Re: OT: Quick Intro

On Thursday 20 February 2003 7:06 pm, Andreas Johansson wrote:
> Joe wrote:
> >Andreas Johansson wrote:
> > > Race languages? Does that means you're planning to have one Elvish
> > > language, one Trollish one, one
> > > Little-bluey-grey-cynoids-with-an-obsession-for-malt-whiskey one (or
> > > whatever races you're including)?
> > >
> > > Nothing "wrong" about that, of course, but, despite being common in RPG
> > > worlds etc, a such situation is slightly odd; why are there multiple
> >
> >human
> >
> > > languages, but only one cynoid one? Explanations can, of course, be
> >
> >found -
> >
> > > the cynoids may be confined to a smaller geographical area than the
> >
> >humans,
> >
> > > say - but forgoing to make _the_ cynoid language in favour of making
> > > _a_ cynoid language frees one from having to provided them.
> >
> >Yes, Tolkien did well at that, by having both Quenya and Sindarin.
>
> He actually had a few more Elvish languages, like Telerin and Silvan
> Elvish. But I suspect that the Lord of the Rings, with it's plentiful
> references to Elvish speech and Dwarvish inscriptions, has, thru' not too
> attentive readers, helped establish the pattern in many Fantasy worlds of
> each non-human race having just one language. I've, in RPGs, seen rather
> amusing examples of this, where Dwarfs speak Dwarf, Minotaurs speak
> Minotaur and Halflings speak Halfling, while the humans, in addition to
> being the only race that doesn't get a capital letter, for some reason
> don't speak Human. And they _never_ bother to explain this irregular state
> of affairs.
>
Maybe it's just that they all sound the same to human ears.  Anyway, humans
speak Common.