>Donald Oddy:
>> Neigbours rarely have widely varying dialects, it's travellers such
>> as merchants who find the language changes as they move round the
>> countryside.
>
>That is true for lands that have been settled for more than 300 years.
>Immigrant groups keep their native dialects, to the extent that the
>Siebenbuergen Germans of Romania spoke a Svabian dialect among
>themselves. Areas with mixed immigration groups will form some
>leveling over time, but peculiarities will remain within each clan.
True. I'd expect a big difference on or around the Sartar/Tarsh border. The only other split I can think of is clans with origins in Esrolia and those with origins in Heortland.
>Another factor are the clan ancestors, who may demand certain archaic
>forms of address specific to their dialect. Lose the dialect, and you
>are about to lose clan identity. (Something found in modern regions, too.)
>
>However, with the wives (keepers of linguistic education, and
>application) coming from external clans, isolated dialects require
>more than one clan to maintain it, and regular intermarriage rules.
I think this is one reason dialects will vary between tribes rather than clans. The typical clan of 1200 is too small for a distinctive dialect unless it is very isolated.
>That's in direct conversation. The situation gets a lot harder sitting
>in the long hall, with a buzz of voices around you babbling all those
>meaningless things. Overhearing a conversation in an unfamiliar
>dialect (or language) can be extremely taxing, or even impossible.
>(Speech getting slurred with the consumption of ale doesn't help,
>either, although one's own consumption appears to lower the barriers a
>bit at first.)
Which is why such conversations tend towards easily understood trivia.
Incidently I quite agree with the view that this should rarely be a game issue. Even then it's a matter of you can't communicate, you communicate with difficulty or you communicate easily. When you are trying to persude the chief to let you marry his daughter a fumble might indicate you've just insulted him.
-- Donald Oddy http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/
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