Outline · [ Standard ] · Linear+ Languages

[godking]

So, can anybody think of any way we can have languages in this game? Those cultures with similar languages get along better - those with different get a slight minus. As a part of cultural assimilation - you can force people to use your language, or even kill out the old language, or work around the language differences. Would depend on your civics I would guess. I am just not sure how to impliment this into the game, or if it should be a background type of thing, or what.

[Master Zen]

Shouldn't this be in the Civs thead?

[conmcb25]

I love different languages

[Zkribbler]

In Empires of the Middle Ages, languages were used to denote different cultures.

I wonder if, for game purposes, languages and cultures shouldn't be identical. Quebec isn't friendly with France only because they share the same language but rather because they share the same culture.

[Aidun]

So, can anybody think of any way we can have languages in this game?  Those cultures with similar languages get along better - those with different get a slight minus.  As a part of cultural assimilation - you can force people to use your language, or even kill out the old language, or work around the language differences.  Would depend on your civics I would guess.  I am just not sure how to impliment this into the game, or if it should be a background type of thing, or what.

I don't think civilizations with different languages necessarily have less good relations than those with the same language, but it would be an interesting topic for a political scientific study. There is a difficulty, however, one which people from former colonies that have adopted the same language as the colonizer, might forget and that is dialects.

Strictly speaking there is no difference between dialects and languages. The concept of the language, as some umbrella dialect uniting all other dialects withn the borders of a national state, is strongly connected to nationalism.

Also there is the issue of a 'colonial language'. In this world, Americans and Canadians, Australians regard it as normal that their peoples speak English, but it isn't. Most people in Latin America, with the exception of A few countries, among which Brazil, will probably not consider how remarkable it is that they speak Spanish. English and Spanish are not the native languages of those countries.

So do the Americans and the English get along so well because they both speak English, or does that benefit their relationship? Or do the close ties between both have another origin? Why did the Bush senior Administration favor Germany as their most important European ally over Britain? What was the role language had there? Does a Scottish Prime Minister get along less well with an American president than an English Prime Minister? What about a Welsh Prime Minister?

I disagree with Godking. The concept of language is too difficult to treat it as he treats. I have an alternative idea.

Each civ has its own core dialect. That dialect could be regarded as the 'preferred dialect'. France is a nice example in this regard. It has several different languages in its borders: Parisian French is what we generally call Franch. But there are also the langues d'Oc, the many dialects in southern France: in the Provence, in the region formerly known as Aquitania, around Bordeaux, the regions central Southern France. There is also Alsacien, in the Northeast, Flemish in the north, and Breton in the Brittany, and Basquish along the southwest coast. And bordering on France there is Luxembourg with its Letzeburgish, a mixture of French and German. Flemish is a germanic language, officially the same as Dutch. Breton is a Celtic language, related to Gaelic (Irish and Scottish).

A when Writing is researched, in the capitol of a civ, the 'core language' is founded. It spreads gradually, just like religion does. The more culture a civ has, the faster the language spreads (Rome, Greece, US). Language can spread to one's own cities, but also to those of the enemy. Civs that trade a lot, spread their language faster (English, Dutch, Spanish). When a language spreads to another city that previously had no language (and where a local dialect was spoken), a public order bonus is the result. When a foreign language spreads to one of the cities of one's own civ, the result is less public order (Flemish and Breton in France, French in southern Belgium, Kurdish in Turkey, Yugoslavia). The city will also be more inclined to flip to a civ with the same language if it has a city bordering on that particulat city (Flanders-Netherlands). Cities with a different language that are occupied have a public order disadvantage. Cities should be able to have more than one language, but eventually one language can drive another out as a result of cultural influence. Like with religion, having one's language spread creates some additional benefits, these could be some info from the city, but also something else. Conquering a city and building a cultural building can after some time add one's own language to the city and eventually even drive out the native language (English, Spanish, French, which replaced the local language or have come to be used together with the local language, French and Dutch, which have after the independence of some colonies been replaced with the native language). The same is when a city's population is exterminated or when another civ is defeated, after which its native language will gradually decline (Latin). An option could be made whereby a civ could adopt a foreign language as its own (North America, Latin America, Africa.

This way, even for the most ardent warmongers, culture becomes important and costly to ignore, strengthening the new dimension in play religion has already created. Language may add a new strategy to warfare: a hostile regime may be weakened by the spreading of one's own language in his cities. Also conquering a city where one's own language is spoken would be easier and could possibly change the way in which wars are fought. Think of Hitler's motives to bring most German speaking peoples winthin Germany's borders, by annexing Sudetenland and Austria.

[Tuberski]

But I can't speak other languages.

[conmcb25]

Tuberski Time!