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Sorry another follow up regarding Jordan's works:
Jordan's world is our world in the far future and the far past. He has intentional mashed together language and cultural references to make a world that is a jumble of many Earth cultures.
He frequently has passing references to various artifacts of ancient days, one of which is clearly a Mercedes hood ornament, he refers to the ancient giants "Merk" and "Mosc" (America and Moscow) who fought with spears of fire (Nukes, I'd guess).
My favourite inspiration he uses is that Rand is actually the reincarnation of Uther Pendragon as presented in Marion Zimmer Bradley's "The Mists of Avalon," which early on has a scene of Uther having a vision of the wheel of time stretching before and after him, and seeing himself in many lives with the dragons tattooed on his arms.
Point being, everyone borrows from somewhere. In some cases it's intentional, in some cases it's not. Often the intentional cases work better, because you are in control of what you are borrowing and how. This allows you to present something that seems fresh and new. Trying to make something entirely new more often comes out looking like a poor rip-off. To put it another way, I'd rather see a setting that redesigns the wheel than one that tries to reinvent it.
I think this post is living up to my UserID, because I'm going to follow one more tangent; why do so many game settings try and include reference to every possible culture? I suspect that the main reason is to generate broad appeal. Want to play a French Musketeer? We got em! Want to play a Roman Legionaire? We got them too! Personally I porefer the approach of fitting together bits that inspire you to develop a new take on a culture than wholesale lifting though.
That's enough for now.
Craig Shackleton,
The Rambling Scribe
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You know, I'm actually being completely serious. I honestly thought Europeans had a better grasp of geography and history than Americans, since they live in ground zero of Western Civilization.Shows you what my American education taught me. ;D
Maybe both of you are generalizing somewhat. ;-)
One definitive difference for most europeans is the number of neighbouring countries (USA: 2, e.g. Germany: 9). So even an indifferent average european has to bother somewhat about other countries and geography... :p
Greetings,
Günther
Hi Günther,
You're probably right that Stefan Raab's "Erstwähler Check" is no representative sample on which I can base anything. ;-)
Anyway, I guess these things always come down to the actual level of education of individuals, whatever their origins.
What would be interesting, would be data about geography knowledge for non-educated US citizens Vs non-educated European citizens. In that case, you'd somehow be measuring the influence of the local situation and "ambient" knowledge, without the "distorting" factor of a long schooling...
I wonder if we'd live up to Mike's high opinion of ourselves. :-)
Bocklin
PS: Günther, I am so jealous of your "GameMastery Subscriber" tag...
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Okay. Definitely pulling my leg... ;-)You know, I'm actually being completely serious. I honestly thought Europeans had a better grasp of geography and history than Americans, since they live in ground zero of Western Civilization.
Shows you what my American education taught me. ;D
I'm still reeling from the fact that there are Americans (even with our shoddy education system) that are so completely ignorant of where the hell they are in relation to the rest of the world (what do you mean you can't point to your city's relative location on a world map or globe?!?!?!?!). Maybe it's because I was in gifted.... Sheesh!
Hi everyone!
Just for fun, check out the oecd website at http://www.oecd.org : the PISA international program rank students from dozens and dozens of countries (alas, only in reading, logical, mathematical and science skills, not in historical or geographical knowledge ; but it's still interesting).
For the record, in 2003 US, France and Germany had very close marks in reading skills (495, 496 and 491) and in mathematical skills (again, 495, 496 and 491). UK did not participate (booh). The worst (under-developed) countries got scores in the 350s.
There was a more pronunced gap in mathematical, scientific and logical skills (483 for US, 503 for Germany and 511 for France in mathematical skills ; 491 for US, 502 for Germany and 511 for France in science skills ; 477 for US, 513 for Germany and 519 for France in logical skills).
Of course, we all got hammered flat by some countries, like Finland (543 in reading, 544 in mathematics, 548 in science, 548 in logic). I guess Nokia has very educated employees...
Just my statistical grain of salt...
Contributor
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One definitive difference for most europeans is the number of neighbouring countries (USA: 2, e.g. Germany: 9). So even an indifferent average european has to bother somewhat about other countries and geography... :p
YES! An excellent point, Guennarr. I hope, even they can't identify any of the countries on a map, that most Americans know Canada and Mexico border our country. Likewise, I hope that most Germans know (at least most of) the nine countries that border theirs, which automatically means they are at least aware of more countries, even if they can't identify them.
I guess Rambling Scribe and I are talking past each other and trying to say the same thing--"real-world as inspiration for fantasy, yes! Mechanical transplantation of real-world chunks into fantasy, no."
I think that the average European population is as ignorant of geography or culture as the rest of the world.NNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yet another of my romantic delusions comes crashing down around me in the face of reality. WHY? Oh why?!?!?!
*sob*
I would like to defend your "delusion" if you don't mind...
I'm living in Hungary and although the quality level of education is dropping alarmingly (among others the motivation of the teachers is just crushed under the pression of their ridiculously low salary which means about a net 450-500 USD PER MONTH!!!), I can tell you that the average high-school student knows by heart the verses written in hexameters on the grave of the fallen Spartans (and thanks to the 300, I now know it in English,too!), due to the simple fact that it's in the history books.
This Prussian type of education consists basically on absorbing facts, dates and a lot of never to be used knowledge, but has a drawback when it comes to creativity and self-expression (the French use a method somewhat opposite of this, I can tell you that based on my experiences in a bilingual Hungarian-French high-school)...
The average European knows a lot of things probably because of their rich past (which roots in ancient Greece and the Roman Empire for example) and the fact (which was already pointed out by someone in this thread) that they are surrounded by several other countries and it's just natural they must know something about them.
Hungary, especially, being a tiny country compared to the US (only 10 millions of people) and having a difficult language not spoken in any other part of the world is really forced to learn the language, history and geography of other nations.
I'm not saying that Europeans are superior in anything compared to other nations (because it's not true), just need to learn more about the world due to several reasons, which are different in each and every case. And then again, not everyone loves to learn and for them it just doesn't matter if they live in Europe or in the US...
But, back to the point, don't just bury your delusions yet, they can be true in some of the cases...
Hungary, especially, being a tiny country compared to the US (only 10 millions of people) and having a difficult language not spoken in any other part of the world is really forced to learn the language, history and geography of other nations.
Except... You're here, on our boards, and obviously fluent in English. Most American teenagers have trouble holding a simple conversation in another language, even one commonly spoken in many areas, like Spanish.
That was the one thing that bothered me most in Japan. I sat in class with Swedish, Turkish, and Chinese students, and they were all fluent in English. In fact, none of us spoke Japanese well enough to communicate that way. It made me wonder how the US as a country could possibly keep succeeding in the world when we don't even bother to require fluency in another language in our schools.
(Oh, and all of the Swedish kids were in Japan taking classes on a government scholarship. I went into serious credit card debt to go. *sighs*)
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It made me wonder how the US as a country could possibly keep succeeding in the world when we don't even bother to require fluency in another language in our schools.
That started with the collapse of the Spanish Empire and the rise of the British Empire. You know the saying, "The sun never sets on the British Empire?" That's because those globetrotting Brits took their language, their culture (tea time!), and their sports (cricket) to every little nook and cranny of the world. English is the fourth most widely spoken language on the globe, behind Mandarin, Hindi, and Spanish.
English is the current lingua Franca (yes, I too love the irony of that statement), recognized as one of the two official languages of the UN and used by businesses across the world. It is as close to Common as our real world has. And the US's involvement in that dominance has only really come into play in the past 50 years or so.
The widespread use of English will likely outlive America's time in the sun, just as it outlived Britain's. I suspect, though, if China ever stops being insular (sure, let's buck 3000 years of tradition!) Mandarin might become nearly as universal. Joss Wedon seems to think so, anyway. :D
(Oh, and all of the Swedish kids were in Japan taking classes on a government scholarship. I went into serious credit card debt to go. *sighs*)
That's because Sweden is a socialist country. Personally, I'll take my 25% tax rate, thanks. :)
Being from Louisiana, I can say that we have two recognized languages within the state, French and English. We also have a large Spanish and German historical influence. Spainish from Louisiana's time as a colony and German due to the large number of settlers and German prisoners located here during WWII.
Despite this, I am really only fluent in English. I have a passing knowledge of French and Spainish and know a few German words. I use to be realitively fluent in French and Spanish, but without continued use of the language on a regular basis my knowledge of both has really Atrophied.
Honestly, many Americans are not exposed to foreign languages on a regular enough basis to retain a good understanding of another language. Beside, the "English" language is notorious for stealing words from other languages. This make rememebring how to use another language correctly even harder.
I found this quote by James D. Nicoll after I did my last post. It is rather appropriate to any discussion on the English language.
" The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifled their pockets for new vocabulary. "
But, back to the point, don't just bury your delusions yet, they can be true in some of the cases...If I ever make it to Hungary (and that would be neat) you get a cookie. :)
I'd welcome the opportunity to introduce you to the pacalpörkölt, the palinka and the sights of Budapest... :)
The widespread use of English will likely outlive America's time in the sun, just as it outlived Britain's. I suspect, though, if China ever stops being insular (sure, let's buck 3000 years of tradition!) Mandarin might become nearly as universal. Joss Wedon seems to think so, anyway. :D
Yep, the Firefly is one of the most refreshing sci-fi shows
ever which paints a very possible future to come...
I found this quote by James D. Nicoll after I did my last post. It is rather appropriate to any discussion on the English language.
" The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifled their pockets for new vocabulary. "
This made me LOL. I won't bring it up with my neighbors, though (currently living in England).
Most American teenagers have trouble holding a simple conversation in another language, even one commonly spoken in many areas, like Spanish.
Most of my fellow Americans have a hard time carrying on a reasonably complex conversation in English, ostensibly their native tongue. Words like "untenable", "quiescent", "transitory", or even "consequently" result in furrowed brows and muttering. I think D&D has ruined my fiancee and me. :)
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This made me LOL. I won't bring it up with my neighbors, though (currently living in England).I found this quote by James D. Nicoll after I did my last post. It is rather appropriate to any discussion on the English language.
" The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifled their pockets for new vocabulary. "
[Threadjack]
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Carry on...
" The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifled their pockets for new vocabulary. "
That's why English is the perfect language for international trade: because it evolved specifically for that purpose.