And now is the time for some more of my self-indulgent twaddle.
Celeste:- Miesian Gallente (native, fluent and literate, learned at home)
- Miesian Caldari (native, fluent and literate, learned at home)
- Miesian (literate, learned in primary school)
Mies was relatively isolated for quite a long time after its first settlement, thanks to
its colonists' discovering why the archeo-Caldari and archeo-Gallente settlers may have passed up a system that had more optimal living conditions than Luminaire. During that time, the survivors developed distinct variants of Gallente and Caldari (only offworlders call 'Caldari' 'Caldanese' on Lutesse). Miesian Gallente shares many structural elements and words in common with Late Modern Garouni, the last 'pure' iteration of that Gallente Prime planetary language: while speakers of Post-Modern Garouni can easily understand Miesian Gallente speakers, they'd most likely find Miesian accents and word choice quaint, if not outright archaic. Speakers of Standard Gallentean do not generally fare as well. That Miesian Gallente speakers tend to use Miesian Caldari words when they seem more appropriate to what they're trying to say doesn't help matters.
Accent wise, Miesian Caldari is not very different from the Civire ones that took hold in parts of The Citadel. Speakers of Standard Caldanese generally do not have a hard time understanding Miesian Caldari speakers, assuming they can wrap their minds around the dialect's structural differences. Miesian Caldari acquired noun-gender associations from their Garouni Gallente co-settlers, and over time, developed a tendency to insert an 'l' sound into double-vowel constructs. (e.g. Caldanese neuter
tsuun "moon" is Miesian Caldari feminine
bele tsuun, which is pronounced "beh-le tsul-un". Miesian Gallente would
usually say "belle luna"
comme un Garouni peu ancien.)
The Miesian language is an iconographic writing system that was constructed by the Mivo Essére corporation to facilitate communication between its Gallentean and Caldari colonists. It helped save lives during the bleak early years after first landfall, and thanks to that, has been a required class for every Miesian schoolchild ever since -- even if Federation regulations have forced it out of exclusive use on public signs, storefronts and food products.
- Old Garouni (temple language, functional and functionally literate, learned at home)
- Napanii (functional and functionally literate, learned in primary school)
- Callanais (functional, acquired in adult life via exposure and inference from native dialects)
Callenais is a collective name for a number of Gallente-Caldari creoles, patois and mishmashes spoken in Federation and State border areas and some urban zones with a heavy mix of both peoples.
- Standard Gallentean (fluent and literate, learned in primary school)
- Standard Caldanese (fluent and literate, learned in primary school)
Celeste tends to sounds more 'prissy' (to quote Seriphyn) Villoreschi than Miesian, thanks to her having worked in Villore for decades. Fatigue and/or sufficient quantities of alcohol tend to bring out her Miesian accent. I like to think of it as her sounding somewhat Cajun. I don't know what she sounds like when she speaks Caldanese. Possibly Citadel-ish, maybe with a thread of Lonetrek since she spent so much time there (and recruited heavily from the area when she left). Or maybe she also sounds somewhat Cajun, especially after drinking. No one's ever complained, so I presume she's generally understandable. At least no one's ever complained about understanding the individual words she's used, even if they can't always make sense of what she's saying.
- Court Amarrish (fluent and functionally literate, learned in secondary school)
- Kadorin Amarrish (functional and functionally literate, acquired in adult life via exposure and inference from Amarrish language studies)
Celeste's hopefully late husband spoke fluent Khanid Amarrish ... but never in her presence. She's never learned the dialect.
- Achur (functionally literate. Can speak it but won't, since she knows her accent is terrible, even with translator aid. Learned in university.)
- "Engineering" Sebiestor (functionally literate: engineering and scientific terms only. Learned in university.)
Celeste had the option to take Intaki instead of Achur in college. She elected the latter. She really doesn't want to know what Intaki are saying behind her back.
Sabette spent the first five or so years of her life on Mies Prime, where she was exposed to the Miesian variants of Gallente and Caldari, as well as Old Garouni. She did not go to primary school on Mies, so she did not study Miesian. She can grasp most flavors of Callanais, but finds it difficult to express complex sentences: she believes her rigorous schooling in Standard Gallentean and Standard Caldanese impedes that and her understanding of her native dialects, since she's thinking of what ought to be rather than what works. Her accent tends toward the Villoreschi. She's had to work hard to retain her Miesian accent, which she views as superior, rather than an embarrassment.
Like Celeste, Sabette took Court Amarrish in secondary school. Quite unlike Celeste, she'd had a head start on the language, thanks to her father: Alons Tisserand communicated privately with his daughters almost exclusively in spoken Khanid Amarrish. Sabette also took Intaki in secondary school, mostly to annoy her mother. She learned Modern Standard Matari as part of her officer training in the regular Federation Navy Academy program. This schooling and intense exposure (she hid out in a Matari quarter of Arcurio for nearly two years) helped her acquire functional competency in Federation Matari Patois.
Vieve was born and reared, with the exception of about a year of her childhood, in Villore. She spoke late, and strangely, favoring a random sing-song mix of her father's Khanid Amarrish and the Old Garouni from her mother's fairy tale books to anything resembling Gallentean. After exhaustive efforts (and her father's surreptitiously treating her with illicit neurochemicals), she stopped fixating on her made up language and engaged with real ones, making up for lost time by rapidly learning Standard Gallentean, Caldanese and Court Amarrish to fluency/full literacy levels by the time she entered secondary school. Like her big sister Sabette, she also studied Intaki. Unlike Sabette, she learned no Matari languages. She can read Achur and some Jin-Mei dialects, but does not speak them.
Some may find it suspicious that Vieve's Gallentean accent is getting even more Villoreschi as time goes by, though she no longer lives in Villore. She's also begun to eschew contractions in spoken Gallentean, something she does not do in Caldanese. By contrast, her Caldanese accent has improved (or degraded, depending upon one's point of view): if she chooses to, she can sound just like a mechanic's wife from Juunigaishi, or a Lonetrek Lai Dai public relations specialist in the tenth year of her posting to a Carthum facility in Madirmilire. Since many Amarr tend to look bemused when she speaks, I can only imagine what her Court Amarr sounds like. It pointedly does not sound like she's a Ni-Kunni, even if she can pass for one in the right clothing.
Maris' schooling (except for a few years when she was a young teenager) was all done in self-directed virtual classrooms, so her language skills aren't as extensive as the terrible trio's. She is fluently conversant and competently literate in Gallentean, with no clear regional accent. She also speaks fluent Standard Caldanese, with a solid Border Zone accent, but can barely read and write it without a translation aid (though she's getting better). She's picked up smatterings of everything from shopkeeper Vherkie to Court Amarrish: essentially enough to guarantee she can do business just about everywhere she goes.
I'm not going to list the languages the NPC alts speak, 'cause that's just silly.
Author
Topic: What languages can your characters speak? (Read 7939 times)