AMIA ARCHIVE
https://www.amiaworld.net/phpBB3/

Scribes and Translation Books
https://www.amiaworld.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=41586		 Page 1 of 1
Author:  GabrielStryker [ Thu, Sep 17 2009, 5:25 AM ]
Post subject:  Scribes and Translation Books
There are translator in real life, So couldnt a scribe technically write books on how to translate from Common to elven and what not depending on what languages they know? Looking for some input on this..
Author:  xordae [ Thu, Sep 17 2009, 5:48 AM ]
Post subject: 
A Scribe could copy a Common - Elven dictionary without too much trouble. Writing your own book about a language is not something you do after dinner, it will take months or even years. I'd be hesitant to allow dictionaries personally. People will just go around collecting homebrewn dictionaries from Scribes and pretending they can communicate in all these languages. More mess than it's worth.
Author:  Zante [ Thu, Sep 17 2009, 5:51 AM ]
Post subject: 
There's a drow to common dictionary already present in game.
Author:  xordae [ Thu, Sep 17 2009, 6:15 AM ]
Post subject: 
As far as I understand, the Drow-Common dictionary is an OOC device placed into the Drow city library to aid new players with the often language-intensive speech of other Drow characters. If there's really an IC dictionary, I'm not aware of it.
Author:  Yurell [ Thu, Sep 17 2009, 6:19 AM ]
Post subject: 
xordae wrote:
As far as I understand, the Drow-Common dictionary is an OOC device placed into the Drow city library to aid new players with the often language-intensive speech of other Drow characters. If there's really an IC dictionary, I'm not aware of it.


I can't recall seeing any OOC tags on it.
Author:  Gunz [ Thu, Sep 17 2009, 6:47 AM ]
Post subject: 
I wouldn't make them if I were you. The Drow to Common and Common to Drow books are huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge and make the file size of the character holding them grow tremendously. I know this from experience, trust me. Besides, I'm willing to bet that it's on Disco's list of "things to remove", those books.
Author:  Dev Disco [ Thu, Sep 17 2009, 6:57 AM ]
Post subject: 
Yurell wrote:
xordae wrote:
As far as I understand, the Drow-Common dictionary is an OOC device placed into the Drow city library to aid new players with the often language-intensive speech of other Drow characters. If there's really an IC dictionary, I'm not aware of it.


I can't recall seeing any OOC tags on it.


Why would an IC book teach a Drow how to speak Drow by giving instructions in Common?
Author:  Yurell [ Thu, Sep 17 2009, 7:00 AM ]
Post subject: 
Dev Disco wrote:
Yurell wrote:
xordae wrote:
As far as I understand, the Drow-Common dictionary is an OOC device placed into the Drow city library to aid new players with the often language-intensive speech of other Drow characters. If there's really an IC dictionary, I'm not aware of it.


I can't recall seeing any OOC tags on it.


Why would an IC book teach a Drow how to speak Drow by giving instructions in Common?


*Shrugs* I always treated that as something for the player, whilst the dictionary part was so if you heard a word in common you could find out what it meant. I just assume unless it has OOC tags, if it's in the game world it's IC.
Author:  Dev Disco [ Thu, Sep 17 2009, 7:03 AM ]
Post subject: 
Yeah, I guess that'd do the trick.

Gonna take out those hogs, though. I guess a link to http://www.eilistraee.com/chosen/language.php would do the trick as well.
Author:  Yurell [ Thu, Sep 17 2009, 7:05 AM ]
Post subject: 
Dev Disco wrote:
Yeah, I guess that'd do the trick.

Gonna take out those hogs, though. I guess a link to http://www.eilistraee.com/chosen/language.php would do the trick as well.


I'd suggest http://www.grey-company.org/Maerdyn/res ... ranslator/
It's a good translator.
Author:  The Incognitos [ Thu, Sep 17 2009, 12:02 PM ]
Post subject: 
xordae wrote:
A Scribe could copy a Common - Elven dictionary without too much trouble. Writing your own book about a language is not something you do after dinner, it will take months or even years. I'd be hesitant to allow dictionaries personally. People will just go around collecting homebrewn dictionaries from Scribes and pretending they can communicate in all these languages. More mess than it's worth.


I actually took job ranks in scribe and linguist with the long term goal of writing a Commoner Adventurers Guide to the Underdark(and other places). Not a comprehensive 'dictionary' which would grant an ability to understand all of the drow language for example (100 000 years of syntax evolution, forget it), but rather a sort of a Lonely Planet Guide to the Underdark that would remove the 'surfacer' tag that makes me spend all of time down there lost.

Obviously this is not a short term goal, nor one that people would understand with out going there and experiencing the trouble and dangers. The benefits of the guide would still require Underdark experience obviously, but things like Undercommon would become available as a language.

Explorer and Sociologist were not available as jobs. Diplomat doesn't have the same feel.
Author:  HellScourge [ Thu, Sep 17 2009, 12:27 PM ]
Post subject: 
Adventurers Guide through Underdark
First rule: DON'T PANIC.

Like that? :)
Author:  The Incognitos [ Thu, Sep 17 2009, 12:59 PM ]
Post subject: 
HellScourge wrote:
Adventurers Guide through Underdark
First rule: DON'T PANIC.

Like that? :)


yeah, only go there if you have Dev Crit. Towel
Author:  Nekhy [ Thu, Sep 17 2009, 13:14 PM ]
Post subject: 
The drow books are something between IC and OOC. They were made in an IC format for the sake of atmosphere (new drow learning about their culture in the library), but actually contain OOC information. Stuff the drow should know, but the player might not know.

Why is there no "This is OOC" tags? It wasn't relevant at the time they were made. Times and people change, alas.
Author:  Kraniumbrud [ Thu, Sep 17 2009, 14:00 PM ]
Post subject: 
just to give a rl paralel..the first english dictionary took 10 years to write...and it was still not even close to complete
Author:  Dark Immolation [ Thu, Sep 17 2009, 15:58 PM ]
Post subject: 
I could accept the fact that there may be IC dictionaries, but I wouldn't in any circumstance beleive just having and looking at the book would let you "understand and speak the language."

Just because you have a spanish to english dictionary, and someone speaks to you in spanish, youre not able to be able to tell the inflections, where words start or end, or even the syntax.

The only thing I could ever see them helping with is reading. You could see a few words written down on a stone slab, recognize it's elven, and pull out your book to see "Hmm. This inscription here has the words and symbols for "King" and "lies buried" and "Treasure"" Yeah, that, you can do. Even a person with 8 intelligence can match one symbol, or series of symbols in a book that says "(evlen script for word) --> Quessir --> People."
Author:  Nekhy [ Thu, Sep 17 2009, 16:01 PM ]
Post subject: 
Dark Immolation wrote:
I could accept the fact that there may be IC dictionaries, but I wouldn't in any circumstance beleive just having and looking at the book would let you "understand and speak the language."


It doesn't let you understand or speak a language, no.

Not even in Forgotten Realms.
Author:  GabrielStryker [ Thu, Sep 17 2009, 16:28 PM ]
Post subject: 
I think if they were allowed IC it would be extremely generic like only understand one out of every four or so words.
Author:  Sylfwe [ Thu, Sep 17 2009, 18:26 PM ]
Post subject: 
I could have all the Latin dictionaries in the world, I still would not pass a translation exam.
Author:  TormakSaber [ Thu, Sep 17 2009, 20:30 PM ]
Post subject: 
The fact that Drow RP is so "language intensive" that you require a DICTIONARY to play them speaks volumes.
Author:  Nekhy [ Thu, Sep 17 2009, 21:30 PM ]
Post subject: 
GabrielStryker wrote:
I think if they were allowed IC it would be extremely generic like only understand one out of every four or so words.


Just imagine yourself with a dictionary of a language you do not speak, out there in a country populated by native speakers, trying to communicate with them solely with the help of the book.

That's how it's in FR, too. You simply do not learn a language by reading a dictionary.



On a second thought... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6D1YI-41ao&NR=1

Yes, please, someone do THAT with a drow-to-common tourist dictionary.
Author:  Yurell [ Thu, Sep 17 2009, 23:06 PM ]
Post subject: 
TormakSaber wrote:
The fact that Drow RP is so "language intensive" that you require a DICTIONARY to play them speaks volumes.


Well, you don't really. There's just a handful of words that are bantered around.
Author:  Zanthair [ Fri, Sep 18 2009, 0:39 AM ]
Post subject: 
so wait... time out.

the drow-common and common-drow dictionaries aren't fully IC? Just wondering, because I've been RPing isen as carrying a drow-common dictionary when trying to talk to surfacers, not to say he knows the language, but to say very poorly constructed three-five word sentences in common, and MAYBE picking up a word or two and looking them up.

if it isnt IC, i'll stop doing so, but still it would be nice to have some OOC tags on the books. I'm sure "Drow for Dummies" is ooc, but then there are books like "drow poetry" and lolthite stories which seem to be clearly IC. Maybe add a second librarian with the ooc books, and have only IC ones with the first?
Author:  Kraniumbrud [ Fri, Sep 18 2009, 1:35 AM ]
Post subject: 
no drow would ever make a common drow dictionary...it seems hightly oocly...and it would definatly not be avaible to the common drow, i mean any kind of communication with the surface is highly restricted..or atleast thats how ive understood it...for a drow even to know common is probably unlikely
Author:  Zanthair [ Fri, Sep 18 2009, 5:25 AM ]
Post subject: 
typically unlikely, yes, but ultrinnan is so close to the surface that oddities are sure to happen. common-drow, highly unlikely, but drow-common? i could see it, especially with how many ultrinnan drow know common (i think im one of the few who dont, actually).
Author:  Yurell [ Fri, Sep 18 2009, 7:36 AM ]
Post subject: 
Kraniumbrud wrote:
no drow would ever make a common drow dictionary.


That seems a rather blanket statement.
Author:  xordae [ Fri, Sep 18 2009, 7:47 AM ]
Post subject: 
Instead of discussing what certain races could or couldn't do (it's silly, race does not equal individual), let's focus on whether or not these character-made dictionaries should be allowed to carry weight and be used by characters to communicate in languages that they don't know.

My position is: Let Scribes write whatever they want, but take every Scribe made book with a grain of salt. There should be no "Universal theory of existence and the pantheon" as much as there shouldn't be books allowing the player to speak any language. It cannot be found out how much time a Scribe puts into roleplaying the creation of a book, so let's keep it, as with the Job system itself, for flavor and not for RP advantage. Languages are iffy enough, for reference, the threads by Tiamatian about the subject.
Author:  Yurell [ Fri, Sep 18 2009, 7:54 AM ]
Post subject: 
My opinion is that lexicons are not live audio translators. Someone speaks a sentence to me in French, and I have a French dictionary, I'm buggered despite having done enough French to know where to look up the words.
Author:  Nekhy [ Fri, Sep 18 2009, 7:56 AM ]
Post subject: 
Zanthair wrote:
the drow-common and common-drow dictionaries aren't fully IC? Just wondering, because I've been RPing isen as carrying a drow-common dictionary when trying to talk to surfacers, not to say he knows the language, but to say very poorly constructed three-five word sentences in common, and MAYBE picking up a word or two and looking them up.


Well, this is about what you'd be able to do with a dictionary IRL. While IRL doesn't compare too well in most things, here it does.


But yeah, those dictionaries were never meant to be used as actual dictionaries. Again, why isn't there an OOC tag? Because it wasn't thought to be relevant almost four years ago, when those books were added. They should be removed and put into placards where one can read them, anyway, to cut down on file sizes.
Page 1 of 1 All times are UTC
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group
http://www.phpbb.com/