"Isn't the moon beautiful tonight = I love you": Fun with Creation's languages

[The Revenge of TV Head]

"Cut yourself shaving?" a common Dynastic Taunt used towards someone who very obviously got into a fight, along with "Ran into a doorknob?" and "Fell over?"

Edit: It's considered the height of general unpleasantness to direct such comments towards people who were on the receiving end of spousal or corporal abuse, of course. Doesn't stop some folks though.

[Arian Dynas]

Lover-Boy/Girl A dynastic insult implying that the individual is foolish, mad, or a drain upon their family in much the same way that a young Dynast forming a relationship based on love is.

[Ryumaru]

I wrote a thing where a grouchy drunk told someone to "go piss on a bull-shrine." Probably a bit more... blunt than the other examples here.

[The Wizard of Oz]

Chinese is the most pun-based language I've ever come across. This is due to a)the low number of words (since many words are just compounds, for example train is just fire-vehicle, stuff like that) and b) because of the tones. A few years ago, a lot of political activists were talking about "Grass Mud Horse", which pronounced with different tones, means "F*** the harmonious marxist society".
In songs, literally every word has multiple possible meanings, you only know because of the context.

A well-known Chinese tongue twister I learnt: si shi si, shi shi shi, shisi shi shisi, sishi shi sishi. (note that all those "I"s are pronounched "uh"; a schwa sound for those of you who are linguists).
It means 4 is 4, 10 is 10, 14 is 14, 40 is 40.

Anyway, in terms of Exalted, I'm sure there's all sorts of linguistic shenanigans, but the problem is that your players are always going to be using their own language, so it doesn't come across well. It's something I've run up against before, players talking about etymology and linguistics and getting confused between English and the mysterious and undefined languages of Creation. Especially when Exalted sometimes uses foreign words: ie Akuma.

[Bastet]

One of my Sidereals is a Chosen of Secrets demonologist and cryptographer called Lion Eating Poet who has a powerbow that turns things into stone. His birth name was Shi.

[The Wizard of Oz]

That's beautiful. I might steal it for a Sidereal NPC.

[blackwingedheaven]

Chinese is the most pun-based language I've ever come across.

Japanese is similar, since the language has a limited syllabary, multiple written forms, and regional dialects. Overlapping word meanings can create some pretty hilarious results.

[Jen]

An-Tengese don't really like DB, aren't they ? I wonder if the word poop and dragon sound the same in their language.

I think that's her take on the signature Defiler Caste, Mr. Lobster-Claw Mummy or whatever his name is.

Nah, it's a different character that I thought up on the spot, since crab mummy don't really have anything going on for him aside from being a mummy with crab hand.

Japanese is similar, since the language has a limited syllabary, multiple written forms, and regional dialects. Overlapping word meanings can create some pretty hilarious results.

Yeah, since Japanese, Korean (and ancient Vietnamese) borrowed a lot of Chinese characters. I wonder what language in Creation is similar to Chinese and its cousin, Old Realm seem like a good fit, but High Realm is used by Dynast which is inspired by ancient Chinese.

[Saur Ops Specialist]

Old Realm uses Mayan-like pictographs of syllables assembled like letters in hanegul, so it might not be very Chinese.

[Lioness]

An-Tengese don't really like DB, aren't they ? I wonder if the word poop and dragon sound the same in their language.

An-Teng doesn't have anything particularly against Dragon-Blooded so much as its conservative and practices a passive xenophobia masked as hospitality. They tend to consider foreigners insane for not understanding their ways and view Exalts as walking natural disasters.
Something as blatant as equating Dragons with excrement would go against established Tengese character in addition to being somewhat blasphemous towards the Celestial Order in general.

[Isator Levi]

I'd really like Linguistics as an Ability to be filled with all kinds of potential to use shades of meaning and allusions as a way of conveying or concealing things. To the extent that this interacts with the language used by players, I personally expect about 75% of dialogue or monologue to be abstracted anyway (with any actual flashes of eloquence by the player as stunts).

[PlotVitalNPC]

Japanese is similar, since the language has a limited syllabary, multiple written forms, and regional dialects. Overlapping word meanings can create some pretty hilarious results.

Look at your farmfield, in standard Japanese you call that a 'hatake'
Look at that mountain, in standard Japanese you call that a 'yama'

Now look back to the field.
In the Hachijo dialect/language, you call that a 'yama', and I don't know what you call the mountain at all.

[JayTee]

This is probably a sentence somewhere in the south east

I'm going to revise this and say that instead of Buffalo, it's Yeddim.

[TheCountAlucard]

Jen does commissions?!

>.>
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No, never.

[TheCountAlucard]

I bet the Halta and Linowan don't use formalized writing systems.

Actually, you'd lose that bet; the books go into detail about how not only does Halta have writing, they make some of the best books evar, and they get exported all over Creation to be the envied piece in a rich collector's library! Even the Realm doesn't have books as nice as Halta does! (Except, obviously, for their Haltan books.)

That one made it to my top ten, on my grand list of "Why Alucard can't enjoy reading about Halta."