NationStates Jolt Archive

The Imperial Academy of Global Languages has announced a world-wide survey dedicated to finding out the various accents and greetings of the world.

Accents of Novar Ohan

The Roanian Accent: The Roanian Accent makes every word sound with a musical cadence, with a well-defined lilt at the the end of every sentence. It is quite recognisable, and difficult to conceal. In stressful situations the Roanian's lilt increases.

The Aguan Accent: Aguans speak rapidly in short, high-pitched, bursts of sound.

The Derricker Accent: Derrickers speak slowly with a gravelly accent, making every word sound considered.

The Altaran Accent: Altarans speak very slowly, their low voices making them seem dull and uneducated...an initial impression they make full use of.

The Imperial Greeting

The most common greeting, at least among the upper classes, is clasping the right hand over the heart, giving a slight bow, and saying, "Blessings be upon you".

The response is the same action, but "and upon you," instead.

The Royal accent: Always diplomatic, polite and subdued but with hints of intent to keep you on your toes. Niceities hide the real motives.

The Fanatic accent: The kind used during a Christian Crusade or Islamic Jihad

The "We're sick of war" accent: The one you want to see. A geniune attempt at reconcillation between parties.

The "You're an atheist accent": Reserved for atheists, ranges from outright hostility to the cold should treatment. Always hostile.

The "Holy" accent: When it's time for worship.

Feline is 73% Sapient Cats, 17% a eclectic mix of various human ethinc groups, 3% Tolkein-esque beings (Including elves, orcs, dwarves, etc.), and 7% various other sapient cultures.

This gives us quite a varied linguistic base, with 87% of the population being polygots.

However, translation units handle this is real-time if a person does not know a language. Cats and some other species are unable to vocalize human patterns, and vice-versa. However, English is the most common written language (Cat has no written component), and is the predominant language among the humans and species that can vocalize it's patterns.

Ergo, I will detail the Feline dialect of English. Feline English is mostly the dialect of British English spoken in the upper classes, with a few other things thrown in. Also, the dialect is usually described as sounding eloquent and sophisticated. However, the dialect tends to filter out the strength of emotions that are not particuarly strong, and amplifies emotions that are, making most people from Feline seem mercurial, cold and emotionless at times, and passionate at others.

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Languages in Knootoss

Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands
(meaning 'general civilized Dutch', abbreviated to ABN) is the official Knootian language, the standard language as taught in schools and used by authorities in the Dutch Democratic Republic and it is an official second language the dependencies in the Knootian Federation. Dutch is also spoken in other NS nations including some former Knootian colonies.

For reasons of political correctness, the terms Algemeen Nederlands (general Dutch, abbreviated to AN) and Standaardnederlands (standard Dutch) are also used; Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands could be interpreted as 'the Dutch that is spoken by civilized people', which would suggest that people speaking variants of the standard language are not civilized.

Dialects
Knootoss has different regions and within these regions other dialects can also be found. For most Knootians the most obvious division is into northern and southern dialects - to the south of the "great rivers" (the Rhine and the Meuse) people use a "soft g" and to the north they don't. For experts the contrast between east and west is more important. The western dialects still show a number of characteristics of "Coastal Germanic" whilst the eastern dialects (Saxon regions and Limburg), have a number of features in common with German dialects (old/ald instead of oud).

Dutch dialects aren't spoken as much as they used to be. As a result of increasing mobility, improved education and a stronger sense of conformity (parents often no longer bring their children up in their own dialect), more and more dialects are disappearing. Instead of dialects there is a regionally coloured standard language. These "regiolects" are coming ever closer to the standard language. Many dialects, especially those in towns, are now only used by speakers from the lower classes. Generally the use of dialects is also associated with these lower classes, and it can be an impediment in finding a job, for example.

Sociolects
Whereas the term "dialect" refers to the language of a particular region, the term "sociolect" refers to the variety of language spoken by a particular ethnic, religious, age or employment group or social class. For these groups the language (or choice of language) is an important means of identification. On the one hand the use of a common language variant strengthens the feeling of "us" within the group, and on the other hand it excludes "non members".

Ethnic groups in Knootoss, such as the formerly Burungian immigrants from the Knootian East Indies often speak their own variant of Dutch, differing from standard Dutch primarily in lexical ways, but also at the phonological and syntactical level. For example in the language used by “East Indians” the voiceless pronunciation of <v> and <z> and a strongly rolled /r/ are characteristic, and they also use words of Malay origin such as pisang for banana. These characteristics are, by and large, valued by their speakers positively - they are seen as one way of preserving a part of their identity.

Age groups also differ in their use of language. Young people try to mark themselves off from their parents' generation by the creation of new words (mostly short and ending in -ie, -o and -a such as hippo for dikzak ["fatty"]), loan words and loan translations from, for example, English (zie je in imitation of see you) and the use of intensifiers (such as wereld-, reuze-, bere-). For young people the use of this youth language is often a condition of "belonging".

The innovative character of youth language is also characteristic "turbotaal" ["turbo-language"]. People who have authority in their area of activity often create new "trendy" words which are then adopted by others who want to be seen as equally trendy. Playing with sounds, abbreviations and the use of (above all) English words (eg loser) is typical of the language of these trendy groups.

Even the language of particular social classes is a sociolect. A snooty citizen of The Hague sets himself off from the lower classes by his "a"-like pronunciation of /e/ and /o/. A speaker of lower-class Leeuwarden dialect can make it clear where he belongs by his choice of language - and thereby shut out another person from Leeuwarden who uses standard Dutch ("ABN").

Within the ethnic groups, Jews were, until the start of the Second World War, an important group with their own language variant characterised by words from Hebrew and Yiddish. There are still a few of these words in modern Dutch - eg "mazzel hebben" ("to have good luck" - from massal ["luck"]) and jatten ("to steal" from "hand").

The different group variants often overlap each other: the lower classes have their own youth language, but it certainly shares a large number of correspondences with the youth language of the upper classes.
Furthermore an individual can belong to several groups, and therefore speak several sociolects: somebody can, for example, speak the specialist language of the linguists in a "snooty" Hague accent.

Frysian
In the North of Knootoss, Frysian is spoken and taught in schools as an official and separate language.

((Sorry for this thing being a bit long. I just wanted to distinguish between different types of "accents" that exist and I did not know what Roania wanted to focus on. I thought this explanation might come in handy.))

Rejistanian langauges and dialects:

In Rejistania, 15 languages are recognized officially but more are spoken by smaller minorities. Rejistanian is a conlang (constructed language), constructed of the different languages spoken in the country. Since the sound systems in the three regions are very alike, the accents of rejistanian are also similar as long as they are only a shift of sounds (a~n (nasal as in french) instead of an) when grammar is concerned, there are also differences in the regions.

Nanti Simu
In the northern region, the fast style of speaking is also used in rejistanian, also the pronounciation differs a bit since Simu-languages normally stress verbs on the first syllable and speakers tend to use this slight change in the conlang (normally, words are pronounced on the first (if the word has only two syllables) or second syllable). Sometimes articles like "'het" or "'he" are omiited.

Nanti Ligat
The central region has some sounds, which don't appear in the rejistanian language while others are rarely used in Hitonian or Jistian. Hitonians and Jistians tend to use their "g" instead of the "k" used in rejistanian, "il" at the end of a word becomes "i~l" ("ee-ee") and the hard rejistanian "r" which resembles the ch of the german word "Bach" is pronounced merely as in esperanto.

Nanti Kansu
The southern region often uses its slow articulated way of speaking and tends to use the nasal vocals insteald of <vocal>n combinations. The last "e" of a word is sometimes ommitted. Gestures are used much more as in other dialects.

The Ehila~o are a people living everywhere in Rejistania, since their origin is Kansuan, their dialect also sounds similar.

The forms of greeting differ among different peoples. Generally a handshake and "Hejida" is considered as a polite form of greeting but often the distance for this is a bit higher than in western cultures. More polite than "Hejida" are forms like "Hejida veka" or "Hejida xkira". The reply to this is "Hejida il'han".

Crimmond has five languages. German, Russian, Crim, Old High Crim and Polish.

German gives an authoritative twang to each word and is a harsher language.

Russian gives the same feeling but with a softer edge.

Crim is the language spoken throughout most of Crimmond and is a soft spoken language, but the tone the words are spoken with can carry across a room with ease.

Old High Crim is an artful mix of German, Russian and Crim and is an extremely hard language to use. It is used rarely and by those of extreme authority.

Polish is the rarest language, as the Polish were the ones that oppressed the Crims. It is a nearly dead language.

Greetings in the higher circles of Crimmond are a closed fist brought to the opposite shoulder, thumb and forfinger touching the shoulder, then extending the hand towards the other, open palmed. It symbolizes that while Crims have the purpose of war in mind at all times, I can greet you in peace.