[MUD-Dev] RP thesis...

[clawrenc at cup.hp.com]

In <Pine.LNX.3.96.970518085503.185B-100000 at mpc.dyn.ml.org>, on
05/18/97 
   at 09:07 AM, Matt Chatterley <root at mpc.dyn.ml.org> said:

>It could conceivably be thought of as dialects - for instance, in
>Germany, they all speak a basically similar language, but there are
>several quite different dialects. To a non-native-speaker, some
>dialects may be very different to the generalised form of the
>language (s)he learnt. Hmm, no, on second thoughts it's a tad more
>extreme than that.. but thats the general gist.

Take the current example of Greek.  Coverstaional Greek as used today
is one language.  The Greek used in newspapers, magazines, government,
and other officialdom, "High Greek" is a very different if related
language.  Both languages are known and used by Greeks as a matter of
course.

cf Heinleinian battle languages ala Dune.

cf Mandarin Chinese and Han Chinese.  

cf The chinese women's secret language (with its own secret writing
too) and the spoken Chinese.

Comment: Several chinese friends of mine, who grew up in China, report
that many villages have their own languages, which are seperated from
normal "Chinese" more than just a dialectal difference would account
for.  They really do function as seperate languages with distinct
grammars, words, and aliases.  Additionally the language is often
split into a female and male form (ie for use by each sex) with the
two being more different than similar tho both language are known by
both sexes.

>Everyone speaks one language with a degree of natural fluency, but
>also has a native tongue in which they really communicate.. hmm,
>still feels a bit artificial, but it's a workable situation. Perhaps
>one can take the standpoint that adventurers are especial, and were
>all educated to the point of speaking a common language (although, if
>you have such things as barbarians, it gets a touch far-fetched too).
>Interesting hurdle.

My temptation:

  Telepathy is language independant.  Model: thought transferance
relies on mental affinity, not direct "reading" or other transcribing. 
The awareness of another's thought is on the level of duplicating it
in one's own awareness.

  Speech is language dependant (duh).  Don't automate the language
used for speech at all.  Define a default speech language for each
player and then allow him to change that as he learns others.  This
requires a speaker to manually select a new language for a statement
if the recipent does not know the speaker's current default language. 
Auto-translate inbound speech if the language is known.
 
--
J C Lawrence                           Internet: claw at null.net
(Contractor)                           Internet: coder at ibm.net
---------------(*)               Internet: clawrenc at cup.hp.com
...Honorary Member Clan McFUD -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...