Elves and Accents.

[musashi]

If anything, I would suggest maybe 'muddled' or 'unaccented'. Not tribal though. That's tied to a native fluency in bendune. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Allundean.

I can buy into the idea that tribal relates to native bendune speakers.

But I don't get why you would think that desert elves are somehow immune to having a discernable accent related to the fact that they are native allundean speakers. Or that the accent would be any less well known than say ... the tribal human one. Delves are certainly just as well travelled as their human tribal counterparts.

Not to outright say you're wrong, but: If desert elves were supposed to have speech which reflected something like that, they would start with sirihish. As tribal humans do. And considering that it 'would' be entirely possible for them to learn sirihish from any number of accented sources, it wouldn't necessarily be correct to, say, give all d-elves a single accent, unless it 'was' to imply that the language they'd picked up outside of their own 'was' muddled. And calling it a 'tablelands' accent is not always going to reflect things properly.

Not all of them are from the Tablelands. I can think of one tribe, specifically, that's from farther north than Tuluk. How does that figure in? And, if they 'are' well-travelled enough that picking up on, say, sirihish would happen, I think when they branch sirihish, it should open up a 'muddled' accent.

As to d-elves and having a tribal accent: See Shal's post: Tribal accent is for bendune.  Desert elves do not speak bendune by default.

So, let me see if I can parallel this to a RL example:

You have a chinese person and a latino person, and an american person.

The Chinese person did not speak english at all growing up, only Chinese (like the only Allundean thing).

The Latino person grew up speaking spanish and english in the house, thus he has a latino accent (like the tribal accent because you grew up with bendune).

The american person ... should ... by you're logic ... be able to hear the latino's accent because he's been speaking english longer and in tandem with his other mother tongue, but the american person should not be able to hear the chinese person's chinese accent ... because hey, they never knew english and learned english from an american so they sound exactly alike!

That ... how can that make any sense to anyone?

And again I'm not trying to say that delves should be given the tribal accent. Have it be strongly tied to bendune, that's cool. I'm just saying they should get some kind of accent, because it's clearly an oversight in the code one way or the other.

[AmandaGreathouse]

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that someone learning to speak a second language from any number of sources with any number of accents is likely to speak it with a muddled accent in it. Because not only is it a second language, but they've been hearing one person say 'y'all' and another saying 'you all', and learned both ways as 'correct', which will influence how they speak that language. I didn't say 'no, make them all speak in the accent they learned it in', I said 'muddled', to reflect their lack of an accent when speaking in allundean and their clearly elvish accent combining with whatever the accent of the person they learned sirihish from was.

[Twilight]

In Arm 2, if they are accents, perhaps they should be made language specific.  So Southern_Sirihish, Southern_Allundean, Tribal_Sirihish...instead of just Southern, Tribal etc.

[musashi]

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that someone learning to speak a second language from any number of sources with any number of accents is likely to speak it with a muddled accent in it. Because not only is it a second language, but they've been hearing one person say 'y'all' and another saying 'you all', and learned both ways as 'correct', which will influence how they speak that language. I didn't say 'no, make them all speak in the accent they learned it in', I said 'muddled', to reflect their lack of an accent when speaking in allundean and their clearly elvish accent combining with whatever the accent of the person they learned sirihish from was.

But more than any little y'all or you all that they may or may not hear from people they listen too ... the strongest accent a chinese person will have when they learn to speak english will be a chinese accent. It will not be a muddled "Oh gosh is he from new york or boston I just dunno" kind of accent ... it will be a very strong, bordering on comedy, chinese accent. Because their Chinese DOES in fact heavily affect the way they pronounce english.

Why would allundean be any different? Why could you not immediately know that that's a desert elf accent if you ever heard one? Unless of course the delf was sly enough to fake an accent more native to you. Why?

A french speaker and an english speaker can still both clearly hear a japanese accent (in whichever anguage) as being japanese. They would never argue with one another over whethe it was an english or french accent, they would both know it wasn't either. Easily.

But in the current way of things, a "no accent" character does exactly that. They sound native to whoever they are talking to. That's what I'd like to be fixed because I just don't see a way to justify why it should be like that.

[RogueGunslinger]

Who cares? Just give d-elves/Pah their own accent.

[AmandaGreathouse]

Musashi: I could argue this all day. And it would just be conjecture, given for the fact that the code handles it the way it does. If you want to know definitively why they speak the way they do, why not just ask the staff? Especially if it is as rgs says and the staff said it was that way intentionally.

You know what else isn't like real life in Arm? Some people can't listen because they can bash and disarm.

Sometimes you have to just remember that it's a game, and go with the most logical possible explanation of why things are the way they are. Because whether or not it always makes sense to you, ooc, that's just how things are IC. That's the shape of reality on Zalanthas.

From 'Help Allundean':

With the Dragon's arrival in the Known World, and the subsequent and speedy fall of the Empire, the elven tribes banded together for a short while (perhaps two hundred years). While closely grouped, the tribal tongues grew more and more related, eventually becoming what is today recognized as Allundean.

This language shares the peculiarity of Bendune and Cavilish in that seven vowels are used for speaking, but no vowels are used in the written form of the language.

From 'Help Sirihish':

The language called Sirihish is the 'common' tongue of nearly all humans and is the unifying cultural element among all races of the Known World. In fact, many historians consider the societies of Allanak and Tuluk to be a single society because of their common linguistic traits (i.e., the use of Sirihish).

Sirihish is quite obviously derived from Late Tatlum, which was the bastardised form of the ancient speech left to the humans after the Dragon's departure from the realm of mortals. It possesses the largest vocabulary, is broadest in aspect and in potential meaning, and is the most capable of abstraction of all the known languages

From 'Help Accent':

On Armageddon, when a character chooses a starting location in the Hall of Kings, they are given the virtual accent of that location. This means when they speak, people from other regions may be able to tell which region they are from.

From 'Help Bendune':

The real history of linguistic development is most likely that the tribal tongues became united at Gol Krathu, several Ages before the arrival of the Dragon, into a more primitive form of Bendune. It was not until many years later that the elven and Cavilish tongues were certain to have existed.

While most contemporary desert tribes are composed of refugees from the city-states or of elven nomads, the Allundean and Sirihish languages are far more common in the wilderness than they once were. On the fringes of the Known World, however, most still speak Bendune, particularly the Tan Muark, who claim it their own invention.

It would seem, based on the help files alone, that it's logical that native bendune-speakers have their own accent, but people speaking allundean don't.

[daedroug]

I agree that it's wonky that when a D-elf learns something other then Allundean IG that they can speak it completely fluently, however I also believe that they should speak Allundean with out one. That being said I say leave it as is or add in a Null accent, and then fix the rest in 2.arm

[musashi]

*long sigh* I know ... that's the way it behaves in the game now ... I'm just observing that there are obvious oversights to it. It doesn't even matter which presupposition you're working from either. If you want to assume that allundean should have no accent ... fine ... it's broken because it forces them to pick up the first accent they get and they can't go back to "nul" ... and apparently from what X-D said, staff is not willing to set them back to null, but instead gave them the "tribal" accent.

Or if you want to assume that allundean should have an accent ... it's broken because they don't, and subsequently the code unintentionally makes it appear that they are speaking to you in your own native accent, whatever that may be.

No matter which one of these two trains of thought are the correct one ... something is still broken in the code and inconsistent, and could merit with a little touch up I think. It doens't seem so hugely insurmountable that it needs to wait for 2.arm.

[daedroug]

In order to let them both keep a no accent allundean and have a different accent for other languages would require what i'm sure is an entirely new large block of code, if not an entire rewrite of the language code, that I'd rather see done right in Arm 2 then to be slap dashed now.

[musashi]

For one ... staff has said don't make judgement calls on what is too difficult or too time consuming to code. Just make suggestins on the merits and demerits and they'll decide if the workload is doable. But that aside, I wouldn't think it would be so hard to add in a thing that makes accents become omitted when the language is something other than sirihish. Add in another small thing that says an accent must be branched before sirihish can be branched ... and ... wouldn't that pretty much solve the issue?

Or, if you go the other way with it ... wouldn't adding a new accent that was generic enough to not be tied down to one area like the tablelands (somethig like ... wildly ... wildly accented sirihish, yeah baby!) solve the problem as well?

Those seem like little fixes to me.

[AmandaGreathouse]

I'm not opposing you for the sake of opposing you. Seriously. I think it could work better than it does at the moment myself. And you're right in that both trains of thought are a bit skewed. I support the idea of giving them thier own accent, even. I was simply opposed to it being tribal or anything too region-specific, in the manner of code changes. But at the same time, I don't feel that it seems too broken to be playable at the moment. I mean, you say they're well-travelled, I think it makes perfectly logical sense that a non-linguist might not pick up on a muddled accent. So I'm not horribly opposed to how it is now. I mean, it's a karma race for many reasons, you could toss that on as an extra one. Either way. And it does seem like it might take a LOT of work to overhaul it. So... meh.

[RogueGunslinger]

Not to mention, that just because your elf receives the tribal accent, doesn't mean he has to 'change accent tribal' Hmm?

It does work like that right?

[X-D]

No, it does not.

If your delf picks up any accent at all, he is stuck using it unless he gets another.

Imagine how annoying that is if your playing a Soh and you get unlucky enough to pick up rinthi as your first accent.

[Pale Horse]

I don't normally agree with Gimf X-D, but I like the idea of the "Nul" accent, for the D-Elves.  That way, they won't be stuck with an accent, once learning one.

Or, just make it "Tableland Allundean" and the accent "Tableland" unable to be used with anything other than Allundean.  Probably a code nightmare, but whatever.  I'm just tossing ideas out.

[RogueGunslinger]

No, it does not.

If your delf picks up any accent at all, he is stuck using it unless he gets another.

Imagine how annoying that is if your playing a Soh and you get unlucky enough to pick up rinthi as your first accent.

Well now it goes right from the realm of minor annoyance, to coded flaw in the game that would utterly piss me off.

[IAmJacksOpinion]

No, it does not.

If your delf picks up any accent at all, he is stuck using it unless he gets another.

Imagine how annoying that is if your playing a Soh and you get unlucky enough to pick up rinthi as your first accent.

Agreed. To clarify, the minute you learn the accent (and from null status you seem to learn FAST. I've had 15 day characters that never learned accents, and 15 hour d-elves that did) you switch to it. You don't have to type "change accent <whatever>". It's just THERE. And before you know it, your whole tribe is speaking (brace yourself Amanda) Tribal.

Agreed, something needs to be done.

Making Allundean / Mirrukkim immune to accents is NOT the answer. Since we've deduced that accents are topical, a cunning, clever, sneaky d-elf (remember, these are the core values of d-elf society) might need to use his mastery of the Southern accent to complete his Allanaki city elf disguise in order to trick someone. (ie, disguising your "perfect" accent as a southern accent by dragging your vowels out a little longer, or whatever does it.)

If d-elves speak Allundean "perfectly" (which is an absurd notion no matter who said it) then there needs to be an accent called "perfect" that doesn't show up in a tell/say in Allundean.

However, I still say elves have their own accents, even if it is simply north/south, depending on a tribe.

[X-D]

Believe me, I was utterly pissed off when I got it.......matter of fact, when I wished up I was less then polite.

I wish they could at least make it so if somebody was to request it they can turn the ability to learn an accent off.

And though you might not agree they speak perfect allundean, the staffer that told me was an Overlord...so I doubt very much if that is up for debate.

As to north and south accents, they are city accents. If delves got accents, 3 distinct accents would need be added...at least.

I would prefer the ability to have Nul or turn accent off or turn the gaining of accent off. I've really never been able to think of any reason any delf would want to use a city accent or human tribal accent anyway...least not with any of mine.

[a strange shadow]

The dirty, rugged desert elf says, in desert allundean:
     "Kah."

'desert' accent for desert elves. Representing a pure strain of allundean. It makes sense enough to me.

[musashi]

The dirty, rugged desert elf says, in desert allundean:
     "Kah."

'desert' accent for desert elves. Representing a pure strain of allundean. It makes sense enough to me.

I like this idea.

Although I'm confused by X-D last statement ... an Overload told you elves speak perfect allundean but then ... also refused to let you go back to "no accent" and made you take tribal instead of rinthi? Those two decisions seem pretty much opposed to one another.

[RogueGunslinger]

Although I'm confused by X-D last statement ... an Overload told you elves speak perfect allundean but then ... also refused to let you go back to "no accent" and made you take tribal instead of rinthi? Those two decisions seem pretty much opposed to one another.

Aheh. Heh. Hahaha.

Right?

[musashi]

I think it makes perfectly logical sense that a non-linguist might not pick up on a muddled accent. So I'm not horribly opposed to how it is now.

For the record though, this was the main thrust of your arguement that I am disagreeing with. This idea that people who learn a second language end up with a muddled "indiscernable" accent in it. This is a misconception on your part I fear. People do not end up with a muddled accent, they end up with an accent based on the language they learned first. And not just pronounciation, but the way they string words together too.

I always found it amusing that Chinese people had to say silly shit like: You're -very- funny, he's -very- smart! Or the famous Indiana Jones line from the Temple of Doom: I very little! You cheat very big! Why did everything have to be VERY all the time? Well then I learned mandarin, and learned that in mandarin an adjective like big, smart, funny ... can not stand on its own. You have to attach very, or not a lot, or some kind of conditional modifier to it to make it gramatically correct in mandarin. That's why 99.99% of them do it, because it's a hold over from their own, non-english language.

The people who have muddled accents are the people who are fluent in the language already and have done some travelling to different areas that speak different dialects. Like the anticdotal story someone posted earlier about going up north, and being told they sound like they came from the midwest, or going south and being told they sound like they're from Boston. That would not happn to a French foreign exchange student ... absolutely everyone would say: Wow, you sound French. Because it's obvious.

It seems to me like you're saying: I agree the accents thing for desert elves is buggy ... but since it's buggy rather than offer up ideas to fix it, lets pretend like it's supposed to be that way no matter what kind of reality denile we have to put ourselves in to pretend it.

I'd, rather fix it 

[daedroug]

It seems to me that the accent from your original language is more a matter of skill in that language which is taken care of by the fact that you can't speak a language that well when you first learn it, while it doesn't carry over your original language it does seem to be taken care of in part already.

[spawnloser]

Sure I talk differently compared to someone [else], but that doesn't prove that I have an accent.

Yes, it does, actually.  There is no such thing as not having an accent.  The fact that you speak differently from someone else proves that you both have accents, as all an accent is is a mannerism of speech/pronunciation.  If you pronounce something differently than someone else, you both have accents.

[daedroug]

Guess I need a null accent too then. Any one want to code it for me?

[spicemustflow]

It's clear from the docs that no tribe speaks "perfect" allundean. Each has its unique slang that doesn't make sense to others and it's only what's shown to the players, I imagine a "real" Sun Runner to speak very differently from a Red Fang, both in vocabulary and in pronunciation. And those are about the least isolationist of tribes. Why not just give them all a tribal accent and let the players understand that if they're talking to an elf, his 'tribal' is not the same 'tribal' of an Al Seik?