I feel like desert elves should have some kind of accent out of chargen the way everyone else does. Be it tribal, or perhaps a new one like "elven" or some such, or maybe give the 'pah its own accent for tribes that start there ... some such but ... mainly I'd just like for them to have one.
My reasoning being, the way the code works now when you're speaking the same accent as someone else they just hear that you spoke to them in <language>, they only hear <accent> <language> when you're speaking a different accent from the one they currently have set.
But since delves have no accent, they only ever display <language> so I feel like it could create the illusion that they're speaking the same accent as whoever they're talking to, when they perhaps shouldn't be able to.
... ... Or am I thinking too much?
I really like this, and have often wonder why delves didn't have their own accent.
ooo.
A racial accent, in addition to a location based accent.
I like.
This look too "busy", though:
the dwarf says, in northern dwarvish sirihish:
"blah blah blah, blah blah blah."
What if racial took over first, and then if you have the racial accent in your skill list, the location based accent took over second?
I think I'd rather just keep it regional. Seeing The <race> says in <racially accented> <language> over and over again would be a bit much for me I think.
But a region accent added for the 'pah would be lovely. Or just give them tribal accents ... I mean, they are tribals right?
Desert elves do have an accent, It is called Perfect Allundean.
The actual problem with them is the fact that if they pick up an accent, they are stuck with it because there is nothing in the code for a player to set accent nul, assuming that had it.
That annoys the hell out of me. I have seen entire tribes (PC wise) Tainted with rinthi accent because 1 tribe member picked the accent up first, could not turn it off so of course his tribe mates eventually got it and could not turn it off.
It happened to one of mine once, I was rather upset and asked for the accent to be removed, instead I was given tribal....which was just as annoying since I still cannot figure out why my elf would be speaking with bendune accent.
I just wish Morg or Xygax would put in a Nul accent.
I would have to give them thier own accents or keep it how it is, without any. Unless you want to give them bendune. Because one of the things that goes hand in hand with a tribal accent is bendune. Human tribals speak in bendune, with tribal accents, because having bendune as a native language tends to affect how you speak. Perhaps the reason why the desert elves don't have accents is because their primary language is allundean, and since allundean wouldn't give a distinct accent unless you came from one of the cities, in which case, the accent would be from having sirihish in that city. Although, if that's the case, it would be neat if accents were automatically turned off by speaking in allundean. Or if d-elves who pick up sirihish from one primarily-accented source gained that particular accent, but only when not speaking allundean.
Seeing X-D's post: Couldn't agree with you more.
Meh, I don't buy into the "they speak perfect allundean" thing. There is no such thing. Why don't dwarves speak perfect mirkirum then? Why don't tribals speak perfect bendune? Why don't humans all speak perfect sirihish? Everyone has an accent.
I'm all for elves having their own "not humanly tribal but elvishly tribal" accent, but I still feel like they should have one. Or on the flip side ... when someone speaks the same accent as you it should still register as them speaking <accent> <language> that way you will know if the person talking to you is talking in an accent you're familiar with, or in no accent at all.
I'd rather the first option though because ... as I said ... I think everyone has an accent.
The most obvious way I can think of for this lack of an accent to play into a delf's favor unfairly is say ... the delf is hidden, shouting from another room, invisible, or in some other way not able to be codedly "looked" at or assessed to determine that he's an elf.
Later on when the other player is recounting the experience (perhaps to law enforcement) they might mistake the cloaked figure or disembodied voice that accosted them as being from their own geographic region, when by all rights, they should have been able to hear that the person clearly wasn't.
Delves currently get this advantage right off the bat for no reason at all beyond what is apparently an oversight. Other folks have to actually put the effort into learning an accent before they can pull such a con. I'm all for the con just, I think delves should have to earn the ability to do it the same way everyone else does.
Um, because dwarves live in cities?
Other races that used to be playable also spoke a perfect version of the language BTW.
Quote from: musashi on February 11, 2010, 03:20:56 PM
I think I'd rather just keep it regional. Seeing The <race> says in <racially accented> <language> over and over again would be a bit much for me I think.
But a region accent added for the 'pah would be lovely. Or just give them tribal accents ... I mean, they are tribals right?
There's a difference between "in elvish sirihish" and "in northern sirihish" ?
Was editing to add more when the replies came in. Please go back up and read.
And yeah, there would/should be a difference imo between a city elf speaking northern sirihish/allundean, and a desert elf speaking 'pahi sirihish/allundean.
I imagine it was an oversight, much like all the other characters I have had, human and otherwise, that have lacked an accent since it went in.
My prediction is: Tribal, an accent coming to a D-elf near you!
Quote from: X-D on February 11, 2010, 03:59:49 PM
Um, because dwarves live in cities?
Other races that used to be playable also spoke a perfect version of the language BTW.
Yeah, d-elves speak perfect allundean. As told to me numerous times while playing them.
Sometimes perfect Allundean requires th' use've th' bigg'st lot've 'postrophes yeh could ever fig're. I always wanted desert elves' speech to be rendered in overly-precise English.
The claw-marked elf says, in allundean,
"I see you, Cut Rock. May you find shade and water this day."
Quote from: brytta.leofa on February 11, 2010, 04:20:55 PM
Sometimes perfect Allundean requires th' use've th' bigg'st lot've 'postrophes yeh could ever fig're. I always wanted desert elves' speech to be rendered in overly-precise English.
The claw-marked elf says, in allundean,
"I see you, Cut Rock. May you find shade and water this day."
Yes.
If the idea behind this is 'perfect allundean', your pc should not be speaking like they're chewing on a box of rocks. Perhaps a lisp, but not that gapped up, jacked-up apostrophe-riddled guessing game of a so-called accent. For the love of god, please.
No, elves do not have 'perfect allundean' because as soon as they learn an accent (which is very possible and I've seen it happen) they lose their 'perfect allundean' as you describe it, X-D. Then this elf that has learned an accent and suddenly can't help him/herself from speaking it... they gradually end up teaching it to the rest of their tribe and then all the PCs in some elven tribe are speaking in northern accents. Where's their 'perfect allundean' now? They should have an accent.
Code wise, yes, they should have an accent, but that accent should be Nul, something you can actually toggle.
Also
QuoteYes.
If the idea behind this is 'perfect allundean', your pc should not be speaking like they're chewing on a box of rocks. Perhaps a lisp, but not that gapped up, jacked-up apostrophe-riddled guessing game of a so-called accent. For the love of god, please.
QMFT
I sit there and go...Where the fuck did he learn to speak like that? None of the other elves do, Maybe he is not really of our tribe, IMPOSTER!
No really, it is a large peeve of mine with anybody that does it with any race. We have coded accents, Stop making them up. They are hard to read and understand and I myself will stop playing around somebody if I, the player cannot understand the PC. Even if they are in the same tribe, I will simply ignore them.
TWITCH
If the game accents are supposed to only be for sirihish, then the code should be changed to make accents disappear all together when speaking any other language but sirihish, and this "nul" accent you're talking about should be plainly visible for PC's to see and realize, from it, that they are talking to an elf or someone trying to sound like one. They should not be tricked into believing the elf was speaking the same accent as every single one of them simultaniously.
If that were the case I'd be happy enough with it, despite the fact that I think accents should apply to every language because ... I have heard an american speak japanese with a new york accent ... I've heard a japanese person speak japanese with a kansai accent, a kanto accent, an okinawan accent ... accents develop anywhere cultures are even semi isolated from one another.
In a perfect world, I'd love it if all the tribes and settlements had their own unique accents.
For what it's worth, I can remember playing in a d-elf tribe not a real long time ago where first 1 PC picked up tribal, then all of us did. I always assumed it was the imms doing it, since it spread very quickly, and the tribe was reclusive enough that it didn't make sense that we would've all learned it so quickly. (Unless you learn very rapidly at nul accent.)
In any case, I agree that there should be a new accent for D-elves. Or, if a new accent isn't an option, at least they should be tribal-accented by default. I disagree that a tribal accent HAS to be for only bendune speaking humans. Tribal is a broad interpretation. (And I see no document to state otherwise.)
As I see it, the difference between a human 'Nakki speaking sirihish in a Southern accent and a human 'Seik speaking sirihish in a tribal accent is, apples to apples, the same as a city elf speaking Allundean in a Southern accent, and a desert elf speaking allundean in a tribal (nomadic, non-urban) accent.
QuoteDesert elves do have an accent, It is called Perfect Allundean.
Not true at all. Accents are specific to region, not to language. You bet'cha dat da yoopers ain't gonna speak French no better than day speak English, aye. Same holds true for a southern drawl, or any other regionally characteristic accent.
For lack of a better reference; Inglorious Basterds uses accents and languages as a key component of the plot. For example, though a British man spoke fluent and flawless German, he was still British, and thus he still spoke like someone from a particular region, regardless of the language he used. (And, of course, we can't forget Aldo's deep southern Italian accent. "Arrivederci.")
So, IMO, giving D-elves Tribal accent would suffice. However, for what it's worth, I think a Tablelands accent (Western accent?) would be really, really cool too for the tribes located there.
Accents should always flavor the speaking of the language, for every PC. Every humanoid has an accent. Linguistically speaking, there is no such thing as "perfect" language.
DEs should have an accent for their allundean, and for their sirihish and whatever other languages they may speak.
Quote from: musashi on February 11, 2010, 05:15:38 PM
If the game accents are supposed to only be for sirihish, then the code should be changed to make accents disappear all together when speaking any other language but sirihish, and this "nul" accent you're talking about should be plainly visible for PC's to see and realize, from it, that they are talking to an elf or someone trying to sound like one. They should not be tricked into believing the elf was speaking the same accent as every single one of them simultaniously.
this
I was thinking the same thing man
Soh lana kah-ish
Red fang-ish
Sun runner-ish
but how would that work?
Just thought about the solution
The tall, thin elf says to you in elven-tribal accented allundean:
"You think it's hot out here? I think it's hot out here."
aw
then people could learn to speak in perfect sirihish
maybe make it unlearnable?
I'm all for giving Desert Elves their own coded accent. I don't really feel like it's necessary, but what the hell - it wouldn't hurt. I guess it would get rid of the previously mentioned problem of getting stuck with something like a 'rinthi accent.
There would probably have to be several different sorts, as you have desert elves living in the north, desert elves living in the "middle" and desert elves living in the south. All of those tribes are likely going to have developed slightly different variations on the language.
Quote from: X-D on February 11, 2010, 04:58:59 PM
No really, it is a large peeve of mine with anybody that does it with any race. We have coded accents, Stop making them up. They are hard to read and understand and I myself will stop playing around somebody if I, the player cannot understand the PC. Even if they are in the same tribe, I will simply ignore them.
TWITCH
I encourage players to make up accents, and especially ones that are impossibly difficult to read. If my PC is hard to understand.. awesome. If it helps me avoid interaction with the sort of player that has a hard time reading - that's a huge fucking plus in my book.
I don't know that I've come across a single person that speaks English perfectly.. why the fuck should any drugged out alcoholic do it differently on Zalanthas.
talk Maybe give a certain tribe the vrun-driath accented allundean and another... yeah
the region thing sounds better
Maybe d-elves should just start out with tribal accent.
Problem solved.
Tribal accent is for bendune. Desert elves do not speak bendune by default.
Quote from: Shalooonsh on February 11, 2010, 05:48:36 PM
Tribal accent is for bendune. Desert elves do not speak bendune by default.
Thank you for this. Good to know I wasn't totally in left field for thinking this.
This isn't limited to a D-Elf speaking Allundean. Any that chooses linguist is going to face this issue speaking Sirihish/Mirrukum, which makes absolutely no sense.
Quote from: Shalooonsh on February 11, 2010, 05:48:36 PM
Tribal accent is for bendune. Desert elves do not speak bendune by default.
True, but if tribal accent was for d-elves as well, we wouldn't be running into this confusion.
The fact that delves start without accents, yet they can pick up accents, of which they can never go back to, is confusing.
Personally, I'd prefer:
D-elves - tribal allundean
Tribals - tribal bendune
+1
I just would like weird oversight to be corrected one way or the other. People playing delves seem unhappy that the first accent they pick up is the one they're stuck with, and I on the other side think its "meh" that they end up sounding exactly like whoever was listening ... unil they branch that first accent.
Quote from: Shalooonsh on February 11, 2010, 05:48:36 PM
Tribal accent is for bendune. Desert elves do not speak bendune by default.
Then please god fix it where if a delf picks up this accent or any other, they automatically switch to the new accent and can never get back to the nul accent.
I've seen entire tribes speaking like Bendune fluent human tribals. It's remarkably stupid and annoying.
Some one that learned to speak a language from the heart of it's origin isn't going to have a noticeable accent, alternatively some people that end up moving around alot won't necessarily have the regional queues in their speech. As well while accents are usually noticed, the absence of such queues usually isn't. Some of us might make fun of someone from the south for saying "ya'll", but I doubt anyone would notice as much if someone said "you all" instead. While I do agree that it is an oddity that a desert elf linguist gets to speak perfect mirukkim and sirihish I don't think it should preclude them from keeping their perfect allundean speech.
On the note of why city elves and dwarves don't speak perfect allundean and mirukkim, it's because of the influence of where they where raised. Just as Desert Elves where influenced to speak Allundean correctly.
The British actually do think we Americans have an accent.
There is no such thing as a lack of accent, or a "pure language", because that would require a benchmark to start from. That benchmark isn't something natural, its just measuring device that we use. An accent is merely a difference in the way something is spoken from one person to another. There isn't anyone that is so close to the way everyone else speaks that they don't have any accent (which is what would be required, if you don't set a benchmark).
That said, I think it is irrelevant. This is really a legacy code issue that wasn't addressed when accents were introduced, that no one has fixed yet, IMHO.
True but there is such a thing as True American English, just as there is such a thing as True Zalanthan Allundean. I could likely go just about anywhere in the US and I doubt anyone, save perhaps those that make accents their profession, could tell where I'm from.
Quote from: daedroug on February 11, 2010, 07:30:38 PM
True but there is such a thing as True American English, just as there is such a thing as True Zalanthan Allundean.
Smirking, the tawny-blonde data analyst says, in California-accented English:
"You're hella wrong."
Sorry edited abit as you posted.
They might not be able to tell where you are from, but they can tell that you have an accent, because you don't sound like them. People across the US can sound vastly different from one another. I have a brother-in-law in Louisiana who, when he is speaking with a friend of his, I almost can't understand them due to the depth and speed of their drawl.
Check this out: http://web.ku.edu/~idea/northamerica/usa/usa.htm
Accents. We haz them.
As does, everyone else in the word. ;)
But the idea that we all talk with accents is ... you know ... so self evident that I really don't get why it's being debated at all.
More to the issue at hand is, how to best represent that for the delves in a way that isn't giving them weird coded issues (be they advantages or disadvantages) .
I'm not saying that the US doesn't have accents I'm saying that it is possible to have not have any of the accent queues. Sure I talk differently compared to someone that does have an accent, but that doesn't prove that I have an accent.
Quote from: musashi on February 11, 2010, 07:49:11 PM
As does, everyone else in the word. ;)
But the idea that we all talk with accents is ... you know ... so self evident that I really don't get why it's being debated at all.
More to the issue at hand is, how to best represent that for the delves in a way that isn't giving them weird coded issues (be they advantages or disadvantages) .
Perhaps staff should alter thier point of view on Tribal Accent and have it apply to both d-elves and bendune-speaking-tribals? I'm sure it'd be easy to figure out "Oh, that elf is talking like a tribal elf, and that Arabeti is speaking like a tribal human." It would also alleviate the code issues at hand.
To throw in my two sids, I would like for accents to only affect Sirihish.
Side note: I, and most of the other dwarves I've played with, type in perfect layman's English when speaking in Mirukkim, and I've always loved that.
Quote from: daedroug on February 11, 2010, 07:52:17 PM
I'm not saying that the US doesn't have accents I'm saying that it is possible to have not have any of the accent queues. Sure I talk differently compared to someone that does have an accent, but that doesn't prove that I have an accent.
Dude ... seriously ... accents are subjective. You have one because other people have one. It's ... it's really not up for discussion any more than say the concept of the number 1.
Like I said, I think the main question I wanted to pose in the thread is how to best express the allundean (and though slightly less dealt with, mirikium) accents via the code.
Me personally: I was born in Iowa and moved to Florida when I was six months old. I have lived nearly my entire life in the deep south, and my mother's accent is every bit as strong as 9 out of 10 of those who are native here.
When people from the south hear me speak, they think I'm from Chicago. When people from up north hear me speak, they think I'm from the midwest.
I can see how it's perfectly logical that people could hear d-elves and come to any number of conclusions about their accent.
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.
Quote from: daedroug on February 11, 2010, 07:52:17 PM
I'm not saying that the US doesn't have accents I'm saying that it is possible to have not have any of the accent queues. Sure I talk differently compared to someone that does have an accent, but that doesn't prove that I have an accent.
I'm not quite sure what it is about the concept that you don't understand, but quite plainly--you are wrong. You have an accent. You just don't hear your own accent.
To make an awkward but perhaps helpful analogy: The fact that person Q's eye color is lighter than person K's eye color does not mean that person Q has no eye color. Lightness of eye color is not some "default setting" of perfection to which all other eye colors can be compared.
Quote from: AmandaGreathouse on February 11, 2010, 07:56:47 PM
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.
I would like to see this argument played out IC.
It's not so much that I don't have an accent but that in the US I can pass for not having one, Sure if I head to England I'll be said to have an American accent but in the US I'm pretty sure I come off speaking near the basest level of American English (and I'm not just saying this myself, I've been told before that I have no discernable accent). It's a matter of levels, just about any accent in the US stems from one base dialect that if you happen to grow up in a place that speaks it, you likely won't have the Ya'lls, the Ayes, or dralls that are noted in any dialect that stems from it.
Also considering that zalanthas is smaller then the US and the fact that Desert Elves are the originators of Allundean, I'd say it's possible that they speak the basest level of modern allundean that exists, that of which all other dialects stem from.
Quote from: musashi on February 11, 2010, 08:01:49 PM
Quote from: AmandaGreathouse on February 11, 2010, 07:56:47 PM
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.
Mushashi doesn't have an accent. I've heard him speak.
Played out IC'ly. Hmmmm.
Northern elf to southern elf "No, the Soh sound like me!"
Southern elf to northern elf "No, the Soh sound exactly like me!"
Northern elf to southern elf "They speak like a perfect northerner you twit!"
Southern elf to northern elf "I can't believe you let them con you like that."
Rinthi elf to both "Allundean, mothafucka, do you speak it?"
I'm just saying, staff told me that d-elves speak perfect allundean.
STAFF TOLD ME!!!!
Quote from: AmandaGreathouse on February 11, 2010, 08:16:26 PM
Quote from: musashi on February 11, 2010, 08:01:49 PM
Quote from: AmandaGreathouse on February 11, 2010, 07:56:47 PM
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.
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.
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.
Quote from: AmandaGreathouse on February 11, 2010, 08:30:04 PM
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.
Who cares? Just give d-elves/Pah their own accent.
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':QuoteWith 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':QuoteThe 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':QuoteOn 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':QuoteThe 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.
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
*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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Quote from: X-D on February 11, 2010, 11:43:04 PM
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.
QuoteNo, 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.
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.
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. :)
Quote from: a strange shadow on February 12, 2010, 02:04:49 AM
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.
Quote from: musashi on February 12, 2010, 05:51:54 AM
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?
Quote from: AmandaGreathouse on February 11, 2010, 11:23:01 PM
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 :-\
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.
Quote from: daedroug on February 11, 2010, 07:52:17 PM
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.
Guess I need a null accent too then. Any one want to code it for me?
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?
Quote from: daedroug on February 12, 2010, 06:44:24 AM
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.
I think that is supposed to represent things like vocabulary and grammer knowledge, being able to physically put a setence together and have it convey a meaning. Not the particular lithe of mode of expression you opt to use.
Like, if you listen to a Japanese guy who speaks no english at all, his sentence will come out somethin like: Ahhh chotto ne ... you ... ah ... are ... are ... nanda nanda ... ah ... you .... are ... for .... ame? Amerika tte iu?"
That's a bit difficult to understand when it isn't written out for you to go back and look at. You might just not get it entirely. That, to me, is kind of like the language code's jumble based on skill proficiency.
But a different Japanese guy who does peak English is still going to sound something like: He wants tsu say ... are you fro ramu amerika?
You'll understand him fine, but the accent of his mother tongue is still clearly pronounced for a long, long while after fluency is attained. So I don't think the skill in a language translates well into an expression of that person's home dialiect.
Another problem I have with that is that it would fail to take into account the fact that ... a russian sudent and a japanese student will both suck at english early on and be barely able to string a sentence together, but their accents are still plaily different for anyone to hear. What you propose would not properly represent that.
Got tired of reading through 4 pages worth of posts. So if someone's suggested it already, ignore this one. :P
How about just:
The elfy, elfy-looking elf says in perfect allundean...
As for accents between each delf tribes, I'd personally prefer it to be RPed out. While an Akei would talk about the Mother alot, a Sun Runner would be all flamboyant and such.
Musashi, that would be because when I asked why my elf had no accent and got the answer, that was like 2003, maybe 04. My elf getting rinth accent was 2007 and a different staffer.
As to why a new accent was put into place instead of taking rinthi away, well, that makes sense as well. If they cannot turn the ability to learn accents off, it just means at a later time I would have gotten stuck with another accent and asked for it to be taken, then again and again and again.
Remember, for a long time after accents went in, this was not an issue, the ability to learn accents is new and desert elves were overlooked when that was added.
Ok so ... even then, assuming that you're entirely correct and the delves should speak the elusive "perfect" allundean ... there is still a code oversight that could stand to be corrected, yeah?
You should email the MUD about it, -or- use the request tool.
Okay, first off, lets stop arguing with Daedrug about his accent. WE are never going to convince him he has one, and HE is never going to convince us he doesn't. End of story.
Quote from: www.dictionary.comac⋅cent
/n. ˈæksɛnt; v. ˈæksɛnt, ækˈsɛnt/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [n. ak-sent; v. ak-sent, ak-sent] Show IPA
–noun
1. prominence of a syllable in terms of differential loudness, or of pitch, or length, or of a combination of these.
3. a mark indicating stress (as (ʹ, ʹ), or (ˈ, ˌ), or (′, ″)), vowel quality (as French grave `, acute ´, circumflex ^), form (as French la "the" versus là "there"), or pitch.
a. the unique speech patterns, inflections, choice of words, etc., that identify a particular individual:
8. a mode of pronunciation, as pitch or tone, emphasis pattern, or intonation, characteristic of or peculiar to the speech of a particular person, group, or locality: French accent; Southern accent
Quote from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accent_(sociolinguistics)
In linguistics, an accent is a manner of pronunciation of a language. Accents can be confused with dialects which are varieties of language differing in vocabulary, syntax, and morphology, as well as pronunciation. Dialects are usually spoken by a group united by geography or social status.[
As human beings spread out into isolated communities, stresses and peculiarities develop. Over time these can develop into identifiable accents.
When a group defines a standard pronunciation, speakers who deviate from it are often said to "speak with an accent". People from the United States would "speak with an accent" from the point of view of an Australian, and vice versa. Accents such as BBC English or General American may sometimes be erroneously[/u][/size] designated in their countries of origin as "accentless" to indicate that they offer no obvious clue to the speaker's regional background.
QuoteAnd 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.
There is no such thing as a "perfect" accent IRL. IRL, accents vary typically by region or group. (Northern, Southern, New Yorker, Boston, etc..) IG accents vary by region or group. (Northern, Southern, and Tribal.) If accents were added IG to mirror accents IRL, then
the Overlord was wrong. Or, if he was right, then he was right under unrealistic pretenses. When you're as dumb and stubborn as me, everything is open for debate. ;D
Accent does not equal ability to speak a language, or skill with a language. Accent simply reflects the inflictions we put on different letters and syllables because, quite simply, that's the way everyone around us did it when we were learning to speak. Perfect English would be to speak words exactly as they were written. Imperfect English would be ta speak da words while droppin' G's and changin' TH's ta D's, an' O's ta A's. However, that could also just be considered a dialect. (See, it's not necessarily OOC for people to talk like they're chewing on rocks, even though they're already coded with an accent.)
THEREFORE, yes elves need an accent. I love the idea of "desert accent" or "wasteland accented", "rural accented" or whatever, although if it's a matter of simplicity, I agree that:
QuoteWhy 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?
Yes, I do agree that it needs to be fixed.
No I do not agree that they need an accent. No accent is still an accent.
I do not want to see desert allundean, pah allundean, dusty allundean, sunrunner allundean whatever, coded in. I don't want them to be given tribal or any other human or city accent as a stopgap.
I like them not having a known accent.
No accent is "they are speaking with the same accent as you".
That's what the code says. Right now, it's a bug. Not a feature.
Yeah, that's my main beef with it, as Mansa said.
But there is also the bug issue that X-D pointed out, where once delves pick up an accent they are stuck with it, with no way to return to their normal "allundean accented" way of speaking. These are both bug issues that I think could be patched up without too much of a fuss.
Also, to Mansa: I fully intend to submit this whole thing to staff via the request tool, but I wanted to get some more feedback from other players, have some discussion, and be able to look at viewpoints other than my own before compiling anything to send off to staff. I felt like that would be a better way to go about it. Glad I did too, as I wasn't aware of the bug X-D mentioned, and now we all are.
Back to X-D: My issue with them having a "no accent accent" is two-fold. One, as Mansa said, and as I have said several times already before that, no accent currently means they are speaking the same accent as you are. To claim that the delves speak perfect allundean, whatever that means, is one thing ... but it is entirely another to imply that they should sound to the ear of everyone who listens to them as though they were a native from next door. Delf legs are already magic enough, delf speak doesn't need to be magic as well. That's a bug, plain and simple.
The second issue I have with the "no accent" accent is that it would create another, different misconception with the code. Lets say for a moment that the lack of an accent IS the allundean accent, and lets even assume my first issue above was fixed. Lets say now, everyone sees everyone else's accent no matter if its the same as their own or not. So now when someone hears a no accent person speak, they will know: Oh! That's what someone who speaks allundean sounds like!
Assuming all that ... we're still left to explain why the races who speak allundean, kentu, heshrak, tatlum, and every other language in the game all have the same "no accent" accent. Does allundean sound like kentu? Does it sound like heshrak and tatlum? All of the other "we don't speak sirihish as a native language" races, be they playable or non playable for the moment ... will all have to share the same "null" accent which is not in any way a realistic expectation for the world. A halfling who learned sirihish should not sound like a delf who learned sirihish, the languages they both come from are vastly different, but to the player listening, they would appear to both speak with the same accent. That's yet another bug, in my opinion.
I still feel like the simpliest solution would be to give the delves (nay, to give every race) a racial accent. It would solve all 3 of the problems I mentioned above, and require no new code aside from the insertion of a few more accents. Whereas what you seem to be suggesting would require at least some work-around coding just to end up creating another bug as it tries to fix the one set out to.
Alright, this is hard to explain...let me see.
First, I've always taken the "No accent/perfect allundean...heshrak etc" to mean that the accent was either not noticiable enough to emulate OR, and this is the way I play it, that the accent is a homogeneous mix of all the accents.
I play it that way because it gives a good reason why you would not notice it as being northern or southern or really enough different from your own accent to matter.
It also means that it is a nearly impossible manner of speech to pick up second hand. Something else I like.
With the current code, if you add in accent for delves, anybody that spends any time at all with them will pick the accent up. I don't like that.
Now, if they were able to code it so you could not pick up the delf accent untill you had at least three other accents...well, I suppose that would be alright.
If racial accents were to be added, I wonder if maybe with a little extra work it could be made so that picking up a group's racial accent was only possible after fluency in the racial language was attained. That way someone spending a lot of time around a racial group might open that group's language early on ... but be forced to build it into fluency before ever having a chance to open the accent up. I think that might put some distance between a non-delf and their racial accent for you.
It would also solve another odd thing I never liked: I think it's weird how my PC's can have tribal accented sirihish before they ever learn a word of bendune. :-\
Quote from: mansa on February 12, 2010, 03:27:45 PM
No accent is "they are speaking with the same accent as you".
That's what the code says. Right now, it's a bug. Not a feature.
That's not necessarily true as I said before your less likely to notice a difference if there is no differences from your own speech except the drolls, slang, and changes that your own accent incurs on the language.
Quote from: daedroug on February 12, 2010, 06:29:11 PM
Quote from: mansa on February 12, 2010, 03:27:45 PM
No accent is "they are speaking with the same accent as you".
That's what the code says. Right now, it's a bug. Not a feature.
That's not necessarily true as I said before your less likely to notice a difference if there is no differences from your own speech except the drolls, slang, and changes that your own accent incurs on the language.
No.
If you have 'northern accent' active, and you're speaking to someone who also is speaking 'northern accent', you will get the echo:
so and so says, in <language>:
"blah blah blah blah."If you have 'northern accent' not active, and you're speaking to someone who is speaking 'northern accent', you will get the echo:
so and so says, in northern <language>:
"blah blah blah blah."Therefore, if the code echos:
so and so says, in <language>:
"blah blah blah blah."You automatically assume that they are speaking with your currently toggled accent. That's the way the code was designed. If you don't see an accent, they ARE SPEAKING YOUR ACCENT.
Anything otherwise is a code bug.
Quote from: musashi on February 12, 2010, 06:00:07 PM
If racial accents were to be added, I wonder if maybe with a little extra work it could be made so that picking up a group's racial accent was only possible after fluency in the racial language was attained. That way someone spending a lot of time around a racial group might open that group's language early on ... but be forced to build it into fluency before ever having a chance to open the accent up. I think that might put some distance between a non-delf and their racial accent for you.
It would also solve another odd thing I never liked: I think it's weird how my PC's can have tribal accented sirihish before they ever learn a word of bendune. :-\
I like that. Have the accents be a subset of specific languages.
Quote from: X-D on February 12, 2010, 05:46:49 PM
Alright, this is hard to explain...let me see.
First, I've always taken the "No accent/perfect allundean...heshrak etc" to mean that the accent was either not noticiable enough to emulate OR, and this is the way I play it, that the accent is a homogeneous mix of all the accents.
I play it that way because it gives a good reason why you would not notice it as being northern or southern or really enough different from your own accent to matter.
It also means that it is a nearly impossible manner of speech to pick up second hand. Something else I like.
With the current code, if you add in accent for delves, anybody that spends any time at all with them will pick the accent up. I don't like that.
Now, if they were able to code it so you could not pick up the delf accent untill you had at least three other accents...well, I suppose that would be alright.
I fail to see why someone spending enough time around d-elves to learn Allundean could not also learn their accent. While you may not like it, every other accent is learnable. Desert elves should not be excluded.
Not the point, the point is that it would be too easy, not representing the fact that they speak either a perfect form or one that uses all accents.
As it sits right now you can learn an accent the first time you hear it or the 10,00th, odds are it will be sooner.
I agree with X-D here in that I think accents should generally be learned AFTER fluency in a language is obtained, instead of randomly ... but most likely before ... one can speak the language from which the accent derived. This goes both ways. Delves probably often pick up sirihish accents long before they can speak fluent sirihish (unless they started as linguists of course), and non tribal humans almost always pick up the tribal accent long before they are fluent bendune speakers. I wish this were different :-[
Quote from: musashi on February 12, 2010, 09:09:28 PM
I agree with X-D here in that I think accents should generally be learned AFTER fluency in a language is obtained, instead of randomly ... but most likely before ... one can speak the language from which the accent derived. This goes both ways. Delves probably often pick up sirihish accents long before they can speak fluent sirihish (unless they started as linguists of course), and non tribal humans almost always pick up the tribal accent long before they are fluent bendune speakers. I wish this were different :-[
Agreed.
Accents should definitely be picked up after complete fluency in a language. I cannot pretend to speak Russian in the same accent my grandparents did. No matter how hard I tried, in my current status. If I moved to Russia -- Sure, I might have a better chance, but shit, that would take YEARS to pick up.
Along the same lines, from previous in the thread in what musashi mentioned -- How can I speak like a Russian if I do not know Russian? How can I speak as if I know Bendune if I do not know Bendune?
You might not be able to speak it with any fluency at all, but if you are exposed to it long enough, without having learned what the words mean, you would be able to distinguish, perhaps, a high-cultured city russian accent from a low-cultured siberian accent. You might even be able to speak English with each accent, much as many people can mimic the foreign-accent english speakers, without knowing a stitch of that foreign language.
I think it really depends on what it is you're hearing and what it is you're listening to. If I don't speak allundean, I would still, eventually, be able to tell if it's a northern-city, southern-city, or desert-elf (aka tribal) allundean. I might not be able to narrow it down to an individual tribe without study, and with study would likely come learning the language itself.
The same as if I'm a desert elf, visiting the cities. Accents are accents because of specific sounds, cadences, and rhythms of speech - not because of the words used. A rinthi accent should be distinguishable enough from a northern Lirathan templar's speech, that with enough time -anyone- would be able to tell the difference even if they don't understand a single word of sirihish.
They might not understand the significance of the differences without learning the language first, but they would (eventually) recognize them.
I disagree with that. I don't think that people who are inept in a language can pick accents out of it with any degree of success. I study a lot of different languages, and the nuiance of accents has only ever started to come into light for me after I was at least conversationally fluent in the language in question, and it's always kind of exciting when I first start to be able to hear those different accents coming out.
Americans tend to
think that we can mimic accents from areas we have never been to or for languages we have never spoken ... but we're embarissing ourselves, to be honest. Ask anyone from the UK if they've ever been fooled by an American trying to talk like a limey ... and that's an accent based off our own mother tongue, and we still fail, epically, when trying to mimic it. This holds true even more so to different languages.
My dad, for example ... was trying to be funny and left me a voice mail message in which he was trying to talk in a japanese accent. But being american, he didn't actually know what a japanese accent sounded like, and did a bad misrepresentation of a chinese accent instead. For the record, chinese people would not have been fooled. When I called him back later and told him that he was like: Oh really? Other folks here thought it sounded alright.
Yes dad ... except other folks there don't know what they're talking about either. ::)
But I'm not just picking on americans, this is a two way street. This is why we laugh when people from europe try to talk in what they perceive as an "american accent". This is also why a lot of them won't want to try to do it when you ask them to. Unlike us, the rest of the world's population typically know already that they aren't going to be able to mimic a foreign accent well enough to do anything other than make someone laugh at their attempt.
Mimicing an accent IRL to a degree that you can fool natives is incredibly difficult and usually left to linguists and actors with linguist speech coaches drilling them for the sake of cinema.
I think Armageddon's current code may even reflect this as shown here from the accent help file:
QuoteA thorough understanding of the fundamentals of a language are required
before one can make out the subtle nuances of an accent.
I had a very strong Mexican accent whenever I try to speak Spanish. From my first Spanish class in High School on. Enough to get commented on by every single Spanish teach I ever had (which, strangely, none have been Mexican).
I grew up with a lot of Mexicans, hearing (but not understanding/speaking) a -lot- of Spanish, and English with a Mexican accent. That is where I picked up my own accent from, when I speak Spanish. Weird, but true. So, yes, I do think you can pick up an accent before the language.
Quote from: Twilight on February 16, 2010, 12:37:11 PM
... So, yes, I do think you can pick up an accent before the language.
Hmm.
You don't need to know the language perfectly to pick up an accent, but you need to be able to pick out certain words.
A better code change would be to check to see if you have at least ~20% of the language in question before you can gain the accent.
So, what languages are there? If it were me, I would code it out like this:
Sirihish
- Northern Accent
- Southern Accent
- Rinthi Accent
Allundean
- Rinthi Accent
- Northern Accent
- Southern Accent
- *Desert Elvish Accent
Mirukkum
- *Dwarvish Accent
Bendune
- Tribal Accent
Cavilish
- New Merchant House Only Accent?
Tatlum
- Special Secret Accents?
I would code it so that you can only learn an accent when:
A) You have at least 20% skill in the language that the accent belongs to
B) The person speaking the language and the accent in which that accent belongs to.
i.e. No more learning Tribal Accent when someone is speaking Sirihish., only learning the accent when you understand a bit of Bendune, and someone is speaking Bendune with the Tribal Accent.
Quote from: mansa on February 16, 2010, 12:51:03 PM
Quote from: Twilight on February 16, 2010, 12:37:11 PM
... So, yes, I do think you can pick up an accent before the language.
Hmm.
You don't need to know the language perfectly to pick up an accent, but you need to be able to pick out certain words.
A better code change would be to check to see if you have at least ~20% of the language in question before you can gain the accent.
So, what languages are there? If it were me, I would code it out like this:
Sirihish
- Northern Accent
- Southern Accent
- Rinthi Accent
Allundean
- Rinthi Accent
- Northern Accent
- Southern Accent
- *Desert Elvish Accent
Mirukkum
- *Dwarvish Accent
Bendune
- Tribal Accent
Cavilish
- New Merchant House Only Accent?
Tatlum
- Special Secret Accents?
I would code it so that you can only learn an accent when:
A) You have at least 20% skill in the language that the accent belongs to
B) The person speaking the language and the accent in which that accent belongs to.
i.e. No more learning Tribal Accent when someone is speaking Sirihish., only learning the accent when you understand a bit of Bendune, and someone is speaking Bendune with the Tribal Accent.
That doesn't cover the possibilities of a non-native speaker speaking a language poorly. It should be possible to speak "northern-accented mirukkim" if you are a Tuluki human who learned mirukkim later on. Sure, you might be speaking the right words, but your inflections and pronunciations will be heavily influenced by your original language, i.e. northern-style sirihish.
In fact, I would say that in a perfect system, when you learn a new language, you are forced to speak it in your native accent until you reach say, 50% proficiency. At 50% you can switch to the "proper" accent for the language. At 90% you should be able to start picking up any non-native accents for your new language. In other words, even if you have the northern, southern, and tribal accents for sirihish, those accents don't automatically transfer to new languages you learn. Once you learn allundean, you then have to relearn how each accent applies to allundean (except for your native accent, obviously).
This represents that, at first you speak Spanish like a Gringo. Then you can sort of speak it like the Mexicans you learned it from. But when you're completely fluent, you can pick up a Cuban accent and fake it. But just because you know how to speak English like a Cuban doesn't mean that once you learn Spanish, you know how to speak it like a Cuban.
I would be cool with a system like that, but the problem with the current code is that once an accent unlocks, you have it at 100%. You go straight from nothing, to perfect, in a flash, and that also seems off to me.
In a system like the one you propose, I would like for accents to open up at low levels just like languages do and gradually improve over time up to 100%, also like languages do.
That would be an ideal system for me. Because while I readily agree that it is possible to have a smattering or a pinch of an accent early on the way Twilight was describing, I still maintain that no mexican people would have actually been fooled into thinking Twilight was a native, especially before he/she knew any spanish, and that is not an attack on Twlight in any way, it's just a fact of life.
I speak Japanese fluently, I recieve compliments about it every day (unfair example as Japanese people are annoying with their praise for even the smallest word uttered, they literally treat you as though you were a dog or a table that just started speaking), people even laugh or get surprised that I can babble on in the kansai dailect ... ... they still know I'm a foreigner before I tell them so when we're talking over the phone. The only time I've ever had someone tell me they didn't realize I was a foreigner was when I was singing ... and that's a whole different thing, accents disappear to a large degree when sung.
The chances of a person being able to mimic an accent perfectly before being at least as fluent in the language it came from is very likely equivilant to a person being able to play a musical instrument perfectly the first time they lay a hand on it. Does it happen in the stuff of legends? Sure ... but I would never expect it out of the norm.
Quote from: Synthesis on February 16, 2010, 01:10:39 PM
That doesn't cover the possibilities of a non-native speaker speaking a language poorly. It should be possible to speak "northern-accented mirukkim" if you are a Tuluki human who learned mirukkim later on. Sure, you might be speaking the right words, but your inflections and pronunciations will be heavily influenced by your original language, i.e. northern-style sirihish.
In fact, I would say that in a perfect system, when you learn a new language, you are forced to speak it in your native accent until you reach say, 50% proficiency. At 50% you can switch to the "proper" accent for the language. At 90% you should be able to start picking up any non-native accents for your new language. In other words, even if you have the northern, southern, and tribal accents for sirihish, those accents don't automatically transfer to new languages you learn. Once you learn allundean, you then have to relearn how each accent applies to allundean (except for your native accent, obviously).
This represents that, at first you speak Spanish like a Gringo. Then you can sort of speak it like the Mexicans you learned it from. But when you're completely fluent, you can pick up a Cuban accent and fake it. But just because you know how to speak English like a Cuban doesn't mean that once you learn Spanish, you know how to speak it like a Cuban.
Well. That's sorta what I meant to say.
In that....
You learn a new language.
You speak the new language with your current accent, until you "branch" the "native" accent.
You can only learn the "native" accent when someone is speaking the language with the native accent at the same time.
But, yes, yes. You and I are in agreement of how it should go, in a perfect world.
:)
Quick fix for now, since this is in Code Discussion and not Reborn, institute a 'desert accent' and put it on all desert elves.
Make it "hillbilly-accented" allundean.
superiority-accented allundean
Updated accents to provide a coded default for all starting locations -- Tiernan
oOOOooooOoOooOOO
Quote from: mansa on March 03, 2010, 11:03:41 PM
Updated accents to provide a coded default for all starting locations -- Tiernan
oOOOooooOoOooOOO
KABOOM! AWESOME! T(iernan)-Pain Strikes! I'M ON A BOAT!
Niiiiiice :-)
If I haven't made it clear in the past, I <3 the coders for this game. D.elf accent is live. :)
Bleh
I can dig it.
Tiernan [3]> sing (using autotune) I'm on a boat!
Using autotune, you sing, in tatlum:
"I'm on a boat!"
In case you hadn't noticed, the new desert accent shows up to others as "staccato-accented". We had a pretty lengthy discussion on the staff forum about the adjective as well. Since I just caught some d-elves chatting about the new accent suddenly appearing using OOC, I figured it ought to be mentioned on the GDB.
I'm glad this went in. It saved me the trouble of tying up the big propisition to staff like I was planning on doing ;D
Thanks staff.
Hah. I stopped paying attention to this forum. Seen this IG for the first time today and almost shit myself. I was like, "What the fuck is staccato?!?" I wiki'd it. Then, finally, I looked here.
Haha.
I also didn't know what staccato meant. I think that is a flaw. Words should be easily understandable in a game like arm. Now this might just be me being ignorant, but I'd never heard the term until recently.
I always thought of it as fluid and graceful. Like Tennessee-twanged. Total let-down to learn that d-elves talk like they're from northern Jersey.
Yeah, I always heard it like creole.
First of all, I think its really cool how quickly this went through and got sorted. However, I'm going to be a nitpicking git but I guess this is what discussion boards are for. I don't think it fits in with the other accents. For one thing, it's Italian (I'm fine with foreign words that are commonly used in English, some people aren't though) but the main issue I see is that other accents are location based, whereas staccato is purely descriptive. I know D-elves are from all over the place, but it just doesn't fit in neatly with the others in my opinion (which leave the sound of the accent to the imagination).
I'll have to try hard not to imagine them chirping.
Quote from: IAmJacksOpinion on March 11, 2010, 06:00:56 PM
Hah. I stopped paying attention to this forum. Seen this IG for the first time today and almost shit myself. I was like, "What the fuck is staccato?!?" I wiki'd it. Then, finally, I looked here.
Haha.
Quote from: RogueGunslinger on March 11, 2010, 06:15:59 PM
I also didn't know what staccato meant. I think that is a flaw. Words should be easily understandable in a game like arm. Now this might just be me being ignorant, but I'd never heard the term until recently.
We did spend time on developing this, and not once did a staffer not know what staccato meant (granted, they could have just Googled it to not appear ignorant). I would say it is not a very obscure word, but I have had a background in music, so it may just seem that way to me. One of the initial discussion points about this by staff was that Allundean seemed to have similarities to languages like Japanese or Korean. For instance, perhaps the difference between "honored one" and "deadly enemy" is a matter of accenting the same word in a different way. Staccato is the best descriptor I can think of; all of its synonyms kind of suck for tossing in front of -accented (clipped-accented, abrupt-accented/abruptly-accented, disconnected-accented, etc.)
Quote from: Spoon on March 12, 2010, 05:53:20 AM
First of all, I think its really cool how quickly this went through and got sorted. However, I'm going to be a nitpicking git but I guess this is what discussion boards are for. I don't think it fits in with the other accents. For one thing, it's Italian (I'm fine with foreign words that are commonly used in English, some people aren't though) but the main issue I see is that other accents are location based, whereas staccato is purely descriptive. I know D-elves are from all over the place, but it just doesn't fit in neatly with the others in my opinion (which leave the sound of the accent to the imagination).
I thought the same thing initially, but the accent for one tribe of people is actually described as "melodiously accented." This directly describes the sound of the accent. Armageddon's accents are split between location/cultural based (rinthi/southern/northern), cultural/race based (tribal--humans), and sound-based (melodiously-accented would be one example--there are several others and actually more accents that describe the sound of the language than not). Some consistency would be nice but that would probably be a target for Armageddon Reborn. I wouldn't say the way it is described now is actually set in stone, but any improvement on the situation is better than nothing done at all.
Quote from: Nyr on March 12, 2010, 09:53:55 AMI thought the same thing initially, but the accent for one tribe of people is actually described as "melodiously accented." This directly describes the sound of the accent. Armageddon's accents are split between location/cultural based (rinthi/southern/northern), cultural/race based (tribal--humans), and sound-based (melodiously-accented would be one example--there are several others and actually more accents that describe the sound of the language than not). Some consistency would be nice but that would probably be a target for Armageddon Reborn. I wouldn't say the way it is described now is actually set in stone, but any improvement on the situation is better than nothing done at all.
Personally I'd rather see more descriptive adjectives for accents that you can then infer the location from. If I've never heard of a southern accent or heard anyone speak it how do I suddenly realize that that is what it is?
Actually, Nyr, in another thread (I can't remember which one) I suggested 'staccato' be replaced with 'clipped' and other players did seem to like it.
I like staccato.
The problem with clipped is the awkwardness of how it will show. "clipped-accented". To me, any modifier that ends in -ed will look awkward. It doesn't quite fit, and besides that, "clipped" and "staccato" essentially mean the same thing - quick, short sounds.
I like it, and actually thought of East Asian languages when I first saw it too. I think it fits very well presently.
I like staccato, but I can see where it may be confusing for people that don't know their musical terms.
Quote from: daedroug on March 12, 2010, 11:22:09 AM
Quote from: Nyr on March 12, 2010, 09:53:55 AMI thought the same thing initially, but the accent for one tribe of people is actually described as "melodiously accented." This directly describes the sound of the accent. Armageddon's accents are split between location/cultural based (rinthi/southern/northern), cultural/race based (tribal--humans), and sound-based (melodiously-accented would be one example--there are several others and actually more accents that describe the sound of the language than not). Some consistency would be nice but that would probably be a target for Armageddon Reborn. I wouldn't say the way it is described now is actually set in stone, but any improvement on the situation is better than nothing done at all.
Personally I'd rather see more descriptive adjectives for accents that you can then infer the location from. If I've never heard of a southern accent or heard anyone speak it how do I suddenly realize that that is what it is?
Yep. As mentioned, this would be better to present for Armageddon Reborn, but it is a good thing to consider.
Quote from: spawnloser on March 12, 2010, 11:47:02 AM
Actually, Nyr, in another thread (I can't remember which one) I suggested 'staccato' be replaced with 'clipped' and other players did seem to like it.
I understand it was suggested and some other players seemed to like it. That doesn't detract from it having some issues like the one Cutthroat brought up. The reason I said those synonyms "kind of suck" is the way they'd be employed in front of "-accented."
Fair enough. I hadn't thought of it placed before '-accented' as it shows for people not using the same accent.
I had to dictionary.com Staccato.
–adjective
1. shortened and detached when played or sung: staccato notes.
2. characterized by performance in which the notes are abruptly disconnected: a staccato style of playing. Compare legato.
3. composed of or characterized by abruptly disconnected elements; disjointed: rapid-fire, staccato speech.
–adverb
4. in a staccato manner.
–noun
5. performance in a staccato manner.
6. a staccato passage.
I hate staccato, it is actually something so jarring to me it gets worse every time I see it, not better. I'm really thinking of adding a trigger to my client to remove it.
Quotewas that Allundean seemed to have similarities to languages like Japanese or Korean
The funny part about that line is, both languages are FAR from "staccato" And could more easily be described as melodious or sing-song.
If anything in the game should have a staccato accent it is mantis, since they make clicking noises and such.
"clipped-accented" Would be less jarring, even if it is not pleasing to look at/say. Maybe Rapidly-accented, hastily-accented, hell, Fast-accented is better...Harshly-accented.
Elven-accented! Un-accented!
Staccato is fine for me. If people find the word jarring because they are ignorant of the meaning, think of it as a good dead. You just broadened their vocabulary.
The problem is that I know exactly what it means, this makes it quite jarring, though it can be used in refering to speech, that is rare and more often in refering to music or noise, A staccato playing style or the staccato rattle of machine-gun fire.
Makes me think of some elf sounding like a harpsichord or spitting at you the entire time they talk while all the words sound like PEWPEWPEWPEW! Or a hailstorm on a tin roof.
If the mud was interspersed wildly with words you couldn't understand you wouldn't play it. Regardless of how much it broadened your vocabulary.
Looking up words I don't understand breaks my immersion, is time consuming, is distracting, and often leaves me irritated. I'm not saying this is the particular case with 'stacatto' but maybe for some people it is.
I can see that point, RGS. I like stacatto personally, but I can see how it is jarring to other people.
Kudos to staff for putting this in.
I don't like staccato at all. Of course, I don't play desert elves at all, either. But I thought I'd offer my opinion.
Quote from: LauraMars on March 12, 2010, 10:15:40 PM
I don't like staccato at all. Of course, I don't play desert elves at all, either. But I thought I'd offer my opinion.
Actually, if you never play desert elves, that means you'll see "staccato" in your MUD more than people who do play desert elves. Just saying.
I like staccato, the only issue is that it seems out of place compared to north/south/rinthi/tribal. If it were next to stuff like tonal-accented, slur-accented, nasal-accented, etc.
Quote from: hyzhenhok on March 12, 2010, 11:56:53 PM
I like staccato, the only issue is that it seems out of place compared to north/south/rinthi/tribal. If it were next to stuff like tonal-accented, slur-accented, nasal-accented, etc.
And as Nyr pointed out, there are a lot of other accents in game beyond northern/southern/tribal/rinthi, and of those less commonly seen accents, sounds are used to decribe them in place of location so it isn't as strange as may seem at first glance in terms of how accents are seperated.
I don't mind staccato myself, because something like elvish would have made reading delf says/tells really repetitive.
I move that the accent be changed to "unnaturally elvish".
Well, it isn't jarring for me like it is for X-D. I know what it means, but I also sympathize. I suddenly started picturing elvish being some language out of Africa with tik-toks and glottal stops, not Japanese or Korean.
What about sharp-accented?
tribal-elf-accented wouldn't be very jarring for me personally.
I like staccato.
Especially since it annoys X-D so much.
QuoteONLY since it annoys X-D so much.
Fixed
Quote from: X-D on March 13, 2010, 11:56:47 AM
QuoteONLY since it annoys X-D so much.
Fixed
Not ONLY.
I also like it because I can now imagine Soh Lanah Kah elves going kah-kah-kah-kah-kah-kah-kah all staccato like machine guns. :)
I like it.
I say give delves a unique accent, like runner-accented allundean or pure-runner accented allundean.
staccato is a unique accent for d-elves
next?
Yeah, what Synthesis said. It shows up as 'desert accent' on skills lists and 'staccato-accented' to those not speaking with it.
I get what Nyr was trying to accomplish with the use of staccato and I don't find it jarring personally. Asian languages such as Korean or Japanese do use that clipped sort of sound but it's often mixed in with long, drawn out sounds. The mixture of sounds allows for rendering more expression and emphasis in the language. For me this is where use of staccato falls down a little as it sort of implies that absolutely everything is clipped all the time. So even if a desert elf is trying to express complete disbelief or sadness at something it's going to come out all clipped when speech would be more likely to slow down and become drawn out.
If, as Nyr mentioned, that they had in mind Korean / Japanese when imagining Allundean I'm not sure disjointed or clipped properly describes them. They have their own rhythms being syllable-timed languages which maybe sound a little strange to English speakers. Rather than have Allundean as a perpetually clipped accent I'd prefer to see them have more range through the accent being described as having stresses in places that might sound distinctive to others. I can't think of a good appropriate word though. Offbeat-accented maybe. I'm just bored in work and trying to look busy.
Quote from: Boggis on March 25, 2010, 12:51:40 PM
If, as Nyr mentioned, that they had in mind Korean / Japanese when imagining Allundean I'm not sure disjointed or clipped properly describes them. They have their own rhythms being syllable-timed languages which maybe sound a little strange to English speakers. Rather than have Allundean as a perpetually clipped accent I'd prefer to see them have more range through the accent being described as having stresses in places that might sound distinctive to others. I can't think of a good appropriate word though. Offbeat-accented maybe. I'm just bored in work and trying to look busy.
Actually, my first proposal was "pitch-accented", which I think more accurately represents languages like Korean and Japanese where the difference between "honored" and "reviled" might be whether your pitch was high or low on the middle syllable.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitch_accent