Re: Languages

From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_cs.ucc.ie>
Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1999 23:51:41 +0100 (BST)


Peter Metcalfe replies to me, on comparisons between Latin and the Romance languages:

> > I'd not take it as a given that Old Pavic and
> >_Sartarite_ were even as distinct as that, if both are Manirian
> >languages.

> The example on p33 of the Glorantha Book implies that they are.
> Rurik the Restless speaks Sartarite at a quarter of his Old
> Pavic ability and Tarshite at a tenth of the same. However
> according to the information presented on p34, Rurik should
> have been speaking Sartarite at a third of his Old Pavic
> ability.

That's the sorts of numbers I had in mind, esp. the latter rule, which is the generic Theyalan language group rule. Can a master of Classical Latin (90%) order a pizza in modern Italian and argue about the change he receives with the skill of a 'dumb native' (30%)? (Having witnessed Milanese traffic with my own eyes, I'll admit there's no shortage of such dumb natives, mind.)

Mind you, such reasoning may tell one more about the brokenness of the RQ rules for languages than anything about how similar Manirian languages are intended to be, I dunno...

Cheers,
Alex.


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