Me>>Nobody today speaks EWF-era Old Pavic nor are there any circumstances
>>in which one concievably encounters a living speaker of EWF Old Pavic.
>>The only circumstance in which EWF Old Pavic would play an influence
>>is if one encountered scrolls written in it.
>I am presuming this is noting a difference between 'EWF Old Pavic' which
>was the language spoken commonly by Pavis and his followers that came from
>the EWF, and was presumably identical to the common language spoken in the
>EWF and 'Old Pavic' which is the watered-down, foreign-influenced version
>which exists in the Rubble today (1610s).
Just strike out "watered-down" and amend "foreign-influenced" to "nomad-influenced". I do believe there to be a difference yes, but I do not believe the difference is large or meaningful enough to create yet another language.
Bob Stancliff:
Me>> I do not believe that Pavic natives have forgotten most of their
>> EWF-era language and replaced it with foreign words.
>Let's define some terms: "Old Pavic" is the city language in the glory
>days of the 1100's and was brought from EWF. "Pavic" is the current, or
>1600's version of the same language after being used by the (mostly
>illiterate) Rubble population for 500 years.
I utterly reject these definitions. Our sources state that Old Pavic is the language spoken by Pavic natives _today_ and I have been consistently maintaining this line.
>This is a direct parallel to Latin is the early Dark Ages.
Bob, vulgate forms of latin and related languages (Umbrian) existed in the Empire even in Augustus's time. Secondly Old Pavic cannot be the Church Language of Pavis city as we know that the language was Auld Wyrmish. Only Adari is said to use Old Pavic in a religious context. Hence the Old Pavic is Latin parallel fails.
>I -do- believe that Pavic has lost most of the words that are not used in
>daily life, and has added local words for concepts that didn't exist in
>Dragon Pass.
One is tempted to ask what latin words were lost as a result of the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Old Pavic was the common language of the EWF and so virtually most of its vocab would be used in daily life. Language loss of the type you describe simply does not occur in the RW.
>> Yet suggesting that we create a _new_ language to distinguish the
>> language written in the days of the EWF from that of modern Pavic
>> natives today seems to me to be rules overkill on par with Monster
>> Colloseium's Chariot Construction Rules.
>I believe that Pavic already exists in the published material, especially
>the NPC character sheets, the distinction isn't created by me.
Depends on what the NPC's are. If they are sartarite immigrants that settled with Dorasar then Pavic is Sartarite with an accent. If they are Pavic Natives then it is just shorthand for Old Pavic. Hence there is nothing that requires us to create a new language to represent Old-Pavic-in-EWF-days.
>By the way, one of my friends runs the chariot rules. Just because they
>are worthless to you doesn't make them invalid, only for your campaign.
I'm so happy for your friend that he is able to find untrammelled joy in totalling up the weight of the gaff poles, scythes, wheels etc to determine the effect that the chariot has upon a horse's fatigue. I still maintain the Chariot construction rules are overkill as any time spent in building chariots could be productively spent elsewhere in increasing the player's sense of *fun*.
>> Nobody today speaks EWF-era Old Pavic nor are there any circumstances
>> in which one concievably encounters a living speaker of EWF Old Pavic.
>You were the one who gave us that wonderful reference to Old Pavic being
>spoken in worship services in Adari and Pavis, so you are contradicting
>yourself.
Is this the wonderful reference you're thinking of?
:RQ2 (p103) calls it "nearly dead" but spoken by the native humans of :Pavis. It is also spoken in the religious ceremonies of Adari, but :not spoken by the populace there.
I fail to see how I am contradicting myself given that _it_ _said_ that Old Pavic is spoken by the native humans of Pavis.
>There are scholars today who can speak ancient Latin or Greek
>conversationally, the same would certainly apply to Old Pavic.
Have you heard them try to communicate with each other across language borders, like say an English Latin speaker and a German Latin Speaker? Is the "C" is Caesar hard or soft? Even in Henry VII's time, when Catherine of Aragorn landed in England to become the Princess of Wales, the only common language she had with the court was Latin at first and despite this only the English Bishops could understand what she was saying.
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