Yoski speak with an Australian accent

[Markusdark]

OK, no rule about it but had it at a Society table today and thought it worked brilliantly. So thought I'd share the idea and if it sticks, great. If not, meh.

Oh, only for Yoski from their home planet of Akiton. That way if you want to play along but not speak with an accent, you can be from another planet. :D

[Wrath]

Every character in my games speaks with an Australian accent :)

[Markusdark]

Wrath wrote:

Every character in my games speaks with an Australian accent :)

Touch'e

[Rosc]

I dunno. I've had one particular ratfolk character leave a lasting impression and it's shaped the way I imagine their race.

"Shooting's easy. Aiming's hard."

[Jersey Burke]

If a table of American gamers have their Akiton Ysoki speak with an Australian accent and a table of Australians with Akiton Ysoki characters speaking, would the two Ysoki groups think the other is speaking with an odd dialect?

[Aqua Zesty Man]

We can easily imagine the native languages of each alien race creates an accent in Common that leads to some recognizable real-world accent. For instance, this may be an actual sentence in Yoski Native:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPC-u5fP6GA

In my games I'm just gonna run with this! Just because. Note: am Southern American

Human common: sounds like Received Pronounciation among the high nobility, while the middle and lower classes will sound more Londony or East Anglian or some shades of Birmingham.

Elf common: When elf nobility speaks common as a second language, it takes on a Dublin quality, but most elves have some kind of northern Irish island accent; others may have a highlander Scots who've criss-crossed cultural and linguistic influences with the dwarven clans. There's an elf-dwarf pidgin out there somewhere too, probably, but if so, it's likely endangered.

Halfling common: Their original native tongues have been dead for generations, but they've held on to their accents even after having adopted the languages of the 'daikini'. Dorset, Somerset, Cornwall...halfling pirates? heh.

Dwarf common: Glasgow, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Geordie; the upper classes of dwarves have stuck to their Edinburgh

Gnome common: Southern and Northern Welsh, maybe some Liverpool too.

Orcish common: Deep Southern American (Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, upper and middle Florida). The ruling families of the Orc nation invariably have a more 'genteel' accent, sort of dripping like molasses off the tongue (non-rhotic), while low-born orcs will have more of a crusty drawl like some rural rednecks. (definitely rhotic)

Half-elf & half-orc common: will follow whoever put in the most time raising them, or if their parents stayed together, they'll have an exotic mishmash of the parents' accents. Some half-Orcs may favor more 'watered-down' Southern dialects like Missourian, Tennesseean, Kentuckian, Virginian. There is a distinct half-orc "exile" accent that evolved from a colony of mixed-race and human self-exiles that gives their common speech an Appalachian twinge and a set of loanwords that may seem rather confusing to other Common speakers.

Hobgoblin common: New England accents (NYC, Boston)

Goblin common: The range of Canadian accents, because goblins are such a diverse bunch.

Bugbear common: Texan and Southwestern.

Kobold common: Californian, so-called "Valley Girl" parody is a stereotype. (So what does pure Draconic sound like, hmm?)

Lashunta common: French. Parisian-style spoken by the upper classes, everyone else favors different accents from the rest of Francophonia. A small portion of Lashuntan speech will have a distinctive Quebecois or maybe a "Cajun" twang to it, which the other races tend to parody the most.

Ysoki common: Australian as per this thread (although Australian has its own shades of different regions)

Vesk common: The ruling classes favor the Hochdeutsch or High German speech. The Vesk military families have evolved their own accent (Berliner) which have been influenced in part by the languages of the vassal races within the Veskarium. Vesk who come from colony worlds conquered by the Veskarium will often exhibit regional dialects of Vesk diluted with the characteristics of the conquered races; these Vesk will often be bilingual as well. The Vesk "colonial speech" is often lampooned, frowned upon, or outright ridiculed by the "pure" Vesk speakers.

Shirren common: Swedish! and maybe some other Scandinavian accents too. While the free Shirren only represent a small portion of the Swarm's genetic diversity, all regional variation in Shirren-speech was stamped out by the hivemind a long time ago. What variations that exist in the variation of Shirren familiar to the Pact World today is the result of very deliberate alterations in speech patterns as more and more Shirren consciously seek to innovate their own distinct accents. While all Shirren speech is mutually intelligible today, one should expect that over time, the free Shirren have created many divergent and mutually unintelligible languages.

The uncommon races drawn from Eastern and Asian mythologies will probably have accents resembling their native culture, such as Samsaran common resembling the range of Indian subcontinental English accents, or the Kitsune will have a Japanese accent in their common, and so on.

That's all I have for now.

[EC Gamer Guy]

I believe an Australian accent works for all Ysoki except Mechanics, who by Guild Decree all speak with a Scottish accent.

[Wrath]

EC Gamer Guy wrote:

I believe an Australian accent works for all Ysoki except Mechanics, who by Guild Decree all speak with a Scottish accent.

"I cannae give 'er any more Captain! Och Aye"

[Aqua Zesty Man]

To round out the list a bit more:

Catfolk common: From their native lands in Garund near Holomog, their accent is likely near to Tanzanian or Ugandan English (just to make a geographical analogy here).

Duergar common: will sound hauntingly like some lost or strange Dwarven (northern British Isles) accent, but there is a harsh 'otherness' to it. Not unlike the differences in pronunciation between the R.P. English used reciting most Shakespeare today, and the revived Shakespearean accent as explained by Ben Crystal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi-rejaoP7U

Drow common: Most likely their accents will have a faint ring of the old elven tongue, but long years of separation will have ensured that Drow-accented common is easily distinguished from the elided and "H-less" accents of the elves.

Tengu common: Virtually nonexistent. Crows and ravens are found almost everywhere on Earth, and it seems Tengus are just as widespread on Golarion. They are linguistic and cultural scavengers as well as materialistic ones. Therefore there is no one consistent "Tengu common" accent, since Tengus are quite good at adapting their speech to fit into the wider world. http://www.d20pfsrd.com/races/other-races/featured-races/arg-tengu/

Aasimars, Changelings, Dhampirs, Fetchlings, Ifrits, Oreads, Sylphs, Tieflings, and Undines will usually take after their human parent's or relative's accent.

[Aqua Zesty Man]

These are kind of harder to pin down, so I had to get creative here. As a side not, it's my opinion that no race listed as a playable race is either intrinsically evil nor even predisposed to evil. Duergar aren't evil, nor drow, nor goblins, even if they are seen as such by narrow-minded fearful humans. If they are regarded as evil by the other races (like orcs and goblins often are), it's purely the result of racism, prejudice, and xenophobic attitudes toward minority races that have been marginalized, ostracized, forced to live in the least plentiful or arable lands, and continually hunted and persecuted by the dominant races for generation after generation.

Fetchling common: probably sounds similar to Wayang, since both races have ties to the Shadow plane.

Strix common: in mythology they seem to be related to vampires and other blood-sucking creatures (probably the same source that inspired the stirges). There is nothing predatory or vile in the reimagined version, however. Drawing solely upon the "Suspicious" trait of the Strix who live in a state of paranoia, that the older generations from the former Warsaw Pact nations will still remember, we may say that Strix might sound like something vaguely Slavic. They are a proud race who own the skies but have had a long-running feud with the human race (as represented by the races whose accents mimic those of the Western European languages), who have oppressed their kind with imperialist methods for ages.

Svirfneblin common: follow the Welsh of their gnomish cousins but are probably harder to understand since their accents will be thicker.

Suli common: Probably vaguely Middle-Eastern, since they are related to the jann of Arabian lore.

Nagaji, Vanara, and Vishkanyan common: Lore concerning the mythological bases of these races come from the Indian subcontinent, so their accents may well sound vaguely related to the Samsaran common accents to the untrained ear. The subcontinent is hugely diverse linguistically, so there are plenty of possibilities. My ear is just not attuned enough to pick up on variances (just like I can't tell any difference between German accents beyond the most superficial level). Someone else will have to do the work here.

Gillmen, Gripplis, and Merfolk: I really have no idea what to do about these races.

[Kagerage]

i play an orc and I am from the south...this is great...

[Gnomatsu]

All my ysoki speak with a thick inner city Dublin (Ireland) accent, just the right amount of sneaky malice mixed with charm. ( I'm from inner city Dublin so I'm allowed say this ;-) )

For some reason my halfings have a jamaican accent (no idea why, just happened) and Eoxians have a Transylvanian Dracula accent.