Language Blending

[Display Name]

As you are probably aware, every standard, humanoid race in the game is bilingual by default, able to speak in their race-specific tongue as well as Galactic Common. A lot of players even choose to be trilingual, adding a third, even more seldom used, language to their metaphorical toolbox. It's a system that, while intentionally obnoxious at times, is enjoyable to me and clearly based in reality.

Anyways, the main topic of this post is language blending, that is, using multiple languages in a single sentence or phrase. In real life, multi-lingual people will often substitute in words from the different languages they know as needed, sometimes explaining the meaning afterwards, but sometimes not. This is something that happens frequently in real life, and unsurprisingly, this is actually a system in the game, being able to switch languages mid-sentence. Here's an example:

What is being input: "The old days, just like on :1 Earth. :9 You remember :1 Earth, :9 don't you?"

What is being output: " The old days, just like on Earth. You remember Earth, don't you?"

The blue text is the human-specific language, which will appear in blue coloration for everyone, but to all non-humans will be read simply as gibberish. The way that the language system works, you can switch languages at any time, and any amount of times during a statement by simply typing in the language's prefix prior to whatever you want to switch. From a purely practical viewpoint, it's easy to dismiss, as it's much more convenient to just change an entire statement, but switching languages more smoothly makes a lot of sense from both a real world and RP standpoint. Whether you are covering up a racial insult, referencing something old from the lore, or simply trying to stand out a bit more, language blending is a viable and immersive option.

Edited February 2, 2020 by Display Name
repetitive