thees and forsooths

[Louisiana Night]

I was wondering, is the game going to have a great deal of archaic language, or will it have a more modern writing style?

[KatieHal]

Mostly modern.

[Yonkey]

There's only so many times you can say "Zounds!" before it gets old.

[Shadowfax]

"There's only so many times you can say "Zounds!" before it gets old."

Hehehehehe!  

Seriously though, archaic language in its truest sense would be barely understandable to the average layman (I don't have any problems with Shakespeare, I love the glouriously over complicated, over poetic langauge!)

[Storm]

I wouldn't mind a forsooth or two myself

I don't see a reason for KQ9 to use Olde English... Besides MOE, none of the other KQs did, not extensively anyways

[Louisiana Night]

Seriously though, archaic language in its truest sense would be barely understandable to the average layman (I don't have any problems with Shakespeare, I love the glouriously over complicated, over poetic langauge!)

Considering that I've been known to read books, that were written in old english, I doubt that Shakespeare's "modern" vocabulary/writing style, would make the game less enjoyable for me.

Besides MOE, none of the other KQs did, not extensively anyways

Hey! , will Connor still be talking in that way, and everyone else be speaking more modern?

[KatieHal]

Not to say "thee" and "forsooth" don't make appearances (okay, no promises on forsooth), but yeah, it's mostly modern english.

Like we could have a KQ without any 'Zounds!'

Connor speaks formally and not so much 'casually', but not in the Olde English kind of speech used in MoE.

[Yonkey]

I like how a lot of the dialogue is extremely modern.  I'm not talking about slang, but rather how most of the expressions and phrases are things you hear and say in this day and age.  

[Shadowfax]

Hmm, well when I have read about genuine "Old English" in various documents from Canterbury Cathedral it does require several readings before the meaning of certain sentances can be understood (it would spoil the game for more than a few people as the words wouldn't flow at all, many of them are certainly no longer in use and common sense would not dictate what they mean.)
I am simply arguing for the sake of those less educated in the advances of modern English, let alone old English!

I myself have been into creating "custom languages" for my own works for a while now. I am currently working on a "machine-human" psychobabble that convey's machine logic but makes it pronouncable within the human vocal range.

[Storm]

I am simply arguing for the sake of those less educated in the advances of modern English, let alone old English!

I'll argue for the sake of those who aren't native English speakers
I mean, I'm all for the joy of learning, but if a game decides to go all shakespearian and force you to use a dictionary for every single sentence, it would achieve the opposite result and hamper the game's atmosphere instead of enhancing it

[Shadowfax]

As I said, A "Shakesperian" KQ IX wouldn't be a huge problem for me but I will admit that I would enjoy it far more with plain/simple Standard English (I would also avoid any special colloquialisms which are specific to certain English speaking countries; Slang does vary from area to area and so could have completely different meanings or not even exist!)

[Louisiana Night]

There's another good question!

Will a great deal of slang be used, especially slang derived from a specific area?

[Shadowfax]

Hope not! I will get lost with American terminology with my "extremely English" English!

[Yonkey]

Will a great deal of slang be used, especially slang derived from a specific area?

Not really.  I can't remember any slang off-hand anyway.

[Shadowfax]

Well, I have to admit cockney rhyming slang wouldn't be well known anyway.

You couldn't write a paragraph like;

"He took his plates of meat up the apples and pears, got into his very Westminster Abbey clothes, sat on his uncle ted with his trouble and strife and felt absolutely cream crackered."

[Questing Character]

  WHAT did you say Shadowfax?  Was that some type of mysterious spy code?

[Storm]

Maybe it's supposed to rhyme if you say it in a cockney accent?

[Vipt]

Hmm, well when I have read about genuine "Old English" in various documents from Canterbury Cathedral it does require several readings before the meaning of certain sentances can be understood (it would spoil the game for more than a few people as the words wouldn't flow at all, many of them are certainly no longer in use and common sense would not dictate what they mean.)
I am simply arguing for the sake of those less educated in the advances of modern English, let alone old English!

Keep in mind that "old English" is a very relative term. Most people tend to call any archaic style of English "old English", which is fine, except that it leaves out a huge chunk of the history of the English language. In fact, the old English that most of you are referring to (with the thee's and forsooth's) is considered by the philologist to be part of the Modern English period of the English language, which also includes what we speak today. Shakespeare wrote in this Modern English period, and so even did some earlier writers such as Edmund Spenser, who's works look far more archaic to us than Shakespeare's.

The Modern English period is thought to have begun only slightly before the Elizabethan epoch, that is to say around the end of the 15th Century. Before that was the Middle English period, which began after the Norman invasion of England in 1066. In this period the French tongue of the conquering Normans and the true Old English of the conquered Englishmen was being blended into what became modern English. The most well known piece of Middle English literature is Chaucer's "Caunterbury Tales", which is really not all that difficult to read since it has much of the same grammatical structure of Modern English. However, if read aloud correctly, it would sound quite foreign to us. Although many of the words look about the same as their Modern English equivalents, and often have the exact same meaning, we would be thrown off by the very different pronunciation of the vowels and might not even recognize the words upon hearing them. This was so because a phenomenon known as the "Great Vowel Shift" had not yet taken place, a strange phonetic process in the history of the English language that changed, or "shifted", the pronunciation values of the English long vowels. This accounts for the disparity in how the vocalic letters of the Latin alphabet represent more or less the same respective sounds in all the continental European languages that use it, but represent different sounds in the English language, which also uses it. This "shift" was what separated Middle English from Modern English.

However, Old English proper was a language that resembles modern English only rudimentarily. It is also sometimes called Anglo-Saxon, but this is a bit of a misnomer. The term "Anglo-Saxon" has more to do with the political alliance of two Germanic tribes, the Angles and Saxons, in 6th Century England than the language itself, which is derived almost solely from the Angles. Hence anglais is French for "English"; think "Angle-ish". Anyhow, Old English was thus a Germanic tongue, and had England not been invaded by the French-speaking Normans in 1066, the language would be very much like Dutch or Frisian today. This is not the case however. Instead, English was greatly influenced by the French of the conquering Normans in the Middle English period, losing most of its nominal inflections and many of its native words. Thus, the English language of today is in origin and structure a Germanic tongue, but in vocabulary it is very much like the Romance languages (French in particular). I think I read somewhere that about 70% of the whole English word-stock is ultimately derived from Latin.


Okay, that's enough for now.....

If you actually read through this whole spiel without falling asleep, Bravo! lol


*goes back into hiding*

[Vipt]

Forsooth! Verily, I have scared away the good people of this thread with mine odious pedantry....

[Cez]

Here,

have fun

ALEX:   What are these spells?
A’BASTRO:   I do not like repeating, rephrasing myself. I do not have that answer. Only the Fates could answer that. Thou are here only to obtain them.
ROSELLA:   You don’t need to be rude. We are just trying to make heads and tails of this mess we got involved into.
A’BASTRO:   Nothing in this universe happens by chance.
ROSELLA:   I wouldn’t have chosen this consciously.
A’BASTRO:   Thou art a weaver of time. Yet thy awareness of the magnificent power time hath is weak, and needs to be awakened. What may seem casualty to thou, may have been a deliberate action.
ALEX:   Give time a couple of days, and it comes back to haunt you.
A’BASTRO:   It is weak to blame our decisions on time solely.
ROSELLA:   You just said…
A’BASTRO:   I just said thou needst ascend in order to succeed, regardless of the outcome.