#does the accent make a difference

[gothberries]

Vanoé comm from twt

[swampybogg]

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Our Lady Of Mysterious Ailments & The Mystery at Dunvegan Castle

books 2 & 3 in the Edinburgh Nights series

paranormal mystery set in a climate-ravaged future Scotland, plagued by ghosts and magic

follows a 15yo Black girl who’s finally gotten an in to learn scientific magic properly - but it turns out to be an unpaid internship, so she has to take more jobs delivering ghost messages and investigating mysteries to take care of her gran and little sister

in book 2 she’s investigating a strange illness centred on a magic school for boys

and in book 3 she’s attending a global magician conference held in a creepy castle - when someone’s murdered, and they’re locked in until she figures out the culprit

Zimbabwean magic, friendship, disabled characters, no romance (so far)

[nadiajustbe]

I know people in HMC books speak English so there's not gonna be any kind of miscommunication between the characters, but sometimes I think about how it would be way more funny If there was some language diversity.

Howell Jenkins falls into the portal to an absolutely unknown, magical realm and... everyone speaks English. He was rather happy about it, finding it funny: it's a new, fantasy, fairy-tale based world with dragons and spells and seven-league boots and magic, and yet its habitants English. What are the odds?

However, it does not takes him long to realise (much to his own frustration) that, even though all of the locals native language is, in fact, English, it is pretty different from the English Howell himself is familiar with. He cant understand it quite well at fist, but it sounded like an odd mix of a modern language, specific dialects and an old tongue people was using around Victorian England/Middle Ages. It has so many words and unusual forms (Howell even called them "slang" once in a while), that it takes him a while to fully get every term and subtexts ms. Pentstemmon was referring to.

Their languages were similar just enough to catch the full sense of the sentence, but not enough to undertand all the little details, not cultural nor linguistic. It would even worst If he wasn't a big fun of Shakespeare and old Arthurian Legends growing up, letting alone studying old English (and old Welsh) at the university.

The language also differs from the area. Michael, for example, uses so many words you can hear in Porthaven only, regarding it's unique aspects. Sophie uses a lot of Market Chipping proverbs, and even more old terms connected with hats. The language he heard the King using wheh he got his first chance to met him at the time of his apprenticeship was so long, confusing and vivid, as If it was taken straight out of old English Literature books. And yet, English.

To this day Howell — at this point long-knowing as Howl Pendragon — finds himself confusing new terms, forms of words, proverbs and sayings. Maybe, he thinks, you have to be truly born there to understand all of - although he did better than anyone else would. Sophie seems to catching up just well.

—

Abdullah ends up with a flying carpet and the magical genie, exited to give away his fist wish to find the love of his love... only to not understand a word of what the genie is saying. This is how, instead of searching for Flower-In-The-Night, he now searching through a whole Zanzib for a proper translator from English because, here's the problem, If he can't understand the genie, then genie can't understand him, and If genie can't understand him, it's pointless to even try making a wish. He knows it's English: there's plenty people all around the world visiting the market, and he had even learnt certain words, important for making a trade, but that's not nearly close to a full sentence on unrelated topic.

With a great effort and after hours of searching for a really proffecional master of languages (who charges Abdullah nearly all of his money for one single session), he finally gets to the point. Except, here's another moment. That's where Abdullah finds out the wish has to be spoken from his heart and not through the other person. Here comes another catch — Ingarian English, no matter how simple or structured is, to put is simply, badly different from Rapshutian Arabic. It's not even the same language group!

So, he sits in the small, hot room near the glamorous bottle and tries to pronounce a bunch of difficult, complex words written on a paper, the kind that translator couldn't cut or simplify to ones he's familiar with, for a whole ten (to fifteen) minutes. And, as If trying to make his task as difficult as possible, genie, when he shows up, starts randomly breaking into the language translator can't even recognise, with no talk about understanding. Abdullah assumes it may be a secret genie language only this creatures know and, annoyingly, gets along with it.

After successfully wishing to understand (and use) English, he also finds out he can't wish for anything more language-related, and he shouldn't even bother himself trying to ask for a foolish things like an ability to speak every language in the world. Language is a big part of human's essence and otherwise shouldn't be messing with, just as magic focusing on it is strictly limited.

Using this fact, the genie also finds a loophole - from now on he speaks his secret genie language half of the time, stopping only when it comes to important tasks, because Abdullah "wished to know only one of his languages" and he, apparently, knows more.

This whole puzzle takes new turns, when, while traveling with the carpet, Abdullah meets the solider. Despite claiming being from Strangia, this strange man from the forest starts speaking with them in English in first and then, noticing they're from different country, easily switches to Arabic.

As they wander together, the soliders explains that he is non less confused than they are: he didn't even noticed he could speak English before the passer-byes from Ingary noticed him, and now, being with genie and Abdullah, he also remembered he knows Arabic. He adds that he can't recall anything before his duty in the army, where he definitely used Stangian and nothing else, but it feels like an strong knowledge he has, even If he doesn't remember learning any of this. He decides to wave it off, focusing on the cats and schemes.

The solider becomes a great translator for them along the journey, up to the day the got the inn. He does not understand the secret genie language, though. Especially when from the jinnies and angels they found out there's, in fact, no such a thing as a "genie language"

The story finally clears itself when Midnight and Whippersnapper turn into humans, the Solider turns into a bewitched Prince and the Royal Wizard surprisingly seems to recognize all of the words the genie was — and still is — using.

—

Charmain runs after Sophie with a long, old dictionary she has found in the Great Uncle Norland's Library. The Royals, of course, gave their honored guest the translator, but the things quickly becomes pretty private, with the search for the gold and all this story with lubboks, so Sophie tells them she's gonna manage it by herself.

To say the Dictionary is heavy is to say nothing: it's huge and thick, containing thousands of words from Ingarian English alone, split by topics, marked with tons of colors an additional moments. Even carrying it around is a whole different type of task.

Half of the time Charmain and Sophie communicate with gestures, context clues and even sounds. When they need to say something really long and complex, they write, leaning on the Dictionary, as it's a bit faster than talking. Still, at some moments Charmain has to flip through the massive pages, searching for the right word with her finger, while Sophie has to do the same. Till the end of the day the both learn some basic words from each other's language, which makes it easier.

The poor nanny has even harder times with Twinkle and Morgan, because she has no idea about what they actually want, except they both whining and crying, one louder than another.

Translator does not come in handy that much, as it looks like these children mix languages everytime when speaking to each other. She has to guess things all over the room to finally get what they need, and usually it's the most useless things ever, like striped pants and a bunch of toy horses falling from the sky.

They see Sophie and Twinkle arguing about something, but no one gets the topic of their screaming, let alone the reason why Sophie is so mad at this angelic child. Charmain asks Sophie about it, because she heard an unusual name along the lines of their quarrels, but Sophie looks too annoyed to explain, mumbling something in her native language with some sort of anger.

The only positive side of it all is that, If Chairman can't understand English, then the lubbocks can't either. Wich means that they didn't have to be as cautious when using Dictionary as they would have to If they understood each other perfectly.

Then she has to climb on the roof, where Twinkle is sitting. Charmain tries to dismiss all his attempts to start a dialogue till she's there, huffing and suffocating as she tries to get the Dictionary with her, trying not to fall.

Twinkle seems to be really proud of himself, saying he knows twice more languages that anyone else in this magical House. Charmain flips through the pages, asking either one of is the one she knows (Norlandian, I assume).

Twinkle says no. For a second Charmaine starts to really understand Sophie's feeling, fighting the urge to hit him on the head with this massive book.

Peter does not communicate with this new guest as much and, luckily, he knows the language Charmain speaks, so they don't have to struggle with a language barrier. The way speaks might be a bit different because of the area he grew up and the amount of hiding and spells he encountered, but there's nothing they can't handle. Luckily.

Calcifer knows the Saucepan song, but other than that his linguistic knowledge is far from perfect, certainly not as good as you'd expect from a fire demon. He also cannot use a Dictionary, because it will burn the second he'll come to close to it, and If this happens their main way of communication is basically gone. He makes up for it, talking with Twinkle, Morgan and Sophie, as well as being expressive enough to understand the basics or what he feels and plans. Sometimes someone (aka Sophie) has to translate what he is saying when she's near, wich is a bit longer than Charmain would wish, but still pretty plausible. She got that he desperately needs his logs, after all.

Twinkle could have used some kind of magical bubble to get them finally understand each other fully, but, again, magic connected with languages is pretty difficult and has its important limits, so it wouldn't last long. Little 30 years old boy is enjoying his childhood, running up the stairs and beating these huge bugs, not as much caring about Charmain all this huge book in her hands.

In the end, (as he turnds out to be) the Royal Wizard Howl is right - the only languages lubbocks can understand is punching.

(Many thanks to my rly good friend @your-queen-shuri for being co-author of this concept. A bunch of ideas here are from her!)

[sergle]

mMMMM my doctor "renewed" my meds but instead of actually renewing the most recent one, he went back and renewed the version that costs $300 per bottle. kewl

[fishareglorious]

I think it still makes me laugh that Madam Z and Tennant share the same CN voice actor. i don't know what would be more funnier: a role swap or a personality swap between the two.

[jinxedshapeshifter]

I kinda love that even in the non voice acted dialogue, Ryunosuke still speaks with an obvious English accent/dialect, and he seems to be kinda just picking it up from the English people around him as a way of fitting in better. Just got him thinking "It was bothering me before, this was" which isn't phrasing I've ever heard from an American. It's very distinctly English phrasing to me.

This also actually implies a bit about his education, because it would indicate that his English teacher in Japan was from England.

[chaos-in-one]

Seeing r/systemscringe straight up misinterpreting the DSM is disappointing but not surprising

[the-busy-ghost]

Minor throwaway sentence in a book on corruption I've just finished was talking about 1930s gangsters and about certain organisations in Chicago which the author stated were more ethnically diverse than the Italian mafia, and whose members were said to have included 'Irish, Welsh, Italian, and Jewish' gangsters.

Now call me sheltered but I've seen MANY Italian American gangsters immortalised in film, I've heard of the Jewish mob, and the police Irish American gangs but I have yet to see a movie about the Welsh mob. As a rule I don't go in for gangster movies but I feel there's an unfilled niche here and also I need more info.

[magnusbae]

A short writing challenge with @cuubism the challenge was for her to manage to write 100-200 words and no more and for me to write at all xD So here's mine, the prompt words cuubism gave me were " Social Media AU" and "First Meeting Offline" they both have pretty successful but very different social media accounts :)

▾▾▾

Hob was nothing like Morpheus had expected him to be. For starters, there’s no neon colors to be seen anywhere. Nor is there an idiotic smile nor accent. He looks….

“More ordinary than you had expected?” Hob smiles cheekily and there, finally, Morpheus recognizes the man who dared to challenge him. “You on the other hand,” Hob checks him out from head to toe “look exactly as I had imagined you.”

Morpheus snorts.

“What? Really. Look at you, you’re exactly what you sound like.”

“I use a voice reader in my videos, you do realize, yes?”

Hob waves his hand dismissively “Not the point” and then with yet another dazzling grin he steps closer to Morpheus and offers his head “Nice to meet you, Dream.” He says the name like it’s a secret between the both of them, and not an username half a million people know.

Morpheus purses his lips tighter, standing taller and looking down at Hob, he’s pleased with his own choice to wear the tallest pair of boots he has. He takes Hob’s hand only after making an eye contract and asserting that Hob is well aware of who’s holding the higher ground.

“My pleasure.” He says.

“Let’s have a fun date~” Hob responds jovially.

Morpheus wonders if it was a wise decision to agree to meet a stranger for a date just to prove a point— though, he’ll surely find out, soon.

“Let’s begin.”

[faksyan]

thought about mgs characters for two seconds

[bookwyrminspiration]

having polyglot thoughts so i'm dumping them on you:

first of all, do you think if polyglots didn't know a language before manifesting (for example, keefe with english), then they would switch accents based on who they're talking to? for example, keefe went to london, so should we assume that since he was talking to british people, he was probably speaking in a british accent, too? or if he went to america (which he did, he went to disneyland or disney world i think) then he would be speaking with an american accent? that would be really funny. like one day he's speaking canadian french and then he leaps out and the next day he's speaking french french or something. even polyglots that did know the language before manifesting (like sophie with english). do you think they are also switching accents according to the person they're talking to or just keeping the accent they grew up with (in sophie's case, american). i know that sophie's a special case, and that most elves would only ever speak the enlightened language before manifesting, but it's still worth considering.

second of all, do you think polyglots would have an innate grasp on idioms and sayings? because those aren't inherent to the language, not really. if i said like. "it's raining cats and dogs", would a polyglot really understand what that means or would they think i'm literally saying cats and dogs are falling out of the sky. because if that's true then keefe would've had a lot of idioms to learn when he was living in london, too. there's a saying in my language that literally translates to "do it with [your] hand", but in terms of idioms, it actually means "do it immediately". so something like that would really throw off a polyglot if they didn't have a natural understanding of all the various idioms that came with a language.

a lot of people have brought this last point up already, but sign language. personally, i think sign language would be a part of a polyglot's natural database of languages, so to speak. because it is a language. it's literally in the name. just because it's not a vocal language doesn't mean it's not a language. so i think that polyglots would understand sign language on instinct, but wanna hear your thoughts.

Oh I love language thoughts. I'd think a polyglot would speak the language reflective of the accent they first heard. The way it seems to work is once they encounter it (reading, hearing it, etc.), then they understand and can use it--but they couldn't start speaking a language they've never heard out of nowhere. Afterwards they can use it based on that initial contact. I'd assume with time they could change their accent the same way anyone could, being around different pronunciations for a while and slowly incorporating them in--perhaps with more speed given their ability. But I'd still assume a base in their first contact. after all, encountering different accents isn't a new language

Based on that, I'd also think they'd keep their own accent if they learned the language prior to manifesting. Maybe their understanding of grammar rules and patterns would improve though--but then again, it's instinct, not conscious, so maybe not

As for idioms, I suppose it depends on how you want to interpret their instinctive understanding/speaking. Does instinctively speaking the language (Unlocked 265) mean they simply understand the literal meanings and socially constructed metaphor is an entirely separate realm? Or does it mean they can instinctively communicate in any language, and that includes implied/non-literal meaning? Like you said, idioms aren't inherent to a language, so I'd personally vote no. It's not instinctual to understand, but it's not like you can't learn them or sometimes reason out what one means. But again, the rules for magic polyglots are really just what you want them to be.

And I agree; signed languages are as much languages as spoken, as complex and varied, and can be analyzed and studied much the same. Unless one's worldbuilding has it's own specific magic rules--e.g. there's something about hearing a language that allows one to understand it, which then means signed languages would have to be learned organically--then there's no reason to exclude sign. I'm not saying that a world with those specific qualifications would be bad--it could be a fitting source of friction or difficulty is a polyglot character used to being able to communicate everywhere suddenly can't and has to adapt. Just that kotlc does not appear to be one of those stories, so I think kotlc's polyglots should instinctively understand sign.

I'd also be curious whether their instinctive understand could at least partially translate towards methods of communication like morse code. Would an encoded message (not necessarily morse) count as a method of communication/language of its own and therefore be understandable by them? I suppose it would depend on what kind of code it is, but food for thought.

Polyglotism is quite underappreciated in the story--which isn't its fault, given the plot, but man I cannot help but yearn...

[incoherentbabblings]

I understand people joking about unintelligible accents/dialects sometimes I do but there is always something really surreal about seeing one that is either yours or one that you understand perfectly well being made the butt of a joke and you'll sit there like what's the joke they're being perfectly coherent!

There are many many many many examples of this but the one that is relevant for myself is the chap in Brave speaking Doric. He's not even speaking that fast.

If he was a wee bit closer I could lob a caber [tree trunk/log] at him, ken [you know]? and It's just nae fair making us fit [fight] for the hand of the quine [woman], it disnae whet an appetite, ken [you know]?

[a-moon-eclipsed]

alrighty lads,, if i get myself a permets-tu bracelet for my birthday, par the lovely @/amorseart on etsy, what colours are the MOSt exr?

[caterpillarinacave]

Do you have thoughts about Baby Henry and his Great Aunt Matilda?

Oh BOY do I.

I could literally go on and on forever but I should redirect you to this entire fic which is basically a coherent, carefully constructed, novel of those thoughts:

(Those with an astute eye will notice that I call Matilda Henry’s aunt, as in his fathers sister, as opposed to his great aunt. Maybe this is due to the copious amounts of inheritance fuckery brought up in the first chapter. Maybe I forgot because rereading nothing but shadows makes me sad. Maybe I can make it work and I’m going with it.) 

[j-esbian]

there’s a certain flavor of conservative thought where people start to get mad about Accents Existing that i always find truly bizarre