I was just curious, it may allready be implemented, based on what I've read in the Design notes, but do you allready have Real "Languages" for the various races? (My actual game account has yet to be approved. So I don't actually know myself.) I did notice a good deal about "Race Languages" And being a student of Linguistics, not to mention a Language-Junkie in general, I was rather intrigued. If you don't have actual Conlangs allready invented, it's certainly a good Idea. There's bound to be some other Conlangers out there. Seems to me that RPing and Conlanging are like PB and J...
Hello Conlanger-brethren!
PS:
If you don't allready have any conlangs done, and are looking for a Conlanger to conlang them, send me an Email. I'm generally building languages anyway, I can certainly make a few for you folks.
~~Ralwyth/Joe
PPS: I like to see that other people out there speak elvish, well, at least Arien Edhel and Galdriel. I forget most of it myself, I never really had anyone wherewith to speak it. C'est la vie. I guess that'd be something like
So Ist Leben in german, I don't speak that either...
Technically, different languages are not implemented. However, this is not a game that the players are within technical limits. Which means that, by all means, go ahead, make a language. I'm not too sure if it would actually catch on or not though. If I remember correctly the lizardmen created a language of their own a while back, but I don't think its used anymore.
If you construct a good language (yet not too complicated) I might try to apply it where appropriate. When I first created my character, I remember I envisioned him as a rather good linguist, so I might give your conlang a shot, despite the race it was created for.
(by the way, good luck on your account acceptance. I hope you get in. And I'm sure you will, your intelligence seems adequate enough to answer their questions)
From my understanding (and I want to make it known that I'm just some shmoe and not a developer), the next client which is currently being worked on will include the fully implemented racial languages. Don't get your hopes up, though; they aren't real languages.
This is how I was made to understand that they'd work:
Two players are talking and one is a dwarf and one is a human. They are speaking the common language and so can understand eachother, but then a second dwarf walks up and the first types a command, letting the client know that he wants to speak dwarven such as, we'll say "#dwarf" and follows it with a string of words that he wishes to speak to only the dwarf.
The other dwarf will be able to understand it, while the human, untrained in the dwarven language, will only see a series of asterisks. However, if he's a smart human and he's been spending time in the library learning the dwarven language, he may be able to understand what the dwarf says in part or in whole.
All of this may change between here and when the next client is offered publically. Even I've reccomended some changes. For example, I argued that certain races would be more likely to learn certain other races' languages because of their historical relation. For example, halflings were the slaves of humans and so, most likely, their language is derivative of the humanic one which is in turn derivative of elvish. Dwarven language, on the other hand, has it's own alphabet, and likely so does lizard. Orcish is probably derivative to human or dwarven language, or a mish-mash of many languages, but more than likely has more to do with the so-called language of Moshran which has been talked about from time to time.
Seriously, I've made up an own language for my character, but it's only a few words and some phrases which have a special meaning. Everything else I make up when talking, hoping that it would sound as intended.
Yes. I would always encourage creativity in players of Illarion. I will encourage anyone who intends to make their own language like the lizards did or adapt another language, such as the aforementioned elves. I merely post the above so that it can be understood what is meant client-wise by racial languages.
While the client will be defining racial languages, there is still room for more. For example, it may define what is common tongue (old and new), and what is dwarven/elven/halfling/lizard/human/orc tongue, but there will always be variants of said races that would be culturally or wholly removed from the norm. I personally prefer that player-made or used languages are considered this way for the sake of fairness. For example, once the language system is implemented with the coming of the new client, the lizard language could still be used, perhaps as the language of an offshoot lizard kingdom.
For the most part, although there is a certain amount of canon about Illarion's history, languages, cultures, etc.. a lot of it is still being worked on, and occasionally bits and pieces are adapted from the stories of players. Feel free to be creative, because Illarion has room for your ideas.
Ralwyth wrote:I was just curious, it may allready be implemented, based on what I've read in the Design notes, but do you allready have Real "Languages" for the various races?
This is a social proposal, not a technical one.
It would be technically impossible to implement your suggestions. Illarion is not a translator software.
I still wonder how those lizard players managed to keep up their lizard language without getting a serious headache.
Smetaphuiissslesssswhateverssmyssheadssshurtssssss...
I can't complain about a lack of creativity on my side. If there's something that really catches me then the ideas just flow into my head from everywhere. I put a lot of efford into creating a background that, while still fitting into the official background, creates a whole new ancient culture for a character with an own, sometimes hard to comprehend, view of the world.
martin, nothing is technicly impossible. Illarion is not --currently-- translator software. An Appropriatly built language could be easily tranlated by a computer. In fact, many such examples exsist. Programming languages are essentially Language a computer translates to machine code. You may disagree because you cannot "Speak" them, but that doesn't remove the fact that they are languages. I've created several "Loglangs" or logical Languages, that is, computer parseable, but still "Speakable" languages before. Only with mild success, Loglangs tend to be more boring. Regardless. I was not suggesting a Translation implementation, I was suggesting a handy roleplaying tool that people could use. The obvious advantage is exactly what Moskher said, the ability to speak in secret to another of your race, or anyone who understands your language. The wonderful thing about actual Conlangs is that it looks and "feels" like language, rather than a series of Asterisks, which-- in my opinion -- would be detrimental to the sense of immersion.
Regardless, I'll see if I can cook something up, and if it's accepted, then it is.
Perelende, iothenda melosenar
PS Edit:
Haslus looks intresting enough, it seems though, that Xerake (who I assume to be the creator) was not completely aware of the power that is Phonology/Phonetics. You'll notice that Haslus is really just a redefinition of essentially english words and sounds. he uses 's' as essentially a space character, 't' and 'y' as conjunctions, etc. This in it of itself is not linguisticly "wrong" Just not as efficient or effective. Xerake, at the time, must not have realized that There are far more sounds than those in English. I Know many of you speak both German and English, you then, I'm sure, realize that there are many sounds in German that are not sounds in English. Therein lies Haslus's fatal flaw, though wonderful in concept, it lacked in phonological uniqueness. Honestly I like Haslus, it reminds me of one of my first languages, Inydic. And Xerake was right on with the overall sound, the constant aspirated 's' and labial stops like 't' and 'p' make for a very reptilian feel. Haslus just needs a little refinement. It also give me a template for all the other languages. And really the way Xerake broke down the presentation is wonderful. I generally am not so organized in the presentation, one minute I'm talking about Grammar, next its spelling, this is good stuff, It'll give me plenty to work off of.
~~Joe
Last edited by Ralwyth on Tue Mar 01, 2005 7:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Currently if people wish to speak in other langauges they will so something like "#me begins speaking elvish" and then precede what they say with (e), or similar for other races.
IMHO I dont think it would be good to force that to be technical, as rp is better if you allow the characters to decide what langauges they know. Most wont know any but common, but a scholar may know most of or parts of other langauges (like my char). However if this is made technical anyone wanting to learn the other langauges enough will just sit in the library for hours reading the other langauge books or however it would be implemented to learn them.
very true, but actually having languages to learn, rather than just saying that you know the language, is better, is it not?
I mean, my character is also a Scholar, but how effective is it if we, that is you and I, as scholars, speak elvish, but in order to speak elvish we either make it up, or use tolkienic or secular elvish, or any other number of possibilitys, so that we end up speaking different elvishes? Imagine the RP conundrum that occurs if we find a tablet or whatnaught, and on that tablet is some language, we both agree it is elvish, and elvish is a known language -- but not real-- language, we both attempt to translate it by randomly acsribing meaning to it, the Plot would fail. The original message is hidden because the original message has no meaning. however, if someone left a cryptic message in a language that actually had meaning, and books, and ways to translate, than you and I would both acheive the same translation, and then would actually have a viable plot to work in/with.
Hopefully that analogy is good enough. I was never good at analogys. The Idea is that you could have a far more versitile RP by having a "real" language to learn. You could open up plot doors like-- Finding the Ruins of an Ancient Zelphian Temple, with strange inscriptions that appear Haslusian, but are in fact not, and now you must study and decipher them. Far more fun, is it not?
Maybe so, but then it should at least be made that you can choose your skil lkfor the langauges, yet if anyone is seen with an overamount of this (a noob just wanting to be perfect with it) they would lose all but common langauge. This would be best providing everyone rpd correctly and only gave themselves a fair amount of langauge knowledge.
So we're back at the powergaming issue. Of course any technical implementation can be abused, but that's where GM control and the aspect of having a hand-selected community of roleplayers come into play.
I honestly don't think that languages make a roleplaying game any more or any less enjoyable. I was always under the impression that the point of a roleplaying game was to craft a character and interact with other characters. This is the core concept of roleplay, and languages are simply a (a very far out) branch of this.
When a newcomer comes to Illarion, they'll encounter this number of languages, become daunted and very likely flee. This would, of course, reduce the number of players. You could of course argue that I'm just pulling these statements from my arse, which is true, but these are just my opinions.
I have nothing against the concept of languages in Illarion per sé, but they're not something I want to invest the time in learning, time in which I could be perfecting my roleplaying skill. By all means, introduce your own language, add it Haslus, Medoran and Stoopid Speek, but at the end of the day, it's just another obstacle inhibiting roleplay for some, while sectioning off an elite group of players who would have the skill and time to speak such a language.
Anyway. I don't see languages being implemented until the character wipe, be that before or after the next client.
Good, solid proposal though, and welcome to the community.
Ralwyth wrote:martin, nothing is technicly impossible.
Then build a device that predicts radioactive decay please.
Illarion is not --currently-- translator software. An Appropriatly built language could be easily tranlated by a computer.
I disagree. First off, "easily" is relative: The server would have to know all the english or german words that turn into artificial language.
Secondly, it would have to find some mistakes and spelling errors (missing capital letters etc.).
This would require a lot of useless programming time when we actually could build in much better things. And secondly, given the amount of possible sentences spoken per second, it would need a lot of processor usage.
This means: Technically impossible and furthermore not wanted and never planed.
In fact, many such examples exsist. Programming languages are essentially Language a computer translates to machine code.
That's right. And writing programming languages is a very simple task to do. In fact Illarion is a large compiler.
Uhm, well. Better think about it once more. First of, compiling eats the processor totally. This is why we compile with low priority. Secondly, building a compiler is a very, very difficult task.
You may disagree because you cannot "Speak" them, but that doesn't remove the fact that they are languages. I've created several "Loglangs" or logical Languages, that is, computer parseable, but still "Speakable" languages before. Only with mild success, Loglangs tend to be more boring. Regardless. I was not suggesting a Translation implementation, I was suggesting a handy roleplaying tool that people could use.
Feel free to write one.
The illarion server will never ever have something like that implemented.
The obvious advantage is exactly what Moskher said, the ability to speak in secret to another of your race, or anyone who understands your language.
There are other, less "expensive" (in the currency of processor time and programming effort) ways of realizing that which we already tried out.
On the topic of Technicly impossible, You're right, I can't build something that predicts radioactive decay phase, or whatever it was you said. But it doesn't mean its not possible. I'm not God, I can't do everything.
Also, as for Compilers, they are hard to build, if your translating to machine code. I know, I've built Compilers, or at least attempted to do so. However, Translation programs are relativly easy, Loglangs are designed for them. I won't get into the finer points unless you want me to. But let me say this, there are problems like typos, yes, but it can be done.
Regardless, I wasn't suggesting that you actually code translation engines anyway, although that would be awesome, it would also be, like you said, technicly infeasible. It does require alot of power. What I was trying to suggest -- it's likely I just wasn't being clear enough, I tend to do that, clutter up sentences with unnessicary information. -- was that there be seperate, completely Illarion-free languages that one could use to further plots in the game. Like a Toolbox, you can't do everything with just a hammer, you can't build a house solely with hammers, you need other things, Measuring tapes and Rulers and Pencils and Saws and suchlike. I was suggesting -- or at least trying to suggest -- that we,you,me, or someone invent some languages for people to speak, if they are so inclined to speak them. No physical changes to the games code would be made. It would literally be the same thing as someone who was speaking English one moment and German the next. Different words, Same meaning, Essentially (I realize that it is not likely they would repeat the same thing they said in german after they said it in english, but bear with me).
Also as for Language not being vital or important or whatever the term was, I honestly forget, I agree, it's not vital. But neither is the Stereo in your Car, or the Pants on your legs. But honestly, how much fun would life be without pants? Language is not meant to be the integral part of the game, or the main focus of the RP, you're right. It's just a fun little thing you can learn if you like or not learn if you don't like. I thought it'd be nice to have around, I rather enjoy it. I remember one time I was having a conversation with someone as a character named Tyr (a predecessor to my current character, Ralwyth) Tyr spoke no Common (Westian in that particular game) and the person I was (attempting) to converse with spoke only common. The Language Barrier became a (seemingly) massive problem to solve. How would you get someone to understand you, if you didn't speak any English/German/ whatever Language may be your primary? I remember vividly pointing to objects and saying my word for them, and once she caught on to what I was doing, she would reply with the common word for it. We actually built up an impressive vocabulary over a couple of hours, We were able to communicate rudimentarily by the time she left. The point I'm trying to make is, why was all that nessicary, or moreso, was it all nessicary to begin with? In short, not a bit. Common in that particular game was quite simply english, I understood every word she said, back to front, heck, I probably knew more about the words than she did. But my character didn't, and my character didn't magicly speak Common because it wanted to or because it would have made things simpler. I guess I'm just trying to make things as real as possible, which is the Goal of any RP, is it not?
No. No. You don't understand. When Martin says that Illarion isn't a translation program, it means that Illarion isn't a translation program and won't be. Martin is a developer of Illarion, you see.
However, I'm sure Martin is willing to hear proposals on what you would like rather than the asterisk-style language skills, but they will have to be concrete and exact and, most importantly, implementable. I've proposed things on this particular aspect of Illarion, and although my presentation of said proposals are often sloppy, Martin has listened patiently through them.
Ralwyth wrote:On the topic of Technicly impossible, You're right, I can't build something that predicts radioactive decay phase, or whatever it was you said. But it doesn't mean its not possible. I'm not God, I can't do everything.
I am sorry to disappoint you, it is not possible. Nature, on the most basic level, is truly random and you cannot make non-statistical predictions. I do not understand what you mean by "god".
Also, as for Compilers, they are hard to build, if your translating to machine code. I know, I've built Compilers, or at least attempted to do so. However, Translation programs are relativly easy, Loglangs are designed for them. I won't get into the finer points unless you want me to. But let me say this, there are problems like typos, yes, but it can be done.
It seems totally unnecessary to me. It would cause a lot of man-power needed to write it and it would mean a lot of CPU-power to have it running for a minimal effect. I vote against it, so I guess you'd have to write it yourself on your machine.
What I was trying to suggest -- it's likely I just wasn't being clear enough, I tend to do that, clutter up sentences with unnessicary information. -- was that there be seperate, completely Illarion-free languages that one could use to further plots in the game.
In this case I do not understand why you posted that on Illarion's proposal board. You are making a proposal that has, in fact, nothing to do with Illarion itself. You are free to program any Loglang you want and place it on any server you want using any interface you want. Why bother us?
I guess I'm just trying to make things as real as possible, which is the Goal of any RP, is it not?
OK, so this is a little off topic for ConLangs but I think its a very interesting point.
I am sorry to disappoint you, it is not possible. Nature, on the most basic level, is truly random and you cannot make non-statistical predictions. I do not understand what you mean by "god".
It is possible to create a piece of software that predicts the result of a particular radioactive decay. A simpler example is that is is technically possible to create code that accurately tells you if "God" (as defined in, say, the bible) exists. How this is done is left as an exercise to the reader (and if someone posts how to do it, I'll give them a prize if I ever see them). When I say technically possible I don't mean theoretically, I mean I could actually post the pseudocode right here and now.
To the God part see my statement in the movie thread concernong science and supernatural existences.
To the radioactive decay part: As some scientists say that the universe is nothing but the solution of some mathematical probability equations you could maybe predict it but you would need all the infinite numbers of constants to enter into these equations which would leave you with one problem: You would need an infinite amount of time to calculate it.
Other then that you can just calculate a scientific probability for a certain event to happen.
Naybet Grint wrote:It is possible to create a piece of software that predicts the result of a particular radioactive decay.
No, you cannot.
The reason is that nature does not behave deterministic in that point. Contrary to your believe, quantum theory showed that nature cannot be calculated in every detail because there are certain events on the quantum scale that are not deterministic.
This means: An atom does not know, nor does the universe, when it decays until it actually does. It is a truely random process.
This is nothing that occurs because we did not make enough measurements. Even if you know everything about the universe you could possibly know (that is every quantum state of every quantum out there in the universe), you cannot know when a particular atom decays.
You can find out more by learning quantum theory and then dig into bell's inequalities, nonlocality of QT, GHZ-paradoxon and so forth.
The universe is not a huge, calculatable device.
When I say technically possible I don't mean theoretically, I mean I could actually post the pseudocode right here and now.
Okay, then go on and post the pseudocode that predicts the decay of an atom or, say, the polarization of some emitted photon (or whatever).
It is, in theory, impossible because it is the way that nature works.
@Adano: Contrary to your statement this is not due to the fact that you'd need an infinite number of measurements done. It is a basic principle of the quantum world: Even if the universe just consists of 5 particles with a finite number of states and we know everything we possible could know we'd have the same problem.
That's the point why calculating the way the universe works is your job, and mine is shooting laser pulses at a piece of plastic foil and observing the waves spreading along the surface.
You are going about the question in the wrong way.
Sure. Its non-deterministic. I'm not claiming that I can know how something can decay, or whether God exists or not. But I can write a program that tells me. (This is conceivably something of a trick question, but I wasn't warned of that when it turned up in my tutorial work one week, so I thought it more fun to pass that lack of warning on ).
Naybet Grint wrote:You are going about the question in the wrong way.
Sure. Its non-deterministic. I'm not claiming that I can know how something can decay, or whether God exists or not. But I can write a program that tells me. (This is conceivably something of a trick question, but I wasn't warned of that when it turned up in my tutorial work one week, so I thought it more fun to pass that lack of warning on ).
I do not understand.
You can write a program that PREDICTS when a single atom is going to decay? A real program? This program has an input ("Please predict the time that this atom decays"), performs some calculations and before the atom decays it gives the output ("It will decay at 5:06 pm GMT")?
Nature does not allow that.
Otherwise I do not understand what you are trying to tell me.
@Adano: I think this is one of the most basic and therefore most important thing that physics can tell and therefore I believe that everyone, especially when working with physics, should be aware of.
Sure, I'm aware of non-deterministic effects like Browns movement or nuclear decay.
It's the amount of infinite polynoms, integrals, and other high mathematic headache giving stuff in modern theoretical physics that gave me the impression that you should be able to calculate a lot of statistical things if you had the intellect and knowledge of a god
As for the topic, is realism a part of roleplay? I must scream from the top of my lungs an emphatic no! If you're interested in reading previous debates on the topic of realism in Illarion (not any other game), just perform a search with the key word "realism" created by the user name Elaralith (*thunder strikes and children run in fear*).
Again I'm probably just not being clear. I do so tend to be horrible at explaining stuff.
What I mean is Something that is Code-indepentant, not nessicarily Illarion independent. I am trying to suggest Conlangs for use within Illarion, without any actual code or software parts. I keep getting the sense I'm not explaining this right. But basicly, I'm trying to say that someone could create languages to be used that are not part of the software engine, but rather part of the player's repetoire of RP tools. The idea of the proposal was not to ask you, the creators, to code something, but whether it would be a good idea to even attempt at all. Thats why I put the post here and not in general chat or whatnot. The idea is that these languages would exsist so that the creators or players or whoever wanted to use them for whatever purpose they would want to use them could use them. Rather than include a command like #speakelvish <message>, you could encourage players to learn the language, which would do two things.
1) Increase the overall realism, you really have to learn the language to use it.
2) Give Illarion players something they could use outside of Illarion. That is, these languages would be speakable outside the game. So if me and my friend met eachother in the street, we could randomly speak in Haslus or whatever language. And essentially have "Bragging rights" about Illarion. The Idea is to make what I allready can tell is a very unique game, even more unique. I mean honestly, how many games do you know of that have completely unique languages? Not many, I'm sure.
Let me see if I can just explain the suggestion as simply as possible, God Loves Occams Razor...
1) The Creators/Developers/Whatever Title you Prefer would NOT have to code anything, This idea is designed to be completely Code indepentant.
2) The Players would have an active role in the creation of one, two or several languages for use within and without Illarion. for the Purpose of Furthering the Realism and overall Experience within the game, and also as a way to make Illarion that much more unique.
That is as simple as I can make it.
@ the folks who say stuff is impossible.
Didn't we say that going past 50 mph was impossible, when automobiles first became popular, because at 50 mph, you're lungs would explode?
We were wrong.
Didn't we say that man would never break the sound barrier?
We were wrong.
Didn't we say we'd never split an atom, that atoms were, infact the most basic building block and nothing smaller exsisted?
We were wrong.
So, can you say that we will never be able to accurately predict Radioactive Decay, can you prove it? Even if you think you can, People have "proven" Lots of things, but they have also been wrong. The primary difference between you and me is that you believe that some things are impossible, I do not. You see a world that has been formed by chance, I see a world that has been designed. I am, in addition to linguistics, also a student of applied math/computer science (only as minors now, I plan to take a course on it on my next spin through college) When you look at radioactive decay (which I honestly can't suggest, it's killer on your sinuses.) You may say, "I will never be able to predict the decay phase of that." I say, "I can't predict that yet, I lack the tools." I do not believe in randomimity, God does not play dice. I think of the old proverb, "A man can do only what he believes is possible, to believe you cannot do a thing is to make the thing impossible. Instead, understand that nothing is impossible, only not capable of being done at this time." (it's indian or taoist or something, I honestly don't remember, It was translated when I was still new to the whole language thing, which is why its not quite so poetic...)
As for the whole "I'm not God" thing, I was just implying that I'm not omniscient (God is generally refered to as an Omniscient being) and thereby have absoulutly no idea how to do that.
there, I think I covered the spectrum.
EDIT: Just noticed Brandon's post
As for Realism in RP. I guess realism was a bad word to use. It probably would have been more appropriate to use "To make the RP as intresting and entertaining, but not nessicarily real" as possible. The Idea of Roleplaying, as I understand it, it to model Life and Living, while combining it with Surrealism/Fantasy. Thats my take.
While I'm here, I figure I should apologize if at any point I have not been clear, Like I said, I'm not altogether wonderful at describing things unless I'm talking to you in person, and not via Posts...
Naybet Grint wrote:You are going about the question in the wrong way.
Sure. Its non-deterministic. I'm not claiming that I can know how something can decay, or whether God exists or not. But I can write a program that tells me. (This is conceivably something of a trick question, but I wasn't warned of that when it turned up in my tutorial work one week, so I thought it more fun to pass that lack of warning on ).
(I know I'm double posting, but I know the answer to this question)
You can write a program that tells you when a Atom decays, it's as simple as realizing that at any given infintessimal period of time, the atom is decaying, since you can't see it to tell whether it is decaying now or not, then any answer must be both right AND wrong. Basic quantum physics people.
So, the answer to both questions,
1) Predict decay of an Atom,
A) At any given time, the Atom is both decaying and not decaying.
2) Prove God exsists
A) You cannot See God, therefore he must Exsist and not Exsist.
Good old Schrodinger's Cat... (If I misspelt Schrodinger, I'm sorry, German is terribly hard for an old American to spell... I'm sure someone will correct me... )
That Brandon fellow is full of delightful insights, isn't he? Anyway, Ralwhite (sic), what you're trying to explain comes across perfectly clear, but I really don't see the need for a proposal if you already have the intention of doing it anyway. Go ahead and create more conlangs (that word keeps getting sillier!), I'll only be too willing to have Brendan stand around not understanding a word that's being said.
