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[Saede Riordan]

Greetings Targets!

[Ammentio Oinkelmar]

I keep seeing wierd abbreviations used in Gallente RP, it seems like it's based on French, so I figured I'd post this little chart of forms of address in French to help.

M. = Monsieur : Sir / plural: MM. = Messieurs
Mme = Madame : Madam / plural: Mmes = Mesdames
Mlle = Mademoiselle : Miss / plural: Mlles = Mesdemoiselles

This chart will be very useful, there's no doubt about that. So far I've been employing Msr. or Mssr. for Monsieur, because with simple "M. Colcer" A. Colcer might think that I'm addressing one of his numerous cousins. The double s comes probably from analogy to the double l in Mlle. Anyhow, now when you pointed it out, the IC misunderstanding potential of the shorter acronym is very attractive, and probably offers more RP avenues than the long version, with the additional benefit of being faster to write.

Usually the official, original Gallente language has been provided for me by the google translate tool, but I certainly wouldn't mind if players who have more expertise in linguistics would come up with some principles or suggestions on how to do it better.

[Lyn Farel]

Well if you need french advices, I am a native.

By the way the chart adressed above is correct. Msr. does not exist to my knowledge.

I woud also suggest using www.wordreference.com, way more accurate and rich than google (but it is not a text translator). Though it is sadly not going to help in grammar, which is probably a nightmare for a neophyte.

[Bureeiku]

While using French titles in addressing Gallente characters makes fine sense, I would rather see a new set of titles dreamed up that is EVE-specific, like the Raata titles used by the Caldari.

For example, 'monsieur' literally means 'my lord', which I think is a bit archaic for a progressive society like the Gallentean one.  I would expect popular titles to be re-inventions of the historic titles that reflect a liberal democracy, such as citoyen, monégal, etc.  Even something like copain or collègue in a less formal setting.

I leave it to the Francophones to mess around with the language.

[Casiella]

So how do these IC language projects (and speaking alternate languages in-pod) view things like language translators?

[Vieve]

So how do these IC language projects (and speaking alternate languages in-pod) view things like language translators?

At the 100% risk of quoting myself...

Vieve Tisserand got out of bed, picked up Jake Farrow's white dress shirt from the floor, and slopped it on, fastening its front until she got to the sticky note she'd applied last night. She tugged that off and carried it into the bathroom. The house lighting accompanied her, dimming behind her and brightening in advance of her steps.

She slapped the note to the wall beneath the pair of small ceramic hooks mounted beside the sink. The thin square of film, red when it had been attached to the shirt and transparent in Vieve's hand, turned dark blue to contrast with the pale yellow tiles. Its gold Achuran glyphs, now silver, blinked at her.

Hisayo-haani, please no have wash shirt.

Vieve tapped the lower right corner of the note. "Update. Text only." The text cleared, leaving a tiny blinking line. "Caldari."

She smiled at it when she slipped her engagement ring off and hung it on one of the two hooks. "Hope you had a good day at work, sweetheart."

The text spread across the note in a reasonable approximation of her words, or at least a near-decade of schooling in the language suggested they were reasonable. The Achuran she damn well knew was pidgin.

Vieve tapped the note's corner again, and the blinking stopped.

[Shintoko Akahoshi]

Vieve Tisserand got out of bed, picked up Jake Farrow's white dress shirt from the floor, and slopped it on, fastening its front until she got to the sticky note she'd applied last night. She tugged that off and carried it into the bathroom. The house lighting accompanied her, dimming behind her and brightening in advance of her steps.

She slapped the note to the wall beneath the pair of small ceramic hooks mounted beside the sink. The thin square of film, red when it had been attached to the shirt and transparent in Vieve's hand, turned dark blue to contrast with the pale yellow tiles. Its gold Achuran glyphs, now silver, blinked at her.

Hisayo-haani, please no have wash shirt.

Vieve tapped the lower right corner of the note. "Update. Text only." The text cleared, leaving a tiny blinking line. "Caldari."

She smiled at it when she slipped her engagement ring off and hung it on one of the two hooks. "Hope you had a good day at work, sweetheart."

The text spread across the note in a reasonable approximation of her words, or at least a near-decade of schooling in the language suggested they were reasonable. The Achuran she damn well knew was pidgin.

Vieve tapped the note's corner again, and the blinking stopped.

I loved this. Machine translation (any translation, really) brings a lot of interesting problems into focus: What do you do about proper nouns? Idioms? Grammar differences that affect the sorts of sentences that can actually be constructed?

I've toyed with the proper noun issue to explain my poor choice of a Japanese name for Shin. She's a member of a pocket culture who speak a language otherwise only found among a minority of Tierijevi which Ly'sol and I worked out as a Polynesian language. To explain her name, I decided that the only good translation software for this language is Achuran (making the common assumption that Achurans are based on the Japanese in the same way that Gallenteans are based on the French). Since some of the phonemes of her language don't exist in Achuran, the translation software would have to "Achur-ize" them to make them pronounceable to Achurans.

[lallara zhuul]

There is probably still local cultural customs that has to be followed so that everyone is politically correct and whatnot.

Like the old noble families of the Gallente monarchies, the Reborn spiritual leaders etc.

[Matariki Rain]

* Matariki Rain will happily continue to hack "ancient Gallentean" in her interactions with Gallente.

I note that while the variations and contractions might be annoying if someone would prefer to see Gallente titles handled according to modern French, they're quite appropriate in terms of either historic English or language variation over time and place.

What I do find little strange is the idea that Gallentean language might have retained or redeveloped gendered honorifics (different for women and men), and marriageabilty-marker honorifics (different for unmarried and married) in normal use. While I can imagine all sorts of forms of address being adopted while someone is specifically interacting in a highly-sexualised culture of flirting/courtship/hook-ups, in general and official use I wonder about:

• not having honorifics at all (the Icelandic approach: use the given name), or
• using a generic term that translates as "freeperson", or
• having titles based on whether on not a person is eligible to vote (maybe something in the "citizen" line, but with more flair).

Given the Gallente emphasis on the individual as opposed to the dynasty or clan I wouldn't be surprised if the primary form of address was the given name, even if honorifics were used, so we might see a more stylish version of "Citizen Tristan" rather than "Monsieur Broussard".

[hellgremlin]

Limp-wristed cheese-eating surrender monkeys!

[Lyn Farel]

While using French titles in addressing Gallente characters makes fine sense, I would rather see a new set of titles dreamed up that is EVE-specific, like the Raata titles used by the Caldari.

For example, 'monsieur' literally means 'my lord', which I think is a bit archaic for a progressive society like the Gallentean one.  I would expect popular titles to be re-inventions of the historic titles that reflect a liberal democracy, such as citoyen, monégal, etc.  Even something like copain or collègue in a less formal setting.

I leave it to the Francophones to mess around with the language.

Citoyen is a nice idea, it sounds quite well. Though 'copain' sounds weird, a little childish. You usually use this word to speak of the boyfriend of someone (or girlfriend in the case of 'copine') : son copain, sa copine. I would rather use "mon pote" (in "hey, mon pote"). Very familiar, can be translated into "mate" or "buddy", especially "pal".

[Alain Colcer]

While using French titles in addressing Gallente characters makes fine sense, I would rather see a new set of titles dreamed up that is EVE-specific, like the Raata titles used by the Caldari.

For example, 'monsieur' literally means 'my lord', which I think is a bit archaic for a progressive society like the Gallentean one.  I would expect popular titles to be re-inventions of the historic titles that reflect a liberal democracy, such as citoyen, monégal, etc.  Even something like copain or collègue in a less formal setting.

I leave it to the Francophones to mess around with the language.

Citoyen is a nice idea, it sounds quite well. Though 'copain' sounds weird, a little childish. You usually use this word to speak of the boyfriend of someone (or girlfriend in the case of 'copine') : son copain, sa copine. I would rather use "mon pote" (in "hey, mon pote"). Very familiar, can be translated into "mate" or "buddy", especially "pal".

I have used Monsieur and Madmoiselle for a long time, and althought it seems wrong in every way, it was a tool in chat to express i was using "Gallentean" terms, which of course the translator expressed as these 2 words.

However i would very much like to have other alternatives, but we need to take into account that "modern" Gallentean language would have originated around the Garoun era....and that WAS a monarchy, so Monsieur (as my lord), doesnt seem so far fetched.