what is excatly read/write

[French Desperate WindChild]

My first question was :

"Is there a stormspeech read/write skill (like firespeach) or do we use "THE" theyalan script skill ?"

I didn't find the answer (so your help would be appreciated)

but I found more questions in the fog

I m convince that when a character succeeds a read/write roll, she succeeds to identify each letter/sign/... even words, sentences etc... But does she understand the sense ? Does she succeed a speak roll ? Does read/write skill be limited by the book's language ? (You can have 100% in rw theyalan, but the esrolian book will be read at 35% because you have 35% in Esrolian speach)

not so simple to answer (that is why I post)

• Auld Wyrmish --> "clever" humans devised a written form to bypass the physical limitation of speaking. Why learn something you cannot undersand (25% max speaking) ?
• IRL --> I can read a lot of european books, but I cannot understand them unless I learned to speak their language.

 

 

 

 

[Austin]

2 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Auld Wyrmish --> "clever" humans devised a written form to bypass the physical limitation of speaking. Why learn something you cannot undersand (25% max speaking) ?

Starting here cuz this one's easier. Vocalized Auld Wyrmish includes components (normal) humans literally cannot perform, like making specific odors or noises the throat can't perform (Bestiary 37). Maybe a human could attain "Understand Auld Wyrmish" above 25%, but not speak it. Dragonewts have a similar problem speaking human tongues (see the entry for "Slave to Lies" in the Gamemaster Adventures book, page 42) which can be ameliorated with surgery.

I suspect the EWF has magical techniques to overcome this language barrier.

2 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Is there a stormspeech read/write skill (like firespeach) or do we use "THE" theyalan script skill ?"

This honestly is somewhat vague in my reading of the core rulebook as well. I think the RAW presented is that you just need to use the Read/Write Theyalan skill to understand any text in Theyalan, and that RAW what languages you Speak don't matter.

I play (and I think this seems to better match the world's presentation as intended) that Read/Write Theyalan just says how well you can read the three Theyalan scripts (per the sidebar on page 181 they are not separate skills, although including the Elasa script surprised me slightly since it seems meant to be magical and exclusive). I play that the adventurer uses Read/Write Theyalan to essentially "sound out" the syllables, but whether those sounds are meaning-carrying depends on what languages the adventurer Speaks. Now, because of the overlap rules, this means that most folks reading something in Theyalan should be able to figure out its meaning, at least to some degree.

For a modern parallel, say I have Read/Write Roman Alphabet 90%. I can recognize writing in the roman script. I can even sound out languages I don't know, like German. But even if I can make German-ish noises (or French-ish, Italian-ish, etc.) that doesn't mean I understand that combination of sounds, or that I'm actually putting the sounds together in the right way.

[Eff]

My immediate thought would be that the scripts versus the languages are intended to function like how Arabic or the Chinese languages do in the RW- there's a standard script that can be read by everyone who has learned it, but the individual spoken languages are divergent and not mutually intelligible. This seems somewhat reasonable, since written scripts are magical, there are cultic organizations that possess a level of control over writing (with the possible exception of the Lunar Empire), and at the very least there are several written scripts that are intended to evoke hanzi or hieroglyphics. This also has a useful effect- as long as you have two people with Read/Write in the same script, they can communicate regardless of the languages involved. 

As for Auld Wyrmish, remember that it's called that because it was taught to humans by wyrms. So my thought is that it's not "actually" dragonewtish speech as such, but rather contains verbal and somatic means to communicate concepts that in purely draconic speech require the use of scent glands or empathic activity. And since these means are not actually discernible by observing dragonewts, or indeed without having some kind of record that preserves how to perform them, there's an upper limit on how well you can speak Auld Wyrmish. Without getting tutored by Forang Farosh or doing some elaborate digging. 

[French Desperate WindChild]

3 hours ago, Crel said:

For a modern parallel, say I have Read/Write Roman Alphabet 90%. I can recognize writing in the roman script. I can even sound out languages I don't know, like German. But even if I can make German-ish noises (or French-ish, Italian-ish, etc.) that doesn't mean I understand that combination of sounds, or that I'm actually putting the sounds together in the right way.

Exactly what I mean, but I speak only languages based on Roman Alphabet so... the next answer sounds different and could be adapted to glorantha (or at least Theyalan, pelorian read write are based on language)

2 hours ago, Eff said:

My immediate thought would be that the scripts versus the languages are intended to function like how Arabic or the Chinese languages do in the RW- there's a standard script that can be read by everyone who has learned it, but the individual spoken languages are divergent and not mutually intelligible.

Does that mean that I cannot learn how to sound each symbol without understanding what I pronounce ?

[Bill the barbarian]

Like the topic very much and later when I have more time, I will have to return and read the collective wit and wisdom!

Did not check to see maybe someone asked but what do they all look like and what is the usual means of marking the scripts (oh the questions! Bravo)!

CHEERS

Edited January 19, 2020 by Bill the barbarian

[soltakss]

7 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

I m convince that when a character succeeds a read/write roll, she succeeds to identify each letter/sign/... even words, sentences etc... But does she understand the sense ?

Yes, succeeding in Read/Write in a Language means that you can both Read and Write the Language.

7 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Does she succeed a speak roll ?

No, she does not need to also succeed in a speak roll. speaking is about that, speaking and listening to a language.

They are different skills because RQ wants to emphasise that not everyone who speaks a language is literate.

7 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Does read/write skill be limited by the book's language ? (You can have 100% in rw theyalan, but the esrolian book will be read at 35% because you have 35% in Esrolian speach)

Not in RQ, but other D100 games have something similar.

Every few years, a debate goes on about having a read/write that is related to a script and then a Language skill that relates to the language. so, if you roll below both your read/write and language skill then you understand fully, if you roll below your Read/write but fail your language skill then you know what the words sound like but not what they mean and so on.

It does have its merits, but has flaws as well.

For example, I can read Trans-Cyrillic but have no idea what words in Tartar, Bashkir, Khazak or Uzbek mean, but I can read and have a go at pronouncing them. someone who couldn't read but could understand the language might be able to make sense of what I am reading.

I can read the Latin Alphabet, so I can pronounce French and Spanish with my schoolboy understanding of those languages, I can also have a go at Italian, although I probably mangle the words. If I read Slavic languages such as Polish or Czech, i can probably use my knowledge of Latin Alphabet and Russian to mangle those as well, or get a slight understanding, despite the extra letters that I am not familiar with. Languages such as Turkish or Finnish are very difficult, as I might understand all the letters (Finnish) but have no idea how they are pronounced, or I might not know the extra letters (Turkish) and not know how to pronounce them. So, I can have a good go at Ingredients on a Polish pack of something, or I can try to read something in Turkish and my wife might be able to work out what it says.

1 hour ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Does that mean that I cannot learn how to sound each symbol without understanding what I pronounce ?

In Chinese Script, it makes no sense, as each symbol means something unique. So, if you read a symbol and say it in Cantonese it might sound different to reading it in Mandarin, as the two languages would have a different word. so, the word for Cat in Mandarin and Cantonese might be different, but there is a symbol in Chinese for Cat. 

Arabic is different, as it is an Alphabet, so each letter has a sound. I don't know Arabic, but it may be that the order of letters might change how they are pronounced. 

In English, s and h have their own sounds, but the diphthong sh sounds different to both s and h. context can be important, as ch in "loch" is pronounced differently to that in "rich" and, famously, all the "c"s in pacific ocean are pronounced differently. You would need to know the language to know these differences.

54 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Did not check to see maybe someone asked but what do they all look like and what is the usual means of marking the scripts (oh the questions! Bravo)!

Orlanthi used cat scratching, which is like Ogham in the real world, and some other script. I think Peloria has its own script. The West has a single script but different languages. I am not sure about Kralorela, but it might use a symbols in the same way that Chinese does.

Something like Earthtongue might use a stylus to impress symbols onto clay, like cuneiform, with a written equivalent. i don't know whether it is syllabic or alphabetic, although I am probably using the wrong terminology.

 

In past discussions about this kind of thing, it has generally boiled down to using whichever works best for you.

[Bill the barbarian]

1 minute ago, soltakss said:

In past discussions about this kind of thing, it has generally boiled down to using whichever works best for you.

Well once pinged I suppose a quick answer won’t break my concentration on work too badly... Yeah, but what do they look like man. Oh to see an M Heldon treatment of the scripts of the Lozenge! Especially after Prince of Sartar showed me how the runes could look in spellcraft!

Ah work calls, later.

[Eff]

1 hour ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Exactly what I mean, but I speak only languages based on Roman Alphabet so... the next answer sounds different and could be adapted to glorantha (or at least Theyalan, pelorian read write are based on language)

Does that mean that I cannot learn how to sound each symbol without understanding what I pronounce ?

In Chinese, yeah, you wouldn't necessarily know how to pronounce a word just from reading it. In Arabic, though, you would learn what's called "Modern Standard Arabic" or "Literary Arabic" by linguists and "the purest Arabic" by Arabic speakers, and that does have an idealized sound for the characters (this is also easier because Arabic uses the script as an abjad, where vowel markings are infrequent, leaving some room to vary pronunciation). I don't really have a firm sense of which model is more appropriate for Theyalan scripts, the Western script, or the Dara Happan Sacred Alphabet and New Pelorian, but I will note that the Theyalan scripts are syllabaries and the DH Sacred Alphabet is a full alphabet, so none of them will look much like hanzi or Arabic script in practice. 

EDIT: Related to the above slight digression, one thought I have about New Pelorian specifically is that it makes use of something like furigana in Japanese- small-script DH Sacred Alphabet letters to spell out how to properly pronounce Pelandan ideograms, whether in a stylized cartouche like that used for names or just standing by themselves. This has its own little literary set of tricks associated with it- you could write "Sheng Seleris" and then indicate that it's to be pronounced as "Kazkurtum", eg. 

Edited January 19, 2020 by Eff

[GianniVacca]

I'm famously anal about differences between scripts and spoken languages etc. (look at the complexity of the language and writing systems skills in The Celestial Empire); however, for RuneQuest, given the absence of detailed sources about the various languages, I stick to a simple Speak [Language] / R/W [Language] system.

[JustAnotherVingan]

I'm a  little puzzled that the 3 Theyalan scripts are all treated as part of 1 skill whilst the 3 Pelorian scripts, although related, are treated as separate skills. Perhaps because 2 of the Theyalan scripts are in fairly common use whilst only 1 of the Pelorian scripts is.

p181 would appear to indicate Auld Wyrmish has its own script when I would have thought it would have used a Theyalan script, possibly adapted with some additional symbols.

[French Desperate WindChild]

12 hours ago, JustAnotherVingan said:

I'm a  little puzzled that the 3 Theyalan scripts are all treated as part of 1 skill whilst the 3 Pelorian scripts, although related, are treated as separate skills. Perhaps because 2 of the Theyalan scripts are in fairly common use whilst only 1 of the Pelorian scripts is.

p181 would appear to indicate Auld Wyrmish has its own script when I would have thought it would have used a Theyalan script, possibly adapted with some additional symbols.

Based on previous answer I would say :

pelorian languages are like european languages : same alphabet (or not) but too differents words so you can sound Firespeach by reading Darahappan (skill) but not understand  (so firespeach read skill is the ONE to determine if you understand or not the book)

thelayan languages are like chinese languages (for speaking): if you read the signs, you understand them but are not able to sound it in another language than yours.

And they are three forms but don't care if you learn read theyalan you learn all of them.

 

The issue in this case (probably never happen but...)

Let say you have 20% in firespeach speaking and 90% in firespeach reading. Are you able to write very well (using the same table than the speach skill) or to write like me (20% english speaking, 90% roman alphabet) ?

 

For Auld wirmish it is so magical than.. it is a different skill and that's all 😛

Edited January 20, 2020 by French Desperate WindChild

[Joerg]

3 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Based on previous answer I would say :

pelorian languages are like european languages : same alphabet (or not) but too differents words so you can sound Firespeach by reading Darahappan (skill) but not understand  (so firespeach read skill is the ONE to determine if you understand or not the book)

We do know that the Dara Happan script is alphabetic in nature. It resembles the Futhark in its association of deities and powers starting with those alphabetic characters.

We know that ancient Pelandan uses ideograms different from the Dara Happan alphabetic signs listed in the Guide. They are at the very least syllabic in nature, possibly polysyllabic ("Enslib" for instance).

 

3 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

thelayan languages are like chinese languages (for speaking): if you read the signs, you understand them but are not able to sound it in another language than yours.

We have nothing to indicate this. Instead, the nature of the "encoded" secret message in the Jonstown Compendium excerpts on trolls collected by Minaryth Purple suggest an alphabetic or at the very least syllabic nature of Theyalan script.

 

3 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

And they are three forms but don't care if you learn read theyalan you learn all of them.

There are two forms which are learned by lay members of the Knowing God, the Cat Scratchings and the Dog Scratchings. These are good for verbatim recordings of prose and poetry, with a north-south divide for popularity. The third ambiguous script is taught only to initiates of the Knowing God, not to mere lay worshipers.

This latter one may be less of a language-oriented and more of a symbol-oriented form. And I suspect that this is the script from which written Auld Wyrmish is branching off.

 

3 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

For Auld wirmish it is so magical than.. it is a different skill and that's all 😛

It is even more symbolic than the symbolic third script of the Grey Sages, and may exceed it in ambiguities, too. It would add draconic symbols, possibly linked to draconic urges like the ones leading to dinosaurism in dragonewts. Possibly indications of how to hold and/or fold one's wings while using the language, what or how to belch or exhale.

[French Desperate WindChild]

Danke @Joerg

My goal is to find consistency between lore and rule

pelorian languages seem ok

 

If (I m not challenging you, see my "If" as algorithmic if) cat and dog scratchings are alphabetical or syllabic,  there is then an issue :

the actual rules decide that reading skill is enough to determine the capacity to understand books written in "cousin but foreign" language. So following rules I can read a german(tarshite)  book with my 80% latin alphabet reading when I m juste able to speak french (Esrolian).

My actual level in German : kartofeln, Wurst, Wasser und Fraulein ? wollen Sie mit mir schlafen ? (that just french touch of course for the miss)

Here we have a lack of consistency. it can be explained by

- magic / god / sign power but wich one ? wich myth ?

- house rule (I m near deciding to add Speaking skill is the limit of Reading skill, like Reading skill is the limit of sorcery spell skill)

- the rules are good because it's simple, stop discuss (but why sorcery limit then ? the population profile are the same : scholar / noble )

- something else

And your remark on the third is hard for consistency lore vs rule. It is not in the rules : " Adventurers learn all three scripts as part of the Read/Write Theyalan skill. "

Again I don't challenge the lore, and I just want to identify if

•  I have a lack of knowledge about gloranthan lore
•  I have a lack of knowledge about real world linguistic (I knew the split between chinese languages but not the use of one shared script, so my topic is already a success, thanks)
•  there is a lack of consistency between RQ:G rules and Glorantha Lore (that  I can manage, or "WE" if I am not alone to fix my attention here more than other rules topics)

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

If (I m not challenging you, see my "If" as algorithmic if) cat and dog scratchings are alphabetical or syllabic,  there is then an issue :

Is there? Think of German, with common multiple consonants when written in Latin script. German actually has one special character, the ß (looks like a beta, but really is a long or high s ligated with a z in Sütterlin cursive), but really should have more for common ones like st, sch, ch, pf. Much like Greek has special consonants for ps and gs and th.

You could argue that phonetic script might be a way that surpasses those limitations, but reading a text in phonetic script is hard even if you have the leisure to pronounce every word. And while it is fairly easy for me to guess at written Italian, Spanish and to a lesser degree Portuguese and Romanian from my knowledge of Latin, if you wrote those languages phonetically rather than with the common root script, mutual intelligibility would drop a lot.

But neither Theyalan nor Pelorian are really phonetic scripts applicable to one another.

 

1 hour ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

the actual rules decide that reading skill is enough to determine the capacity to understand books written in "cousin but foreign" language. So following rules I can read a german(tarshite)  book with my 80% latin alphabet reading when I m juste able to speak french (Esrolian).

Frankish used to be a cousin language of  Saxon, but the language spoken in the Neustrian kingdom of the Franks stopped using Frankish and adopted the vulgate Latin of their gallo-romanic subjects. Thus French has possibly as few Germanic influences as Finnish (a non-indogermanic language).

I wonder whether it is possible to write New Pelorian in Theyalan script. While it should be possible to transliterate single words and names, there may be absences of valid transliterations for certain sounds.

For comparison, try writing French with just the characters used by English, and no transliterating "sœur" as "soeur" - either use "seur" or "sour". No accents. Ca va? 

 

1 hour ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

My actual level in German : kartofeln, Wurst, Wasser und Fraulein ? wollen Sie mit mir schlafen ? (that just french touch of course for the miss)

Now imagine that German and Scandinavian continued to use the Futhark rather than Karolingian cursive of Latin script, and your expectations of understanding the written language might meet your results above.

 

1 hour ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Here we have a lack of consistency. it can be explained by

- magic / god / sign power but wich one ? wich myth ?

- house rule (I m near deciding to add Speaking skill is the limit of Reading skill, like Reading skill is the limit of sorcery spell skill)

That depends whether you allow people to use "silent reading". This is a fairly recent skill, and our modern day habit to read without at least mouthing the words under our breaths would be close to deviltry to the scribes of the past.

From my personal experience, understanding the spoken word is a lot harder than understanding the written word, even if both are using near perfect execution.

I am not sure what is harder, listening to heavily accented language or having to read cyphers like e.g. my cursive.

My real world experience says that having a Latin transcript of a language makes understanding it easier for me. A phonetic transcription of Gaelic usually surprises me when I look at the way words are spelled, with vowels somehow echoed in  further syllables that aren't even pronounced.

Welsh is almost phonetic once you know the basic rules for how to pronounce certain letters or combinations of letters. A lot more so than English, at least.

Once you start fiddling with the script you might as well use numeric encoding rather than letters. Greek letters are somewhat decypherable to me. Cyrillic letters are 80% clear to me, and 20% at best educated guesses. Aramaic: complete guesswork, and numeric encoding may actually make things easier for me. Hiragana and other such syllabic scripts (Egyptian hieroglyphs, Maya hieroglyphs) are completely alien to me.

The Mayan custom not to repeat the same glyph for a syllable but to seek the greatest amount of variety for glyphs for basically the same sound might be something common to certain Gloranthan scripts. Pelandan ideograms might be going that way, but I expect Theyalan Elasa script to exhibit similar properties.

1 hour ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

- the rules are good because it's simple, stop discuss (but why sorcery limit then ? the population profile are the same : scholar / noble )

- something else

And your remark on the third is hard for consistency lore vs rule. It is not in the rules : " Adventurers learn all three scripts as part of the Read/Write Theyalan skill. "

And then goes on to say that Elasa script has a different vocabulary, relies on context, etc. - even if you were able to draw the "letters", would you be able to write the meanings when what you write is just a kenning of a code phrase? The Elasa script might come across as something similar to Cockney Rhyming Slang.

I still think that you need to be a fully educated Lhankor Mhy initiate before you can even begin to understand the meaning behind Elasa script. It is like trying to make sense of old sonnets without any trace of knowledge about classical myth. "Pyramus and Thisbe?" How can one even start to guess at clandestine communication without the mythological background?

"Ulfberht made this blade" is comparably easy stuff, made for use of dog-scratchings.

Elasan script might use a phrase like "Tinted as the birds of sun-slayer's lost brother" (black)

Few people apart from advanced sages have any use for the intricacies of Elasan script in daily life.

 

1 hour ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Again I don't challenge the lore, and I just want to identify if

•  I have a lack of knowledge about gloranthan lore

We all do. A lot of the lore results from people poking at possible holes and then finding explanations. Sometimes by themselves, sometimes by asking the right leading questions of the official creators of the setting.

1 hour ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

•  I have a lack of knowledge about real world linguistic (I knew the split between chinese languages but not the use of one shared script, so my topic is already a success, thanks)

Again, I am inclined to say we all do, even including professional linguists, as there are ten times more languages in the world than there are minutes in a day.

1 hour ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

•  there is a lack of consistency between RQ:G rules and Glorantha Lore (that  I can manage, or "WE" if I am not alone to fix my attention here more than other rules topics)

Any game system will be a compromise between how the rules work and how the setting works, unless the rules for the setting have been determined by the game. Gloranthan lore has been accumulating in not so systematic ways, and authors for different rules systems have tried to place their preferred system's mark on how the setting is described or developed. My Glorantha still has the Issaries or Communication rune. Harmony and Change are just one approximation of this. I don't use the various subcult symbols much that were presented to us in Thunder Rebels. They may still be used in maps or magical rites (back to the Elasa script, here).

[French Desperate WindChild]

11 hours ago, Joerg said:

For comparison, try writing French with just the characters used by English, and no transliterating "sœur" as "soeur" - either use "seur" or "sour". No accents. Ca va? 

(...)

And then goes on to say that Elasa script has a different vocabulary, relies on context, etc. - even if you were able to draw the "letters", would you be able to write the meanings when what you write is just a kenning of a code phrase? The Elasa script might come across as something similar to Cockney Rhyming Slang.

 

you exactly saying what I mean. Just reading/writing latin (theyalan ) signs cannot be enough to understand french and english and german and spanish .... (esrolan, tarshite, stormspeech, sartarite, "elasa concepts" ...) except if signs represent "idea" and not "sound"

just with our discussion here, I think that I understand 60 - 80 % of your last post, and I even not sure (50-60%) that my own posts are what I want to say and not the opposite (that the reason I try several ways to explain).

I would be happy if I were touched by LM (except the bearded wife rule #!@?* requirement).. Or I will choose Issaries (don't say me there are some kind of #!@?^ requirement here)

 

Edit "seur" could be understood : that the same sound (with imagination, if you accept an english domination on letters,  but I think it is impossible for a lot of french berserkers : here is a very hard breach of the "impossible n'est pas français" requirement)

Edited January 22, 2020 by French Desperate WindChild

[Akhôrahil]

On 1/19/2020 at 12:36 PM, French Desperate WindChild said:

• IRL --> I can read a lot of european books, but I cannot understand them unless I learned to speak their language.

It would make sense to have "Read [script]" as the skill, because in antiquity, what you do is read out the words loud so that you can then understand them (Caesar was considered amazing for being able to read silently).

However, writing would still be something else, and it would probably all get overly complicated to do it like this.

[Shiningbrow]

I have a feeling that if it was done all properly and correctly, there'd be a mix of skills, depending on whether the written form was phonetic or not. Some could therefore be restricted by Speak (x), while for others that could be irrelevant.

Also, if it's deemed a written language is completely phonetic, then once you've learned the basic script, then your R/W should be about the same as Speak.

[Akhôrahil]

35 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

Also, if it's deemed a written language is completely phonetic, then once you've learned the basic script, then your R/W should be about the same as Speak.

R yes, W no. Writing is a very different skill-set. I'm sure you know people who can talk and read perfectly fine but can't write decently to save their lives.

Edited January 22, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[Shiningbrow]

1 minute ago, Akhôrahil said:

R yes, W no. Writing is a very different skill-set. I'm sure you know people who can talk and read perfectly fine but can't write decently to save their lives.

I don't know of any languages that are that completely phonetic... 

[Akhôrahil]

20 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

I don't know of any languages that are that completely phonetic... 

I've been told Hungarian doesn't have any irregularities in pronunciation, at least.

[Cloud64]

5 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

I don't know of any languages that are that completely phonetic... 

Modern Italian is pretty phonetic. The spelling was standardised after unification and once you learn the pronunciation rules it’s consistent. Helps with learning. Of course, it’s  not perfectly phonetic, but you’re more likely to be right than wrong if you follow the rules. I don’t see how any language can be 100% phonetic; there’ll always be regional variation, and language changes over time in pronunciation as well as usage. Being an “amateur” I shan’t “harass” you with a list of English words that have a different “pronunciation” (take your pick with that one) than they had when I were lad. 
 

As a Brit  I’m very comfortable with non-phonetic writing. I’ve no doubt Messrs. Cholmondly, Featherstonehaugh and Marjoribanks would agree. [For those not au fait, they are pronounced Chumley, Fanshaw and Marchbanks.] And don’t get me started on the utterly pointless arguments over scone. 

[Cloud64]

10 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Caesar was considered amazing for being able to read silently

Do you have a citation for this? I find it very hard to believe. If people can think in their language they can surely internalise it through reading. It takes kids very little time to internalise reading,  that ancient readers couldn’t do the same doesn’t add up, even though the skill was rarer. 

[Akhôrahil]

14 minutes ago, Cloud64 said:

Do you have a citation for this? I find it very hard to believe. If people can think in their language they can surely internalise it through reading. It takes kids very little time to internalise reading,  that ancient readers couldn’t do the same doesn’t add up, even though the skill was rarer. 

Wikipedia: “Scholars assume that reading aloud (Latin clare legere) was the more common practice in antiquity, and that reading silently (legere tacite or legere sibi) was unusual.^[47] In his Confessions, Saint Augustine remarks on Saint Ambrose's unusual habit of reading silently in the 4th century AD”

One big problem with silent reading was that the writing didn’t support it. Without punctuation, spaces and in ALL CAPS, ITBECOMESPRETTYHARDEVENFORMODERNREADERSTOREADSILENTLYWHILEMAINTAININGCONCENTRATIONANDFOCUS.

[Bill the barbarian]

32 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

ALL CAPS, ITBECOMESPRETTYHARDEVENFORMODERNREADERSTOREADSILENTLYWHILEMAINTAININGCONCENTRATIONANDFOCUS

WHATCHEWTALKINABOUTFERGETABOUTIT

[Akhôrahil]

2 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

WHATCHEWTALKINABOUTFERGETABOUTIT

Good point, non-standardised spelling makes it harder yet.