”so X can understand me” X being a friend, lover, husband, pet dog
"so X can understand me" X being a friend, lover, husband, pet dogis not a valid reason. Yeah, sure you can both speak common to each other but .. but .. to be able to speak your friend's, your lover's, your husband's native tongue is another way to share between two people, another way to deepen a bond, another way to understand, to increase the area of intersection (to borrow from lonn's gnomish example) between two friends, lovers, husbands. ie. they don't teach you elven so you can understand their language, they teach you elven so that you can understand them.
Seriously though, elves teach everybody their language because its so cute to listen to the lesser ape-beings stumble through the consenants, butchering the context of the message. The human thinks he's asking for more wine, but he's really saying "put a cork in me, I have bubbles" at the dinner table.
... and began learning the fundamentals of elven almost six decades ago and the actual speaking of it for four, and she still always has more to learn.
Even if a human spent 50 years trying to master the nuances and bylaws of elven grammar, he'd have just mastered it to the extent of a 8-year old child, in elven society.
Regarding the last post, many are actually usually offended at attempts to speak their language, because the majority of non-elves murder it compared to native speakers, and they are a race that loves beauty as a part of life. Whenever I approve or stand behind an approval of elven and it has been a relatively...human amount of time, I generally make it a point to say that they are still learning and are not the equal of native speakers, but rather speak a surface elven. Elves have centuries to speak it, and generations of centuries for it to evolve - Acacea has always been very good with picking up on means of communication and began learning the fundamentals of elven almost six decades ago and the actual speaking of it for four, and she still always has more to learn.
She is very good with it because she's good at catching inflection and differences in tone, but even fluently speaks different from say, a wood elf. In her case, the difference is not a poor accent or hillbilly grasp of words, but just that particular inflections reflect the very different people who taught her. So not a 'halfling' accent, but rather... a wood elven accent, a sun elven accent, a wild elven accent, Voltrexian, Dregarian, etc. Not mangled, just very subtle differences in inflection or pronunciation depending on what she is saying.
The elves got around the whole refusing to speak Common thing by simply not allowing other people on their Island, ever, save for extraordinary circumstances (which would usually involve an elven speaker in the first place). There! That took care of that problem. I expect that the loosening of the restricted travel has created a period of transition for the elves, as now humans and dwarves can visit the elven isle and speak not a word of their language. Not really wise to do so, but they will do it anyway. Teach more elven and debase the language, or debase themselves and speak more Common? ;) Those who embrace the latter will probably find more business opportunities, at the least, but before it was opened there was no reason for everyone to speak it on Voltrex, which is their equivalent of the home nation, hehe.
Even very young and very friendly human-loving elves may refuse the teaching, laughing and slapping their human companion on the shoulder and telling them not to murder his mother's tongue with their poor human mouth. Can you teach a pig to dance in a month, friend? No more can I teach you in a mere twenty turns what I have spoken since your grandmother was a twinkle in your ancestor's eye!* And then the human would train a pig in secret and gift it to the elf in a month's time and show him how it danced, and the elf would laugh and say "But can you teach the bear to sing?..." and thus would begin the road to laughing acquiescence... or something. :P What is the fun of the easy way, anyway?
I think it's impossible to properly represent the amount of time it should take to really speak the elven language well, because who wants a requirement that is a RL year or more? So there is probably a middle line somewhere, of making it less ridiculously easy, but still achievable without effort of herculean proportions. It would most likely just involve a slight increase of effort required for the language, a more conscious approach with players of elven characters in to whom they choose to bestow the gift of their language (because that is what it is), and a general understanding that it will take even longer still to really be considered a fluent speaker.
*Many elves can be charming and friendly and beautiful, alluring until they make some comment about you having your great grand mother's eyes. Then they are just queer and most shorter lived races never quite get over the time issue, friendship or no... indeed, friendship makes it even harder, as does love, since it will pass so soon for the elves. One who loves the short lived races too well only receives the dubious gift of watching small, bright lives burn and flicker out in what is only a passing of a season to him, over and over again. For some, it is worth it... for most... not so. More likely, or less, to teach their mother tongue and hear it from their lips only a scant few years before it is gone?
It seems these two points give some insight into the amount of effort required to teach and to learn elven (elvish/elfish/elfen). Something to ponder/consider/bare in mind...
Regards,
Script Wrecked.
Actually these statements are far from being accurate or even remotely in line with D&D or LORE within Layo.
I'm interested to see this clarification too!
A bit of googling shows a lot of (nerdy) people have been able to grasp Tolkien's elvish language - Quenya (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvish_languages) - in about 6-12 months or so. Maybe there has been something that indicates Layo-elvish is considerably more complex? *waits for Ed*
As long as this thread stays civil, I'm very much looking forward to the commentary to come. Both Acacea and Drizzlin hold up valuable points that pertain to the races. I'm personally all for empowering the short-lived but tenacious humans, yet I must concede that a race with the heritage of the Elves could create a language far more complicated and nuanced than any language we could conceive on this earth. Of course, then we get into "used" and classic versions of such a language, which would mean that the common elf doesn't actually access the full extent of the language, especially not when spoken. OR maybe every elf always uses the full extent of the language. Maybe they don't ever par it down. More things to ponder until L or Ed gives the final word.
a race with the heritage of the Elves could create a language far more complicated and nuanced than any language we could conceive on this earth.
*was hanging out for ycleption to contribute* :)
According to Bill Bryson's book 'Mother Tongue', English has about 200,000 words in common use, German 180,000 and the Latin languages (Spanish, French and Italian) 100,000-120,000.
The simple reason that English has so many words is that it is very much a mongrel language, with influences from Celtic, Latin, Danish, German and French (among others). Maybe, just maybe, despite the long history of the elves, given how aloof and generally isolationist they are, they in fact have the smallest vocabulary? Granted number of words in common usage doesn't exactly correlate to how hard it is to learn but it seems logical there is some relationship?
It seems you have your mind made up on the way something as simple as a language should be, rather than the facts on exactly how easy it is to learn a language.
The simple reason that English has so many words is that it is very much a mongrel language, with influences from Celtic, Latin, Danish, German and French (among others). Maybe, just maybe, despite the long history of the elves, given how aloof and generally isolationist they are, they in fact have the smallest vocabulary? Granted number of words in common usage doesn't exactly correlate to how hard it is to learn but it seems logical there is some relationship?
What makes English so complicated is the meaning for each word as well as the complete lack of any logical use.
Aside from the words that have the same spelling but can mean different things depending on how they're pronounced or the context they're in, English is one of the harder languages because of the extreme use of idiom. Due to the wide usage of the language, the fact that it has absorbed so many cultures, and that modern English grammer has been hacked apart to simplify things (to make it a trade language), the language has become loaded with words and phrases that literally mean one thing, but are commonly used to refer to an entirely different meaning. For example, the phrase, "What's up?" means hello to most English speakers, though the literal translation is obviously different.
So when someone starts to learn English, not only do they have to learn the literal translations, they have to learn the common idioms, and then hope that they can maneuver any local idioms they encounter. While idiom exists in every language, English is notorious for containing far more idioms than any other language.
Driz you bring up a very good point about the fast learning capabilities of humans. And that should be kept in mind as it is one of the advantages of being human. But for me that brings up a deeper issue that may be at the heart of this discussion. Every race played on layo has to live with its pros and cons every race that is besides humans. Humans on Layo enjoy a very special place, you see they get all the racal benefits but get to ignore the one major drawback of the race, aging. We have addressed this before and the party line is that we wont force players to age out their PCs. So in effect we have removed the one major drawback/con of playing a human PC without balancing that out by removing any of the pros of being human such as quick to learn (which is a effect of having a short life span). Now you add to that the learning of other languages that are one of the benefits of playing non-humans and now you are giving humans even more pros without any cons.
Yes, your point is true, but that really has more to do with English orthography than the actual language. Although to a certain extent it reflects the various influences of English, remember that standardized spelling is a relatively recent invention. English certainly has a lot of inconsistencies, (don't get me started on preposition use) that undoubtedly affect the difficulty people have learning the language, I'm just not sure that the one you cite is a good example within this discussion.
Despite this, the elven language was always represented to me as something not so much complicated like quantum physics, but rather deep and with multiple shades of meaning that were considered difficult for other races to grasp in a short time. I disagree with the statement that fifty years spent for a human is the equivalent to speaking like an eight year old and think it is overcomplicating it... the statements I made were more akin to the common fact of "there is always more to learn."
I disagree with the statement that fifty years spent for a human is the equivalent to speaking like an eight year old and think it is overcomplicating it...
Moving on, there's a very HUGE difference between learning to speak a language with competence and gaining mastery over said language. The former can be done, with persistent instruction, in a few years (less, depending on the immersion level/intensity), while the latter takes many, many times longer. What is mastery? Perfect inflection, grammar and a very deep knowledge and level of precision with a given language. Even native speakers will struggle at this.
I firmly believe the "line" for approving ears should be the former. Characters don't need to show mastery, only competence, to gain an ear. The length of time that takes depends on the language.
I could go on, but I won't. Point is, just don't go seeking after a language for the cool factor. Like everything else, it should be an IC and justified pursuit. Likewise, those teaching the language should have a similar motivation to doing so.
I made the mistake of adding my personal disagreement with the mental eight year old thing to illustrate that I stood somewhere between the crowd waving the "it's just like any other language or even simpler" flag, and the one saying "elves learn it in centuries so a human will never be more than a ten year old." To the former I would personally say that elven is not a normal mundane language in the way that someone learns German or Spanish or Japanese and do we have to grind everything down to real life terms all the time when we are talking magical species 'cause even when you point to book languages they're still written by humans and is it really more fun to just make human equivalents only centuries ahead?*
**I will also begin flagging*** to show when comments are made in seriousness.
*** (WTB flag.)[/SIZE][/CENTER]
Following from that, it explains why I am still a bit baffled by the sort of slew of responses towards pretty much every comment I make, despite the context or explanations... I guess it's the difference in competence and mastery, as I failed english and perhaps just can't make myself very clear (or maybe they are worth the full responses! I just feel very lazy about my replying and so every time I get one it's like "oh, hey...yo... what?").
If every single one of your posts was really just to deny the possibility that it is more challenging than most others because of its unique nature, which was brought up in a side comment in addressing all the other things that you do agree with, wow. I think I may bow out! ;)
I just don't like the driving force behind the argument - that everything must be how it is here. Not that real life is boring - it is the more interesting of the two by far - but Layonara is not real.
Considering elven is close in origins if not a derivative of one of those, I would generally assume that saying "it is a challenging language for most human minds to take on, but let's not make the requirements much stricter and just be conscious of its nature" seemed like...not that big of a deal nor out of the realm of possibility.
Regarding the internal structure, you would actually think that a cut up elf would look a lot different from a cut up human because of the difference in creators, if that story is true... Not that the basic principle of a functioning structure does not apply, but still, different. I don't think they are any different here in Layo, but you would think, I mean! Unless they shared notes, or if one ever ascends to a creator race there ends up being a specific formula which one must follow to have their race function. Which would make sense. It is also not that surprising that elves and humans shouldn't be able to mate...
Thanks for your comments, I understand the idea even if I disagree with the extent to which they should apply. They just seemed a bit... I dunno. Driven with full effort against a vague neutrality vote. Best I can do now is just go, "Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep." to most of the points quoted back at me, and then say, "So?" at the end. :P
Regarding the internal structure, you would actually think that a cut up elf would look a lot different from a cut up human because of the difference in creators, if that story is true...
Not that the basic principle of a functioning structure does not apply, but still, different. I don't think they are any different here in Layo, but you would think, I mean! Unless they shared notes, or if one ever ascends to a creator race there ends up being a specific formula which one must follow to have their race function. Which would make sense.No comment here either!!
It is also not that surprising that elves and humans shouldn't be able to mate... what is surprising is that Aeridin had anything to do with their ability to do so, despite Prunilla being the fertility goddess (I guess she was too practical to see the merit in going out of her way to make orcs mothers of elven babies and such things... why do tall people over-complicate things all the time?) ... and why he bothered in the first place! :P
Isn't Harlas like 6' 8"? Explains a lot.
:)
Isn't Harlas like 6' 8"? Explains a lot.
:)
My hands shake as I simply pass on responding to this!!!
This is one of the main reasons I stepped in and really started a lot of this discussion. By saying a something is more challenging for a human to learn vs other races, you completely negate the very racial advantages of a human.
One comment here then: look at it as Aeridin putting a stop to it :)
Did somebody ever tell you guys that you all type too much? :)
Did somebody ever tell you guys that you all type too much? :)
What makes English so complicated is the meaning for each word as well as the complete lack of any logical use. I can't find the link but there is one that breaks things down. I will do my best below to try and show some of English's insane logic.
This is an old list from one of my language courses.
Can you pronounce the following without mistakes?
1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8. A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18. After a number of injections my jaw got number.
19) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
20) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
21) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
No other language in the world has such madness. This is what makes the English language so hard to grasp and even begin to master. It is also why native speakers can't even speak the language properly.
You could start a post on these things.
Cow vs Low
Rough vs Dough vs Cough
Two vs Too vs To
Their vs There
click and clique
I could go on and on. =P
have you tried to learn French?:p
Two years in Highschool. Simple language when compared to Japanese and English.
hehe :) it's my language I can tell you there is nothing simple about it. Even for me who was born in it with a teacher as mother.