For a few races, there is an accepted alphabet and maybe even a limited translation available. The Thieves Cant (from the old Dragon Magazine) has even been faithfully reproduced online. As more races become available as PC races, having a resource available for the associated languages would be useful. Does anyone know of any such resource?
Why would it be useful? You're still going to have to translate everything for 99% of your players, might as well just say it in whatever your regular language is the first time.
Why would it be useful? You're still going to have to translate everything for 99% of your players, might as well just say it in whatever your regular language is the first time.
It can be fun for the players who don't read a language to have a prop to interact with. I do this all the time; none of my players speak dwarven so I'll write notes in dwarven font to give to them. When they do figure it out, usually when the bard casts comprehend language, I give just that player the english message. Then they have to relay it to the party.
For a few races, there is an accepted alphabet and maybe even a limited translation available. The Thieves Cant (from the old Dragon Magazine) has even been faithfully reproduced online. As more races become available as PC races, having a resource available for the associated languages would be useful. Does anyone know of any such resource?
There are some fonts out there, some official but dated, others unofficial, for various languages. Thieves Cant is a little more complex because it's not an alphabet or even a language in the traditional sense, but more of a code. I'd recommend Dael Kingsmill's video on the subject
I have to go with Davedamon regarding thieves cant. From what I've read in the 5e PHB, the words and grammar are mostly from existing languages. (Exceptions always exist.) The comprehension is largely based on inferred meanings with creative use of the existing languages. To the average, untrained listener of the borrowed language, it will sound like a lot of harmless colloquialism when the speakers could be meticulously coordinating a plot across the city to slaughter the city's entire royalty.
It's really hiding in plain sight as one would expect of thieves. A distinct language will be spotted immediately, very un-roguish.
EDIT: Imagine this scenario:
Character 1: (tries to speak Thieves' Cant to someone and does poorly) Character 2: (looking around) "I think there isn't a town where I didn't own a home at least once." [Mate, I speak Thieves' Cant better than you.] Character 1: (plainly) "You speak Thieves' Cant?" Character 2: (rubbing temple, looking confused, directly at Character 1) "What are you on about?" [You better pick your next words very carefully.]
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
You guys missed something. I used Thieves Cant as an example. (actually own the old Dragon Magazine and did link the website where the "dictionary" has been recreated)
Was thinking since many of the original languages (including Thieves Cant) have, at least partial, dictionaries/conversions/etc. if anyone knew of a resource where some of the newer races had their languages represented.
Infernal is a devil's language and is very likely a precise language given the pitfalls of loose interpretations with devils. When written, I suspect that it looks ritualistic where the whole context has a specific meaning, including position, angle, distance, and all kinds of meticulous rules. I don't think letters alone will be enough, and I highly doubt that someone would be able to come with anything accurate to fit the legalese of basic Infernal. I would just make something up that has a ritualistic appearance.
Deep Speech is more likely reliant on speech than writing. I suspect any writing would have to be large and bold and likely using borrowed alphabets. Given low-light, a lot more expression probably goes into the speech itself or including other non-visual traits of communicating and possibly including some nearly-subconscious level of telepathy. The same word with different non-visual cues and with different verbal cues could mean vastly different things. A written language to be shared among others would be poor at conveying such nuances.
EDIT: Trying to think on Abyssal and I can't seem to narrow down how that would work. I can't imagine anyone agreeing on a language that would give anyone else an edge over them. If anything, I think standard Abyssal would be a basic language with anything beyond that being highly localized to specific planes and beings. I suspect that someone knowing Abyssal can merely get the gist of a statement, written or spoken. I think this one might have a plain alphabet and simple grammar for common communication.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
Here is an interesting phenomenon … Many native American tribes didn't share a vocal language but developed a sign language that crossed their cultural barriers. Two natives of different tribes could communicate in sign but couldn't communicate in vocalizations. The sign language lacked grammar or other formal language constructions so the practitioners had to interpret the meanings of the signs a bit. It sounds to me a bit like thieves cant may have been practiced with certain rules but because you attempted to sound like you were talking about one thing you were actually speaking of something else. This sounds a little like the interpreting part of the Indian Sign.
As a brief example, one Native might sign, Question - You - Tent (tipi), which would be interpreted "where is your home?" The answer might be, I - Sit - Here. Translation, "I live here."
Why would it be useful? You're still going to have to translate everything for 99% of your players, might as well just say it in whatever your regular language is the first time.
Why would Tolkien have bothered to create Elvish if he didn't think it had value? The same thing could be said for Klingon or Dothraki. The richness of any particular language emerges via its colloquialisms and idioms. There are always words in one language that cannot be easily correlated with another single word in another. Having a way to communicate this to your players is a good exercise in building a believable world.
Then, I think the question becomes: How far do you think you need to go with a fictional language for your campaigns?
If the language is meant to be incomprehensible to the group, the language doesn't actually have to mean anything. If you expect some of the group to figure out parts of the messages, I suggest gauging how well they'll be able to pick out things in the language (and one DM I know suggests taking that estimate and cut it in half).
Will it just be a replacement alphabet for Common? Will it be Common with encoded messages? Will it have lexemes that are different from Common (like the "noun adjective" format of Romance languages, or pictographic with "subject object verb" formats and written up-to-down then right-to-left, or the lack of a specific, single, direct translation for "to be" as in Klingon and in Gaeilge [a real-world language where you throw out half of the letters and pronounce the remaining letters differently than written and add useless letters when certain vowel/consonant configurations arise between words😜])?
EDIT: You can get really complicated or you can do enough to tell the story. It is my opinion that the latter is more important.
As for online resources, there are many in various flavors going from complex to just word-replacement using a different alphabet. You'll have your pick of how deep you want your Deep Speech and such. None of it is really official and much of them have no real world analogue for comparison (unlike Thieves' Cant or Common).
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
Well, the great thing about living in the age of the Internet and public libraries, is that we technically don't even have to work very much to instill a sense of "otherness" and particularity into the worlds we create via language as there already exist hundreds. If the real world analogue to Common is English, would it be break the immersion too much if Infernal were Gaelic and Goblin were Swedish?
For a few races, there is an accepted alphabet and maybe even a limited translation available. The Thieves Cant (from the old Dragon Magazine) has even been faithfully reproduced online. As more races become available as PC races, having a resource available for the associated languages would be useful. Does anyone know of any such resource?
Why would it be useful? You're still going to have to translate everything for 99% of your players, might as well just say it in whatever your regular language is the first time.
You assume incorrectly. I ask from a player RP perspective, not a DM perspective. Some items have zero functional purpose, but have RP value.
It can be fun for the players who don't read a language to have a prop to interact with. I do this all the time; none of my players speak dwarven so I'll write notes in dwarven font to give to them. When they do figure it out, usually when the bard casts comprehend language, I give just that player the english message. Then they have to relay it to the party.
There are some fonts out there, some official but dated, others unofficial, for various languages. Thieves Cant is a little more complex because it's not an alphabet or even a language in the traditional sense, but more of a code. I'd recommend Dael Kingsmill's video on the subject
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I have to go with Davedamon regarding thieves cant. From what I've read in the 5e PHB, the words and grammar are mostly from existing languages. (Exceptions always exist.) The comprehension is largely based on inferred meanings with creative use of the existing languages. To the average, untrained listener of the borrowed language, it will sound like a lot of harmless colloquialism when the speakers could be meticulously coordinating a plot across the city to slaughter the city's entire royalty.
It's really hiding in plain sight as one would expect of thieves. A distinct language will be spotted immediately, very un-roguish.
EDIT: Imagine this scenario:
Character 1: (tries to speak Thieves' Cant to someone and does poorly)
Character 2: (looking around) "I think there isn't a town where I didn't own a home at least once." [Mate, I speak Thieves' Cant better than you.]
Character 1: (plainly) "You speak Thieves' Cant?"
Character 2: (rubbing temple, looking confused, directly at Character 1) "What are you on about?" [You better pick your next words very carefully.]
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
You guys missed something. I used Thieves Cant as an example. (actually own the old Dragon Magazine and did link the website where the "dictionary" has been recreated)
Was thinking since many of the original languages (including Thieves Cant) have, at least partial, dictionaries/conversions/etc. if anyone knew of a resource where some of the newer races had their languages represented.
Infernal is a devil's language and is very likely a precise language given the pitfalls of loose interpretations with devils. When written, I suspect that it looks ritualistic where the whole context has a specific meaning, including position, angle, distance, and all kinds of meticulous rules. I don't think letters alone will be enough, and I highly doubt that someone would be able to come with anything accurate to fit the legalese of basic Infernal. I would just make something up that has a ritualistic appearance.
Deep Speech is more likely reliant on speech than writing. I suspect any writing would have to be large and bold and likely using borrowed alphabets. Given low-light, a lot more expression probably goes into the speech itself or including other non-visual traits of communicating and possibly including some nearly-subconscious level of telepathy. The same word with different non-visual cues and with different verbal cues could mean vastly different things. A written language to be shared among others would be poor at conveying such nuances.
EDIT: Trying to think on Abyssal and I can't seem to narrow down how that would work. I can't imagine anyone agreeing on a language that would give anyone else an edge over them. If anything, I think standard Abyssal would be a basic language with anything beyond that being highly localized to specific planes and beings. I suspect that someone knowing Abyssal can merely get the gist of a statement, written or spoken. I think this one might have a plain alphabet and simple grammar for common communication.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
Here is an interesting phenomenon … Many native American tribes didn't share a vocal language but developed a sign language that crossed their cultural barriers. Two natives of different tribes could communicate in sign but couldn't communicate in vocalizations. The sign language lacked grammar or other formal language constructions so the practitioners had to interpret the meanings of the signs a bit. It sounds to me a bit like thieves cant may have been practiced with certain rules but because you attempted to sound like you were talking about one thing you were actually speaking of something else. This sounds a little like the interpreting part of the Indian Sign.
As a brief example, one Native might sign, Question - You - Tent (tipi), which would be interpreted "where is your home?" The answer might be, I - Sit - Here. Translation, "I live here."
Why would Tolkien have bothered to create Elvish if he didn't think it had value? The same thing could be said for Klingon or Dothraki. The richness of any particular language emerges via its colloquialisms and idioms. There are always words in one language that cannot be easily correlated with another single word in another. Having a way to communicate this to your players is a good exercise in building a believable world.
Then, I think the question becomes: How far do you think you need to go with a fictional language for your campaigns?
If the language is meant to be incomprehensible to the group, the language doesn't actually have to mean anything. If you expect some of the group to figure out parts of the messages, I suggest gauging how well they'll be able to pick out things in the language (and one DM I know suggests taking that estimate and cut it in half).
Will it just be a replacement alphabet for Common? Will it be Common with encoded messages? Will it have lexemes that are different from Common (like the "noun adjective" format of Romance languages, or pictographic with "subject object verb" formats and written up-to-down then right-to-left, or the lack of a specific, single, direct translation for "to be" as in Klingon and in Gaeilge [a real-world language where you throw out half of the letters and pronounce the remaining letters differently than written and add useless letters when certain vowel/consonant configurations arise between words😜])?
EDIT: You can get really complicated or you can do enough to tell the story. It is my opinion that the latter is more important.
As for online resources, there are many in various flavors going from complex to just word-replacement using a different alphabet. You'll have your pick of how deep you want your Deep Speech and such. None of it is really official and much of them have no real world analogue for comparison (unlike Thieves' Cant or Common).
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
Well, the great thing about living in the age of the Internet and public libraries, is that we technically don't even have to work very much to instill a sense of "otherness" and particularity into the worlds we create via language as there already exist hundreds. If the real world analogue to Common is English, would it be break the immersion too much if Infernal were Gaelic and Goblin were Swedish?
*Sews another patch onto girl scout sash while cackling with glee.*