We make up languages for a fantasy setting.
I'll start:
>Swordspeak
This language is not spoken, but rather it uses dual-wielding sword stances in a manner similar to semaphore-flag signals in order to communicate silently from great distances.
This language has a written form; the letters are abstract representations of sword wielding humans assuming their stances.
>>44131165
Why would anyone ever bother to invent a language like that instead of using semaphore-flag signals?
>>44131200
1) The language emerged from repurposed training techniques.
2) Learning the language from a young age also teaches you to be a better sword-fighter.
3) They already had all these swords laying around...
>>44131200
Not OP, but I can think of one. Say the nobles of different nationalities in that realm get more and more autistic about duels and the corresponding etiquette. What started as simple "stances" as basically a handshake to the opponent, after a few centuries become full blown poetry contests before matches. That could be a start to a simple sign language.
>>44131165
While I like the idea, swords are not really the best signalling devices, since they can be rather hard to see from a long distance. They might need flags tied to their ends, and at that point, it might just end up becoming flagspeak.
Also, it would be very weird to be fighting a guy who knows swordspeak, then while you're both going through complicated maneuvers, he suddenly stops and asks, "Did... Did you just propose to me?"
Then you'd have to embarrassingly signal that you were just trying to ask him out to dinner, while trying to also convey that marriage isn't completely out of the question, and while you're all flustered and waving your swords around he'll stab you, and that's a horrible way to start a romance.
>>44131377
Yeah, dual-wielded axes might be a better compromise.
>>44131354
I can also see the practice of sword-speak among nobles being a branch of "fan-speak", or the complex system of formal gestures used by lords, ladies, and courtesans to communicate via folding hand-fans.
>>44131165
>Swordspeak
>Yeah, dual-wielded axes might be a better compromise.
Have you considered killing yourself?
>>44131376
o toki!
I apply something similar, but less retarded, to some of the default D&D languages. Like to speak Ignan you have to be able to burn a flame in different colours and temperatures. There's a verbal approximation of the flame components of the language but you sound a bit retarded if you can only speak it in that way.
Never invented an entirely new language though. And never something like OPs. Is the joke that you could make the written form just the normal English alphabet?
>>44131165
Emperor Gary Lombardi Romonsfel IV was so in love with his name he made an entire language around. No one actually used it of course, until the emperor enstated a death penalty for those who didn't speak or write it and couldn't prove they could read it properly. The language is called Gary and is entirely made up of Gary's of varying length, pronunciation, and volume. The Gary emperor may have died ages ago but his edict to spread Garyism to every corner of the world has finally touched your idyllic hamlet. The soldiers are currently knocking down the tavern your characters are inexplicably located in.
>>44132745
Fuck you, I thought that was real for a minute
>>44132890
Ditto. It started out so stupid, I didn't think anyone would make it up.
Like, it's the perfect amount of "This is how stupid the real world is."
>>44132982
Royalty's crazy enough
>>44132745
I sat unto you: GARY!
>>44131165
There actually is a fantasy book in Russian based on that idea.
Swords, axes and other weapons are sentinent and consider people bearing them useful pets. Their 'conversations' evolved from fights and became a form of art. Mutilating or killing people is considered mauvais tone among them irons.
>>44134428
Neat! What's it called?
>>44134497
I've made a quick research and it seems like it had never been translated.
The name is 'Пyть мeчa' (The Way if the Sword).
It's set in a country similar to medieval Arabia, and there two things start to happen at the same time: the people and the swords discover who they believed to be tools are sentinent and barbarians try to invade the country. A nice book indeed, it's a shame there are no translations. I was quite impressed when I first read it (I was 15 or something).
The conversation was not just a set of stances though. It was a mix of a duel and a dance, so no long distance data transfer.
It's not really a language, but I once threw morse code at the party. It was a series of red and blue markings on the wall, with letters separated by small empty space and words separated by a slightly larger empty space and new sentences starting on a new line. They didn't get it the first session, which I was sort of counting on. The next session I had it printed out on paper and handed out a copy to each player, deliberately making the red markings smaller than the blue ones to make it look a little like morse code. They still didn't get it. I left the session on a "cliffhanger" with them in a room, trying to decipher the code, with no in-game pressure or urgency to leave any time soon. I expected them to get together and try to figure it out between sessions. No dice.
I found out like a month and a half later that one dude "figured out" it was binary, translated it, got gibberish, and came to the conclusion that he only had part of the message, and was waiting to get the rest of it. By this time the clue the code provided was for old information that the party had acquired elsewhere.
A language used by certain aquatic races. It incorporates only a few sounds, primarily just as signaling for an intended audience. It is primarily composed of movements and changing colors and patterns of the skin with some targeted pheromones. It completely changes when there is no light to see by, incorporating more sounds and pheromone signals and replacing the skin colors and patterns with patterns of biolumiescence.
>>44139354
shoulda used slashes to beat it into their heads
immodest bump
>>44131165
>Swordspeak was invented in very desperate conditions, and is now largely considered a novelty. The sword poses are more communicative than combative and should not be used as a fighting style.
>Except for THAT ONE DOUCHE who's somehow frighteningly effective with it.
>>44131165
duels become rap battles
>>44131165
badconlangingideas.tumblr.com/
>>44135676
Thanks!
>>44139557
This reminds me of a Inter Ice Age 4 for some reason. Specifically the scene where a couple of the characters are discussing under-water music...
>>44131165
aveneca.com/cbb
incatena.org/index.php
Beware, the people in the second site will eat you alive for breakfast if you act dumb.
>>44143411
>incatena.org/index.php
Neat! Will probably just lurk, like I do with the alternate history forums.
>>44131200
well for one in a culture where carrying swords around is more common than carrying flags around it'd be the sensible default for a prop based sign language. Honestly I'd prefer to see something like this used as a kind of covert code where in duelists could pass messages along in mock combat. It'd be a fascinating set piece in a courtly drama with retainers of different lords plotting a coup together.
>>44143675
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DRnXASa1VM
A pair of languages used by pseudo-communal insectoids.
One, Quiet-Speak, is composed entirely of pheromones as "tone of voice" and tapping gestures on the body as "words". Using this language among insectoids causes them to feel empathy to an inhuman degree for one another, allowing for a relatively peaceful society.
The other, Wildspeak, is made of obnoxiously loud songs created by organs similar to the membranes that cicadas possess, and is only used outside of the communal hive, being considered impersonal.
Using this indoors is considered rude, and is used as an insult with other individuals one would consider close.
dei se cusku bau na'e bo lo glico .i te zu'e bo ge lo nunsnu cu pa moi lo se liste gi lo snustuku'i na sutra lo ka co'a djuno lo du'u ma kau te zukte
>>44146838
>dei se cusku bau na'e bo lo glico
ba'e li'a
