Re: Heortling Literacy

From: Roland <rmv1_at_...>
Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 12:32:32 -0000


Peter Metcalfe:
> > My firm belief is that Alakoring and Heortling are alike enough
> > that Orlanthi from one area can understand Orlanthi from the
> > other
> Only at the very basic level IMO. A good comparison might be
> German and English, or Polish and Russian, or Spanish and
> Rumanian.

"When my brother was outlawed he traveled all the way to Pralorela, a year of walking and hunting, and everyone he met greeted him properly." Although this (taken from the "What My Father Told Me" article of the Orlanthi section of the website) applies to a country that's in the opposite direction, I still like the concept.

Perhaps I should have included my reasoning. I based my supposition about the similarity of Alakoring and Heortling language groups on one thing: the Greeting. In my game, I want the players to be able to use the Greeting every time they meet other Orlanthi, but I don't necessarily want them to always be able to communicate easily.

The simplest way to handle that is to make the language used in the greeting constant; at the very least, the cadence and pacing of the ritual words used should be the same. That's where I got my belief.

Roland Volz

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