RPGWW

Because once upon a time, Amanda was a newb.

My main beef is with Nekonia and linguistics. The names currently on the map and of the founding fathers...

are not in Japanese.

Nekonians....

Speak Japanese.

Something's gotta give...either Nekonians speak Japanese or I'm going to have to retconn shit and make it common. Or something.

>:{ What says all of you?

"-ia" isn't really a normal ending to a Japanese location name either, is it?

No, it's not. SOmething that's plagued me for a while...

But it's established that Nekonians have their own language. If I change it will be a more "cat like" language. PUrrs, meows, and body language and so on...

I've always seen it as being the Gaeran equivalent with Japanese; and I'm fine with it continuing suchly.

What Zero said.

Yeah, we've already had the conversation about languages and nomenclature like three times on this forum. Things are named the way they are and it's not a big deal. Some stuff is named in pseudo-Japanese; the in-world explanation is that Nekonian names for certain things are just in common usage. Some of the Nekonian city names don't sound "Japanese?" Big deal. It's not Japanese--it's Nekonian, so it doesn't have the same linguistic rules as Japanese. We just "represent" some of the in-game languages as real-world languages to save time instead of inventing new ones. That doesn't mean that they necessarily are those languages, or even have to follow the same rules.

This reminds me of a conversation I had with Dave at Otakon when he professed concern about his ability to pull of a British accent for Daniel Hyral (particularly when an actual Brit was going to be around). Like I told him:

"But that's just it. It's NOT a British accent, it's a Baronian accent. So it can sound like whatever you want, and whatever accent you give him is right!"

So ultimately, this means you don't have to change anything you don't want to. Besides, who says the names on the maps are the names that Nekonians use to refer to things? They're the Common names, much like when you look at a map in a classroom in an English-speaking country. I don't see Spain labelled as "Spain" on Spanish maps--it says "España."

The way I understood/understand things is this:

-- the Nekonian language is represented by japanese. (Like AM said, there can be inconsistencies because it's not actually Japanese)

-- the language is beginning to die out in the country. Specifically, the language was established as "High Nekonian," and was taught largely to the upper classes. In some more anachronistic towns, Nekonian was still spoken exclusively.

-- most natives knew a good smattering of words. The official language of the country is still Nekonian, meaning that official documents are written in the language and most signs are, as well. While it has been tradition for official documents to be produced also in Common, and many signs are also produced in Common, natives tend to pick up a Nekonian vocabulary--if not necessarily grammar--from the environment.


Now, given all this, Nekonian was used exclusive at some point in time.


If it was used before the country's founding, then the country's name and founders' names would realistically be different. I don't think that would mess too much up.


On the other hand, if the Nekonian language was created and used exclusively after the country's unification and founding, then the names still work.

I like the idea of a more cat like language--maybe that was the language or one of the languages before the country unified and in the early days of the country?


The question would then be--why the change in language?