Language: Re-Addressed

Searches have revealed that Eric made a topic a while back addressing the odd fact that everyone seems to understand one another in Felarya. The ensuing discussion led many to take up the idea that a virus of sorts lowered the language barrier.

If I may tweak this slightly... now, I am not so presumptuous as to assume only my opinion matters, however, I would like to resurrect the discussion by opening with my own theory/suggestion.

Now, in the discussion on the rejuvenating properties of Felaryan soil, I suggested that a reservoir of "life-energy" was responsible, and it supercharged most bodily processes. Now, my explanation for the lack of a language barrier is very similar. The vast amounts of ambient energies in Felarya not only stimulate the body, but the mind as well: making pretty much everything psychic to at least a small extent. After all, many preds have been shown to track their prey by using psychic or near-psychic methods. Now, I don't mean prescience, not that kind of psychic.

Since this exists, when one persons speaks to another, the sound is received by the listener, but the meaning is also intercepted and "applied" to the sound. It's a two-part broadcast/reception, actually. For this reason, those who don't hear the word can't catch the meaning: they may get the one part, but without the spoken word, there's nothing to apply it to.

It's kind of complicated, but I'll try to think of a better way to word it.

My thought: it's just a fantasy world, so who cares. Anything can happen there. I just hate looking at every nook and cranny, it feels too picky to me.

In other words:

A wizard did it.

But I'm a nook-and-cranny kinda guy. If something is left unexplained, it'll drive meh nuts, mmmkay?

Thus, I try to explain shtuff. It's a habit.

You can't explain the unexplainable.

So says the salmon of wisdom.

cant say for sure.... better off assuming it is the work of a guardian. now which one would be so nice as to make things easy like that.... or if you think about it sadistic >.>

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My thought: it's just a fantasy world, so who cares. Anything can happen there. I just hate looking at every nook and cranny, it feels too picky to me.

I hate that kind of outlook so bad, I want to kill it with my bare hands.

On the other hand, this idea is a nice - if slightly less amusing - alternative to the pathogen idea. It's linked with the established traits and makes a lot of sense.

Cypress had something going with the guardian with the Babilonian tongue. Maybe even Trejal could be responsible for it. He is the negotiator of the guardians after all, so it would make sense that he brings everybody on the same speaking terms using babil magic or something.

I wonder what Trejal does when he got nothing to negotiate with. Also, the sixth sense in my opinion would be similar to the sixth sense of animals, especially pets. You know, the one that lets them know you are coming back home.

GREGOLE wrote:

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My thought: it's just a fantasy world, so who cares. Anything can happen there. I just hate looking at every nook and cranny, it feels too picky to me.

I hate that kind of outlook so bad, I want to kill it with my bare hands.

On the other hand, this idea is a nice - if slightly less amusing - alternative to the pathogen idea. It's linked with the established traits and makes a lot of sense.

For me, a fantasy universe must be left with things that are unexplanable. Explaining trivial stuff that isn't actually necessary just kills the mood of the universe to me.

I would hardly consider the issue of how thousands of beings from thousands of different universes manage to communicate with one another "trivial".

Why complain? Everyone understand each other, so it's convenient. Explaining some sort of simple convenience takes away its "charm" as a convenience. And we all know the true reason is because no writers can create and memorize thousands of fictional dialects, so the fact we all use the same tongue is for simple convenience. Also, it's not like explaining or not explaining the absence of language barrier is going to bring any difference in the future of the world.

The truth may shock you:

Instead of making everyone understand each other's languages, everyone immediately begins to speak in French when they enter Felarya. Thus, the real question is how everyone speaks French without knowing it...

I didn't get any of that and French is my primary tongue.

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Why complain? Everyone understand each other, so it's convenient. Explaining some sort of simple convenience takes away its "charm" as a convenience. And we all know the true reason is because no writers can create and memorize thousands of fictional dialects, so the fact we all use the same tongue is for simple convenience. Also, it's not like explaining or not explaining the absence of language barrier is going to bring any difference in the future of the world.

Because it's a MAJOR issue, and no doubt half the people who enter Felarya are going to wonder the same thing.

It's a major, seemingly impossible thing with no apparent origin. It doesn't come off as mysterious or exotic(like the existence of giant chimeras does), it comes off as poorly written.

A simple explaination is hardly difficult to think of.

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The truth may shock you:

Instead of making everyone understand each other's languages, everyone immediately begins to speak in French when they enter Felarya. Thus, the real question is how everyone speaks French without knowing it...

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand Fish wins the internet.

Why not explaining it that way instead of being vague. I'm a sucker to vagueness.

How about this, a new creature! It is called the Bable Bug! It flies into the ears of the first person it encounters and starts to nest in there. It communicates to the others of its kind by a short ranged psychic connection. They do this by burrowing slightly into the brain of the host and using the host brain as something of a psychic antenna. This has the side affect of giving host a slight link to anyone else who has a Bable Bug in there head. So when they talk the other person picks up the meaning of there words and unknowing process them into what the he or she would understand, without the host even realizing it was happening. And the Bable Bug is so common that most people get one after only spending a few minutes on Fealrya.

They could be dimensional parasites! Anyone entering the plane aquires them, anyone leaving loses them.

Extra-planar babelfish, if you will.

So, since we have no way of testing our various theories, everyone speaking French is just as valid as anything else, including extra-dimensional parasites that attach to the part of your brain that interprets sound.

I prefer "A wizard/guardian did it" myself.

It's a pity I was offline during the heat of the conversation, so, I must simply say these two things about the previous comments.

One: I absolutely despise the concept of "unexplainable". I loathe it. Thus, I will do my best to explain what some may see as "charm", because to me, and others, it's more of a thorn.

Two: it's actually rather plausible to assume a Guardian did it. It could be used as an adaptation of my first theory, except as a Guardian acting the link, in a Cypress-like fashion.

How can it be a torn for you? Have you been clearer in the first post, I wouldn't have made that dumb remark, but now it's too damn late.

zalzas wrote:

How about this, a new creature! It is called the Bable Bug!

the distant relative of the babel fish i take it?

Cypress wrote:

the distant relative of the babel fish i take it?

Yep! I see that you read Hitchhikes Guide to the Galaxy too. Its one of my favorite books! Who knew Dryads read Douglas Adams?

Sean Okotami wrote:

How can it be a torn for you? Have you been clearer in the first post, I wouldn't have made that dumb remark, but now it's too damn late.

...That may've been a little hostile.

Personally, I felt it was a change that gradually occurred caused in the same way as how Zion describes it.. Writing would be unchanged (Thus Town Criers and the liking would be better sources of information than a paper), and if something negated the magic of Felarya (Some sort of anti-magic shell, for example), than the persons interacting would be back to being unable to understand each other (Unless, of course, speaking the same language or something familiar enough).

Similarly, the effect works only on what you directly want translated. A 'cant' would not be deciphered (For example, the code-word 'Thimble' [Meaning protection against a precise strike in this example] would still be heard as 'Thimble' to listeners). Thus, a heavier emphasis would be made to create a vocabulary for a group to prevent unwanted listening and / or information exchange.

Ooh! I thought of a better way to put it now! Malahite also helped a little.

Well, words are just sound, and their meaning comes from the mental meaning put behind them. Now, this, in normal situations, works only because of mutually-understood meanings for certain sounds. The sound is heard by the ears, and the signal is sent to the brain, which then checks the word against the database of meanings, and then chooses the meaning from the matching sound in memory.

However, in Felarya, this process is assisted by the psychic energy ambient in the atmosphere, due to whatever reasons (could be explained in another thread). The word is heard by the listener, and if the two people speak different languages, normally the brain would find no matches in the database of memory and come up with the conclusion that it doesn't understand the meaning. However, in Felarya, the "codex" is broadcasted by the speaker, meaning that the listener temporarily receives the complete database of the speaker, and when the word (or sentence) is heard, it can be checked against that database, and then translated by the brain into the listener's language, similar to the way most bilingual people translate their secondary language into their primary language in their minds. Now, if someone is nearby but does not hear, this database is useless, because there is nothing to use it to check it against. The actual "database" isn't written to memory, as it is due to a temporary connection to the speaker due to the "open-ness" caused by speaking. This is because speaking is a more powerful expression of thought, meaning that the speaker is more focued while speaking. (This is why many people "think aloud", and the reason why magickers may use incantations to focus their minds on their spells.)