twice while LARPing I've managed to slip in "Gaéð á wyrd swá hío scel." I was so proud.

(Text cut&pasted from Beowulf on Steoraume.)

Haven

 

[Imruphel]

It's a horrible affectation.

Actually, one of the messageboards I frequent has a moderator who uses a little bit of old English in his posts and it's annoying... and basically very silly.