text; @The Seventh Crown of the Seventh Demon King;

[unrequite]

[ Four lines of text. ]

This is written in Victorian.
Kore wa Laterano-ji Higashi-go de kakareteimasu.
This is written in Higashinese.
This written by in Yanese. (Might be bad. Sorry.)

Please do let me know how many of these sentences you understand.

[ The first is in what would be considered Earth English, the second is what would be known as Japanese written in Romaji, but he's called it "Laterano-ji Higashinese". The third was written in Japanese, the fourth was written in some rather poor Chinese. He's called the languages themselves clearly incorrect names. What's more important, though, is that only the second one should parse as phonetic, and should only be understandable to fellow Japanese speakers. The rest are in whatever language is most understandable to whoever reads it. Funny, huh? This city sure is strange! ]

Comments

text post; un: peerless_cucumber

[xiaoxiuya]

Oh, good thinking! It'll be interesting to see how everyone reacts to this! Although...just for the record, it's "This is written in Yanese." [Shen Yuan corrects the syntax of the Chinese sentence, and makes a couple adjustments to the radicals while he's at it. He won't judge..."Crown?" Is that what he should call them? for the error, but the pedant in him can't let it slide unremarked.]

I understand the first, third, and fourth sentence, although I expect my pronounciation would be off if I tried to read the third out loud! [After all, kanji is simply another branch of Traditional Hanzi, but the phonetics of Japanese...well, they're pretty different!] The words we used for those languages in my world are different, however. Does 'English,' 'Japanese,' and 'Chinese' not ring a bell?

[Don't mind him, just going to fixate on the lore here while they wait for more experimental data to come in...]

[unrequite]

[ Pedants are welcome, especially when Midnight's still learning Yanese! He's the sort that sees failure as a chance to learn. (Also, he doesn't mind what he's called, so long as he's called on. Slow wink.) ]

Thank you! I'm working for a company with close ties to the Yan-Lungmen government, but I've never tried picking up the language until very recently. I've much to learn.

[ Much of the Yanese he hears around the landship is spoken with the Lungmen dialect. Someone who speaks national Yanese is different from what he's used to, but still very helpful. (Mandarin versus Cantonese, naturally.) ]

None of those names are familiar to me, but I've found that I'm in the minority in that respect. I've heard tell of others speaking of "Japan" in terms that are very similar to my home nation of Higashi, but as to where and how the similarities begin and end, well... I haven't the faintest idea.

[xiaoxiuya]

Oh, that's so cool! So our worlds are similar enough to share languages, but the place names are different...I wonder what other similarities they share? Somehow that's even more fascinating than a world that's completely different from your own, don't you think?

Looking back over your post, "Yan" is similar to "Han," which is the largest ethnic group living in my world's country of China. I'm Han myself. And you wrote "Higashi" with the character for "east"...Japan is an island nation that indeed lies to the east of China. Even "Victorian" is familiar...one of the most famous queens in the English-speaking part of the world was named Victoria, although the language and country predate her by several hundreds of years.

I wonder if we're looking at an actual case of parallel histories here? Perhaps our worlds used to be the same, but diverged at some point in the distant past?

@junpei | text

[coolerjunpei]

i got all of them. why, is there gonna be a quiz?

[unrequite]

There is now. I'll find a gold star sticker just for you, if you like.

[ He's kidding. Really. Unless Junpei wants a gold sticker, in which case Midnight is deathly serious. ]

That aside, I wanted to see how powerful the translation services are. It's remarkable to me that we all can understand each other to the degree that we do. The technology in my world is advanced, but it's certainly not like this.

[coolerjunpei]

you bet your ass i want a gold star sticker.

[He'll put it on his phone! Get him a sticker!]

it works out loud too though, right? so exactly what "technology" do you think it is? like are we talking chips in our heads or full-on simulation?

text; un: thefool

[mollymocks]

is it meant to all sound the same? except the second one

[ Text to speech can be a little weird sometimes. ]

[unrequite]

It's meant to sound however it sounds to you! This is less of a test of your skill and more of that of the system itself. I wrote the first sentence in a language called Victorian, the second and third in Higashinese, and the last in Yanese. What's fascinating to me is that the translation feature on this device, and whatever's translating all of our conversations, is doing so live, perfectly, and at a level that cannot be switched off. The second sentence that seems to have bent a rule in that sense, but it's a pretty airtight system otherwise.

[mollymocks]

oh. i know theres magic that can do that but maybe not on this scale. not an expert by any means
i wonder...

i am speaking in infernal

text | @stray

[kampfgeist]

first one reads english to me
second one no idea
third is german
fourth is shitty german

@stray

[unrequite]

Fascinating... Are you German or English, then? Assuming both are nationalities, of course.

text (silent princess)

[luminously]

I cannot help but wondering before I answer myself... Is there a reason in particular that you are asking?

[unrequite]

Curiosity, my dear princess. Did you have another reason in mind?

text. @kaveh

[fussiest]

I've three out of the four, but the second one resembles a little like Inazuman. I just don't speak it.
Ah, but I know someone who does. Give me a moment.

[fussiest]

[ a few moments later - ]

And there he is.
I apologise by the way. Not for me, but for him. But he has enough languages crammed into the silly block of his head that I figure he'd be some sort of useful. Goodness knows he has no use anywhere else.

@Alhaitham

[justscribing]

[Maybe two minutes after Kaveh has made sure that Alhaitham has seen this.]

1, 3, 4 are all perfectly readable to me, but not in the original language you described.

The second one is the same as the third but using an alternate alphabet, isn't it? It resembles Inazuman phonetically, but the writing system is different.

[unrequite]

[ Ah, Kaveh's promised Inazuman speaker. The purported silly blockhead. ]

Thank you. That does seem to be the general consensus, although this is the first I've heard of Inazuman. The practice of writing Higashinese using the Laterano alphabet is a result of the spread of Victorian as the lingua franca on Terra. Laterano-ji a common way of writing Higashinese text, but it is, at its heart, still a phonetic transcription of the language. I suppose that's a distinction the city's decided to preserve.

Un: poison_wing | text

[wingclip]

The first I recognize as English, and the other two are in Japanese, albeit written differently.

Higashinese... is that derived from an era I’m unfamiliar with yet? In Japan?

[There are just… so many people in this city, who knows them all?]

[unrequite]

I believe the leading theory we have is a parallel universe, if you're familiar with the concept. As far as I've gathered, there are so many differences between Terra and your world that, outside of some sort of worldwide apocalyptic event, one era in my world couldn't possibly fall comfortably within an era of yours. The cultural and biological rifts are too vast.

Japan and Higashi do share several similarities, though. The naming conventions seem rather consistent, for example. Names like "Junpei" and "Shoko" are quite commonplace where I was born.

[petsthedog]

i can read all of em fine but what the hell's higashinese supposed to be

[is this alternate universe bullshit again]

[unrequite]

The language spoken in the nation of Higashi, of course.

To actually answer your question, it seems as though Higashi, my home nation in my world, and the countries of Japan and possibly Inazuma may share parallel cultures between our worlds, language included. Would a name like "Junpei" or "Shoko" happen be commonplace where you're from?

( text ) un: 46

[cranekin]

The first one is familiar but I can't read it well.

("written" and "Victorian?" They're a little more complex than the basic terms he's picked up from reports and the few more modern texts he's seen. He can guess the meanings from the other sentences. And a quick glance at some of the other messages so far reveals--)

Ah, I see. English. I don't know it.
I can read the rest well enough.
Is Higashinese from the east, by chance?

[unrequite]

It is, of course. [ Higashi is quite literal, after all. ] Are you from Japan, Inazuma, or elsewhere? Although if you've mentioned English, I must guess Japan first.

[codenametesla]

This... is so cool. Weird, and I don't know what exactly it means for the city and us, but so, so cool. This implies translation technology miles ahead of anything even dreamed of! All of the speed of a VI but the accuracy and exactness of a person! It's like... telepathy? But through technology as well as in person?

[Sorry, she's no actual help here, especially since she knows everyone else has given their 2 cents on the languages themselves, but she is absolutely going to let herself nerd out a bit until she can have an existential breakdown in private about how the hell this is happening. Thanks Midnight <3]

[unrequite]

I've heard everything from telepathy to technology to magic. None of the explanations make much sense to me, I'm an expert in none of the above, but I would have tested these boundaries anyway. Glad to see some are getting something out of it.