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Characters knowing Elven.

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Ced

Mountain Bum
Merchant
Retired Staff
MossyMorel
MossyMorel
Merchant
[DISCLAIMER- All that is below is my own perception and interpretation of things and stuff. Should a staff member come along and bash it all, so be it, but I feel the need to rant, so without further ado-] Why does everyone and their grandmother know fluent Elven?

More than half of the character profiles I stalk have listed the char as knowing Common and Elven, and yesIhaven'tcountedElvencharacters.

Now, I understand and totally think it's cool that for some reason in your character's backstory they know Elven. But it seems to me like people are simply slapping it on their profile with no good reason, because "oh Elves are really common and he/she would've picked it up", perhaps.

Take the Forest Elves. As a general culture, they distrust humans because all they've ever seen them do is chop trees and burn woods and murder each other pretty much constantly. You think they'd happily give out the secrets of their language? Keep in mind they're a heavily spiritual/religious culture and would regard language as a powerful tool.

Take the Silver Elves (now this is sketchier, as there's no official lore on them, yet). It was my impression that Silver Elves are the haughty, pale-skinned cousins of the Forest Elves. Many are arrogant, almost all are intelligent, and hardly any would deem a human worthy enough to share in their tongue.

Also, the difference in accent between the Forest and Silver Elven language is vast, so much so that a Forest Elf might have difficulty understanding a Silver Elf if they were speaking fast (think of it like an incredibly strong Irish accent, when you're a Londoner), not to mention that with centuries apart, the two cultures will have differing everyday lexis (some words being different for Silver Elves than with Forest Elves).

Now, to those of you who have legitimately had their character learn Elven from a close Elf friend of theirs, that's awesome. I love characters learning things, and I'm in no way saying that no Elf ever would teach someone their language. I'm simply saying it's a much rarer occurrence than what a lot of people seem to think it is (kinda like Elven children).

In my currently agitated state of mind I may have said silly/stupid things, so please call me out on those and prove me wrong where it's due, debates are always fun!

Edit: And as for the "I hang around Elves lots and I've picked it up" excuse, Elves would speak in Common tongue in the presence of anyone other than Elves (except those that live in secluded settlements, and would have no knowledge of humans or their language). Why would most Elves know Common? Well, observe the name of the language.
 
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Jeroxia

We demons of our solemn hour
Good
And how about characters who only speak the very basics and guess most of the harder words when they are speaking elven. Which results in the elves reacting in the correct way.

This is the way I've slowly but surely learned jeroxia elven.
That stacked with most of his friends, Ex-girlfriends and girlfriends being elven. Stacking this with being around in the elumeril mansion where teaching elven was a common sight. .

Does that suffice?

(I did the same with horgaahn until it was made illegal to learn it)
 

Ced

Mountain Bum
Merchant
Retired Staff
MossyMorel
MossyMorel
Merchant
And how about characters who only speak the very basics and guess most of the harder words when they are speaking elven. Which results in the elves reacting in the correct way.

This is the
way I've slowly but surely learned jeroxia elven.
That stacked with most of his friends, Ex-girlfriends and girlfriends being elven. Stacking this with being around in the elumeril mansion where teaching elven was a common sight. .

Does that suffice?
Being around a tightly-knit group of trusted Elfish friends makes learning the basics of Elven plausible, but mastering the language in this way is only possible after decades of immersion in the culture :I Think of it like... An English guy plonked in the middle of a load of Japanese friends, who speak English most of the time anyway. He's not gonna learn Japanese any time soon if none of them will teach him, and even if they do it's going to take a long while before he masters it.

As for Elven language classes in Elumeril... That makes my brain cringe :D Forest Elves just... I mean... They wouldn't do that >.<
 

Jeroxia

We demons of our solemn hour
Good
Being around a tightly-knit group of trusted Elfish friends makes learning the basics of Elven plausible, but mastering the language in this way is only possible after decades of immersion in the culture :I Think of it like... An English guy plonked in the middle of a load of Japanese friends, who speak English most of the time anyway. He's not gonna learn Japanese any time soon if none of them will teach him, and even if they do it's going to take a long while before he masters it.

As for Elven language classes in Elumeril... That makes my brain cringe :D Forest Elves just... I mean... They wouldn't do that >.<
It were reverse lessos Elven to common. And due to his job at that time: Captain of the mists.
He just happened to be in the same room often as the parents taught thevchildren elven/common
 

Ced

Mountain Bum
Merchant
Retired Staff
MossyMorel
MossyMorel
Merchant
It were reverse lessos Elven to common. And due to his job at that time: Captain of the mists.
He just happened to be in the same room often as the parents taught thevchildren elven/common
Oh, so Elven kids were being taught Common?
 

Spark

Broken
I agree and have always agreed with this Ced, I'm glad someone has said something about it. It's annoying to see "Elven" as a language of a none elf, new character. I agree that Jeroxia earnt it but it's when fresh, new characters know it and they say "oh its in the backstory". Also as a test, if you walk into the middle of a good ol fasion spawn RP with about 10 people there and shout "I hope you all collapse on the floor choking to death on your tongues", the amount of non-elf character that understand and retaliate is ridiculous.
 

Axex

Lord of House Hawklight
One of his best friends for a very long time was a Silver Elf, (Jstar's old character), and Lord Daeron is currently a good friend, with Locun as a vassal, thus lots of contact with silver elves. Tantara, a forest elf was one of Axex's oldest friends, and he travelled there are spoke with him often, it was actually our largest alliance before he left. A lot of this happened before the actual introduction of a specific language per say, though I have spoken with Daeron many times since, so I dunno if it works?
 

Ced

Mountain Bum
Merchant
Retired Staff
MossyMorel
MossyMorel
Merchant
One of his best friends for a very long time was a Silver Elf, (Jstar's old character), and Lord Daeron is currently a good friend, with Locun as a vassal, thus lots of contact with silver elves. Tantara, a forest elf was one of Axex's oldest friends, and he travelled there are spoke with him often, it was actually our largest alliance before he left. A lot of this happened before the actual introduction of a specific language per say, though I have spoken with Daeron many times since, so I dunno if it works?
Hrmn, I'd judge that Axex would've picked up at least a smattering of Elven. If all of the correspondences were held in the Elven tongue, then he would have maybe absorbed more, but it would've been more likely that Tantara and Daeron (both being well-educated Elves, myes?) would've spoken in Common as a courtesy.
However, Axex being a 2000-year old, heavily-learned and experienced boyo, I'd say that he'd be at least adequate in the Elven language by now (enough to be understood by both cultures, at least).
 

Baron

Sovereign
Retired Staff
Kay, staff muscle flexin' time.

Backstory is not a sufficient explanation for how a character knows something. When you start, you're a blank slate.

Exceptions include: Knowing basic stuff, like racial language if you belong to said race.

As a player:

Vorar speaks Verba, Common, Fenra, Caparii, but not Elven or Dwarven, or Engem, or quite a number of languages, despite being capable of extremely rapid acquisition.
 

ForestRose

The rosiest of forests.
ForestRose
ForestRose
I have Skye, Who understands the Elven tongue quite well and will still make mistakes though only knows how to say a few words at most in the language.
And Cali who is a Forest Elf that knows many languages anyhow, all done RPly.
 

Ced

Mountain Bum
Merchant
Retired Staff
MossyMorel
MossyMorel
Merchant
Oooh, Kath is teaching her child some basic elven! Same way that I got taught english, so should work
Well that's simply a mother teaching her child how to speak, so that of course is fine :D
I have Skye, Who understands the Elven tongue quite well and will still make mistakes though only knows how to say a few words at most in the language.
And Cali who is a Forest Elf that knows many languages anyhow, all done RPly.
How did Skye acquire her understanding of Elven?
Kay, staff muscle flexin' time.

Backstory is not a sufficient explanation for how a character knows something. When you start, you're a blank slate.

Exceptions include: Knowing basic stuff, like racial language if you belong to said race.

As a player:

Vorar speaks Verba, Common, Fenra, Caparii, but not Elven or Dwarven, or Engem, or quite a number of languages, despite being capable of extremely rapid acquisition.
THANKYOU
 

Ced

Mountain Bum
Merchant
Retired Staff
MossyMorel
MossyMorel
Merchant
*raises a hand* Kath married a human and had a elfies child with 'im. How high are the chances?
Of the child knowing Elven? Well-

1. When a child is born of a Human and Elf, OOCly the person playing the child chooses what traits he/she has. They either take after an Elf or a Human. No crazy mixes.

2. What language they acquire is utterly down to whichever languages the parents teach them while they grow up. Though if it's a mixture of the two it'll be very hard for the kid, and they would most likely stick to Common or Elven, not both *studied language acquisition*.
 
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