Late DE

[bjornwilde]

Sorry this is late, I should've arranged a sub today since I knew I had the day off and would sleep in. I also have no ideas for a topic, so I'm puling from the suggestion box.

From canadabear :
"How many languages does your pup speak? Do they not speak English in their canon? What language do they think everyone in Milliways is speaking?"

With an addendum from herr_bookman  and death_gone_mad :
What's the strongest language your pups use? Curse words or the language they are most confident using?

Comments

[cottoncandypink]

Wilford speaks English pretty exclusively. He only knows enough Korean to order in a restaurant and swear, and recognises enough hangeul to do his grocery shopping, and that's it. He says one word in Japanese in canon, but I'm pretty sure that's just him being annoying.

[harryhotspur]

Hotspur, ironically, probably has had the most expensive and extensive education of any of mine. He speaks English, French, and Latin, and has probably picked up a fair amount of Scots. He hears English in Milliways.

Marius speaks French, of course, and taught himself English and German. In writing, he's essentially fluent, but he's barely ever actually spoken them out loud. He also has an average 19th century level of Latin and Greek, and since he's good at languages, probably remembers them pretty well. In Milliways he hears French.

Segundus can read Latin and various archaic hands very well, but only speaks English, and that's what he hears in Milliways.

No one ask what language they speak in Illyria NO ONE KNOWS, but in addition to whatever that is, Viola speaks French.

[harryhotspur]

Oh, duh, Jamie has had an expensive royal education as well, but he wasn't much of a student. He still speaks English, French (badly), Latin, and Scots (rarely). He hears English, though.

[have_no_mercy]

Tess speaks English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and, I believe, Mandarin. She's never really thought about it, but she'd assume everyone is speaking their own language and there's a translator thing going on.

Kylo speaks... whatever the generic term for English is in the series. He also speaks Wookie.

Sizoku speaks more languages than I can list, but the basics would be Kalish, Scarran, English, Pilot and Sebacean. It's one of her things, languages.

[visible_sariel]

((OOC: You have a Suzoku? :D!))

[angry_friendship_wolf]

Yamato speaks Japanese, and since we're told his grades are pretty good, probably speaks English passably as well. He drops a few English words into his dialogue by Tri, although seemingly only for emphasis. Canonically, given the job he has thirty years in the future, he will eventually be fluent in Russian.

His brother Takeru is canonically a fluent French speaker, but it's very likely that Yamato isn't, because Takeru presumably learned French to help him converse with and visit their maternal grandfather, Michel, and given that Yamato has, by Tri, only very recently started entertaining the idea of having any contact with that side of the family at all, he has much less need of it.

As far as curse words -- well, I've heard swearing in Japanese described more as a mode of language than a set of words, and Yamato occupies that mode a lot. Moreso when he's eleven than when he's seventeen.

[i_am_your_host]

Emcee speaks German, English, and French in canon, and in my headcanon also Dutch, Italian, Spanish, and Swedish. It's kind of weird to think of what he hears in Milliways because he's fluent in at least three languages that are actually spoken in the bar, but his first language is not English, though he uses English the most. So when someone is not speaking any of the languages he knows, I would assume he hears German. But he can tell when they're actually speaking a language he knows. Like for example he can tell Autor is speaking German, Feuilly is speaking French, and Jay is speaking English.

He can swear and spew insults in each language, in every way, shape, and form. That's the first thing you learn when taking up a new language, isn't it?

[bcgphoenix]

Gaeta speaks Colonial Standard (aka English in spaaaaaace) and, courtesy of his grandmother, a smattering of curses in Tauran. He hears Colonial Standard in Milliways.

Curtis speaks English fluently, and probably picked up a handful of awkward 101 phrases from other Tail passengers. (Only the Front gets those fancy real-time translators, after all.) I'm sure he can say things like "hello," "how are you," "please," "thank you," "hurt," "sick," and "dead" in a good six or seven languages. He hears English in the bar.

Alistair speaks Common (aka English in spaaaaaace fantasy medieval euroooooope), some 101-level Orlesian (aka French; like it or not, the Crown does have to deal with Orlais, ugh), and a curse word or two in Tevene (aka Latin). He hears Common in the bar; I handwave that he can read written English via whatever-the-hell ambient magic is floating around the bar, too, even though written Common looks more like old Norse runes thanks to originating with the dwarves.

[sdelmonte]

The only one of my current pups who speaks anything besides English is Poirot. He of course speaks French, and never entirely mastered all the nuances of English. I suspect he has learned a smattering of several other languages between his birthplace (Belgium speaks many languages) and his travels.

None of my pups ever use foul language because I derive them from PG or G rated canons.

[genarti]

Oh fun!

Enjolras speaks French, some Auvergnat/Auvernhat (the kinds of songs a kid would learn, some swears and prayers and endearments, that kind of thing), Greek and Latin (reads them fluently, speaks or writes them more haltingly and with errors, is much better at Latin than at Greek), and nowadays some halting and heavily accented English.

He's not actually all that great with languages, but he's an educated bourgeois man of a day when that meant learning some. Anyway, at Milliways he hears everybody in French. (Swearing-wise, he'll occasionally throw out the period equivalent of damn it, but that's about it. He has no problem with strong language, he's just not very given to it.)

Cosette speaks French. That's it! I mean, she knows plenty of prayers in Latin, but she didn't really learn it properly. As a proper bourgeoise lady, the strongest language she's comfortable with is, like, goodness gracious me.

Thor speaks the Allspeech! Which is its own translation spell, so that's super handy! The Milliways translation spell actually only kicks in for letting Bar translate his handwritten notes for other people if needed; otherwise, he's self-sufficient there. Canon doesn't specify whether there's also a separate Asgardian language, but I say that yes, there is, although it's primarily used only in certain contexts at least in Thor's usual circles. (Maybe out in the boonies it's more of a common thing.) He's not a hugely swearing-inclined guy, just culturally and because of genre and ratings; he's more inclined to use tone and volume than swear words.

Kazul speaks... whatever the heck fantasy language she speaks! There's no kind of conlanging going on in her series, so I just assume it's Fantasyland English probably. She's lived plenty of centuries, so I'm sure she speaks any number of other languages, but the only canonical one is Latin.

Doctor Dinosaur HAS MASTERED ALL OF YOUR PITIFUL MAMMAL LANGUAGES! (All we know for sure he speaks is English, which is what I'm going to say he hears everyone in, but he'll be able to speak something else too if I think it's sufficiently useful or funny to let him do so.)

[maid_of_tarth]

Brienne speaks the Common Tongue of Westeros, which is uncannily similar to English, gosh, I wonder how that can be. She hears everything in Milliways in Common, and she does not swear. True knights are courteous. She has learned a bit of High Valyrian (her universe's equivalent to Latin and/or French in the real life Middle Ages), as part of her noblewoman's education.

Fantine speaks French of the northern/Parisian variety, and it's very much the street-version of the language. She doesn't speak any other language, and she hears things in French in Milliways. She's not a big swearer, but it sometimes happens.

Combeferre speaks French, Provençal (at a more basic level), German, Latin, Greek, and a bit of English. In Milliways, he hears French. He's been known to swear in exasperation.

Jehan Prouvaire speaks French, Provençal (he's made a real study of it, and of Occitan generally, in order to to read medieval literature), Italian, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. He's got a smattering of English, too. He swears a fair amount, and can get pretty colorful about it. In Milliways, he hears French.

[death_gone_mad]

Amascut speaks Common? (Aka English in spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace. Or Portuguese or German or French depending on localization (or Spanish, once upon a time)) It may be related to Arthurian Brythonic Celtic/Latin, but then again canonically Britain is an actual world or plane of existence, not a country on the planet Earth. But, besides Common, she likely speaks old Kharidian, Infernal/Demonic (played by Latin in canon), and Feline, though she pretends not too. Infernal was the language of the enemy of the Old Kharidian Empire, but learning it was pretty unavoidable. As for what she hears in Milliways? Probably Common, but I might want to play with the idea of Latin speakers sounding demonic.

Fairy Fixit is much more complicated, since she is from a very Milliways-like place anyhow, in the nexus-of-all-planes sort of way. Her speech comes across as jargon-filled Common in game, and I am sure she knows to at least read Old Zanarian. There are various critters from various planes of reality living in and visiting Zanaris, and there is a remarkably little miscommunication. Hell, even the sheep compose poetry and the cows criticise them for it. What language does she hear in Milliways? Who knows. Pfft, fairy magic.

Both come from a PG canon, so the NPCs like them don't use stronger language than hell, damn, stupid, and idiot. Amascut has probably picked up a few brain-breaking words in Mahjarrat and Stalker(Stalkerese? Beholderish?) which are notably worse than mere foul language, but she doesn't swear much, even with these words at her disposal.

[visible_sariel]

Sariel speaks English and Kweyol, Lucian French patois, as a native speaker. For this reason she can understand continental French and some of the other Creole dialects to a greater or lesser degree, but if she's conversing with someone from, say, 1832, it'll be very obvious she's not from Paris. She either hears English or French in Milliways, depending on the situation by default, unless she's deliberately using one or the other language i.e. wanting to speak Kweyol with someone.