AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

So on the topic of all that is related to these islands and things from there. Is there anything in the books that says they use the modern Japanese language?

I don't think so, and I am certain that the first words of common that any non-western-faerunian learns include yes, hello, no and other simple words, so there is no need to use Japanese for those words if the character uses common for all the words that actually might be hard to learn.

It might be amusing if these characters inserted Japanese in place of very complex words that they might not have learned common for yet instead. Saying hello and such in Japanese is just about as immersion-breaking as if I started speaking Finnish in character.

Anime romanji! Konichiwa! watashi kawaii kowai neko. Nya.

It nags me just as much as it nags me when people substitute random common words with any language, drow words is usually a big hit too. I'm with Silvarus, the most common words are the words that shouldnt be substituted unless its the characters intention to be silly or disrespectful. Taking a real-life example; how often do we see Japanese people speaking English substituting the easy common words for their own and then proceed to speak english just fine?

According to page 85 of FRCS people from Kara-tur speak Shou as a general language, and I imagine each 'nation' within speaks the associated tongue of their own too, or dialect.

Kara-Tur: The Eastern Realms states on the languages on page 23/24...

Quote:

There is one main tongue in the empire, and this is called Kao te Shou, or High Shou. While each province has its own dialect, all are close enough to allow clear conversation.

The writing of the empire is in the 24 characters of Shou Chiang....

So, Shou is there language! I didn't take a particularly more than quick look to see if it stated any similarities with our own actual languages, but using RL languages as a replacement can be iffy at best, and just immersion breaking at worst.

And pssh, drow using drow words for no or yes is just them speaking with a thick accent. Totally. But yes, the basic communication words I would think are the first you'd learn - even more so of the universal trade tongue as it's something everyone you speak with will encounter.

Last edited by Silkelock on Sat, Mar 29 2014, 12:16 PM, edited 1 time in total.

Well if they say things like: otaku no jinsei ha yabai na!

I haven't read the books on those lands but I wanted to know if they actually speak Japanese and that is stated somewhere?

EDIT: Thanks Rigela

Wait hold up!

Shou is modeled after China so wouldnt their language be a variant of Chinese/Mandarin then? (Combobreaker for the Otakus)

NIHAO!

Just because a FR country or continent is influenced by a RL country/continent, does not mean it is the same. Kozakura (or any of the countries in Kara-Tur) doesn't use the Japanese language, it uses a language influenced by Japanese -and- numerous other languages from the continent of Asia. Thus, the language may have similarities to Japanese including some minor terms, but complex or longer words are -not- a direct translation to Japanese. This is the same for all in-game languages that have an RL counterpart. They are not direct translations, but are influences.

On the matter of dropping in simple words to replace ones in Common, I also find that immersion-breaking, or simply ICly confusing. As Terra says, people don't typically do that.

I can think of one example in Amia.

Kozakurran Character: Konichiwa, Character-san Boogedy Boogedy Shoe....

My Character: Bless you!

I've done this more than once. I'd love for the DM team to make this official, as its not my place to tell them not to do it, but.... how in the nine hells would my character know what you're saying? Me, as in, the player, knows, but..... for my character to know a language that isn't even supposed to be spoken? Nah, doesn't fly with me. I don't play along. I make them translate... every... damn... time.

Being a somewhat-native speaker of Japanese who works in Chinatown I can tell you that there are very few similarities between Japanese and the Chinese languages (particularly Cantonese and Mandarin). A quick bit of research and my own academic knowledge and it seems they're not actually related, even though Japanese has had plenty of influences - but the grammar structures are completely different, and the phonology differs significantly.

So if Kozakura is supposed to be using Shou and Shou is Chinese-derived I can't imagine it sounding anything like Japanese, even with "dialectical differences". Or it shouldn't, but if you look at Kozakura information it will list a lot of Japanese-flavoured words as well as actual Japanese words for titles, races and so forth. Nevertheless, modern Korean has a lot of phonological similarities with Japanese while also being more closely related to Chinese, so it could simply be that while it "sounds Japanese" perplexingly, the language would still have to be styled after Chinese.

Mind you, if Shou relies on 24 characters it doubtless has few similarities to Chinese as well, grammatically or lexically - the Chinese language is essentially made of symbols signifying units of meaning (which in my parlance is a single word, "morphological"), which is why there are thousands upon thousands of Chinese characters.

Also I'm a little worried about this thread. It brings up some things that have been bugging me but I've been wary of bringing it up because it crosses into sketchy territory in terms of player relations. I just avoid it when it comes up, even though it does bother me a lot because of my heritage. On the other hand, it brings in the sort of backlash counter-culture against "Wapanese", especially among Europeans, which involves taking digs at asian culture, and while it's not exactly offensive I wish people would all just shut up about it.

What is your heritage, or do I ask too much?

I'm half-Japanese, and I learned a fair bit of the language from my grandparents when I was very young.

I'm such an old fart I am no longer shy about telling which characters I do not enjoy interacting with, so I can bluntly say the anime inserts I turn away from and go to play to some other area.

I actually speak some Japanese myself and am a fan of the culture and many settings inspired by it, but the American/European naive take on it (hence, wannabe-japanese or wapanese) makes me cringe and seldom fits in FR, even though a more historically appropriate Kozakuran presence on Amia might be interesting. Everything I ever see however is the kinds of characters that make me go NOPE and do a 180.

Most of this thread wrote:

Grrr! I disapprove of the style of RP you enjoy! Also, your local sports team, and your mother!

I can't really help disapproving because of its personal nature to me, sorry about that I guess? Also most of the posts here don't really have a place in the lore forum. Unless anyone has further insight to offer on what's in the books + function of the real-world languages in question (which is a very real possibility) there's probably not much more worth posting here. Lore forum is for lore, not feels!

I am pretty sure infernal is german. *sage nod*

serbiris wrote:

I can't really help disapproving because of its personal nature to me, sorry about that I guess? Also most of the posts here don't really have a place in the lore forum. Unless anyone has further insight to offer on what's in the books + function of the real-world languages in question (which is a very real possibility) there's probably not much more worth posting here. Lore forum is for lore, not feels!

You're right, but thanks for answering my question anyway. I was just curious.

Frankly it boils down to this; Amia is an English language server.

Certain fantasy languages may be substituted from time to time (like certain words in Elven or Drow for the most common examples) or languages may be done with the [Language] prefix. However as Amia is an English language server, other real world languages should not be used. If you want to do the research to learn some of the words of the various fantasy languages (and this goes for every one, not just the specific example of this thread) then go for it, research and use away. But any use of other real world languages is not kosher, something the staff even enforce in party chat let alone IC chat channels.

Liz wrote:

Most of this thread wrote:

Grrr! I disapprove of the style of RP you enjoy! Also, your local sports team, and your mother!

Yes. I am not ashamed to admit there are a lot of characters I avoid interacting with whenever possible since I simply do not enjoy them.

Amia became a lot more fun once I realized I don't really need to feel bad about it.

Quoting Japanese is no more immersion breaking to me than full-quoting Latin as Celestial or Thorass. If you try to have full conversations in it, yes, but that goes for any non-English language.

Frankly the whole “everything Japanese is anime, and anime sux!” thing is kinda annoying and pretentious. Not to pick on you in particular Silvarus, you know I love you. But between the giggle-poking demons and all the SCA debaters and every other RPG trope we have, I could care less as long as Amia is attracting and fun for people. If someone has to put up with someone saying Gadzooks and forsooth, then other people can stand a little Konichiwa and such. FR has other planes and other worlds and other realities. Playing a cookie-cutter knight-errant gets you smiles, but playing a wandering ronin has to make you a weeaboo? I think not.

Dark Immolation wrote:

Quoting Japanese is no more immersion breaking to me than full-quoting Latin as Celestial or Thorass.

Shouldn't be doing this either.

According to whom? Back with he Hoarite clergy, Kjetta would use a few latin phrases every now and then. I think the EO even got away with it too.

I don't it is really within anyone's right to say what shouldn't and shouldn't be done regarding language when all involved parties are of the same accord. Speaking English as the main language as we play on an English server yes, but D&D bastardizes and steals from so many cultures, it is kind of inevitable.

I think we have determined that a "wandering ronin" wouldn't have direct parallels in language to real-world Japanese, because that language doesn't exist in this universe. Your character speaking it means they're substituting words with zero meaning in our setting, regardless of how Japanese-themed the character in question is.

Rigela and others above have stated the name of the language, that it has multiple dialects, and the type of real-world languages it might be inspired by. Whether or not we like certain languages isn't the topic, which languages are suitable to be used in the setting however is.

An I'm trying to say that none are really more suitable than another, because none of them exist by default in FR. So better to not even bother with it and just do what is enjoyable. Even English doesn't exist in FR, we just assume that it is the same language as Common for the ease of playing. There are also plenty of Common words that are not English and are just made up for the sake of giving the setting more depth.

This whole debate was already had before in general discussion may be a year ago. You can pick at the etymologies so that there really isn't any real-life word that properly belongs in Forgotten Realms. Getting that deep gets in the way, IMO. If someone wants to go around calling themselves a knight-errant or a landschneckt or a ronin or a berserkr, chalk it up to dialect and move on.

You may not have had the same setting-breaking experience others have in relation to this topic that warrants the discussion. If my character starts speaking romanized russian because theyre from east of Rasheman, there's a problem with the lore.

Kozakura's language seems closest to chinese, by what others have said pertaining to the lore.

This is a question of lore, not in game preferences. I prefer not to see Japanese used by people IC. But, there is also lore to back that up now. As Rigela pointed out, Kozakurans speak the Shou language. Which means any Japanese word used IC is wrong for the setting.

Sure, Kozakurans don't speak Japanese, but they don't speak English either. No matter what language you type in, you're committing the same lore violation. Unless you've actually OOC learned Forgotten Realms Common, of course.

When someone types IC the English word "hello," they're not asserting that their character is speaking the actual word "hello." They're asserting whatever the FR Common word for "hello" is. Correspondingly, when someone types "konichiwa," they're not asserting that the sounds coming out of their character's mouth IC are those four syllables in that order. They're asserting that their character is speaking the Kozakuran word for "hello," which is neither "konichiwa" nor "hello" nor any other word that we earthlings are aware of. Typing "Konichiwa!" is the same thing as typing "[kozakuran] Hello!" It's just a different way of conveying the precisely identical meaning.

Liz wrote:

Sure, Kozakurans don't speak Japanese, but they don't speak English either. No matter what language you type in, you're committing the same lore violation. Unless you've actually OOC learned Forgotten Realms Common, of course.

When someone types IC the English word "hello," they're not asserting that their character is speaking the actual word "hello." They're asserting whatever the FR Common word for "hello" is. Correspondingly, when someone types "konichiwa," they're not asserting that the sounds coming out of their character's mouth IC are those four syllables in that order. They're asserting that their character is speaking the Kozakuran word for "hello," which is neither "konichiwa" nor "hello" nor any other word that we earthlings are aware of. Typing "Konichiwa!" is the same thing as typing "[kozakuran] Hello!" It's just a different way of conveying the precisely identical meaning.

A valid point indeed. But if Shou is the language being spoken and if it sounds like the language being spoken of which the inspiration come from it should be something else they say.
To take it to a ridiculous extreme they same PC could say "Bonjour" and be from Kozakura. It is how the popular perception has become that the land is a Japanese speaking one which leads to misconception about what words to use I believe.

Except that "Alae!" is a greeting in Elven, and can be used as a greeting, or one can simply use "[Elven] Hello!" for the same effect. This is due to the fact that there is some canonical Elven language for Forgotten Realms. Japanese is not a canonical language in FR. When we use English, we're essentially translating everything our characters would say into one format. You're complicating this and I don't know if you're doing it on purpose.

Using pieces of a canonical fake language is not the same as using bits of a real-world language that doesn't exist in the setting. English is not an argument because this is an English server. We may as well be saying "[Common] English words" when speaking in the default Amian tongue; my Elven character does. When she is in Winya or otherwise among elves, I know others to assume that my english text is her speaking in Elven. When outsiders come in or I talk to others in common, I use [Common] ________. Understand that I don't feel it is required people to do this, and it's easy enough to say you're speaking ____ language in any form, or even an accent.

We use bits of Drow and Elven and whatnot because they are canon in the setting and can add a bit of flavor-- not all elves and drow participate nor should they feel required to. Shou, the language of the Kozakurans, has been proven to not be modern day Japanese in the lore. If folk are allowed to speaking modern romanized Japanese and call it Kozakuran, everyone should reserve the right to use any language real or otherwise for any other language based on the same exception. That would be chaos and ruin something in the setting which many feel out-of-place real world languages already does, outside of convenient names and titles for classes, weapons, skills, etcetera that have made their way into the campaign setting.

Obviously a character speaking whole monologues in actual RL Japanese would be over the line. All I'm advocating here is that the line of acceptability vs unacceptability should be drawn between whether or not you are accurately, *understandably* conveying in your chat window the meaning of what your character is saying. It's perfectly reasonable to believe that your average gamer knows that "konichiwa" is some sort of "hello"-type greeting, and that if you have your character say it, they will be understood by their fellow Amia players, and that the language of a Japanese-style IC region is being spoken.

In short: If someone is typing something and you understood what they meant, they're doing it *right*.

Well I'll draw the lines out for you:

Hello. ((It's OK!)Greeting in English, the language we are all using on this server. Understood as 'Common' language.)
(Shou) Hello. ((It's OK!)Written in English, marked as 'Shou'. Understood as 'Kao te Shou' language.)
(Elven) Hello. ((It's OK!)Written in English, marked as 'Elven'. Understood as 'Elven' language.)
Alae. ((It's OK!)Greeting in Elven, a language established within the Forgotten Realms.)
<Enter Forgotten Realms word here.> ((It's OK!)If it has been established within the Forgotten Realms, it would be acceptable.)
Ciao. ((It's NOT ok!)Written in Italian, not necessarily understood by playerbase, and not a Forgotten Realms word.)
Ni hao. ((It's NOT ok!)Written in Mandarin, not necessarily understood by playerbase, and not a Forgotten Realms word.)
Konichiwa. ((It's NOT ok!)Written in Japanese, not necessarily understood by playerbase, and not a Forgotten Realms word.)
<Enter non-English, non-Forgotten Realms word here.> ((It's NOT ok!)If it is not English, and not Forgotten Realms, it is not acceptable IC.)

The main point is: This is an English-speaking server. If it is not English, and not from the Forgotten Realms, it is not acceptable IC. One person might understand a Japanese word, others may not. However it is expected that players have a strong grasp of English.

Without intending any disrespect, you don't have the authority to draw those lines. You have an opinion.

I have an opinion, too: Any policy which needlessly gives players the impression that they're authorized or empowered to tell other players "you're RPing wrong and you need to do it my way" is a terrible policy. It fosters a server culture of hostility, arrogance, and judgement.

By that measure, the only reasonable standard is: "Did you understand what that player meant?" If yes, then seriously, just live and let live.

Not to be the guy who posts “^That”...

But ^That.

You guys are making a multi-page discussion out of nothing.

This is what it is.

Glim wrote:

Frankly it boils down to this; Amia is an English language server.

Certain fantasy languages may be substituted from time to time (like certain words in Elven or Drow for the most common examples) or languages may be done with the [Language] prefix. However as Amia is an English language server, other real world languages should not be used. If you want to do the research to learn some of the words of the various fantasy languages (and this goes for every one, not just the specific example of this thread) then go for it, research and use away. But any use of other real world languages is not kosher, something the staff even enforce in party chat let alone IC chat channels.

No we're not going to shoot people down for using one word here or there from a RL language. Hell I do it myself without thinking about it, and then realize, "Huh... technically that word is French but was adopted into common English parlance. Oh well." But don't get carried away with it, use the above as your rule of thumb.

Kozakura Language

Who is online