Things I feel compelled to explain in the commentary are things that I usually should take out, but I decided to leave this one in the hopes that eventually it will make more sense in context for those that don’t read the commentary – for those that do read the commentary…
Naomi is in fact speaking gibberish here (thus the translation of ??? ??? ???). She was probably trying to ask the robot something in a different language. Unfortunately, she doesn’t speak whatever that language was.
This is probably a confusing thing that I should have taken out since I so inconsistently use/render people using other languages. The complication arises from that originally I used real languages for all the different languages, but I was convinced to take that out (in part because I can only write in two or three well enough to be confident it would make sense); this left a general running joke that Naomi is fairly horrible at any language that’s not her own sort of orphaned, and I should have removed it. But I didn’t, so… here we are 😉
When I do have to use other languages I’ve set up a syllable transliteration key; so it will sound like language and be consistent, but be meaningless gibberish. That said, Naomi’s version is intentionally corrupted, since she’s not actually saying words in any language here.
Moving on…
I’ve noted in commentaries that there isn’t really any way to tell someones capability in using magic, unless they are using it. However, when they are using it, there is fairly widespread technology in the IDS for detecting that – Kor’s World almost certainly would have it as well. It seems the robots are shooting at anyone that starts gathering a large amount of mana/psionic energy judging by their reactions so far 😉
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I’d say the effective way to show gibberish is to have the translation be gibberish “you’re nuggety belonging hirse” style
Yeah, I’ve since changed how language is handled. “untranslated” words are no longer ever shown, and just different markers are used to indicate its a different language.
She needs Monty Python’s Hungarian phrasebook!
I’ve seen some comics use text with scribble over it to indicate mangled speech – maybe taking that to the extreme and just using shapes instead of letters? I don’t think that quite captures the situation though.
Yeah; I don’t think this approach really made sense; I’ve moved to a new way to handle languages that’ll hopefully stick. I’d originally planned to use actual languages as language played a much larger role originally, but backed off that idea for several reasons.
I’m going to move to just using [brackets] + different font to represent other languages, and have her talk not make sense more explicitly in the future. Later on I just used a different font, but that wasn’t quite distinct enough. Since it’s no longer real languages that can played with, there isn’t any point in having the ‘non-translated’ text on page, it’s just clutter ultimately.
Y’know, I’d just assumed that the ???,????,???? box under her mangled fake language was the robot’s own translator attempting to make sense of it. Sort of an attempt at a fake-out.
Effective similar and I would have shown that the exact same way, to be honest, it’s just that the robot didn’t have much chance of translating it 😉 How best to render stuff like that )or in general…) in a comic format is definitely something I’m still learning.
I hope Mium is a better translator than Google ^^
This looks promising! It’s like the other side of the coin in the magic vs technology.
Mium is fairly linguistically advanced, merely to be able to speak intelligently. Once you have something that can do that, picking the language is far easier, since it can tell when there are nonsense mistakes or idiomatic translations.
Strictly speaking, both belligerents here use magic, but I’m getting ahead of myself there 😉
There are plenty of constructed languages (conlangs) that could be used, and who would enjoy getting additional exposure/usage. Just stay away from Esperanto, that one’s popular/seriously used enough that “mere” cameos would annoy the fanboys
That’s actually really interesting. I hadn’t really thought of that. I will definitely look into a few of them. I sort of enjoy the idea of using a language that is fair for the readers to be able to understand (by looking it up at least), and I don’t really consider a ciphered language that (like what I’m currently using).
A precursor of research into these constructed languages has been educational though. I will probably not change course now, but it’s definitely food for thought and possible a solution my quandary on it 😉
“…large amount of mana/psionic energy…” that sounds like Naomi, all right. “Faster than a speeding bullet, more adorable than a locomotive…” ^^
It looks to me as if she was trying to say something like “How are you?”. Perhaps if you told us what she was trying to say, and that she messed it up, you could have fun with nonsense translations (e.g. What she actually said was “Horses eat weasels?”). Or not. I’ve heard some pretty hilarious instances of people using the wrong words in languages with which they were not familiar. ^^
On an unrelated note, how is your shoulder doing? Are you still getting therapy for it?
Haha – yeah, originally I was considering providing a more nonsensical translation, but kept it that way for now for reasons – it’ll come up more though I suspect 😉
The shoulder is better, though still recovering. I’ve been limiting my therapy appointments since I don’t have insurance still – should start again on 10/1 and I’ll do my last one than, but I’ve mostly wrapped up what they wanted me to do. I did the exercises and stuff pretty diligently, so they were happy enough the times I did go in.
It’s not great quite there yet, but it’s not preventing me from doing anything in day-to-day life. I think I’ll steer away from playing sports right handed for a life-time or so, but fortunately I have a spare arm on the other side of my body.
Keep doing the therapy exercises…
Thank you and I will take them pretty seriously – not my first shoulder injury with the shoulder (it’s a defective unit, should gone for a refund), so I have an appreciation for thoroughness in the physical therapy 😉
I’m slowly transitioning into more general exercises as well (like swimming), but will continue a program of shoulder stuff (with talking to my therapist) at the gym. Ultimately I’ve recovered most of the shoulder motion, the real goal is doing what I can to keep it from being stupid again 😉