Author Topic: Add Old Latin?  (Read 2087 times)

Destinysdesire

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Add Old Latin?
« on: October 22, 2020, 04:33:00 PM »
I would love to see a separation of the Old Latin and Modern Latin which didn't exist till 1386 as listed below with a link to show it.

Old Latin removes the U and the W as these letters did not exist before 1386 -
 https://www.dictionary.com/e/theletteru/


PrimetheGrime

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Re: Add Old Latin?
« Reply #1 on: October 22, 2020, 08:09:28 PM »
I'm fairly certain you can just add a language. It just wont show up on the language list in game, just in your personal list of known languages

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Re: Add Old Latin?
« Reply #2 on: October 22, 2020, 08:22:33 PM »
Yeah, there's space to create plenty of languages in the system, people just have to agree on what prefix corresponds to which.
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Iridni Ren

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Re: Add Old Latin?
« Reply #3 on: October 22, 2020, 08:22:54 PM »
I'm fairly certain you can just add a language. It just wont show up on the language list in game, just in your personal list of known languages

But shouldn't you get the other for free, as in with HM and LM?

I mean...are they *that* different?

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Iridni Ren

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Re: Add Old Latin?
« Reply #4 on: October 22, 2020, 08:33:58 PM »
History of Latin

I suspect Arawn (who is also Dev for the language system) would have opinions about this. But to my understanding Latin is a dead language, meaning no one speaks it as her first language any more. Or has for more than a thousand years.

Consequently (and as the link above illustrates), it doesn't evolve very much. That it was no one's first language was as true in 1386 as it is now.


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SardineTheAncestor

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Re: Add Old Latin?
« Reply #5 on: October 22, 2020, 11:15:29 PM »
There is more to the transition of "Old Latin" to "Latin" than a few letters. Even if we're talking about the earliest spoken version of Latin and the very next "stage" of the language, there's not just one Latin either.

Languages evolved differently in the old world because they didn't have the printing press, airplanes, the Internet, and other means of mass production/mass transport of information.

We make concessions for playability's sake, to allow characters from different time periods and whom speak different regional dialects to communicate. Gothic Earth characters aren't the only ones. Elves have this special consideration too. The Common language in Forgotten Realms is a trade language only useful for simple topics & most people couldn't read or write in it (this is from 3e, you can click here to read a little more about), but in Ravenloft it is inexplicably, universally understood by basically every single character in the universe, with few exceptions, among them Gothic Earth characters.

Blue had this to say about it:

there's enough canonical crossovers between the settings from Planescape and Spelljammer that a common trade tongue could exist, and having "Common" be the same between worlds is a legitimate option in the Ravenloft Dungeon Master's Guide.

It doesn't really need explaining. It is just there because you are already encouraged to take your character's heritage language with your first available slot -- the one you get for free, along with Common. If your character is an elf, that might be Elven. If your character is a human from Barovia, that would probably be Balok. Someone from Neverwinter would almost certainly speak Chondathan. The language system in D&D and Forgotten Realms in general is simplified and will not suit the fancy of someone who is interested in linguistics as a hobby, but there is still depth to be aware of & considerations to take note of, like the fact that Forgotten Realms does have a timeline and some languages died over time for various reasons.

Anyway, back to Latin, you don't have to conform if you don't like that. You can add Old Latin or any other kind of language and insist that others cannot understand you. I know I'm not the only one who has a character that shares a first language with no one else on the server, despite it being a standard choice I pulled right out of an official WotC source. Take the dive for RP's sake if you think it will enhance your roleplay and be a challenge you enjoy. Don't if you think it will be irritating.
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Destinysdesire

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Re: Add Old Latin?
« Reply #6 on: October 23, 2020, 01:50:23 AM »
I have had it ruled by the DM team that, and I quote "We chatted about it and old latin isn't a supported language prefix.  It is all just simply latin on our server"

Therefore, I am seeking the change that Old Latin is not the same as the 1386 Latin which my character 500 years before said change would not know. I am not the only char from that time period, another I know of is from the 400s, so almost 900 years prior to the change.

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Re: Add Old Latin?
« Reply #7 on: October 23, 2020, 02:20:51 AM »
From what I've been told and read, the Darkonese  language is similar to Latin.

https://www.nwnravenloft.com/forum/index.php?topic=18303.msg122650#msg122650

Even Gnomish is similar to Latin, as posted there.

Destinysdesire

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Re: Add Old Latin?
« Reply #8 on: October 23, 2020, 02:23:08 AM »
From what I've been told and read, the Darkonese  language is similar to Latin.

https://www.nwnravenloft.com/forum/index.php?topic=18303.msg122650#msg122650

Even Gnomish is similar to Latin, as posted there.

Likely closer to the 1386 version of Latin, the one prior to that is very different

Maffa

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Re: Add Old Latin?
« Reply #9 on: October 23, 2020, 02:24:30 AM »
Not to nitpick, but i think the precise term would be "classical latin", meaning the one of Cicero and Caesar, opposed to late or low Latin which was the "live" Latin still spoken by clerics and erudites up to the Renaissance, or the vulgar Latin, the one that was on the verge to turn into one of the romance languages such as Italian or Spanish, but that would lead to "dialect" differences that would make things even more complex.

If i were to break down the language in two I'd pick "classical Latin" and "low Latin", but I dont know if its worth since for some reason all elves speak the same language and are mutually intelligible one another even if they come from different planets and different times. For some reason I think that a low Latin speaker, especially someone learned, would be able to communicate with someone using classical Latin, and i would further add that peasants that would have spoken low Latin but came from different areas would have the same trouble communicating one another due to regional differences born from different "barbaric influences" (i.e. Lombards in Italy, Vandals in Hiberia, Saxons in Britannia, etc.)

But I dont want to rain on your parade, i mean, i hope you can get what you like as it doesn't detract for my enjoyment of the game and evidently adds to yours.


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Re: Add Old Latin?
« Reply #10 on: October 23, 2020, 02:36:06 AM »
From what I've been told and read, the Darkonese  language is similar to Latin.

https://www.nwnravenloft.com/forum/index.php?topic=18303.msg122650#msg122650

Even Gnomish is similar to Latin, as posted there.
While this is true and Latin words are used in Darkonese language roleplay, a person who speaks one does not understand the other - unless they speak both.



Destinysdesire

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Re: Add Old Latin?
« Reply #11 on: October 23, 2020, 02:42:02 AM »
Old Latin, and Classic Latin are still not the same as 1386 Latin

The old-time language
The concept of Old Latin (Prisca Latinitas) is as old as the concept of Classical Latin, both dating to at least as early as the late Roman Republic. In that period Cicero, along with others, noted that the language he used every day, presumably the upper-class city Latin, included lexical items and phrases that were heirlooms from a previous time, which he called verborum vetustas prisca,[5] translated as "the old age/time of language".

During the classical period, Prisca Latinitas, Prisca Latina and other idioms using the adjective always meant these remnants of a previous language, which, in the Roman philology, was taken to be much older in fact than it really was. Viri prisci, "old-time men", were the population of Latium before the founding of Rome.

The four Latins of Isidore
In the Late Latin period, when Classical Latin was behind them, the Latin- and Greek-speaking grammarians were faced with multiple phases, or styles, within the language. Isidore of Seville reports a classification scheme that had come into existence in or before his time: "the four Latins" ("Moreover, some people have said that there are four Latin languages"; "Latinas autem linguas quattuor esse quidam dixerunt").[6] They were Prisca, spoken before the founding of Rome, when Janus and Saturn ruled Latium, to which he dated the Carmen Saliare; Latina, dated from the time of king Latinus, in which period he placed the laws of the Twelve Tables; Romana, essentially equal to Classical Latin; and Mixta, "mixed" Classical Latin and Vulgar Latin, which is known today as Late Latin. The scheme persisted with little change for some thousand years after Isidore.

So if we really with to be specific, the proper term would be Latina -  Latina, dated from the time of king Latinus, in which period he placed the laws of the Twelve Tables;  - I just seek to use a simple Old Latin as we do Old English, old chinese and old egyptian to make it easy.

Maffa

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Re: Add Old Latin?
« Reply #12 on: October 23, 2020, 05:33:11 AM »
well if you want to go even earlier than that we easily get to the bronze age... but in any case a language is a language. The fact that i could speak Ligurian and probably get somehow understood in Portugal (stress on "somehow") doesnt make Ligurian and Portugese the same language (or Spanish and Italian, or German and Dutch, you get my drift).


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Destinysdesire

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Re: Add Old Latin?
« Reply #13 on: October 23, 2020, 05:37:21 AM »
Im not from the bronze age, so your attempt at passive aggressive comments is not needed.

Maffa

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Re: Add Old Latin?
« Reply #14 on: October 23, 2020, 06:11:15 AM »
Im sorry it passed that way, i wasnt passive aggressive... I literally meant that, I think a language is a language, even if it's mutually intelligible with another language. If the mods want to include it or not it's their call, but as a language it has the requisite to be included.


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Inti

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Re: Add Old Latin?
« Reply #15 on: October 23, 2020, 06:56:20 AM »
I'm fairly certain you can just add a language. It just wont show up on the language list in game, just in your personal list of known languages

But shouldn't you get the other for free, as in with HM and LM?

I mean...are they *that* different?

I would go with this.

It's different to draw parallels without being a scholar in the specifics, but is the difference is akin to that between Shakespearean English and Modern English, or Chaucer English and Modern English?  Though even in the case of the latter, it would not be an unfeasible stretch to give it HM-LM treatment.

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Maffa

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Re: Add Old Latin?
« Reply #16 on: October 23, 2020, 07:30:11 AM »
it depends which Latin is "Latin". There's a thousand years between the Vetus Latina and the low Latin and vulgar Latin. If PotM Latin is Classical Latin it stands somewhere in the middle, closer to Vetus Latina than low Latin. If i should draw a paralel i'd say... modern English and Beowulf's Anglosaxon? The more Latin went, the more influxes from other languages had, so it's not that a stretch of a parallel.


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Re: Add Old Latin?
« Reply #17 on: October 23, 2020, 08:28:58 AM »
it depends which Latin is "Latin". There's a thousand years between the Vetus Latina and the low Latin and vulgar Latin. If PotM Latin is Classical Latin it stands somewhere in the middle, closer to Vetus Latina than low Latin. If i should draw a paralel i'd say... modern English and Beowulf's Anglosaxon? The more Latin went, the more influxes from other languages had, so it's not that a stretch of a parallel.

I think that's the main problem with considering different forms of latin; we do it for some languages though, but overall all languages evolve over time. 20th century Spanish and 8th century Spanish likely are extremely different. We could have hundreds, if not thousands, of languages on the languages list if we wanted to truly represent the evolution of languages over time and in different contexts, but ultimately it remains a game, and there's a certain amount of suspension of disbelief required. The simplest approach is to presume that all latin speakers understand each other to an extent, even though there will be variations, much like we do for most of these other languages.

Iridni Ren

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Re: Add Old Latin?
« Reply #18 on: October 23, 2020, 12:49:34 PM »
From the Wikipedia article I linked above:

Quote
All Romance languages descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of soldiers, settlers, and slaves of the Roman Empire, which was substantially different from that of the Roman literati. Between 200 BC and AD 100, the expansion of the Empire and the administrative and educational policies of Rome made Vulgar Latin the dominant vernacular language over a wide area which stretched from the Iberian Peninsula to the west coast of the Black Sea. During the Empire's decline and after its collapse and fragmentation in the 5th century, Vulgar Latin began to evolve independently within each local area, and eventually diverged into dozens of distinct languages. The overseas empires established by Spain, Portugal and France after the 15th century then spread these languages to other continents – about two thirds of all Romance speakers are now outside Europe.

In spite of the multiple influences of pre-Roman languages and later invasions, the phonology, morphology, lexicon, and syntax of all Romance languages are predominantly derived from Vulgar Latin.

After about 400 AD, therefore, Latin splintered and became a bunch of other languages. If we want to make a parallel between Old English (which only scholars now read and write) and modern English, then the comparison is not some more modern form of Latin, but...Italian. And Spanish, etc. (which we have tags for).
« Last Edit: October 23, 2020, 12:51:45 PM by Iridni Ren »

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Re: Add Old Latin?
« Reply #19 on: October 24, 2020, 05:32:03 AM »
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PrimetheGrime

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Re: Add Old Latin?
« Reply #20 on: October 24, 2020, 06:16:56 AM »
It just seems like something that can just be a (custom) language. If you want to have the old latin, I'd just keep it all as [Latin] for the sake of brevity

Destinysdesire

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Re: Add Old Latin?
« Reply #21 on: October 24, 2020, 06:23:13 AM »
It just seems like something that can just be a (custom) language. If you want to have the old latin, I'd just keep it all as [Latin] for the sake of brevity

except I have been told no by the DMs, because there is no Old Latin prefix

Iridni Ren

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Re: Add Old Latin?
« Reply #22 on: October 24, 2020, 10:26:11 AM »
You could use the Latin tag and write in your description that when the character resorts to Latin it is a distinct version of it--perhaps omitting Us and Vs in any Latin speech or text to indicate this particular form is especially archaic.

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