na Here, the ships wouldn't be of wood. They would only have the six remaining ships they brought with them (in fact, there would probably be 2 on their main "homeworld" and one on each of the other planets.
But anyway, what are your thoughts about it? (especially about the language read last big thread I posted)

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Pace
(haldora)
-- Cartman: I hate hippies! I mean, the way they always talk about "protectin' the earth" and then drive around in cars that get poor gas mileage and wear those stupid bracelets - I hate 'em! I wanna kick 'em in the nuts!

Quote

Originally posted by Pace (haldora):
Or then would it be better and more realistic that their tongue is really not that different from yours?

Language development is a tough matter to pin down, but generally a language that is isolated changes far less than the same language in an environment with a great deal of outside influences. For instance, there are some linguists who say that the rustics living in the Appalachian mountains speak a dialect of English closer to that of Shakespeare's day than is currently spoken in modern England, simply because people colonised over here and then became isolated.

As far as realism goes, 300 years is about the maximum that a modern speaker could communicate with someone from the past in a given language, and that with some difficulty. However, language process tends to crystalize as technology increases... the invention of mass printing did a great deal to create universal spellings, and recording technology and things like broadcast television are rapidly eliminating local accents. So it is not all that unlikely for two civilations with the same mother-tongue to be able to understand each other after 300 years, with perhaps some slight differences in semantics and accent.

What you could do is invent some reason why the colonists or the original civilization changed its language significantly. Some shift in the market economy that favored another language could do it in the latter, for instance, or a subtly different terrain or culture could do it in the former. Get creative. If you want help, I love this stuff.

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"Jelly Belly should be sued for contributing to the delinquency and
intellectual torpitude of the nation." (insert a link for the billboard)
What do you think? I need to either find a picture or take one yet...
Haha. You could be the Ralph Nader of the Intellectual World...

(This message has been edited by rebelswin_85 (edited 08-01-2004).)

I actually tried to invent my own language, grammar and all. It is/was REALLY hard to do correctly, and even harder to make it internally self-consistant (as in the language follows it's own rules). I wanted to translate some Tool songs to tattoo them down my legs! haha

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Drinking causes hangovers.
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Without wishing to be overcritical, where does the 300 year figure come from?

The great English vowel shift took place in the 15th century. Anybody speaking English from about 1490 should not have much linguistic trouble talking with someone from 2004. That's 514 years, and it's just English. If you want to try it for yourself, get hold of a copy of Malory's Morte D'Arthur (available free on an internet near you). Aside from the hundreds of words for bits of armour, it should be fairly simple to read it straight off. However, if you then compare it with Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight (helpfully provided for you in summary form earlier in this topic) you'll find that you can't read Gawayne straight off without considerable help. The difference is about 100 years.

Frisian and Dutch diverged before 500 AD. However, if you can speak Dutch you can kind of get the gist in Frisian.

I once spent an evening in Prague with a German engineer. He spoke no English or French, and I didn't speak any German. By doing our best I was able to get by in Germanified Dutch listening to his Dutchified German. German and Dutch diverged well before 500.

Modern Farřese is almost identical to Old Icelandic, although modern Icelandic isn't.

Back on the topic of simulating language change:

The most important factor influencing language change is bi-lingualism. If someone speaks two languages they will tend to pull words and structures from the one to the other. If you have an entire society which is bilingual - for example on the borders of Danelaw and Anglia in the 700s, the influence on language is profound, which is why English has knock, knee and swain. Likewise, the influence of Anglo-Norman brought mixed in many French words. Because the Anglo-Normans were the aristocracy, French words usually have a higher prestige in English. Hence, Pig is the animal, but when prepared for the table it becomes Pork. If it is cured and shipped from Spain (or just cured) it becomes Ham (from jamon). During the 1700s the literati who grew up with English but were also trained in Latin introduced many thousands of Latinisms into the language. Latinate words tend to be regarded as more intellectual than Anglo-Saxon words. On the other hand, although individual words (bungalow, cha) came into English from Britain's colonial period, the language wasn't fundamentally changed because there were relatively few native English speakers who also learned colonial languages.

Another key factor in language change is when a group of people tries to identify itself by contrast with another group. Labov in Socio-Linguistics did some really interesting work on this in Martha's Vineyard, where locals tried to identify themselves as a group against tourists.

If you're looking to do a plugin which uses language change, these might be good places to start.

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Waw. Thanks a lot, Martin!
To answer your first question, the three centuries are just a choice. I figured that even at that stage in the "future", since they only have their 7 ships (6 one hundred years later) and were not prepared for such an event (because they were still going south through Auroran space when the event in question happened, and they were still planning on a few stops before really beginning the exploration southwards), they wouldn't have enough equipment to start building fully equipped spaceport and base. So it would take them a few hundred years to get used to the place and to its resources (but since it was an exploration team, they had learned people and scientists on board, so it didn't take them millenia). That's where the "317" comes from (17 just to make it a non-round number ).

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Pace
(haldora)
-- Cartman: I hate hippies! I mean, the way they always talk about "protectin' the earth" and then drive around in cars that get poor gas mileage and wear those stupid bracelets - I hate 'em! I wanna kick 'em in the nuts!

Quote

Originally posted by Martin Turner:
Without wishing to be overcritical, where does the 300 year figure come from?

I will take English, as it is the case with which I am most familiar, with some other instances as I know them.

Firstly, I was speaking of the progression of languages to the current date, from three hundred years ago. I realize that languages change with differing speeds dependant upon differing circumstances, however people are most familiar with recent history so it would be best to restrict ourselves to changes within that period and what influenced them. There are also modern factors that are more relevant to the discussion of a future or more-advanced society; for instance, I believe the outlook is better in many other nations but in America there is a growing sort of illiteracy, or at the least a dislike for reading, especially ignoring the great books of the past. Therefor it is possible that an American might be less able to understand M. Malory than a better-educated British denizen, or even, sad thought it might be, a bilingual French native.

Also, I think you are confusing the ability to read a language and the ability to communicate effectively in it. It is true that, with little training (and frequent reference to a glossary), I can read Chaucer. I presume, however, that you are familiar with Middle English pronunciation? That compounded with the difference in grammar and semantics would make it quite difficult, though admittedly not impossible, to understand a native speaker. And this is you or me. Assume that a more average Joe from the proverbial street, with no special interest or experience with language, were to encounter the same native Middle English person. I believe he would find it even more difficult. I remember someone on the B&B; board complaining that Edith Wharton's writing was too difficult for him to bother reading, and she wrote around the turn of the last century! While surely this stemmed more from a disinclination than an actual inability, it still shows what difficulty there can be in understanding a person from another era.

I'm not familiar with the Germanic languages, as I'm more of a Romance person. I have heard it said that the average French reader would find some challenge in reading the literature of the early 1700's, and going further back would be increasingly difficult.

I will admit that I'm not any sort of expert on this, only an interested amature. And an emerging one at that. I only know what I have been able to read and understand through my own studies.

Getting back to the plug: the main reason I used 300 years (I could have saved myself alot of trouble this way, but then we wouldn't've had this fascinating conversation) was because he specified that the civilizations had been separated by 300 years, therefor I thought it would be convenient to illustrate using that as an example. (post script: This is going to look amusing when I post right after Pace... anyone note the irony here?)

------------------

"Jelly Belly should be sued for contributing to the delinquency and
intellectual torpitude of the nation." (insert a link for the billboard)
What do you think? I need to either find a picture or take one yet...
Haha. You could be the Ralph Nader of the Intellectual World...

Plug-inien kääntäminen eri kielille on hieno idea. En ole edes miettinyt sitä ennen. Minä haluasin että sinä kääntäisit plug-inisi suomeksi. Tiedän että Suomea puhuu vain viisi miljoonaa, mutta hei, erikoisempiakin kieliä ehdottettin, kuten muinaisegyptiä ja turkkia.

I just felt being silly like Entaurus and Zacha Pedro, who made their posts in French and Dutch instead of English. Finnish is my mother tongue, so I thought I would make a joke in that language. What it says is: Translating plug-ins to different languages is a great idea. I havent even thought of that before. I know that only five million speak Finnish, but hey, odder languages have been suggested, like ancient egyptian and turkish. If learning Finnish is not too overwhelming (it is said to be a hard language to learn), I would really like if you could make a plug in Finnish. Then I could understand ALL mission texts have, like English phrases and word choices. Now I understand English well, but dont know what some words or phrases mean.

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I am eager to try to answer mission questions
"There is nothing certain but and taxes"- Benjamin Franklin

Oh well, being as we seem to have got into this discussion, we might as well pin it down.

(quote)Originally posted by rebelswin_85:
**(QUOTE)Originally posted by Martin Turner:
Without wishing to be overcritical, where does the 300 year figure come from?
I will take English, as it is the case with which I am most familiar, with some other instances as I know them.

Firstly, I was speaking of the progression of languages to the current date, from three hundred years ago. I realize that languages change with differing speeds dependant upon differing circumstances, however people are most familiar with recent history so it would be best to restrict ourselves to changes within that period and what influenced them. There are also modern factors that are more relevant to the discussion of a future or more-advanced society; for instance, I believe the outlook is better in many other nations but in America there is a growing sort of illiteracy, or at the least a dislike for reading, especially ignoring the great books of the past. Therefor it is possible that an American might be less able to understand M. Malory than a better-educated British denizen, or even, sad thought it might be, a bilingual French native.

Also, I think you are confusing the ability to read a language and the ability to communicate effectively in it. It is true that, with little training (and frequent reference to a glossary), I can read Chaucer. I presume, however, that you are familiar with Middle English pronunciation? That compounded with the difference in grammar and semantics would make it quite difficult, though admittedly not impossible, to understand a native speaker. And this is you or me. Assume that a more average Joe from the proverbial street, with no special interest or experience with language, were to encounter the same native Middle English person. I believe he would find it even more difficult. I remember someone on the B&B; board complaining that Edith Wharton's writing was too difficult for him to bother reading, and she wrote around the turn of the last century! While surely this stemmed more from a disinclination than an actual inability, it still shows what difficulty there can be in understanding a person from another era.

I'm not familiar with the Germanic languages, as I'm more of a Romance person. I have heard it said that the average French reader would find some challenge in reading the literature of the early 1700's, and going further back would be increasingly difficult.

I will admit that I'm not any sort of expert on this, only an interested amature. And an emerging one at that. I only know what I have been able to read and understand through my own studies.

Getting back to the plug: the main reason I used 300 years (I could have saved myself alot of trouble this way, but then we wouldn't've had this fascinating conversation) was because he specified that the civilizations had been separated by 300 years, therefor I thought it would be convenient to illustrate using that as an example. (post script: This is going to look amusing when I post right after Pace... anyone note the irony here?)

**(/quote)

Chaucer = 1390 = before the Great English Vowel shift = Middle English and therefore essentially incomprehensible to most modern people. Malory = 1490 = after the Great English Vowel shift = Early Modern English and therefore essentially comprehensible to most modern people. It's actually a lot easier to communicate with someone face to face than to understand them from their writings. I have colleagues in the next room who are perfectly lucid face to face but who write incomprehensible gunk. On the other hand, there are millions of people across the world who still read the King James Bible everyday, even though most of it was penned by William Tyndale in the 1570s.

As an example of the difference between Late Middle English (LME) and Early Modern English (ENE), here is the beginning of Genesis in John Wyclif's 1390s translation and in William Tyndale's 1570s:

John Wyclif:
1 In the bigynnyng God made of nouyt heuene and erthe. 2 Forsothe the erthe was idel and voide, and derknessis weren on the face of depthe; and the Spiryt of the Lord was borun on the watris. 3 And God seide, Liyt be maad, and liyt was maad. 4 And God seiy the liyt, that it was good, and he departide the liyt fro derknessis; and he clepide the liyt, 5 dai, and the derknessis, nyyt. And the euentid and morwetid was maad, o daie.

William Tyndale
1 1 In the begynnynge God created heaven and erth. 2 The erth was voyde and emptie and darcknesse was vpon the depe and the spirite of God moved vpon the water 3 Than God sayd: let there be lyghte and there was lyghte. 4 And God sawe the lyghte that it was good: and devyded the lyghte from the darcknesse 5 and called the lyghte daye and the darcknesse nyghte: and so of the evenynge and mornynge was made the fyrst daye.

If you leave aside the spelling which hadn't settled down at the time, and which wouldn't affect the pronunciation, Tyndale's is basically modern English. There are no words that we don't use now, and there is no syntax which we don't recognise today, although the final phrase would now be considered archaic or dialect. The Wyclif, on the other hand, contains words we don't have now, such as "clepide" (named), strong verb endings such as "borun", and syntax which is no longer in use, even as archaism: "Liyt be maad".

As it happens, we still have a very wide variation of syntax and vocabulary in UK dialects, some of which are more distant from standard modern English than William Tyndale's writing are.

Of course, the Wyclif is still more or less readable, though you would probably struggle with the less well known passages. Compare with something like Sawles Warde, from 1240, and it becomes a question of translation or learning a different language: Ure Lauerd i ţe godspel teacheđ us ţurh a bisne hu we ahen wearliche to biwiten us seoluen wiđ ţe unwiht of helle ant wiđ his wernches. (Our Lord in the gospel teaches us through a parable how we should warily prepare ourselves against the evil one of Hell and against his stratagems).

Back on topic - 300 years would be a fairly short time for a language to evolve if it were left on its own, but a language can change rapidly if it is in contact with other languages - consider the case of Afrikaans which is not much more than a century divergent from Dutch, and yet is reaching the point where mutal communication is as difficult as between Dutch and Frisian, which are separated by 1500 years. This is as a result of the influence of English and of various African languages (So there, Bokkie!).

Another interesting factor of language contact is the creation of new languages. Esperanto has never really worked because it's an unnatural attempt by a lot of clever people to create an international language. But Lingala in north central Africa, and Creole in the Caribbean are trade languages which are genuine mixtures from a variety of sources.

If, then, you made your colonists descendents of more than one linguistic group who were all lumped together, then you could have an entirely new language formed within fifty years, although it would still show elements of the origin languages. As a rule, creole's are grammatically relaxed and but can have highly sophisticated vocabularies.

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(This message has been edited by Martin Turner (edited 08-01-2004).)

To come back to the "317 years" question, I just re-read the nova preamble 1 file, and in fact, it's pretty stupid to have the exploration leave at that point. In fact, it would make it happen in 860 NC, 16 years before Earth scientists build their first hyperspace capable spacecraft in over 200 years
So in fact, scanning through the data provided in the preamble, a few possibilities come up: either the exploration team leaves after the Vell-Os War but before Vanadian Aurora declares the Auroran Independence (so between 555 and 610 NC) or during the period of truce between the First Auroran Civil War and the second Auroran war (between 989 and 1024) or then after the Federation "incident" in Polaris territory and before the Second Auroran Civil War (between 1121 and 1137).
What do you guys think would be the best bet?

I just have one other note: if it's before the Auroran Independence, then the ships would be totally different and really rusty. Any idea what the design might look like?

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Pace
(haldora)
-- Cartman: I hate hippies! I mean, the way they always talk about "protectin' the earth" and then drive around in cars that get poor gas mileage and wear those stupid bracelets - I hate 'em! I wanna kick 'em in the nuts!

Just thinking about this again. If you want to maximise the benefits of using language shift creatively, one of the best things to do is to introduce either a simple sound shift or changes to particular words. By doing this you can keep a key piece of information from the player while dangling it in front of their eyes the whole time.

I'm just watching an episode of Sliders where we hear about the 'Janeers' (or that's what it sounds like). The Janeers tell you not to dig the earth. A little later we hear that the Janeers made the world. At first it seemed like they must be some kind of priesthood, but then it turns out that the planet is at least partly hollow and the underground is full of machinary. Of course, Janeers is a corrupted form of 'Engineers', but it works very well for setting the atmosphere. (Actually I've just now got to the bit where the professor explains all this, for any one who wasn't paying attention).

In one of the Tom Baker Dr Who series, called 'The Face of Evil', the Doctor lands on a planet where a tribe called the Sevateem live in fear of the Tesh. Some of the relics that the Sevateem hold sacred are clearly from a long ago spaceship. It's only as we reach the (rather good) climax that we discover that the Survey Team set out from the ship while the Technician remained on board.

In a later, and rather poorer, Sylvester McCoy series, the Kangs roam the Carridors, keeping out of the way of the Rezzies. This one is just window dressing to show that they've been stuck there for a long time, and there isn't really any concealment.

Years and years after studying Beowulf at university, I worked out about eight weeks ago that Geats of Beowulf are actually the Goths. I was quite proud of myself, although I expect everybody else spotted it years ago. The sound shift is an obvious one - West Germanic long O becomes Old English EA in particular circumstances - eg, Dutch Boon = English Bean. I suppose what confused me was the 'th'. But no other West Germanic language has 'th', and the Goths in Gothic are simply Goten.

Doing a sound shift would be much more fun to do than creating a language. For example, you could decide to move all the vowel sounds one vowel along (to do it properly you have to do it by sound, not by spelling), so that 'a' became 'e', 'e' became 'i', etc. That would be a bit easy to figure out, but if you added a couple of consonant shifts, such as moving sounds backwards in the mouth, you could make 'd' into 'g', 'g' into 'r', 't' into 'k' etc.

'I walked the dog' would become 'O welq'g ch gur'. Obviously this would be nonsense the first time the player heard it, but if you allowed them to discover the sound-shifts then they would be able to read whole swathes of text, but it would be like reading in a language you kind of understand but not quite.

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