He’s a sharp one, that Rahn.
-EDIT- So, I decided to take the feedback about Rahn’s dialogue in this strip to heart, and make some changes to reduce the… well, the cringiness. I wanted the Mor’Kama dialect to be more informal and slang-y than we’ve seen from the other Clan’s thus far, but the first version took it way too far.
Here is the original version, if you’re curious.
-EDIT 2- Fixed the apostrophe catastrophe
The slang-y speech was originally going to be so dense it bordered on uninterpretable. I chose the path of mercy.
Fo shizzle
OH, that was… …painful.
Like hearing rap in Basque.
I especially like Tehk being right on the edge of losing it…
Oh, Heavens, YES! Tehk is about to Boyle’s or 2nd Thermodynamics, or something that erupts/ explodes/ falls apart/ collapses.
Incidently, those eruptions usually are funnier to the Classroom than the original joke.
Boyle’s law. The more he flexes his muscles to squeeze down the giggles the higher the pressure goes up until he goes *pop*.
Someone ia about to get a slice of humble eel pie. Probabaly gonna wind up hurting Selkie’s feelings though.
Dave, I LOVE how you had him talk once he was speaking Tensei!
Dave, can you post your original dialogue for Rahn? Just so we know what we missed…
It’s reeeaaalllly bad. I almost didn’t go through with it at all, but opted to just tone it down rather than throwing the whole thing out.
Still wanna see it!
Unfortunately the true original draft is all in my head. When I went to actually write it down, it was so densely packed with slang that I couldn’t figure out how to best communicate the actual relevant information, and we have what we see here.
That said, I’m going to do a re-write on this strip when I get home from work. I think this is one where I’m best served listening to the feedback.
Now that Ive seen both versions, I think that I like the slangier version better. BUT, I don’t think that I could have understood it without the translated version.
Good job, both versions.
I think the “slide downcurrent” part was kinda cool. But the rest reads better in the less slangy version.
When it comes to injecting a little color, Dave, don’t be afraid to add in a few words or phrases that feel like Sarnothi idioms — just don’t make that the whole piece. Occasional oddities make it feel real without interfering with communication, which is the primary use of dialog.
You also have the option of having it read fairly normal in the comic, and having a reverse translation in the Transcript, pointing out that the phrase “blahbitty blah” is a Sarnothi phrase that literally says “bloobitty bloo” but means something more like “blickery blick” and is generally used in situations like– you get my drift.
Might also be interesting to have Selkie fail to get some basic Sarnothi idioms that she didn’t have in her head when she got left at the orphanage.
I agree with Kilyle here. When you want Sarnothi color, throw in a water-based idiom here and there. A little of that will go a long way. But otherwise, when you want to change register to ‘informal’ don’t reach for slang you yourself don’t speak naturally, because you’ll get it wrong. You’re good at kid voices. Trust your own instincts for what that kid’s personality would say — rather than trying to make one kid represent an entire race.
And then Barbara Billingsley show up and says, “I speak jive”
I loved the bit in that routine where the Dude indignantly told Barbara that he didn’t a translator FROM English, he understood it perfectly well, golly!
…Now I have to watch it again.
Beat me to it! I knew this scene seemed familiar. 😀
Oh man, I kinda hope that he doesn’t find out right away that Selkie’s an Echo….
I b’lieve that he is a Mor’Kama Force Majeure, the same way that Selkie is a full-on Echo, that is, .. in name only. Isn’t an echo detector called a Sonar? Or a bat?
Rahn, The Bat’Kama Tune in again next week, saaaaame Bat-time! Saaaaaame Bat-Channel!
TELL THEM ABOUT Selkie!!! Maybe one of them can teach her instead of Pohl, if they’re so good at it
I figured that they were more like the Morality Police, then teachers. More like Ethics teachers than instructors, or coaches.
Rahn: First do no evil: no killing people, no poking holes in kid’s balloons, no robbing banks, no taking candy from babies. Second, you may not allow anyone to come to harm through inaction, or failure to prevent an action that leads to the death of a person.
Thirdly you are there only to observe their culture, you may not take part in any Rites, Rituals, or Sacraments nor resolve political conflicts. And Checkov, Sulu, you especially may not tell them that our technology is “Magic”. I still remember what you two did at Christmas in the mines, on Cygnus Beta-prime!
Chiron Beta-prime. Sorry, auto-crock of crap.
In the mines of Chiron Beta-prime.
Oof, times like this are cringe. Other folk using AAVE (even bad AAVE) can get awkward quick.
Yeah I’m not gonna be doing this for very long. I wanted to give the Mor’Kama some sort of distinctive speech style to differentiate them a bit from what we’ve seen so far, but it’ll require limited use for pretty obvious reasons.
I think they mean it is disrespectful, Dave. I can’t think of a canon reason why sarnothi slang would pattern itself off of AAVE; thinking about what elements you are bringing together and parodying might help this page; it’s currently not a good look. I’m pretty sure something like this was used on one of the opening episodes of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. In that instance though, because the main viewpoint character was the one using the slang, it wasn’t looking down at the culture/vernacular but instead was poking fun at either itself or the person who wasn’t hip enough to understand
Tiffany is correct… There’s an awful lot of stereotyping and appropriation of AAs (and a lot of other races—don’t get me started about American Indians) in SciFi and Fantasy with very little actual representation. Where’s Selkie’s/Todd’s family anyhow? I miss them…and how about Keisha? I hope she gets more “airtime” and a happy ending.
Also… With all the creativity put into the plurals issue with the kids, I bet something creative could be done to make dialects distinctive. How away looking into dead/retired languages for ideas? Of course, if it is too much, just step away. Small things…like Sarnothi calling each other “sister” and “brother” stand out very well as it is. Sometimes less is more.
Keisha’s gonna be making an appearance upcoming, since we’re in the school setting, but as for the extended Smith family, I definitely do need to give them a run. Have had trouble fitting them in since the story issues have been focusing on Sarnoth Stuff.
I’m going to be doing some re-writes to this strip when I get home from work. I wanted to give the Mor’Kama dialect of tensei something to suggest a notably different speech pattern than the other Clans we’ve seen, and I still like the idea of them being more informal and slang-y, but I think I’m going to take the feedback to heart on this one that it’s gone a bad direction.
Oh, stewardess! I speak Mor’Kama.
Love how Tensei has regional dialects.
Oh, I thought maybe it was just a demonstration of code switching. Like a difference of how the kids talk to each other in Tensei vs how adults speak to each other or adults speak to kids, which I thought was cool.
Up until now, we’ve primarily seen adults speaking only in Tensei, either to each other or kids, but while we’ve seen Sarnothi kids talking to each other, it’s primarily been in English. Their speaking patterns aren’t totally natural yet, since they’ve probably been taught mostly by English speaking human adults or Sarnothi adults who have been taught by human adults and pretty recently. Benny and Selkie have picked up a more native flow of speaking (even if she does use plurals) because they’re been around human English-speaking kids and media a long time and have picked up the rhythm, slang, idioms, etc. I thought maybe Rahn was speaking a way that kids might talk to other kids, which would be a cool depth to add.
A regional dialect is something else we haven’t seen yet either though, so that’s cool too!
That’s another possibility too: have we seen Tensei conversations between kids before this? Being a language that uses extensive plurals to mark politeness, it is possible that Tensei is also rich in different forms according the status/age/gender of the speaker or addressee…
I can understand how it would be annoying if over used but the Mor’Kama accent is amazing.
I’m also loving how Tehk is on the verge of ‘sploding.
Still … if Mor’Kama find Echoes and can’t sense Selkie … did her mother weaken her that much or did her mother’s interference put a damper on others being to sense her? Or both?
When (because we know it’s going to eventually) it comes out that Selkie has minimal Echo ability, how will they all treat her? Tehk thinks she’s a full Echo when at best right now she’s … a greatly diminished Echo at best. 🙁
I’m still waiting for the day Selkie breaks through the barrier that’s been placed on her. I hope she gets her abilites returned to her some day.
So interesting. Normally my linguist brain would start asking if this is a regional dialect, ethnic dialect or a sociolect, but seeing that in Sarnoth culture these three axes are quite closely correlated…
(And I really want a spinoff centered on the Mor’Kamas now.)
An eel stuffs ITS fa… Oh, why bother….
So you rewrite the dialogue but leave the apostrophe.
Doesn’t it go there as a possessive? The eel owns it’s own face.
From what I know of the rules of English, you are correct. For whatever reason, ‘it’s’ is the possessive form and ‘its’ is the contraction of ‘it is’…the only contraction I know of without an apostrophe to indicate the removed letters.
That is the exact opposite. The apostrophe in “it’s” takes the place of the “i” in “is”. You can replace “it’s” with “it is,” but not “its.” The eel doesn’t stuff IT IS own face.
As I’ve said more than once,
Possessive its
Never splits.
his, hers, its
he’s, she’s, it’s
It’s honestly not that difficult if you group them.
The way it was explained to me, the possessive apostrophe is itself a contraction: “the eel, its face”. I can’t speak to the accuracy of this, though.
And “it’s” is a contraction of “it is”.
You have the rule backwards in your head, so I am going to chime in because if you don’t fix it you will always be getting it wrong, and it will always set my teeth on edge.
In this internet age I don’t normally bother to say anything. Most often the person does know and just accidentally picked the wrong choice from autocorrect. Telling them doesn’t accomplish anything — accidents will happen.
But if you have internalized the wrong rule, then yeah… I do need to say something. Here’s how to tell, always: If you can replace ‘it’s’ with ‘it is’ then it’s right. If ‘it is’ doesn’t make sense, take the apostrophe out.
I wonder if Tehk is laughing at Rahn for not realizing Selkie is an Echo or Selkie for being so weak that she can’t even be sensed. Also, shouldn’t the government like… realize Selkie could be discovered like this or do they just realize her powers are that pitiful?
Aww, I missed the old dialogue. Rain went from an overconfident urban prophet to a backwater toddler.
And this just show how skilled Selkie’s mom is *applause*
There’s a scale; good, very good, awesome, and scary-good.
Fear. Selkie’s Mom should have fear and *applause*. Lots of applause. But she is scary strong with the force.
Maybe Selkie’s mom is like N.Tesla, T.Edison, or Chas. P. Seinmetz. Such an inventive genius that she has no accurate superlatives?
Selkie is about to find out that her mother stripped her powers down to almost nothing… This is gonna be a bad day for her.
Huh…y’know, I actually really LIKED the original, it gave him a very hippie feel, like he’d been raised in just a completely different lifestyle more concurrent with the spiritual aspect of the Mor’Kama clan…it also fed into the world building, giving a neat view of how these underwater people’s sayings and colloquialisms would be different from ours above water…I LOVE all the thought that goes into believable and natural feeling habits and sayings for these people, like the greeting that speaks to how people with fangs and claws would indicate ‘I trust you and don’t mean you harm’ in a gesture.
I kind of feel like this new version strips him of some of that unique personality, makes him just ‘generic background child number three’. I get why you’d change it, especially with people complaining, but man…I’m glad you left the original up, because I WAY prefer that one.
It wasn’t solely the complaints by themselves, I was kind of 50/50 on if I wanted to do the idea in the first place anyway. I just went the other way after the criticisms came in, mostly because I had no intention or desire for the slang-speak to come across as racial.
Personally I didn’t notice a racial bent. It sounded ‘hippie’ to me, laid back, easy going, in tune with the rhythms of the earth and sea. Not trying to get you to change your mind, just wanted to let you know that not everyone saw it as racially charged.
I didn’t mind the original so much, but I think the change improves it; it was a bit over the top. Besides, there are some people who would be more troubled by it, and it’s reasonable to consider those people in making the decision.
I don’t exactly want to call this type of slang “lazy,” but it feels like the part where a little more craft might be warranted, rather than borrowing a pre-existing dialect that comes with racial baggage. In a story already developing a lot of racially coded content, it makes sense to avoid this. And, as others have said, less is more: Hints at the oddities work better than something much harder to make sense of.
I think if this weren’t coming out on a regular time schedule, but given more time to boil before it’s released to the public, it might make sense to really work over how the Mor’Kama sound, how they’re distinctive without being derivative. So this is a bit of a “constraints of the medium” thing. OTOH, because of its medium, it was also easy to switch it out for something that sounded a bit better. So, positives and negatives.
I’m also a fan of the original version. It portrays him as somewhat uncomfortable with himself. Kids who force themselves into bad hip hop slang have self esteem issues.
Why weren’t there plurals when he spoke Tensei? It was translated for us, so it should have had plurals…. ????
When I write translated-tensei (as in between angle brackets) I don’t include the plurals because (1) I want it to be visually distinct from normal english dialogue and (B) it “feels” like a more accurate translation if it’s written as it would be understood by the person being spoken too, if that makes sense.
For a sample of the use of plurals in spoken un-translated tensei, you can see a sample of that in one of the early strips, number 39. The same phrase can also be seen in tensei on strip number 582, except without the use of plurals. The lack of -t additions to render tensei plurals is a mistake on my part that’s gone uncorrected, but I’m bringing it up now because it serves as a useful comparison for how the phrase would look with and without plurals. Happy accident.
…I do need to go back and fix that at some point though.