I think it would be cool if...

[JeanLuc]

If when we speak to other people, we can TYPE what we want and the person we are will say what we typed! Who thinks that would be cool?

 

:D

 

:)

[Volaticus]

I assume what you mean is that if only our character could vocalize the words that we type for it to say... That would be cool but likely not do-able. Something like that would require a huge database for the vocabulary.

 

Then you would have the problem with inflection - the stress placed on words to invoke the necessary meaning. The same problem exists now with textual conversation but could you imagine having to listen the same monotone from everyone you talked to? Even if each race and sex had a different modulator you would still get the same audio often enough to drive you batty. And the confusion...

 

A better way for this to be done would be to include microphone access where we can speak the words we want our character to say. Then our voice would be the voice of our character. But problems exist with this, too. For example, when speaking our character's native tongue, is the software supposed to translate our English (or other language) into Ewok, or whatever?

 

I agree that this would be cool but fear that this technology is a long ways off - at least for the uses we would want it for. But who knows? Might just happen tomorrow.

[Dark Moon]

Too many people would abuse the system, and how would species such as Wookies use the vocalizer? I can see a big rebel vs. imperial clash, and no one would be able to understand any orders because the combatants would be too busy cussing it up

[setsuko]

Well, this kind of software do exist, but then, it's nothing that you can put on a CD and sell. It's a taaaad more difficult than that. And even if you disregard the obvious drawbacks (the immense database of sounds required, etc), there are less obvious disadvantages that has to do with both phonetics and linguistics.

 

For instance, you can't have each letter being read out. Because they are part of syllables. And you can't have each syllable being read out, because they are merely parts of a word. Further more, english is remarkable amongst other languages for it's lack of coordination between sounds and spelling. After all, even a LOT of people with english as their primary language don't know when to use 'then' and 'than'.

 

There is a lot of research in this field, cross-science work involving linguistics, phonetics and different computer sciences. Some of the most interesting parts of it is the cooperation with AI research, since the question of how our language works is so closely knit to how our intelligence works. But again, this is things done in research labs at universities, not by game developers.

 

EDIT: the prime reason for the lack of coordination between written english and english phonetics is actually really interesting, and has a huge impact on history research in english. Thing is, most other languages adjust their written language to how the words are pronounced. And the pronounciation of a language changes rapidly, sometime in a matter of decades. Compare that to the fact that many languages have existed for millenia, although in drasticly different ways. Therefore, I can barely understand a book written in swedish in the 19th century. However, english has kept their written language pretty much the same since the first writings appeared in the medieval ages. Thing is, during this time, english was much affected by their rulers, vikings, especially danish vikings (thereby the danelaw etc). So, most grammatical words in english comes from norse, and also a lot of everyday words. BUT, while the pronunciation was affected by the saxons, and later the norman invaders, the spelling was the same. Thereby we still spell "they" with a th, even though the deap gluttural phonetics of the norse has evolved and partly been replaced. Almost all words starting with "th" is from norse, and there were two different gluttural th, one stemming mostly from Denmark, and the other from the north, from Iceland and Norway. But after a while, the letters for these different sounds, ð and þ dissapeared, and where replaced with the roman version, th. Thereby, the distinction between them also dissapeared.

 

For instance, take the word "eye". You propably pronounce it exactly as you do with "I". Why is that? It's because originally, it comes from the norse word "öye". The first ö is called a shwa, and is represented with an e. So we got "eye". It stayed the same since ~1100's, even if the pronounciation evolved to "eyhe", "eii-e" "eii", and later became exactly the same as "I". But the spelling stays the same (in swedish, it instead turned into "öga"). While most other languages would have changed the spelling in more or less the same fashion as the pronounciation was altered. (sorry for the shoddy phonetics representation, but I'm used to having access to the real linguistic letters. So, the shwa should actually be an upside-down e, etc)

 

So in many ways, you still keep a lot of norse words, words that have been removed from all other languages except Iceland, which is so isolated that they have frozen in time, partly. And while you certainly don't pronounce it the same as in the 1000's, you keep a lot of the spelling. This makes spelling in english harder than perhaps any other language, since the connection between the word and how we physically represent it is not always correct.

 

Is this always a bad thing? No. The advantage of this is that I can pick up an english book from 1578 and understand a fair deal. If I picked up a swedish book from 1826, I would have a really hard time to understand a single word. Even though the different invaders changed the speech, the culture and the religion, the written language stayed the same. So basically, you get stability of the language, in the way that it is more or less the same across the globe and through time, at the expence of language evolution and ease of spelling, since it's harder for new words to appear in written english, and there is less connection between the actual phonetics and their physical representation in spelling.

 

Have I attended a class in university about this? Yes. So it's not like I thought it up myself! And the fact that if find it very interesting is perhaps one of the major sings of my lack of sanity.

 

EDIT2: this is a clear contestant for my "largest edit ever" award!

[Jackrabbit]

...I wrote a long post, then deleted it . I'll just agree with set.