ndouglas
commented
2 years ago My idea here is that monsters will say things -- to each other, to the player ("get out of here!"), etc... in their native language (Orcish, Goblin, etc). It might appear like "Hrug gahar mork!" or something like that, but underneath that should be real language.
There will be a natural variation in the frequency at which these words appear. Once a word has appeared to the player a certain number of times, it will thereafter appear as its English language equivalent. This permits us to represent the process of the hero learning a language in a somewhat realistic (though greatly simplified) manner.
Rather than create a lexicon and grammar for each language, I think what I'll do is shuffle the order of the words (to represent e.g. SOV, VSO, etc grammars), but once some particular level of understanding of that language is gained, they'll show up in their normal word order. At some point, enough skill in the language has been acquired that even infrequently used words should be translated.
I think this could be a good way of exploring nonhuman culture via e.g. Sapir-Whorf sort of stuff.
Story
NPCs should not all speak "Common", and if they quip, they should do it in a different language.
This might mean doing some kind of language system that tokenizes sentences and replaces words with a translation, and then the PC can learn the language based on their exposure to certain words. I should spike on this and come up with a plan.
Acceptance Criteria
Implementation Notes