[UA] RE: Negative Skills?

[Chris Cooper]

--- Mike Dewar <mike.dewar at crysp.co.za> wrote:
For example, I
> live in a country with ELEVEN official languages
> where most people are
> bi-lingual and tri-lingual is becoming increasingly
> common. 

The things done for transformation.
 
> Or what about a UA game set in Europe? Especially as
> the EU leads to
> integration, you'd expect more and more people to
> grow up with "two first
> languages". That rapidly becomes expensive. 

Everyone has one first language. All others are
secondary languages no matter how proficient one is
with it. Thus a person can buy as many languages as
they wish (up 10% to be competent).

Due to the flexibility of the skills, a single skill
can be used to describe a location's multilingual
idiosynchracies: A person who lives in Johannesburg
will have two, three, or four default languages: North
Sotho, South Sotho, Zulu, English, and perhaps a
smattering of Xhosa and Afrikaans. Such a person would
speak Jozi Chakalaka comprising these languages.

Another aspect is languages of similar structures. A
Spanish person need not buy Portuguese to speak it
since they are very close. Likewise an Afrikaans
speaker can read Flemish but understand spoken Dutch
but not necessarily vice versa. A simple -10% or -20%
skill shift should suffice.

> Also, where do we draw the line between "linguist"
> and "knows a language"?

A linguist studies the mechanical structure of
language and languages in general. 
 
> In fact, I'm pretty sure that it's established fact
> that it gets easier to
> learn languages the more you learn. 

Yes and no. It becomes easier to learn languages with
similar structures and more difficult to learn
languages of different structures.
 
> I'd be inclined to say there's a point at which he
> buys a consolidated stat
> called "Expert in Renaissance Languages" whose
> penumbra covers a couple of
> languages. 

Considering English is rooted in German and Cantonese
in Mandarin, such studies have their own problems.

Maybe make him pay for that by making him
> have that an obsession
> skill ("You've got your doctorate in it, dude. Of
> COURSE it's your obsession
> skill.") 

I think that covers you questions perfectly. Now all
that's needed is an adept school.

Cheers,

Chris.




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