D20 Linguistics

[jmucchiello]

For it to have even a half-decent amount of information, especially with samples, it would have to include about three college linguistics textbooks of information. There's a reason linguistics is an entire major all its own with lots of sub-categories. It's a huuuuuge area, with immense amounts of history, art, logic, and social aspects involved.

No, it wouldn't. It would have to distill entire textbooks of information into a format usable by laymen interested in using linguistics to help augment game play. The textbooks are out there for people to read if they want to know it all. A gaming resource should be aimed at making it easy to use and adapt to the reader's game world without him needing a B.A. or B.S. in the subject. Similar books about world building do not contain whole textbooks on geography, biology, astronomy, or weather and neither should this book.

Textbooks tend to be dry. Why would you want that in your gaming book?

 

[ShadeMoon64]

I have been a fan of the various "Learn to Speak..." articles in Dragon all the way back to the Thief's Cant dictionary published around 1983. I'm not sure if I would buy an entire book on language creation but I woul certainly like to learn more.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

On the main page I clicked on "I'd want to know more," but after reading the thread I'd probably change it to yes. I'm actually trying my hand at creating a version of Draconic, so I would find such a product quite useful.

When I finnish my Draconic Primer I am hoping to make it avalible for free, and if you're interested it might b possible to do some sort of tie in to what you are working on.

 

[sjmiller]

While I know I would find a treatise on linguistics for RPGs quite useful, I am a tad hesitant to endorse such a product. The reason I say this is because more often than not the person stating an interest in creating such an essay has only a cursory knowledge of the subject. The few efforts I have seen in the past have had great enthusiasm but poor execution.

Someone creating this would, in my opinion, need to show a strong knowledge of both linguistics and RPGs. For me to consider reading or purchasing this, the person writing it should have at least a degree in linguistics and a strong background in RPG writing or design. I know this sounds a bit elitist, and that’s probably true. There are enough subjects that gamers are exposed to where they are misinformed that we do not need another.

 

[shadow]

Fantasy Linguistics Guide? As someone with a BA in linguistics I have two words: $#@! YES!

I would love to see linguistics finally expounded upon. I've seen one too many campaigns where everyone speaks the exact same language and dialect. Even in campaigns where different languages exists, all languages seem to be based off English.

What gets to me even more is annoying fantasy names. Most fantasy names seem to consist of either some arbitrary, unpronounceable string of letters (eg. the Empire of Xqw'er'awqwn), or some name that essentially falls under English phonotactic rules (although names such as Feldor, Beldane, Telgar are not standard English names they all fall under English phonotactic rules.)

In my homebrew that I'm developing, I am trying to come up with some standard naming conventions. I decided to violate English norms for some exotic names. For example, gobling names can begin with the velar nasal sound "Ng" (like in Vietnamese), dwarven names can begin with consonant clusters "kn" and "gn" (like in German).

I'm always surprised by people who want "realism" in a campaign world, but don't care at all about linguistics. For example, I've known a DM who was really concerned with a realistic economic system, with trade routes, taxes, and inflation, but when it came to language "everybody speaks the same way"! There are several d20 books dealing with economics, historically realistic arms & armor, and land ownership, but there is not a single book dealing with linguistics. Why the disparity?

Anyway, what I would like to see in a d20 Linguistics book:

1. A brief introduction to phonetics and phonology: Essential to coming up with unique names and naming conventions. Afterall, not every fantasy languages is going to have the same sounds, or distribution of sounds as English. (It would be nice to see the IPA introduced here)

2. Syntax: Not every language uses the English SVO word order.

3. A Brief Discussion of Pragmatics and Sociolinguistics: This could include expressions of politeness, different levels of the language, and how the language is used in different types of conversations. This could lead to some interesting role-playing moments.

Just my 2 cp!

 

[Desdichado]

Sure, linguistics is HUGE, but a d20 book doesn't have to cover everything.

I can readily imagine a lot of fun and useful information: The use of phonemes (I remember a Dragon article from like #65 or something on that topic -- it was GREAT), a half-dozen sample grammars, different types of scripts, and then a nice set of rules governing language acquisition, related languages, similar languages -- along with some "flavour" notes (not every campaign style needs the same language rules; you might want language acquisition to be completely unproblematic in one campaign (like it is in D&D), and very real-world-like and complicated in another) -- and I'll buy it.

You don't need to EXPLAIN linguistics. You just need to give enough examples and ideas to get DM's brains cooking.

Now something like this, I'd totally get behind. I'm a huge fan of linguistics IRL, but without reducing it to something relatively simple and usable, and flavorful, I'm not sure that implementing all the detail really helps a game any.

 

[adriayna]

Arbiter,
If you are interested in the help of a d20 author and trained linguist (I'm currently working towards a PhD in linguistics), drop me an email (adriayna@yahoo.com). I've written some articles on the subject and would be interested in working on such a project

 

[JBowtie]

I'm always surprised by people who want "realism" in a campaign world, but don't care at all about linguistics. For example, I've known a DM who was really concerned with a realistic economic system, with trade routes, taxes, and inflation, but when it came to language "everybody speaks the same way"! There are several d20 books dealing with economics, historically realistic arms & armor, and land ownership, but there is not a single book dealing with linguistics. Why the disparity?

I have theory on that. Part of it is almost definitely the general lack of knowledge in the game design community. But I think the greater stumbling block is one of practicality.

Currently I am running a campaign in which there is no common language, and which requires a feat for literacy. This is working out just fine, but there are a number of problems I have to deal with on an ongoing basis.

1) As the DM, you have to remember which NPCs, PCs understand which languages. This can quickly get out of hand.

2) Either everyone in the party has to have a language in common or someone needs to act as translator - and PC translators have a tendency to lie or hold things back for roleplaying reasons. For that reason NPC translators are rarely trusted in this capacity.

3) Action-oriented players consider language a boring or pointless skill; especially since you want to avoid an endless string of Speak Language checks.

4) It's harder to use many social skills and some spells when there are no languages in common.

None of these are insurmountable, and for some groups, including mine, it can be more fun this way. But it does create extra work for the DM - which is why many of them throw up their hands at some point and embrace the illusion of 'Common'. I think designers recognise this and decide to put their energy elsewhere.

All that said, if you're going to take the time to create synthetic languages you should at least move beyond simple letter substitution. A decent linguistics book would at least broaden the horizons of game designers everywhere and more than a few ambitious DMs.

As someone who has studied Arabic, Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Ukranian, Latin, and Ancient Greek - but not linguistics - I'd be interested in contributing, playtesting, and buying such a book.

 

[reanjr]

An apostrophe is often used to indicate a glottal stop, like the one in the middle of many English speaker's pronounciaction of the word "button." "y," at least in Old English, is just like the vowel in the words "beat" and "feet," but rounded.

I believe the reference is to those who simply delete letters to make an incomprehensible word, rather than treating the apostrophe as a symbol with any meaning. Tut'nkh'men might be an example based on Tutankhamen.

And the 'y' I believe is for those who name characters things like Karyn, Jonathyn, Rychard, and such things.

 

[Xath]

Heh, you caught me taking a break from studying for tomorrow's syntax exam. I would love a supplement like this because it combines two of the things I like most; linguistics and RPGs. Throw theatre in there somewhere, and it'd be the best thing ever.

That being said, let me throw in my offer of help on the project. This is totally down my alley.

Some things to consider though...

• The elven language(s) have been picked through and analyzed over and over and over again. Which version of the elven tongue would you use?
• With the large variety of languages listed in the PHB alone, will it be possible to even cover the basics of each in one supplement?
• Will you be basing the fantasy linguistic structures off of existing world languages or will you develop new linguistic structure entirely?

How detailed do you think of making this? Will each language have an enriched lexicon, or will there be no irregular patterns? How will you account for transformations in syntax? etc.

Keep us posted. I, for one, am extremely interested.