Linguist Skill 7e Equivalent

[Danial]

I've been reading an old scenario that mentions asking for a Linguist skill roll to determine if someone's accent is fake, and later, which region someone's accent is from. As Linguist is no longer a skill, what roll should I ask for? The best I can come up with is EDU but a straight roll seems a little too easy considering that the old Linguist skill had a base chance of 0%. Determining a region seems like it would be pretty difficult. Would an Extreme EDU roll be suitable or is that too much? For an average Investigator, that would be 13%. Does anyone have any thoughts?

[ragr]

Personally I'd just use a Language roll for the language being faked and the same with trying to work out a regional identity. The result of the roll might pinpoint things more accurately. I tend to the simple though.

[tendentious]

This seemingly simply set-up hurt my brain.

Faking an Accent.

Is the speaker speaking language A but in the accent of language B? So speaking in English but with a German accent? Or are they speaking German and trying to mimic a German accent to hide their own? And is what is the speaker's native language or dialect? Is the listener an English speaker? A native English speaker? A German speaker?

I'm assuming that the reason a roll is required is because the speaker can at least passably fake an accent, so it's not immediately obviously fake - like almost anyone attempting a fake Australian accent. So the speaker probably needs some skill like Art/Craft (Acting) or the relevant Language skill. And their skill level does not exceed 50%, so does not influence the difficulty of the opposed check.

The skill check required and the difficulty of the check is going to depend on each listener's background. Suppose the speaker is an American speaking in English but faking a German accent. IMO those most likely to spot the fake accent would be native-German speakers who also speak English, and American-English speakers who also speak German. I'd say that these people can make a regular Language (English or German) check, or a Hard EDU check. For each step away from this base-line, the difficulty of a check for the listener goes up. Native-German speakers with no English, native-American-English speakers with no German, non-native speakers of English AND German all make a Hard Language (English or German) check or Extreme EDU check. Non-native speakers of English OR German can make an Extreme (English or German) check or Critical EDU check. Everyone else realistically has no chance of spotting the fake accent.

Identifying a Regional Accent

Here the skill check and relative difficulty will again depend on background and familiarity. Say the speaker is from Yorkshire. You might say that anyone from Northern England would automatically identify the regional accent. People native to the British Isles  would identify the accent with a Regular Language (English) check or Regular EDU check. Others who have spent time in England or are English speakers from other nations can make a Hard Language (English) check or Hard EDU check. Non-native English speakers can make an Extreme Language (English) or EDU check.

To sum up, I'm not trying to come with a complete system for faking or identifying accents. Instead, I'm just breaking the scenario down to show that, again IMO, the skill checks required and the difficulty of the checks will be based on the background and the skills of the listener.