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I have been thinking of something how do the languages sound? I mean how does elven sound like? sure we all know that dwarven probably sounds like Scottish but what of the other languages? languages by their very nature sound very different even of the same language, accents and dialects do exist. how do you all think, elven, drow, hin, celestial, etc sound like.

How do the different dialects of elven sound alike for example? how would an elven sound like someone from evermeet and then compare it to say someone brought up in a human city? What about a moon elf and say a sun elf how do they both sound when speaking elven?

The same thing goes for other races, if say an elf was to speak common and a dwarf to speak common who would they sound? also speaking of common I have some questions.

first are there more then one human language as there is in RL? I believe there is but just want to make sure.

second, how well developed of a language is Common? by that I mean is it just a simple trade language and not used for anything complicated, ie ordinary talking? or is it a lingua franca, a language such as English in RL that is spoken by so many people that everyone uses it?

I do think this would be an intersting disscussion, so comments and ideas are welcome. I will post some things I have thought up myself in a moment.

Personally, I think Common, through centuries of use, if not more, is incredibly well-developed. You might have two people conversing in Chondothan, or Alzhedo, provided they're from the same region, and that would be like listening to two different pairs of people speaking French or Arabic. Common is like English, I think, in that it takes what it needs to from everyplace else, to be useful as a trade language.

While we're on the subject of languages, why do the Drow have this godawful habit of using 'Usstan' and such, mixed with Common?

"Xas, Usstan dos going to the store."

I can understand the use of 'Xas' standalone, or even thrown into a sentence, to represent an accent or tendencies. But doing the mishmash language hybridization thing just does naut make sense.

See? 'Not' and 'Naut' don't sound anything alike. Well- Perhaps if it's like "naut"ical, in pronunciation. But I'm more inclined to think of it as 'nowt'.

It's fugly. Fugly, I say. IMHO, anyway. It instills an overwhelming urge to just beat someone with an Everything-Else-To-Common-Dictionary.

Sakkran wrote:

Personally, I think Common, through centuries of use, if not more, is incredibly well-developed. You might have two people conversing in Chondothan, or Alzhedo, provided they're from the same region, and that would be like listening to two different pairs of people speaking French or Arabic. Common is like English, I think, in that it takes what it needs to from everyplace else, to be useful as a trade language.

While we're on the subject of languages, why do the Drow have this godawful habit of using 'Usstan' and such, mixed with Common?

"Xas, Usstan dos going to the store."

I can understand the use of 'Xas' standalone, or even thrown into a sentence, to represent an accent or tendencies. But doing the mishmash language hybridization thing just does naut make sense.

See? 'Not' and 'Naut' don't sound anything alike. Well- Perhaps if it's like "naut"ical, in pronunciation. But I'm more inclined to think of it as 'nowt'.

It's fugly. Fugly, I say. IMHO, anyway. It instills an overwhelming urge to just beat someone with an Everything-Else-To-Common-Dictionary.

Usstan is I.
Usstani is mine.
Dos is you.
No idea which is yours.

I am with you concerning the pronunciation to "naut". >.>

I try to use only xas, nau, naut, bel'la dos (thank you), del'heen (of course or sure, I don't remember which), and nauthing instead of naubol (for nothing). But it's a matter of personal preference.

I also try to keep the drow language away from texts I write.

What confuses me is when drow characters throw drow words in when their characters are already speaking the language.

If everything you're saying is in drow then why do you need to translate a handful of the words?

*Just gets confused because he doesn't know all the key drow terms that Amia drow like to use*

Guxx wrote:

<snip> If everything you're saying is in drow then why do you need to translate a handful of the words? <snip>

Flavour, I guess.

They are speaking super distilled drow. Only the purest of pure drow purists can speak drow while emoting drow. Drow d'drowdrowdrowdrow.

Sakkran wrote:

why do the Drow have this godawful habit of using 'Usstan' and such, mixed with Common?

Think of it as Spanglish, except with Drow.

Wolfking6116 wrote:

Sakkran wrote:

why do the Drow have this godawful habit of using 'Usstan' and such, mixed with Common?

Think of it as Spanglish, except with Drow.

It is easier than emoting that your character is speaking with heavy drow accent too.

ticket wrote:

Wolfking6116 wrote:

Sakkran wrote:

why do the Drow have this godawful habit of using 'Usstan' and such, mixed with Common?

Think of it as Spanglish, except with Drow.

It is easier than emoting that your character is speaking with heavy drow accent too.

Arr, that's why I do it.

Meh, I agree with Sakkran on the Drow thing. >_> It's stupid.

There are free drow->english english->drow translators on the net, you can have it open in a window and copy/paste whole sentences of drow, then send your sentence in a tell to any actual drow speakers nearby. It's a lot of typing, but can be used well. Especially if you and your drow buddy are slagging somebody nearby, they won't know what you're talking about and it saves them having to pretend that they don't know every insult you're spilling.

A for the original topic... all I gotta say is that thieves cant sounds like C.ockney.

I should not need to alt tab between a translator to understand your half assed "Drow-Common" sentence. And many of the players, as shown in this topic, have such an ego that they consider you lesser players if you don't use the translator while playing a Drow. I've actually had people refuse to translate for me *when i played a Drow* and said o suck it up and get a translator.

What's wrong with [Drow]Blahblahblahblah ?

I agree, it's pretty pretentious. I'd use it, or *speaks in drow* under the circumstance that we are on the surface and there are some notorious "linguist" characters around. Then I'd send the other drow player a tell with what my character actually said.

In the Underdark, I think all you really need to get by is the different titles. They are modular anyways, so it doesn't take you too long to understand what they mean and construct them by yourself. When it comes to using as many casual Drow words in a sentence as you're able to, it's just retarded and confusing to anyone who might not know them. Unnecessary elitism.

Common is not English. Common is the language majority of the players speak. It can be French, it can be German, it can be Finnish, it can be w/e!

We need to take every opportunity we can to remind those players who speak Drommon: we're all laughing at you.

Last edited by Yurell on Sat, Jan 31 2009, 9:34 AM, edited 1 time in total.

TormakSaber wrote:

I should not need to alt tab between a translator to understand your half assed "Drow-Common" sentence. And many of the players, as shown in this topic, have such an ego that they consider you lesser players if you don't use the translator while playing a Drow. I've actually had people refuse to translate for me *when i played a Drow* and said o suck it up and get a translator.

What's wrong with [Drow]Blahblahblahblah ?

D-Finity did say to send a tell with the translation to all drow speakers present. Anyone who refuses to translate when your char can speak drow is an arse, though.

When any of my chars are speaking drow, I tend to use the words Xas, Nau, Del'heen, Jabbress, Jalil, Jaluk and malla, which are the common ones, without trying to impress people with fancy words (like Ssin'urn suru) or conjugation (dos, dosst, dosstan, dossta).

Occasionally wheb on the surface I will translate what I say to drow and send a tell to the person I'm talking to - if your chars can't understand you don't need to and it saves your from accidentally metagaming.

I think elves sound the way they do in Lotr!..I mean I have not heard another elf..so I go with that..Elven ladies, maybe soft and sweet...?

I always think of Elven as a fluid language, somewhere between French and an opera in Russian.

Looked briefly at this before replying. Didn't offer much but did help a bit.

To my personal understanding I have indeed also used the elven spoken in Lord of the Rings as an perfect example of the sounds of the language. Mostly because I deeply connect those sounds with the noble elves of the film and that fits perfectly to my idea of elves in the forgotten realms.

My thoughts on it.. well perhaps it is the general tone or the pronunciation of certain words? Candlekeep suggests that the High Sun Elf dialect is much like "highsong" which points toward it being a very fast flowing language spoken in a very formal manner.

Utimately I think the final call rests with the player, since I don't imagine there's any lore that describes exactly how it sounds. And in that way players can in a certain "customize" the way they belive the language sounds like.

Last edited by IronAngel on Sat, Jan 31 2009, 11:22 AM, edited 1 time in total.

Well, many books describe how different languages sound like. It's only a matter of opening some tomes and digging in.

Every DM does their own thing in gameplay. Ed has, however, discussed this in his answers at Candlekeep (I think so; at least THO has commented on it) and given some tidbits about what NPCs say in different lands in his campaigns, and how they say it. There's also a few player/DM threads about it that may or may not be inspiring. Either way, the Amia forums may not be the best place to seek educated and serious answers. >_<

One way to add good flavour is look at the real world region a fantasy land is roughly inspired by (and this isn't hard, thanks to TSR's obsession to make everything comparable to the real world) and use that. Just don't go overboard with it: if I'm called kawaii by a Kara-Turan girl, I am not amused.

As for speaking in Drow, I find it especially silly because there is no Drow language. There's just some words different authors have made up on the fly, and no syntax or grammar. The Realms aren't Middle-Earth; Ed is a librarian, not a linguist. The same goes for every language: some names and maybe some phrases sound good when they're said in the "original" language, but usually good old English is the best choice for immersion. I've long ago dropped Drow words from my RP, and I even tend to translate titles into English (Grand Mage, Arch Priestess etc.) as often as I can. I've never used Elvish words, because they're lame.

Maybe this helps for drow players?

http://www.eilistraee.com/chosen/language.php[/url]

My taken on a few of Faerun's accents:

Dwarven accents are Glaswegian (Glasgow, Scotland)
Rural Hin accents are from the West Country, England
City-dwelling Hin accents are C0ckney (working class London, England)
Elven accents are from upper class London, England
Gnomish accents are from Toronto, Canada with the dialect of
I don't know where Half-Orc accents come from.

Humans vary. The obvious ones to mention:

Calimshan accents are from South Africa
Mulan accents are from Egypt
Amnish accents are from Spain
Tethyrian accents are from France
Damaran accents are from Scandanavia
Durpari accents are from Persia
Ffolk accents are from Ireland
Tuigan accents are from Mongolia
Halruuan / Shadovar accents are from Germany

Some of these might be well off, but this is just my guess at what people sound like. The one I'm most unsure about is the Halruuan / Shadovar accent. I just imagine them to be fascists and I end up with war time upper class German

That's exactly the kind of thing that makes me embarassed, to be honest. There's no documented syntax for the Drow language anywhere in Realmslore, so how can that translator possibly create sentences? And in general, it just doesn't sound good.

God forbid I use whole sentences in drow. I have nothing against who does that, but I'd rather not use them.

We got a new V to the Nightshadows and I translate to him whenever someone uses a word in drow. He already knows a few, and those he doesn't know he asks, though most of the time I sent the translation before he asked. ^^;

I use only the words I spoke above, and Yurell reminded me of a few others with her post too.

Xas = Yes
Nau = No
Naut = Not
Naubol/Nauthing = Nothing, though it's not every time that I use it in drow.
Jaluk(en) = Male(s)
Jalil(en) = Female(s)
Yath = Clergy
Malla = Totally forgot what it means >.>
Ultrine = Mighty
Del'heen = Of Course
Bel'lados = Thank You
Ul'saruk = Arch Warrior
Ul'faeruk = Arch Mage
Ul'ath'allar = Arch Priestess
Ul'veldriss = Arch Shadow Mistress
Sargtlin/Zhaunin = First degree of a warrior/mage
Draada/Melzar = Second degree of a warrior/mage
Sutrinos/Faern = Third and last degree of a warrior/mage, before Arch-ness

Anyway, too sleepy to keep posting and I have this "Wall of coloured text" to finish before going to bed. Besides, I went totally Off-Topic here. Pardon!

The translator is one most commonly used for drow rp on forums and other rpg's just because there is no official language for them.
There are however sources that the drow language sounds harsher and more agressive than elven and when pronouncing the sentences from the translator, surely it doesnt sound friendly.

Online its the mostly used drow language, just like just about all elves, anywhere online use Quenya which was made by Tolkien.

BlackDahlya wrote:

Malla = Totally forgot what it means >.>

Malla is the verb 'to honour', and is not conjugated.

I aim for the East coast of Scotland for my dwarven accent.

Toooootally agree, about the Drommon. I HATE that crap! It sounds so stupid. With my Drow, I only say vendui', aluve', xas, and nau. And not in sentences but as one word things. Oh, and only with Drow too. It really is very silly to mix a few drow words in with your common. It's always been something that killed my soul just a little bit every time I hear it. So... Please.... Please no?

IronAngel wrote:

I've long ago dropped Drow words from my RP, and I even tend to translate titles into English (Grand Mage, Arch Priestess etc.) as often as I can

BlackDahlya wrote:

as = Yes
Nau = No
Naut = Not
Naubol/Nauthing = Nothing, though it's not every time that I use it in drow.
Jaluk(en) = Male(s)
Jalil(en) = Female(s)
Yath = Clergy
Malla = Totally forgot what it means >.>
Ultrine = Mighty
Del'heen = Of Course
Bel'lados = Thank You
Ul'saruk = Arch Warrior
Ul'faeruk = Arch Mage
Ul'ath'allar = Arch Priestess
Ul'veldriss = Arch Shadow Mistress
Sargtlin/Zhaunin = First degree of a warrior/mage
Draada/Melzar = Second degree of a warrior/mage
Sutrinos/Faern = Third and last degree of a warrior/mage, before Arch-ness

That's all nice and good, but realize that you are swimming against a stronger current here. People all use the Drowish titles and they know exactly what to connect them to. What is an "Arch-Warrior"? Shouldn't it be "First of the Melee Magthere" to be more precise?

You could clearly define those titles in English, but it has not been done yet and will probably never be the popular choice. Doing it all in English seems a sure way to breed confusion.

Last edited by IronAngel on Sat, Jan 31 2009, 12:22 PM, edited 1 time in total.

Yurell wrote:

BlackDahlya wrote:

Malla = Totally forgot what it means >.>

Malla is the verb 'to honour', and is not conjugated.

Which TSR/WotC book or article is your source?

That's just what I mean: people make things up all the time, come up with their own translations and the "language" lives a life of its own.

To take some examples for Dahlya's post: Draa actually means two, according to most translators. The second rank (I used lieutenant in English) of Melee-Magthere is sometimes spelled Drada'Quarthin, othertimes Draada'Quarthin. This is because some builder typoed. Drada is the correct form, and means "second", whereas "quarth" means "command". Nobody knows whether it's a verb or a noun, but quarthin is obviously an Amian/other homebrewn word from "quarth." So Drada'Quarthin would mean "Second in Command". Sargtlin is not really a rank so to speak, but simply means warrior.

This kind of randomness is the reason I don't much like using Drow language. There's no logic behind most words, and the vocabulary Amian Drow use today is a lot different from what it was three years ago. To me, it feels tacky and campy.

Forgotten Realms has no advanced languages, apart from *Speaks fluent Chondathan*. There's no real reason to borrow from other settings, glue on tidbits that seem awkward more than anything, and type gibberish just for immersion, IMO.

xordae wrote:

That's all nice and good, but realize that you are swimming against a stronger current here. People all use the Drowish titles and they know exactly what to connect them to. What is an "Arch-Warrior"? Shouldn't it be "First of the Melee Magthere" to be more precise?

You could clearly define those titles in English, but it has not been done yet and will probably never be the popular choice. Doing it all in English seems a sure way to breed confusion.

Everyone knows what an Arch Priestess is. For Ul'faeruk, I would either say Arch Mage of Ultrinnan, Grand Mage (to distinguish from generic archmages and the Prestige Class) or simply Master of Sorcere. Similarly, the Ul'saruk is Master of Melee-Magthere.

The two male titles, I do use because they're short and neat. The Drow translation for Arch Priestess is pretty awkward, though. Nobody seems to know how to type it. Ulathallar, Ul'athallar, Ul'yathallar, Ul'yath'tallar, Ul'ath'tallar? I'd say the last one, to be consistent with both the spelling of High Priestess (Yath'tallar) and the tradition of leaving the "Y" out, which has been commonly accepted on Amia. But it's very awkward and ugly. So why, oh why, should I say this when I can say Arch Priestess and there is not a hint of doubt what it means?

As for the security institute, I don't like the title at all. It breeds the misconception that the Security Institute is actually a part of the Academy and has equal status, which it doesn't.

All in all, there doesn't seem to have been too much confusion whenever I've used English. Mages are apprentices, mages, and archmages or Masters. Clerics are acolytes, priestesses and high priestesses. Fighters are soldiers, lieutenants and commanders (which is in keeping with Paz'kole's commander title, surely referring to Sut'rinos), and leaders of guard squads are captains. (Which was very clear and established when Nadorhaun lead the PC guards and Kir lead M-M.)

I guess people feel better about their characters if they have cool long titles that are supposedly translated from English but are actually gibberish. Personally, I find it boring and not very immersive. A matter of taste, I suppose.

I've used a few realms elven words and will probably keep doing so. I think the usage of a few elven words adds to their mystical appearance. Thus making them standing them more out than their human counterparts.

Though I would never, nor am I able to use entire sentences in elven. I, however, translate for everyone the words I use for all those that ask and if in party do so anyway. But as pointed out it is a question of personal prefence.

im sorry but for a while now this has annoyed me. People lets be realistic, if the same race is conversing with each other, its not likely they are going to use drow words. Just speak english, speaking drow just makes you think you look cool.

im with tormak and all the drow speak haters on this one, and lo and behold ima drow player

edit-and its dialect if im not mistaken.....

I have a question too; I just started playing a Chultan archer guy, and to give him a bit more realism I decided to thought that he could use some of his native words and sentences. Since I didn't knew anything about the Chultan languish I decided that it couldn't hurt letting him use some spanish words and not just gibberish.

Is this alright?

Yossarin wrote:

We need to take every opportunity we can to remind those players who speak Drommon: we're all laughing at you.

The more posts you make Yos, the more i realize that you are a genius. seriously.

aurelius311 wrote:

Yossarin wrote:

We need to take every opportunity we can to remind those players who speak Drommon: we're all laughing at you.

The more posts you make Yos, the more i realize that you are a genius. seriously.

Yes, because laughing at other people's roleplay is clearly genius.

note: this was not about use of drow with common as that type of disscussion has been done before *nods* also iron, the drow words were in TSR's "drow of the Underdark" product. the FR one.

I am asking say how would someone from evermeet sound like? what would someone from comryr? waterdeep? calimishine? thay? neverwinter? and other places sound like. What would a sun elf sound like when compared to a moon elf? How do the various different languages sound like when spoken by another race?

The purpose behind using a smattering of the 'drow' language in your RP is to add a little flavor. And I don't understand why everyone's riding on us drowsies so hard? I mean, why doesn't anyone say something about the dwarves or hin who use such an accent that I can barely understand them?

Drow are pretty complex to play. There's a whole mess of stuff that has to be learned to effectively play one. Picking up a couple of words along the way isn't hard, it doesn't even take any work. From what I've seen, you only have to know a couple words to get by:

Nau (no)
Xas (yes)
Malla (honored)
Jabbress (Mistress)
Vendui' (Hello)
Bel'la dos (thank you)
Vedaust or Aluve' (two different forms of goodbye)

When I first started playing, I got my hands on one of the books describing the ranks and that's all I had. The words above are the only ones that most of the players use. Considering all the time that one has to spend learning the hierarchy of drow society, learning seven different words should just fall in to place without any extra effort.

IronAngel wrote:

That's just what I mean: people make things up all the time, come up with their own translations and the "language" lives a life of its own.

That's the beauty of a language. If you took me off the east coast of the US and dropped me off in front of a European player somewhere, they probably wouldn't understand a word I was saying. They would understand what most of the words mean, but because english in the US has developed on it's own, our slang is completely different. "Drow" on Amia, if left alone, will develop into it's own language, having it's own life.
We can't force someone to learn that language, but if players wish to use it, who's right is it to tell them it's stupid. That's just like telling someone that their backstory is stupid or their name is stupid.

I don't know how helpful this will be, but I'm going to go with it.. Other than I think it's .. nonsensical to use words from that language when emoting that language (it feels like a double negative somehow... like going "[German] danke schon, my friend" .. you're already in German.. you don't need to then type German into it..) I'm going to completely ignore the drow, as I'm not sure that's exactly what he was looking for, and they aren't mentioned in the original post.

I know sun elves..and I think moon elves at the least have the Gift of Tongues thing going on, so they have a racial predisposition toward learning languages. Not to mention, they live so long they could likely perfect quite a few so it isn't a stretch to imagine they might be able to mimic the accents of the languages competently. Or at least enough so that it might not be overly noticeable - like say.. a dwarf speaking common.

I don't know if there is a standardized FR cannon elven language source anywhere.. BUT.. on a lot of servers I've played, elven players have gravitated toward this: http://www.grey-company.org/Language/ They have an elven dictionary, phrasebook, and some other nifty doodads based on tolkein and the like. It's not a generator, but it's fairly complete with syntax rules and links to further elven language resources.

I've also been learning draconic as best I can, mostly to flavor my kobold's conversation in common. The Races of the Dragon book has some vocabulary and syntax in there, and I've personally been using the Draconic Translator ( http://draconic.twilightrealm.com/ ) as well. They have a vocabulary page there that is also fairly handy

I can't speak to dwarves or the like.. But I hope that helps.

---

Edit: as an afterthought, you might get the sound override 2da file from the vault and get access to all the voicesets if you havent already.. they label things like "dwarf, old" "elf, wizard" etc.. and that might give you a more aural clue as to the way the game represents these voices in common, anyway.

brooksthegreat wrote:

<snip>

Draconomicon has a list of words in draconic and their translation, and also has an explanation of how to build sentences.

I tried figuring out a few sentences for my cursed dragon PC, but after a while it got boring using them, not to mention that most people will start calling you a show off and inconsiderate, even though you send translations to them. ^^;

ainjyll wrote:

The purpose behind using a smattering of the 'drow' language in your RP is to add a little flavor. And I don't understand why everyone's riding on us drowsies so hard? I mean, why doesn't anyone say something about the dwarves or hin who use such an accent that I can barely understand them?

They love to hate drow in every sense, Ainjyll. ;)

Jokes aside (funny or not), I agree with you.

Every time I am around a hin or dwarf, I have difficulty trying to understand their speeches. I ask in Tells what is being said and some players reply, others don't. One would think they could at least say something:

Dwarven/Hin Player "Does your character speak dwarven?"
Clueless Player: "Uh... No"
Dwarven/Hin Player: "Then I won't translate because dwarven is being spoken."
Clueless Player: "Oh, not dwarven accent on common, then"
Dwarven/Hin Player: "Nope"
Clueless Player: "Okay then, thanks!"

Either way, after a few moments it completely ruins my immersion and RP becomes boring and a drag, since I focus my attention trying to understand what's being said (if it's accent and not the dwarven language being spoken, in which case I ignore and move on) and I end up missing things that are going on and would need an immediate reply.

The common reply is "Oh, it's only english with a letter missing here and there, you will get the gist of it soon".

People forget that not everyone is a native english speaker and oftentimes the english they know is formal, or their vocabulary is limited and RPing with that kind of player, in the end, becomes a painful experience. At least for me.

Now, concerning drow language... I could reply the same thing to a player, saying that soon she or he will get the gist of it - and it's easier because it's not whole sentences being spoken, but a few words thrown in the middle of the sentences. Still, people will keep picking on the drow.

/end rant

To get on topic, I ~imagine~ that elven would sound like the elven spoken in Lord of the Rings. Drow would be similar, but with harsher sounds.

Draconomicon describes Draconic as a harsh sounding language, gutural and full of hissing.

The human languages on the realms is easier to imagine (~to me~, at least), because some of the places in Faerun reminds me of rip-offs of different Real Life cultures from all around the world. For instance, Durpari and that region's accent to me would be like India. Waterdeep's accent would be like England's, and so on. When you read about the cities on the books, it's unavoidable to find similarities with "Real World" cultures. That's from where I have an idea of what the language would sound like - and of course it won't necessarily be the right way.

BlackDahlya wrote:

Every time I am around a hin or dwarf, I have difficulty trying to understand their speeches.

If I find someone's accent hard to understand OOC, I usually roleplay that my character has no idea what they're saying either. Link is related XD

StandingBehindYou wrote:

BlackDahlya wrote:

Every time I am around a hin or dwarf, I have difficulty trying to understand their speeches.

If I find someone's accent hard to understand OOC, I usually roleplay that my character has no idea what they're saying either. Link is related XD

Not me. It hampers RP to some degree.

If they tell me it's the hin/dwarven language being spoken, then I also RP not understanding.

If they say it's an accent, I try to understand some of it, especially if the RP is involving forging an alliance or other political stuff - so there won't be gross misinterpretations or hard feelings or something like that in an IC sense.

If the RP is not that intense, if it's only idle chat, then my PCs would either ignore it or RP not understanding, though if I manage to understand something of what's being said I will, of course, reply accordingly.

Yossarin wrote:

We need to take every opportunity we can to remind those players who speak Drommon: we're all laughing at you.

Oh, whatever. Like half the people understand what you're saying half the time, Yossarin.. let's call it Yommon. People are probably alt-tabbing 10X as much as when I'm speaking Drommon.

Hypocrite.

PS I used to use "Ul'athtallar" but not because I attempted to be pretentious.. mostly b/c it's just what was used more often, so I got used to using it.. kinda how when you hang out with people who say "tight" too much or somethin.. not all of us are tryin to be "cool" or whatever. I mean. We're playing a nerdy, out-of-date game. Come on.

PPS While we're all griping about things that are essentially pet peeves, can I gripe about mine? Let's change the title of this topic to dIAlects..

BlackDahlya wrote:

*snip*

If you're speaking dwarven, it makes sense to put the tag [Dwarven] or whatever other tag you use to discriminate between languages, as opposed to Common with a dwarven accent.
However, I notice that when people are speaking dwarven, they still use the accented Common - how is that different from a drow player dropping in a couple of drow words?

Slig wrote:

aurelius311 wrote:

Yossarin wrote:

We need to take every opportunity we can to remind those players who speak Drommon: we're all laughing at you.

The more posts you make Yos, the more i realize that you are a genius. seriously.

Yes, because laughing at other people's roleplay is clearly genius.

Have you SEEN these instaces of "Drowmon"? It's... well, it *is* laughable.

You know what I'd like to find is a flippin pronunciation key, speaking of language. Can't find one to save my life.

I've been on Skype with 4-5 people at a shot who all pronounce Genasi (jen-sigh...Gen-Ah-See-...Jen-ah-see...jen-ah-sigh), Duegar (Drooger...Dur-gar...Dura-gar...doo-gar) and lord knows how many other D&D words totally differently.

Geeks...get thee to Google...chop chop!

Last edited by Sakkran on Sun, Feb 01 2009, 4:21 AM, edited 1 time in total.

Gen-ah-See and Dwehr-Gar.

Last edited by Lally on Sun, Feb 01 2009, 4:29 AM, edited 1 time in total.

That -is- how I pronounces Genasi, but -not- how I pronounced Duergar. I shall take that as cannon and fix my face, unless someone else posts a "NOOOOOO" reply

I have a book that says duergar is pronounced DEW-ur-gar, with emphases on the dew part.

Accents and dialects.

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