Say It Like You Play It

In this episode we discuss the brilliant Heaven's Vault; a narrative adventure videogame about decyphering a constructed language in order to learn the history of a fantastical world. Hosts Dr. Ibi and Dr. Joe cover topics including:

• How the game works
• Ideographic vs Alphabetic writing systems
• Semantics and Morphology in language
• Science fiction, media representation, and attempts at avoiding orientalism
• Translation and archaeology as game mechanics

To hear Jon Ingold of Inkle talk about Bladerunner and writing game dialogue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vRfNtvFVRo

For an excellent GDC talk on the making of the game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o02uJ-ktCuk

Contains some strong (and other type types of) language.

📜 If you would like more Say It Like You Play It content, you can find our BLOG here: https://ibibaxterwebb.wordpress.com/blog-podcast/

☕ If you would like to support us, you can buy us a coffee here: buymeacoffee.com/sayitlikeyouplayit

📺 We're also on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SayItLikeYouPlayIt

📚 Resources:

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, n.d. 'Language in brief'. https://www.asha.org/practice-portal/clinical-topics/spoken-language-disorders/language-in-brief/. Accessed 11 September 2024.

Condis, Megan. 2016. Building Languages, Building Worlds: An Interview with Jessica Sams. Resilience: A Journal of the Environmental Humanities, 4(1), 150–161. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5250/resilience.4.1.0150

Daniels, Peter T., 2017. Writing systems. In Mark Aronoff and  Janie Rees-Miller (eds.), The Handbook of Linguistics. Wiley, 75-94.

Olson, David R., 23 Aug. 2024. 'writing'. In Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/writing. Accessed 11 September 2024.

Rogers, Stephen D., 2011. The Dictionary of Made-Up Languages: from Adunaic to Elvish, Zaum to Klingon—The Anwa (Real) Origins of Invented Lexicons. Simon and Schuster.

Rowe, Bruce M., & Levine, Diane P., 2022. A Concise Introduction to Linguistics. Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003268369.

Schreyer, Christine, 2021. Constructed languages. Annual Review of Anthropology, 50(1), 327-344. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-101819-110152.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode we discuss the languages used in Baldur's Gate 3, and in Dungeons & Dragons more broadly. Hosts Dr. Ibi and Dr. Joe cover topics including:

• What is a lingua franca?
• What is a constructed language?
• Fantasy races (species) and the signs and sounds they make.
• How the needs of tabletop roleplay leave D&D's designers to "leave something to the imagination".

Contains some strong and other types of language.

📜 If you would like more Say It Like You Play It content, you can find our BLOG here: https://ibibaxterwebb.wordpress.com/blog-podcast/

☕ If you would like to support us, you can buy us a coffee here: buymeacoffee.com/sayitlikeyouplayit

📺 We're also on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SayItLikeYouPlayIt

📚 Resources:

Cheyne, Ria, 2008. Created languages in science fiction. Science Fiction Studies, 35(3), 386-403.

Gobbo, Federico, 2005. The European Union's need for an international auxiliary language. Journal of Universal Language, 6, 1-28. URL: https://iris.unito.it/bitstream/2318/1715700/1/J.2005.2.gobbo2005-jul-unish-edition.pdf

Monson, Melissa J., 2012. Race-based fantasy realm: Essentialism in the World of Warcraft. Games and Culture, 7(1), 48-71. URL: https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=1023f3922c7417dcc752eb8da9557520b07a3a52

Premont, Antoine and Heine, Samuel, 2021. The human fantasy: Exploring race and ethnicity through Dungeons & Dragons. In Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games, 1-11. URL: https://dl.acm.org/action/showFmPdf?doi=10.1145%2F3472538

Rogers, Stephen D., 2011. The Dictionary of Made-Up Languages: from Adunaic to Elvish, Zaum to Klingon—The Anwa (Real) Origins of Invented Lexicons. Simon and Schuster.

Schreyer, Christine, 2021. Constructed languages. Annual Review of Anthropology, 50(1), 327-344.

Young, Helen, 2015. Race and popular fantasy literature: Habits of whiteness. Routledge.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.