Illarion.org

After looking through the posts about the bloodskulls on the Guilds section, something annoyed me. The way orcs write. Do you write the way you talk? Does your accent feature into the way you talk? The way I see it, the way orcs speak is caused by differences in the throat, the vocal areas. So instead of saying 'brother', they might say 'brudda'. But why do players of orcs insist on writing it down like that? Why do they insist on writing like mentally retarded monkeys?

Because when people first learn to spell, they spell the way the word sounds.

Really? Then I must be abnormal. Because, you know, in English words are often NOT pronounced the way they are spelled at all. Take the word wound, for example.

He wound the bandage around the wound. Same spelling, two different pronunciations and meanings. Does that mean that they should be spelled wownd and woond?

But this is a game, not some sort of nursery. Some orc player's posts can be awfully confusing, to the extent that they become unreadable by those who's first language is not English. This makes some orcen groups exclusive, resulting in non-American/English players being unable to join, due to their difficulty with understanding Orc-Speak.

Notice the word first in her post Donal. It is true what she says. It is just an indication that orcs cannot learn a language beyond the intellectual level of a 4 yearold

Why should that be so, Misjbar? Why are all orcs dumbed to be playing as if they are morons? Look back a few years in Illarion. Orc characters were vastly different (better, in my opinion). They spoke clearly, spelled clearly, but it was their attitude that made them orcs. They were mean, surly, honourable, violent, ugly and any other number of character traits. When did the only defineable trait of an orc become the manner in which they speak?

To be honest, when orcs write it should just be simpler. Such as instead of I ate the ham, maybe me eat ham.

Oh, and according to the intelligence of 4 year old arguements, orcs shouldn't know the hilt of a sword to the blade. They wouldn't be very good at anything much, except hitting things. If they can pick up a weapon by the right end.

Brendan Mason wrote:Why should that be so, Misjbar? Why are all orcs dumbed to be playing as if they are morons? Look back a few years in Illarion. Orc characters were vastly different (better, in my opinion). They spoke clearly, spelled clearly, but it was their attitude that made them orcs. They were mean, surly, honourable, violent, ugly and any other number of character traits. When did the only defineable trait of an orc become the manner in which they speak?

Q:Why would that be so?

A:Because the players now seem to think that is the way orcs are. I did not choose it. My old orc spoke as Donal just said, not with bruddas or whatever.

Orc don't need to learn to write, they do however have to learn ho to fighOnly orc's who have studied how to write properly would, other than that it's mostly guess work going on how a word sounds.

Why can't shamans speak and write normally then?

Why don't you go and ask one.

Alright.

ok what i dont get is why are you talking about this...The throat differences...some ones got way to much time on there hands to care why the orcs talk like they do...and also its a game, yes i do know we are RPin others lives but it still is a game for amusment and enjoyment why do its matter how a certain race talks as long as its consistant...i know from experence that "noob" normally coppy off how others talk. So say if Chief V ((of the Skulls)) says something to a new player of an orc the person will probably take that to mind suck as: the=da, me instead of my, lots of 3rd person in their sentences. starting to catch my drift? its all just good fun, me i kind of find it enjoyable to talk like an orc because it is differnt from what you normally hear.and new things are good for the most part... i dont think many will agree with me but who cares sorry that you get annoyed really easily from things that are not ment to be annoying i am sure.

As I said, the players define the race. If a lot of stupid elves show up, and they all talk like the have wettened their pants, and as if they smoked sibanac round the clock, well hey, that would be the elves, because the players define them. (please please please do not make this reality)

I write with durin the way he would talk...

It's more interesting, and it's Role Playing.

Besides does it really matter?

My char is writing in "orcish runes" but speaking the humanlanguage, that's why she has a bad spelling.

What would you do Donal?

It's not bad spelling, it's butchering every single word that annoys me.

Role playing does not mean writing down things like 'Arr I like axes arr, pickaxe arr, arr!"

What matters is that it's like trying to read something a blind, mentally retarded monkey tried to write.

So don't read it if it bothers you... I mean, its not like your character would even be able to see or read the Bloodskull boards....

Orc speak is okay when in game, speaking with the character.

But it's annoying on the RPG forums. Who writes the exact same way they speak? I'm pretty sure Europeans don't write "zat" when they mean "that."

And who taught these genius orcs how to write?

But I digress.

Ok Orc speech.

Yes i will admit that the orc shamens which you write about could write in perfect common, and in many occasions they do when writing to the people of the towns, but when they write to thier own members of thier own guilds, why on earth would they give a monkeys to make thier speech more pleasing to the other races which may read it.

They write to thier own kind, and thier own kind understand, maybe it is like the shorthand of today, as the orcs can express many emotions through thier brief words which would take a large amount of words in the common tongue.

For example to answer to this thread an orc would write ' Damn oomies, hurr, let em think wot want yub '.

Question answered.

I write phonetically, I speak...well differently. I TRY to write pheonetically but it seems almost unreadable to a certain degree.

Shorthand? Holy shit, orcs are the Illarion equivalent of 12 year old AOLers!

See Donal the average orc players is more intelligent than yourself

And short hand is different to internet speech, it is a skill learned by administrators and other office workers about the world.

I dont know what you are complaining about really. It sounds as though you are lazy (like me) and you don't want to read it?

But its realy not bad...

Okay. This is a completely pointless topic. Do you accually think an orc knows what a verb or noun is?

Me write lika dis to bes more...mes be ORC, YUBBA!

Its just a way to keep things 'in character'. Also, it keeps the reader in the sense that an orc wrote it and such. Also, some of it can only be understood by orcs, although I have not yet attempted implying it just yet because I figured someone like you would post saying that it is annoying because you cannot understand what Vera was trying to say. So, I'll let you be annoyed. You honestly dont expect them (orcs) to write just like an elf, do you?
>> I don't. And I find that many things annoy you. I can only tell you to grin and bear it, because I'm definatly not changing years of my developing RP. And not to mention, half of the stuff the we say we've made up as well, and we're not going to throw it away.
Be creative.

P.O. Vera

It makes sense that, if an intelligent literate orc wants to write something that semi-literate orcs can read, for him to write phonetically as orcs are used to hearing and speaking. It is a lot easier to read phonetic languages than other ones. And the less educated orcs will copy the writing style that they can read.

To provide a real world example, English is a very hard to read language, and children in English speaking countries do not become literate at as young an age as in many other countries, where the education systems are comparable. The best example is Korean, because it is entirely phonetic. Anyone who can learn how to make the noises associated with each character can read Korean easily, even if they have no idea as to what the words mean. And South Korea has the worlds' highest literacy rate in young children.

So the most intelligent orcs have done a brilliant job of ensuring as much literacy as possible in a race which doesn't find such things easy, and should be congratulated.

However, if it is damaging the ability of people to interact with other characters (because of the language barriers) then it is a bad thing. One of the reasons I'm keen to learn a little more German is so I can start writing things as badly as Naybet does, but in both languages, so that anyone can attempt to figure out what he means if they want to. Until I can do that, I will continue to just post very rarely in character, or get other characters to help mine when he must write.

Misjbar wrote:Notice the word first in her post Donal. It is true what she says. It is just an indication that orcs cannot learn a language beyond the intellectual level of a 4 yearold

Thank you! I hate hearing this in the streets:

Orc:"Yub! Yoo stupid flower orc! Yub yub!"
Me: "What the hell? You just call me stupid? You cant pronouce 'Yes' and you call me stupid?"

I got killed that day.

Byron, this is something we call RP which, as your last thread in the RPG section shows, you don't know.

Byron wrote: Orc:"Yub! Yoo stupid flower orc! Yub yub!"
Me: "What the hell? You just call me stupid? You cant pronouce 'Yes' and you call me stupid?"

Not every orc can be an exception like you. Most of the orcs growed in orcish tribes up and not by humans. What about an example?
Do you speak german? No? Are you stupid? I don't know...

Orcs speak orcish and maybe a mutilated kind of humanlanguage.

Rackere Diplomatre wrote:Byron, this is something we call RP which, as your last thread in the RPG section shows, you don't know.

Naja, welcher Ork zieht auch schon seine Rüstung aus, wenn ein anderer Ork ihn zum Kampf auffordet...

Uzgâ wrote:Naja, welcher Ork zieht auch schon seine Rüstung aus, wenn ein anderer Ork ihn zum Kampf auffordet...

Ich find das clever. Erspart man sich die Zeit...