1. Oldmanofthemountain

    Oldmanofthemountain Active Member

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    Any notable works where language barriers between the main cast plays an important role?

    Discussion in 'Setting Development' started by Oldmanofthemountain, Aug 19, 2020.

    In this hypothetical novel, a powerful confederation of pastoralist nomads have conquered and pillaged some generic monarchy ruled kingdom, after years of bitter warfare. They have taken thousands of peasants, officials, nobles, and soldiers captive. The lower class peasants and soldiers were enslaved, while high ranking officials and the nobility were kept as bargaining chips. One of the main characters in this hypothetical novel is a noblewoman and she is accompanied by her entourage of fellow captives.


    After the kingdom was fully subdued, the nomads turned their attention towards some fairly far away generic party ruled state. Fortunately for the nomadic empire, the garrisons manning the frontier they invaded, are grossly neglected and ignored by the state’s central government. Not to mention, for whatever reason, the state considered that particular frontier to be a remote wasteland not worthing spending much resources on. The only reason why a token garrison exists at all, is to keep unruly hunter gatherer bands from raiding some fringe villages. They never even fathomed the possibility of some distant foreign power trying to invade them through that frontier.


    The local garrisons’ rank and file mostly consists of impoverished teenage boys trying to escape poverty, and common criminals deciding that being deployed to that frontier was a better option then the death penalty. Hardly a single one has been properly trained for combat. Their deadbeat officers have been embezzling funds for themselves, and leaving their men with little food and equipment. To make matters worse, the garrisons are accustomed to fighting small (no more than a couple dozen men at the most) raiding parties of hunter gathers, not armies of tens of thousands strong. Another one of the novel’s hypothetical main characters is one of the teenage soldiers, who was abandoned by his comrades to the nomads.


    As the nomads have nearly every advantage in the book, they easily overrun the frontier “defenses”. Most of the garrisons fled their posts even before the nomads even approached. Those that stayed (mostly not by choice) surrendered within moments of their arrival or were totally annihilated. The nomads hunted down the scattered deserters, killing hundreds and capturing most of the rest.


    The captured survivors were placed with the other kingdom prisoners. Eventually, some of the deserters try to escape with a handful of the kingdom captives. Unfortunately due to a language barrier, cultural misunderstandings, and a lack of trust, their efforts are easily foiled by their captors. Only the aforementioned main characters managed to escape. Even then that was through pure luck and the sacrifices of the other captives.


    Now the deserter and the noblewoman must work together in order to flee to safety. However, communication difficulties arise from the above mentioned linguistic and cultural barriers between the pair. Tensions also have arisen from personality differences and different end goals in mind. The noblewoman wants to join up with a resistance movement, and lead her people to freedom. The deserter on the other hand, just wants to get out of dodge. He has no concerns for anything else but his own survival. They need to overcome these differences, if they are to survive the frontier’s hostile wilderness and escape the nomads’ clutches.


    Have there ever been any novels that have a vaguely similar premise to this hypothetical outline? If so, would you recommend them in your personal opinion?
     
    Last edited: Aug 20, 2020
  2. Whitecrow

    Whitecrow Active Member

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    What can I advise ... Chat with non-native speakers.

    I'm from Ukraine. I know well Ukrainian and Russian.
    I am very bad at English. I understand what you are talking about. Misunderstandings often occur.

    There are many language voice chats in the discord where you can try to communicate with non-native speakers and feel the curiosities of misunderstandings on your own. This should help you.

    https://discord.gg/english
     
  3. Kalisto

    Kalisto Senior Member

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    There is the book "Eaters of the Dead."
     
  4. Oldmanofthemountain

    Oldmanofthemountain Active Member

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    Thanks, will look into it.
     
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  5. Iain Aschendale

    Iain Aschendale Lying, dog-faced pony Marine Supporter Contributor

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    You may know it also by the movie that was based on it, The Thirteenth Warrior, starring Antonio Banderas.
     
  6. Kalisto

    Kalisto Senior Member

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    Well, that movie takes out the language barrier. Which, to be fair, would not have worked for the film. Other than that, it's not as bad as people say it is. It's a fun movie.
     
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  7. Iain Aschendale

    Iain Aschendale Lying, dog-faced pony Marine Supporter Contributor

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    Not at the start, but yeah, "Ibn" is a remarkable linguist :)
     
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  8. Mckk

    Mckk Member Supporter Contributor

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    Reminds me of this Czech song (turn on English captions). It's satire on Czech racism and language barrier:

     
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  9. Catrin Lewis

    Catrin Lewis Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Community Volunteer

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    Nerad. That's a Czech word I know. I was told it meant "not happy," but Google Translate renders it as "varmint." Embarrassing.
     
  10. Catrin Lewis

    Catrin Lewis Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Community Volunteer

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    @Oldmanofthemountain , sounds like a great concept. To pull it off you'll have to think hard about the characteristics of both languages.

    The "fun" times will come when they come across words in the other's language they think they know the meaning of, but don't. You can make something of that.

    You will have to get them some common understanding on the basics early on, otherwise they'll part in frustration. Or maybe they do, then meet up again when things are worse and have to try harder. Is there a lingua franca the two MCs will sort of be able to get along in for essential things, but still get things screwed up because one or the other or both aren't that good at it?
     
  11. Mckk

    Mckk Member Supporter Contributor

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    Looks like a broken version of "I don't like" - Nemám ráda.

    Mám comes from the infinitive form mít (to have). Mám technically means "I have". But coupled with the word rád (masculine) or ráda (feminine), it means "I don't like". And you use the masculine or feminine depending on whether it's a man or a woman speaking.

    I'm not sure I've seen Nerad as a word all by itself.

    ETA: I asked my Czech husband. Nerad is a verb - for example nerád piju - I don't like to drink. But by itself, nerád exists as a verb. Seems it's always coupled with something. Whereas neřád - with the Ř - means some sort of pestilence.
     
    Last edited: Aug 22, 2020
  12. Kalisto

    Kalisto Senior Member

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    I've played Kingdom Come Deliverance. That game taught me the Czech word for "Shit."
     
  13. Catrin Lewis

    Catrin Lewis Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Community Volunteer

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    It's also a Bohemian surname. I know. My dad's mom was a Nerad.
     
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  14. Oldmanofthemountain

    Oldmanofthemountain Active Member

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    I don't think I'll ever get to publishing this. As of now, it's just a hypothetical outline for the sake of this discussion. However, in the case that it actually becomes a novel, I'm picturing that the two main characters mostly communicate through crude sign language and pointing. Yeah, I imagine that they are both very frustrated by the language barrier. Not to mention that being raised in two very different cultures has given them very different outlooks on life. However, they reluctantly stay together, as they both don't want to be alone in some isolated wasteland.
     
  15. Oldmanofthemountain

    Oldmanofthemountain Active Member

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    After you brought this movie to my attention, I looked it up on TV Tropes. If that website is to be believed, it has quite the interesting production history. Apparently the movie's production movie was plagued with creative squabbles between Michael Crichton, John McTiernan, and the studio.

    From what I read, the Studio executives wanted to axe the Arab character, as they believed he wouldn't be appealing to western audiences. Both Crichton and McTiernan refused to pay head to that demand, which was the only thing the two men agreed on during production. Otherwise, they were at each other's throats. The studio also demanded constant rewrites and reshoots, which badly inflated the budget.

    Eventually after a disastrous test screening, the studio panicked and finally got sick of dealing with the film. So they cut out the third act entirely, and just unceremoniously dumped the movie into theaters. As a result, it badly bombed in the box office. Man, it's a shame to see so many films and tv shows get thrown under the bus by studio executives. How common is this in the writing world?
     
    Last edited: Aug 23, 2020
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  16. Naomasa298

    Naomasa298 HP: 10/190 Status: Confused Contributor

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    Star Trek TNG episode "Darmok".
     
  17. Iain Aschendale

    Iain Aschendale Lying, dog-faced pony Marine Supporter Contributor

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    Interesting. I liked it for what I call "multiculturalism of the lowest common denominator," a common thing in military life where admiration for others is never expressed except through what would seem the deadliest of insults.
     
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  18. Thorn Cylenchar

    Thorn Cylenchar Senior Member

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    It's not a book but the movie 'Enemy Mine' deals with this.
     
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  19. Iain Aschendale

    Iain Aschendale Lying, dog-faced pony Marine Supporter Contributor

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    Yes it does, and it made me think of James Clavell's Shogun, in all its weird glory.
     
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  20. newjerseyrunner

    newjerseyrunner Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2022

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    I was also going to suggest the Star Trek episode, it's entirely about that. Two captains are beamed to the surface of a hostile planet. The human tech can translate individual words, but their language is so foreign that it makes no sense and Picard has to learn how it works.
     
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  21. Davi Mai

    Davi Mai Banned

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    My brain went to Hodor in Game of Thrones. I'm not sure the language barrier played an important role, but when we find out that all along he'd been saying "hold the door"... that was effing brilliant!
     
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  22. Iain Aschendale

    Iain Aschendale Lying, dog-faced pony Marine Supporter Contributor

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    I've heard about that, haven't watched the series, but it's sufficiently similar to a racist joke that I heard in my youth that I felt more disgust than amazement.
     
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