A Land Far Away

Icewind Dale, the northern Islands, and some parts of the North: Norse
The North: Canadian
Waterdeep & northern Sword Coast: American West Coast
The southern Moonshaes: Irish
Baldur's Gate and southern Sword Coast: southern Californian
Amn: Latin American Spanish
Tethyr: European Spanish (just add lots of "th" sounds for "z"s and "s"s)
Calimshan: Arabic
The Interior Sword Coast: American Midwest (from "Fargo-esque" around Secomber to bland Midwestern around Irieabor)
Cormyr: Eastern American
The Dragon Coast: New England/Newfoundland
The Pirate Isles: Hollywood Pirate
Sembia: BBC English
The Dales: Various English West Country and Northern accents (although it does seem odd to think of Elminster speaking like the Beatles!)
The Moonsea area: Welsh
The Vast: Dutch
Impiltur: Low German
Damara and Vaasa: High German/Swiss
Narfell, Sossal, and other areas around the Great Glacier: Scandinavian
Great Glacier: Inuit
The Great Dale: Czech
Thesk: Polish
Rashemen: Russian
Aglarond: southern Slavic
Thay: Hungarian/Romanian (think Transylvanian)
Mulhorand: Ancient Egyptian (think "The Ten Commandments". Liberally sprinkle "So let it be written, so let it be done" in conversation)
Semphar: Iranian
Unther: Ancient Babylonian (I have no idea how to properly implement this, though!)
Chessenta: Greek
Chondath: Italian
Turmish: Turkish
Sespech, Hlondath, the Lake of Steam: French (it's between the Spanish and Italian areas)
Chult: African (West African? Swahili? South African click languages? I guess just pick one and go with it)
Lantan: West Indian/Caribbean
The South: American Southern (from Virginian and Carolina near Chult, to Deep South around Lapliiya, to Texan in the Shaar)
Nimbral: New Zealand (it's an island way down south, after all)
Halruaa: Australian
Durpar, Estagund, Var, Ulgarth, the Utter East: Asian Indian (perhaps Hindi in Durpar, Bengali in Ulgarth, etc.)
Zakhara: Arabic (from Iraqi in the north to Arabic proper in the center to Northern African in the south)
Malatra and other nearby south coast cities: Thai, Cambodian, Vietnamese from west to east (there's room for all of them down there)
Tu Lung: Cantonese Chinese
Shou Lung: Mandaran Chinese
Tabot: Tibetan (duh)
The Hordelands: Mongolian
Koryo: Korean
Wa and Kozakura: Japanese
Maztica: American Indian

Does these cultures apply to making names?
(Basically make english bastardations of names from said lands)

I've never heard of 90% of those places. I'm such a DnD njub.

The FRCS has lists of names by language-- and I don't think this list would line-up especially well. At the very least, I've never met an Evendur Amblecrown in Virginia.

I-KP wrote:I've never heard of 90% of those places. I'm such a DnD njub.

Or just American. Oh, wait, did you mean the left-hand side list of places

t-ice wrote:

I-KP wrote:I've never heard of 90% of those places. I'm such a DnD njub.

Or just American. Oh, wait, did you mean the left-hand side list of places

Doesn't matter how many Americans play this game, in my head I will never hear any character speak with an American twang (even when they're saying, "OK, sure, whatever."). Evil characters all have posh English accents though, of course...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fwy7v7BK2Q

Always thought Cormyr was Camelot more or less, and therefore needing English-y sounds.

*nods* I always thought Cormyr was Camelot-ish England. I can't see Mari sounding like Katharine Hepburn...More Scottish, less 'Little Women'.

Brokenbone wrote:Always thought Cormyr was Camelot more or less, and therefore needing English-y sounds.

Be forewarned that all misuses of "ye," "thee," "thy," "thou," and "thine" shall be answered as the conclusion to the Miller's Tale.

While I applaud the effort to name target accents for different areas...I've got to wonder if Southern California for BG is well considered:

"Hey, dudes...like wouldn't it be rad if we trashed some gobbers and like glombed some phat loot?"

"Totally, dude...let's ride"

I can't really see the Flaming Fist and the Dukes talking like this, but...*shrugs*

I do believe that you're letting mass media win out there. There's only a small portion of people who actually speak in the "surfer lingo" and "valley girl" dialects, as they were for the most part media dramatizations and exaggerations (some of which caught on-- but people seem to have a good ear for fake language, and most of it died young).

The actual shift we're looking at there is the movement of vowel enunciation ("king" spoken on the Pacific Coast sounds like "keeng" to someone in the Midwest, for example, or "ban" -> "bɪən" [California vowel shift includes random dipthongs-- huzzah!]) and some extra lexicon (though that's harder to notice today, on account of how much media comes from the west coast-- but "goners" and "paydirt" are sourced on the west coast). I might make an argument to borrow some dialect from more-northern parts of American west coast (we owe the Pacific Northwest for "skid row," "gyppo," and "chechako"), though it might be of note that every culture everywhere has had prescriptivist grammar as a powerful force in education and a form of social capital. The chances of a duke calling unskilled temporary workers "gyppos" instead of lumping them in with "the help" would be pretty remote.

I'm sure you know better the California linguistics than I, Zel. I was mostly thinking about the use of English in "RP" I encountered in a two day outing in WoW some years back.

Two DnD mates of mine joined WoW and convinced me to give it a go. The dialect I heard IG seemed like Californeze to me.

My admittedly tongue-in-cheek quotes might well be in fact verbatim from that brief misadventure in WoW "RP".

Halruaa: Australian

Says the archwizard king to his sage...

"Maaate"

"King Maaaaate!"

"Streuth mate, you look busy as all hell."

"Flat out like a lizard drinkin' mate. These epic spells dont grow on gum tress ya know"

"Bloody oath! Tell ya what mate. Finish up and we'll go down the pub and blow the froth of a stubbie or two?

"Farkenel that sounds like a ripper of a plan liege mate. But only a few, i gotta be up at sparrows fart tomorrow to get a surf in before i get castin"

*summons familiar kangaroo as they walk off searching their pockets for gaspers and a lighter*

If anyone can name all of the dialect and regional slang influences that I put into Tam's speech I will give that person an actual, genuine currency reward. And I'll double it if that someone isn't British.

For me, from now on, every conversation I overhear at BG (if I ever go back there) will never be the same again. Thanks, JLM. Groovy.

Dorn wrote:Halruaa: Australian

Says the archwizard king to his sage...

"Maaate"

"King Maaaaate!"

"Streuth mate, you look busy as all hell."

"Flat out like a lizard drinkin' mate. These epic spells dont grow on gum tress ya know"

"Bloody oath! Tell ya what mate. Finish up and we'll go down the pub and blow the froth of a stubbie or two?

"Farkenel that sounds like a ripper of a plan liege mate. But only a few, i gotta be up at sparrows fart tomorrow to get a surf in before i get castin"

*summons familiar kangaroo as they walk off searching their pockets for gaspers and a lighter*