So, for my homebrew campaign, I have a massive world-spanning organization (The Commonwealth) that regulates language and banking. It's mostly a bad pun, but also works so everyone speaks Common and to make sure a gold piece is a gold piece is a gold piece is a tenth of a platinum piece is ten silver pieces is 100 copper pieces.
But then I thought, can't someone use regulating the language for something? Maybe using language to influence thoughts and speech to avoid a concept or promote an ideology or something?
The main campaign is a steampunk city near, but isolated from, a jungle filled Stone Agey (well, Bronze Agey) sword & sandal & sorcery stuff, including cults dedicated to Abyssal aberrations and other nasties. I'm also interested in having a Construct Emancipation struggle in the background if the PCs don't get swept up into it directly.
But the campaign world is pretty huge. 12 massive continents with all sorts of cultures and levels of technology and magic, and all part of the same semi-secret commonwealth.
Any ideas for the big linguistic conspiracy?
EDIT:
It doesn't even have to be an evil conspiracy.
One of the odd aspects of this campaign is there aren't a lot of evil deities. There is a creator deity that is the spirit of time, invention, and motion; there is a Holy Family that's a rip-off from the Paladin of Chalion series, but with some Good Neighbors and soe Bad Neighbors; there is a pantheon of feral angels based on winged monsters like dragons, chimeras, griffons, imps, etc.; and the Conservancy, a LN Vatican-like, anthropocentric ecological, Maester-like, druid organization.
There is a demiurge with a bunch of underling demigods and secret Lovecraftian cults, of course.
Maybe a diabolical tyrant trying to keep his existence secret from the masses?
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This isn't exactly a conspiracy in the "men in dark suits passing around classified dossiers" or "Da Vinci Code" kind of way, but perhaps the Commonwealth pursues the goal of eradicating all other languages. Because of the immense intangible wealth that languages accrue within themselves, the Evil of such a goal cannot be overstated. It's tantamount to genocide, in fact (even by the definition of the Geneva Convention itself, if I'm not mistaken).
They may realize the implications of what they're doing, or it may strictly be "the banality of Evil," with unimaginative accountants and narrow-minded businesssmen blindly following the belief that everything will run more smoothly if omnicultural Chaos is paved over by a single Order.
This would work well as a campaign plot because it could introduce moral controversy and dilemmas (you'd have a lot of people who don't mean any harm working toward this agenda because they know not what they do), and could have a very effective, believable, and educational narrative experience for the players and their characters as they gradually awaken to the big picture. AND THAT'S NOT ALL! In addition to the Commonwealth's agenda of linguicide, which would be hidden in plain sight, you could ALSO have a more exciting "Men In Black/Illuminati/Da Vinci Code"-style conspiracy on the part of the hidden GOOD GUYS who are trying to stop the Commonwealth and save the world's diversity, but have to operate in an occult fashion because they're seen by the authorities as terrorists or whatever. The PCs could start by being hired to fight them, then be forced to carefully consider what side they're on as they learn more about what the stakes really are.
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Language has been used for centuries by dominant cultures to crush, or at least quash the cultures of subservient nations.
The Normans introduced French as a noble language to the Saxons of England.
The English did it in turn to a lot of their colonial possessions (attempting to remove Australian aboriginal languages, or the Maori language in New Zealand. Almost certainly the same thing went on in India and Africa).
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doublespeak is goodbad for your campaign, use it wellbadly
If construct emancipation is in the offing and it's opposed by the official language people then words relating to constructs will be... biased. Perhaps the official intelligence classifications range from non-intelligent at the bottom to sub-human at the highest. Newspapers will be required to use the appropriate terms for the emancipationists - delusional, terrorists, cowardly (police always refer to criminals as cowardly in NZ, whatever they've done) etc.
I'm not asking how to start a fire. I'm asking what I should burn.
The city is dealing with construct emancipation. The world-spanning Commonwealth linguistic conspiracy is something totally different.
IHIYC's ideas about preserving languages is interesting. I thought everyone having the same language was a good thing. I might have to re-think this.
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I was in a campaign ages ago, where knowing different languages gave situational bonuses with magic and some abilities. The idea was that different languages had different conceptual strengths. This would be enough to cause some people to try and iradicate competing languages. There have been a few science fiction novels based on imposing languages that encourage controllability on the speakers. Linguistics teachers are the true revolutionaries.
There have been a few science fiction novels based on imposing languages that encourage controllability on the speakers.
Few, however, written by anyone with any training in modern linguistics. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and by extension Orwell's Newspeak, are myths.
Orfamy,
We are playing a myth based game aren't we?
EDIT
I almost forgot, Kudos on the Noam Chomsky referent, Mr. Closet.
There is a concept in the Dresden Files (by Jim Butcher) - a war on certain knowledge. By eradicating knowledge of certain entities, the entities themselves are denied entry to/existence with in this reality. Is there any better reason to control language? :P
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The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and by extension Orwell's Newspeak, are myths.
I'm not familiar with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, but I do know it's downright blind to say that language manipulation cannot be used to control people's thoughts. We in America live in a society that is absolutely soaking in it right now (and has been for decades - maybe we're starting to shake it off now). It's one thing to control an individual's every action like a non-magical equivalent of casting dominate person - it's quite another to control what society sees, believes, and does. "Encouraging controllability," as Daw put it, is no myth.
@Daw: As you might surmise from my favoriting your post, I love the idea of granting power modifiers based on the languages one knows. I'm strongly tempted to try playing around with that myself.
There is a concept in the Dresden Files (by Jim Butcher) - a war on certain knowledge. By eradicating knowledge of certain entities, the entities themselves are denied entry to/existence with in this reality. Is there any better reason to control language? :P
WOW! This is PERFECT for what I'm looking for!
I even have a player who has a Sage Cleric (Knowledge) 1/Shadow Sorcerer X who knows a bunch of languages and likes to seek out dark secrets. This is perfect for getting him and the party into all kind of shenanigans. Another guy plays a tiefling warlock with a clockwork patron and a homebrew Scavenger background (think Rey from Star Wars The Force Awakens) who also likes books and chaos.
***evil grin***
I'm not familiar with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, but I do know it's downright blind to say that language manipulation cannot be used to control people's thoughts.The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and by extension Orwell's Newspeak, are myths.
Don't confuse "persuasion" with "linguistic manipulation."
I'm not.Don't confuse "persuasion" with "linguistic manipulation."
Yes, you are.
We're not talking about rational argument here, we're talking about mind control (or perhaps a better term would be "thought control").
... which is literally not possible via language manipulation. Persuasion doesn't even need to be "rational" -- advertisers are well aware of the advantages of describing your own product as inexpensive and lightweight, while their competition is flimsy and cheap. But the idea that you can remove a word from people's vocabulary and thereby keep them from thinking about it is simply wrong. The well-documented euphemism treadmill proves that, aside from the well-attested psycholinguistic experiments going back at least to Berlin and Kay that show that language doesn't actually have a significant effect on cognition.
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I'm not.Don't confuse "persuasion" with "linguistic manipulation."
Yes, you are.
I know you are, but what am I? :P
We're not talking about rational argument here, we're talking about mind control (or perhaps a better term would be "thought control").... which is literally not possible via language manipulation. Persuasion doesn't even need to be "rational" -- advertisers are well aware of the advantages of describing your own product as inexpensive and lightweight, while their competition is flimsy and cheap. But the idea that you can remove a word from people's vocabulary and thereby keep them from thinking about it is simply wrong. The well-documented euphemism treadmill proves that, aside from the well-attested psycholinguistic experiments going back at least to Berlin and Kay that show that language doesn't actually have a significant effect on cognition.
Are we sure we're talking about the same thing here? I never said a word about "removing a word from people's vocabulary" - then again, I believe that's called "keep 'em poor and stupid." You may not be able to delete a word from an individual's already-developed vocabulary, but that's not what anybody else is talking about.
I don't think what I'm saying is the same as what you're hearing (to paraphrase Frank Luntz, a contemporary master of thought control via language control whose career pretty near proves my point all by itself).
Read "Talking Right" by Geoffrey Nunberg, "Whose Freedom?" by George Lakoff, and "State of Confusion" by Bryant Welch. Mind control is all around us, and of course it's done with language.
Are you, perhaps, trying to say that "language < thought?" I certainly agree with that - but frighteningly, it seems like that may only be true for some people rather than all.
Mr. Closet, (Hyding N. Closet maybe?)
If you are thinking of implementing languages granting specific bonuses, should it be something like the following?:
Draconic +x to Spell Penetration
Gnome. +x CL with Illusions
Wayang. +x CL with Darkness
Should some languages give bonuses to skills?
I could see Dwarven being very craft oriented.
I have a homebrew LN planar language that grants Disadvantage on Deception checks and Advantage on Insight checks.
I'm not.Don't confuse "persuasion" with "linguistic manipulation."
Yes, you are.
We're not talking about rational argument here, we're talking about mind control (or perhaps a better term would be "thought control").... which is literally not possible via language manipulation. Persuasion doesn't even need to be "rational" -- advertisers are well aware of the advantages of describing your own product as inexpensive and lightweight, while their competition is flimsy and cheap. But the idea that you can remove a word from people's vocabulary and thereby keep them from thinking about it is simply wrong. The well-documented euphemism treadmill proves that, aside from the well-attested psycholinguistic experiments going back at least to Berlin and Kay that show that language doesn't actually have a significant effect on cognition.
Really? I'm told that arabs have a ton of words relating to sand. I can imagine that when they see it, they more finely categorize it and interpret it. Just as foreigners that come to Canada will simply think of snow, and think it all the same, whereas locals will be able to categorize, thanks to an elaborate vocabulary, the particularities of a given snow, what can be done with it, how it will react to different interactions, etc.
A broader application would be scientific vocabulary. To the untrained, vermin, bugs, insects, pests, etc., are pretty much interchangeable, as they all represent a homogenous mass of undesireables. But with the proper vocabulary, one can realize that spiders are not insects at all, and that true bugs are a specific group of insects, that bee moths are not bees at all, and so on.
Sure, these aren't examples of telling people not to use certain words, but it does seem to me that there is a link between vocabulary and cognition. "Thignys use their things to thing their way onto things to draw things with their thing to then process it in their thing" does not allow the same level of cognition as "Honey bees use their wings to fly their way onto flowers to draw nectar with their proboscis to then process it in their honey stomach".
I would question, though, the methodology of the experiments you mention. Forbidding the use of a word is not the same as removing it from one's vocabulary. I have no idea how researchers could possibly remove words from people's vocabulary (that would respect ethics and, well, economics, given the time that would be required to pull off such a feat) to either prove or disprove such an action's effect.
Really?The well-documented euphemism treadmill proves that, aside from the well-attested psycholinguistic experiments going back at least to Berlin and Kay that show that language doesn't actually have a significant effect on cognition.
Really.
I'm told that arabs have a ton of words relating to sand.
Shrug. So do geologists.
I can imagine that when they see it, they more finely categorize it and interpret it.
Yeah, a lot of people 'imagine" that. It just happens to be wrong. Anyone who actually cares about sand can make any of the same categorizations and interpretations, even if they don't have words for them. (They use multi-word phrases instead.)
Berlin and Kay put this one to bed pretty thoroughly, at least with respect to colors. Every language has a vocabulary of "basic color terms," and English happens to have a rather rich one. Japanese and Chinese, for example, do not have words for green (as distinct from blue); the unripe apples in Japanese are described as "blue apples" (and if you're sick, your cheeks might be "blue like apples," which confused the daylights out of one of my professors once). Sounds like a pretty clear case of a vocabulary item not being present in their language....
.... until you realize they just use metaphors. If it's really important to distinguish between the color-of-the-sky and the color-of-the-grass, the Japanese use the word for honeydew melon. Similarly, if you walk into an English-language paint aisle, you will see that English-speakers have hundreds or thousands of terms to describe colors using metaphors ("peach"), multiword phrases ("navy blue," often abbreviated to "navy"), or both ("burnt umber"). If you actually test color perception or color naming, even cultures that have only two colors (black and white, typically) have as rich a color vocabulary as English-speakers do. There's a big difference between white-like-clouds, white-like-bananas, and white-like-fire.
And, of course, other researchers have replicated this experiment in many other domains. Kinship terms, for example. Hawai'ian has no basic term to distinguish one's brother from one's cousin. English lacks terms to distinguish between one's father's brother's son and one's father's brother's daughter, but French has them. Sudanese distinguishes eight different types of "cousins" (children of one's parents' sibs). But I have no problem distinguishing even my sister's elder daughter from her younger daughter as long as I don't restrict myself to a single word.
There's no link between vocabulary and cognition,... or, more accurately, the link runs the other way. If you have an interest (cognition) in expressing a concept, you will find a way to express it (vocabulary, or more accurately linguistics, since not all expressions are single words), and normally you will have little difficulty in expressing it in a way that other native speakers of your language will understand. (Where do you think terms like "honey stomach" originated in the first place?)
Orfamay Quest- what you say is very interesting and I will do some reading on it when I have the time.
You say in one place, just above, there is no link between vocabulary and cognition and in another that vocabulary has no significant effect on cognition. These are not the same thing.
I understand from other sources that experiments did not bear out that language determined thought to the extent that was once theorised. But that is not the same as no link.
I am pretty sure that the reason people usually think if you eat food that is too spicy like a hot curry the remedy is water is we call it hot or fiery and water will put out fire. Water actually does not do anything and what is needed is starch. Yogurt or milk will also work. This is an example of language affecting though, though I don't think it is exactly cognition. Do you claim this idea of mine has been scientifically disproved?
My gaming group is mostly engineers and writers, not linguistic psychologists.
We're going to pretend that if you remove a concept from the vocabulary of a society, the average member of that society cannot vocalize that concept.
It's like FTL: Sure, it's not real, but you can tell fun stories about FTL ships and communication.
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We're going to pretend that if you remove a concept from the vocabulary of a society, the average member of that society cannot vocalize that concept.
It makes it harder - and that matters, just like many voter suppression tactics make it not impossible for people to vote, but harder, and in many cases not even that much harder, but it all matters. Hugely. Orfamay Quest is not talking about what I, for one, was talking about. He seems to be claiming that because you can't do a specific trick that no one else was even really talking about, you must not be able to control people with language at all, and that's simply not true.
I just looked up the wiki page about Linguistic Determinism. It seems like those 2 dudes never published anything together, and even had opposing views on LD.
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I just looked up the wiki page about Linguistic Determinism.
Again, I'm not positive I know what is meant in this specialized case, but the word 'determinism' sounds rather too absolute and fatalistic for me to have meant that. Just because mind control works (at least on some people, or some of the time) doesn't mean it can't be overcome.
My gaming group is mostly engineers and writers, not linguistic psychologists.
We're going to pretend that if you remove a concept from the vocabulary of a society, the average member of that society cannot vocalize that concept.
BUt, but, this is Pathfinder, which is so realistic.
I just looked up the wiki page about Linguistic Determinism.Again, I'm not positive I know what is meant in this specialized case, but the word 'determinism' sounds rather too absolute and fatalistic for me to have meant that. Just because mind control works (at least on some people, or some of the time) doesn't mean it can't be overcome.
The Wilipedia page says there is a Strong and Weak version of that theory. One that absolutely limits cognition, and one that influences cognition.
Alright how about this conspiracy. Translations lead to subtle changes in a works meaning. This is effect can be seen most dramatically when they are translated from one language to another to another etc. What if commonwealth secretly releases new languages and promotes them to the widespread status of common. Each time everything is translated forward, allowing them to subtly control recorded history, religious texts, etc.
Dastis, that's a neat idea, but long lived races would be a failsafe against that.
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All spellcasting is done in Wookiee.
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How about the Commonwealth uses language to give the impression that their political and economic system is the only one compatible with freedom and rationality. Free enterpise, free markets, economic rationalism are possible terms.
I'm sure I remember a Rolemaster Companion had rules for magical languages giving bonuses to spellcasting. Essence perhaps?
Dastis, that's a neat idea, but long lived races would be a failsafe against that.
Depends on how long the Commonwealth is willing to work at it. I mean even dragons only live 2000 years or so(3.5 number. Can't find it in Pathfinder). Most outsiders have truespeak or no reason to care about language shifts. Hell, devils might encourage it as it opens new loopholes. The oldest any common, uncommon, or featured race can get is 750 and thats venerable with max percentiles. I admit long lived peoples can slow it down but they can't stop it.
So, foment mistrust of long lived races.
"Ask no questions of the elves, for they will answer both Yea and Nay."
"Dwarves only speak true with their hammers, all else is noise."
"Gnomes are Gnomes."
The oldest any common, uncommon, or featured race can get is 750 and thats venerable with max percentiles. I admit long lived peoples can slow it down but they can't stop it.
In the real world, conspiracies going centuries are paranoid fantasies.
True. Pathfinder isn't the real world.
This is for a 5e homebrew campaign. It's only about 12,000 years old.
The Commonwealth is primarily concerned with the twelve continents of the inner ring; there is an outer ring of a few dozen "uncivilized" continents. "Uncivilized" just means they're not part of the Commonwealth's system of language, trade, currency standardization, and teleportation circles and portals.
The "Linguistic Conspiracy" is not the main purpose or feature of the Commonwealth. It's just a ribbon feature for zest.