@TekServer: !kung is the most famous but there are others. Unfortunately there are over forty clicking noises in !kung and when written in the Latin alphabet all of them are represented by ! because early explorers did not think the language important enough to bother learning the differences, making the language unreadable despite the best efforts of several anthropologists to think up a better way of writing it.
I’m also interested in the Idea of a “tribal language.” As opposed to what, exactly? If the old adages the “A dialect is a language without an Army or a Navy” exactly how heavily armed and economically influential does your particular tribe have to be before It’s language is no longer a Tribal one? Or is any language not spoken by more than one different group that identifies itself as a separate nation a tribal language: I.e. English is spoken by people who do not consider themselves ethnically English (Like me) and is not a tribal language, but despite having nearly as many fist-language speakers Hindi-Urdu would be, by that measure, a tribal language as it has, compared to English, next to no people for whom it is their first language but not their ethnic identifier (I.E. the majority of first language Hindi-Urdu speakers consider themselves ethnically Hindi or Urdu, but the majority of Anglophones are not ethically English and indeed for the majority of Anglophone nations hating the English was at one point pretty much the definition of said nations)?
Clicks? So Dwarvish is similar to some of the African tribal languages (can’t remember the proper names)?
hmm …
😉
@Tekserver: I think it’s just Dwarfish must be difficult and look/sound weird, no matter the author. 🙂
Actually, it’s the noise made by the rocks in their heads knocking together as they speak. Hard for non-dwarves to emulate
Well that’s torn it, I now know that Digger is having some wild hallucinations from the gas back in the caves.
It’s a well known fantasy and historical fact that dwarves speak with a Scottish accent
As a Dwarf Fortress player, I find that comment particularly fitting.
@TekServer: !kung is the most famous but there are others. Unfortunately there are over forty clicking noises in !kung and when written in the Latin alphabet all of them are represented by ! because early explorers did not think the language important enough to bother learning the differences, making the language unreadable despite the best efforts of several anthropologists to think up a better way of writing it.
I’m also interested in the Idea of a “tribal language.” As opposed to what, exactly? If the old adages the “A dialect is a language without an Army or a Navy” exactly how heavily armed and economically influential does your particular tribe have to be before It’s language is no longer a Tribal one? Or is any language not spoken by more than one different group that identifies itself as a separate nation a tribal language: I.e. English is spoken by people who do not consider themselves ethnically English (Like me) and is not a tribal language, but despite having nearly as many fist-language speakers Hindi-Urdu would be, by that measure, a tribal language as it has, compared to English, next to no people for whom it is their first language but not their ethnic identifier (I.E. the majority of first language Hindi-Urdu speakers consider themselves ethnically Hindi or Urdu, but the majority of Anglophones are not ethically English and indeed for the majority of Anglophone nations hating the English was at one point pretty much the definition of said nations)?
There are only about four basic clicks, but each can be accompanied by nasalization, voicing et cetera.
I can always depend on BR to set me straight on topics like this.
😉