Guide: Nomad Talk [Beta]

[chocolatefudge]

Overall, the nomspeak guide should give a series of simple and unambiguous syntaxes, that explain exactly what ***words*** means, what {words } means, and what *words* means, for example. Those should be preferably be understandable by someone who didn't read the guide. For example, instead of making {description of vision} the syntax for a telepathic vision sent by a nomad, make is something like *you have the vision of... * which is more straight forward and similar to the *my char does this* syntax that humans use.

Then, the emotion descriptors like -amusement-, -anger-, -annoyed- that are often seen by nomads... well, those are emotions that are so purely human that frankly it takes all the exoticness out of the RP the moment the word is used. It makes the nomad sound like an emo teenager most of the time. Just drop the very human emotions like that from the RP. Instead, speak in metaphors and visions, never expressing human emotions, and the nomad will be perceived much more mysterious than "I'm totally amused by your silly actions (e-peen)" that a word like -amusement- puts into the RP.

That's the substance of what I think, here's a more point for point answer expressing the same.

The Nomad language is not the most consistent between all of the players who fly Nomads. In this guide, the basics will be covered, however the fine tuning and quirks will be left to the player to decide. The goal to achieve is the spliced up English language to a point where it takes some effort to understand what you’re trying to say. Cryptic is good! Just not too cryptic.

1) Starting and closing - Starting and ending your sentences always should begin with a sort of open, and close.

What to do: ***Nomad*** or *..Nomad..* (Anything short and simple really)

What not to do: *#!@..Nomad..@!#* (Don’t let it get out of hand. Keep it smaller.)

Try to make the syntaxes used simple, consistent, and understandable without even reading your guide. The content can be cryptic and diverse, but the symbols shouldn't because a bunch of weird symbols doesn't add any atmosphere to the game.

2) Symbols - Having a plain sentence really doesn’t look too good when you’re trying to speak like a Nomad does. Instead of keeping everything plain, try to get into the habit of adding different symbols around words. Don’t let this get out of hand, there are some slight rules you must follow.

If a nomad can send you a vision, he should be able to send you a vision of him or someone else speaking in a correct plain sentence, so that shuldnt be discarded categorically.

What to do: *...~yours~ attempts to -know- of ‘ours’ brings (irritation)...*

What not to do: *...~yours~ ‘attempts’ -to- ‘know of’ -ours- ~brings~ (irritation)

Don't go overkill. Having symbols around 3/4 of your words is fine. Just don't let it take over your structure.

The impressions given by these "what to do" and "what not do do" to someone reading it is pretty much exactly the same, just one has a little more symbols in it. What you should do is add unambiguous syntax to symbols, if you propose using them at all.

The one symbol which actually means something, is the ( ) enclosure. Specifically, emotions.

- Hate - Love - Joy - Wonder - Amusement - All of these are potential emotions (as well as others I have not mentioned)

The rule that goes along with this, is the word must always be in the form of “The act of feeling”. An easy way to remember this, is to have the word fit the following.

“I have _____”

Correct form: “I have anger” -- Thus the word to put in ( ) is ‘anger’

Incorrect form: “I have angry” -- This doesn’t fit. ‘Angry’ is the incorrect form of the word to be used in ( )

These emotions are something utterly and purely human, which to me takes all the mystery and alien-ness out of the nomads. If its in () or not doesn't really change anything about that.

More later, gotta sleep now.

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