CK3 Dev Diary #78: Taking Language to Court

[Atrithau]

it's not about about erasing culture. it's a process that happens naturally and the game doesn't have that many centuries in it, so the process is accelerated.

It doesn't though. Even in the late 19th century, civilized countries like France still weren't ethnically unified and there were plenty of regional differences, dialects, and non-French speakers. Even after a century of public schooling some first world countries aren't fully homogenized, so the likelihood that you could just establish your culture over complete foreigners in half a dozen years or less is highly unlikely.

I'd say the game is pretty long as it is, and especially when one considers how easy it is to accomplish your goals more or less within a century. So I think the argument that it should take longer and be much more difficult only gets stronger when you look at a timeline of 500+ years. Extending the conversion to a century and having interesting events to go with it (where maybe the people you're trying to convert would petition you to convert to their religion, or alter laws, etc., or your marshal could offer to terrorize them with gruesome public executions) would make it a lot more compelling.

As it stands, I can convert several counties to my culture in the time that it takes my marshal to increase control in just one destabilized county. That's just not right. If that doesn't bother you or break your immersion, then we can just agree to disagree.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

It doesn't though. Even in the late 19th century, civilized countries like France still weren't ethnically unified and there were plenty of regional differences, dialects, and non-French speakers. Even after a century of public schooling some first world countries aren't fully homogenized, so the likelihood that you could just establish your culture over complete foreigners in half a dozen years or less is highly unlikely.

I'd say the game is pretty long as it is, and especially when one considers how easy it is to accomplish your goals more or less within a century. So I think the argument that it should take longer and be much more difficult only gets stronger when you look at a timeline of 500+ years. Extending the conversion to a century and having interesting events to go with it (where maybe the people you're trying to convert would petition you to convert to their religion, or alter laws, etc., or your marshal could offer to terrorize them with gruesome public executions) would make it a lot more compelling.

As it stands, I can convert several counties to my culture in the time that it takes my marshal to increase control in just one destabilized county. That's just not right. If that doesn't bother you or break your immersion, then we can just agree to disagree.

it would have to be a whole duchy, though, not just a county.

 

[TheDungen]

Awesome I remember suggesting something like this to replace characters having cultures. That said the primacy of court languages seem to spread a bit to fast. I'm mostly concerned with how fast high german falls by the side and greek spreads especially into africa.

 

[Trinita132]

The Berber language replacing Arabic in Moroccan court is not realistic for many reasons and this is independant of the cultural background of the dynasty actually in charge.

 

[Toto le Heros]

Is this DLC going to be released in 2021?

they promissed to release it before the end of the year... which leave them potentially 12 more Dev Diaries to dissect their future DLC and exhaust us...

 

[VenetianPriest]

Awesome I remember suggesting something like this to replace characters having cultures. That said the primacy of court languages seem to spread a bit to fast. I'm mostly concerned with how fast high german falls by the side and greek spreads especially into africa.

It’s possible that the failure of High German as a court language in the screenshots we saw is more a symptom of destabilized or weak realms in Central Europe. We can’t know that because the DD didn’t show us the realm map.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

It doesn't though. Even in the late 19th century, civilized countries like France still weren't ethnically unified and there were plenty of regional differences, dialects, and non-French speakers. Even after a century of public schooling some first world countries aren't fully homogenized, so the likelihood that you could just establish your culture over complete foreigners in half a dozen years or less is highly unlikely.

I'd say the game is pretty long as it is, and especially when one considers how easy it is to accomplish your goals more or less within a century. So I think the argument that it should take longer and be much more difficult only gets stronger when you look at a timeline of 500+ years. Extending the conversion to a century and having interesting events to go with it (where maybe the people you're trying to convert would petition you to convert to their religion, or alter laws, etc., or your marshal could offer to terrorize them with gruesome public executions) would make it a lot more compelling.

As it stands, I can convert several counties to my culture in the time that it takes my marshal to increase control in just one destabilized county. That's just not right. If that doesn't bother you or break your immersion, then we can just agree to disagree.

So by that token England would have about 6 counties converted from Anglo Saxon by the end of the game, starting in 867?

Maybe a couple more if some of the dukes could afford to take a full century per county.

And almost the entire south of Iberia would still be Andalusian by the end of the game in a 1066 start?

No. Let's not make it impossible to actually model historical changes in population culture and essentially render one advisor task pointless.

It's "just not right".

 

[Voy]

they promissed to release it before the end of the year... which leave them potentially 12 more Dev Diaries to dissect their future DLC and exhaust us...

They have since said it would be delayed and the official Q&A has removed the promise of a 2021 release. You can use the Wayback mashine to browse the page history.

Then:

CK3 "Royal Court" FAQ - Developer Diaries, Q&A & Important Information

Updated: 25/05/2021, 15:27 CEST Crusader Kings 3: Royal Court FAQ Get ready for our first expansion: the Royal Court. Immerse yourself in the life of a medieval ruler! How will you rule when your subjects come to you with their complaints...

web.archive.org

Today:

CK3 "Royal Court" FAQ - Developer Diaries, Q&A & Important Information

Updated: 01/02/2021, 17:00 CET Crusader Kings 3: Royal Court FAQ Get ready for our first expansion: the Royal Court. Immerse yourself in the life of a medieval ruler! How will you rule when your subjects come to you with their complaints...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

 

[Koyraboro]

The Berber language replacing Arabic in Moroccan court is not realistic for many reasons and this is independant of the cultural background of the dynasty actually in charge.

This run started in 867. In a world where the Hilalian Invasion never happened, it's not impossible that just like the Iranians, Berber dynasties could reassert their own culture and language.

But we still don't know enough about AI reasoning to make a definitive judgement.

 

[Tiax]

well, i think everyone's forgetting that at least a couple of people would have to actually speak the language before it becomes a sensible choice,

Is this true? It seems like if my grandeur is low, and a very distant language has a very high grandeur court, then it may be worth more to choose that language even if I can't speak it. The only downside to not being able to speak it sounds like some embarrassing events.

 

[Tiax]

So by that token England would have about 6 counties converted from Anglo Saxon by the end of the game, starting in 867?

Maybe a couple more if some of the dukes could afford to take a full century per county.

And almost the entire south of Iberia would still be Andalusian by the end of the game in a 1066 start?

No. Let's not make it impossible to actually model historical changes in population culture and essentially render one advisor task pointless.

It's "just not right".

I don't know if I buy that example. The Anglo-Saxons didn't become Norman, and it's not like William or one of his successors suddenly became "English" and then spread that from the top down.

 

[Maxoverload91]

Honestly instead of breaking your head with liturgical languages you could instead implement writing systems for faiths and religions:

Catholic faith would use Latin alphabet, orthodox - greek, Asatru faiths Germanic runes etc

Meaning that spoken language is based on culture, but language of writing is based on religion.

So, Russian state that has Slavic state faith would use say Glagolic alphabet that looks like Slavic runes. If they convert to orthodox then Cyrillic comes into play

I like this suggestion but Glagolitic is a bad example, since that's the first writing system for what is now called Old Church Slavonic developed by Cyril and Methodius, and was only used sparingly in a few locations after their deaths, with the exception of Croatia.

We don't really have much evidence at all for writing among pagan slavs before Cyrillic and Glagolitic. If anything, a hypothetical pre-Cyrillic organized east Slavic pagan clergy might have ended up using something similar to germanic runes, or even Greek or Arabic due to their relevance in trade.

 

[MoeinSS]

they promissed to release it before the end of the year...

Not true

 

[Will Steel]

Nice, it should be Shauraseni not Sauraseni though.
Its also odd that the other language is called Magadhan, rather than follow the correct established pattern and be named Magadhi.

IAST transliteration system requires use of diacritics (or else it doesn't work), yet that somehow never makes it to PDS games. Still love what I am seeing though.

 

[Koyraboro]

Nice, it should be Shauraseni not Sauraseni though.
Its also odd that the other language is called Magadhan, rather than follow the correct established pattern and be named Magadhi.

IAST transliteration system requires use of diacritics (or else it doesn't work), yet that somehow never makes it to PDS games. Still love what I am seeing though.

Transliteration is a losing fight sir but otherwise bumping your suggestion

 

[Krzysztof Brogenski]

I don't understand all that blank space in the maps. Not all languages will be available in-game?

Those areas are tribal governments which would not hold court the way a feudal or clan government would. It would be much less ceremonial and more casual. Therefore they don't have a court language since they do not need it.

 

[Karlingid]

Catalan and Valencian are more similar to Occitan than to Castilian.
Likewise, Occitan is more similar to Catalan and Valencian than it is to French.

Iberian languages aren't a language isolate, but belong to a broader spectrum of Latin-based languages, they didnt even diverge from a common ancestor that can be abstracted as "Iberian", Galician, Asturian and Castilian developed from Asturian Latin while Catalan did so from Occitan.

If we want to make languages represent broader linguistic groups to avoid immensely cluttering the language map with every known dialect then i would still divide the Latin Languages in:
Franco-Provencal (French and Arpitan)
Ibero-Occitan (Catalan, Occitan)
West Iberian (Galician, Asturian, Castilian)
Gallo-Italic (Northern Italy)
Italic (Central and Southern Italy)
East-Romance (Romanian)

"Iberian" just doesn't make sense, not even taking into consideration Basque which is even more distinct from Castilian than Lithuanian is.

Iberian languages were actually pretty heavily politicized all things considered, each kingdom basically pushing its own language. It'd still be easy to divide them into broader language groupings, but I think the broad West Iberian is a mistake given that those 3 all actively competed for cultural dominance in the core of the game's timeframe, and each had a multigenerational heydey at different points during it. Personally I would split it like this:

Oil (alternatively "Gallic", this representing the Oil continuum and encompassing the Arpitan-speaking region which historically used French or Burgundian as its prestige language*, and also including Norman for the use of England**)

Provencal (alternatively "Proensal" or "Lemosin" as contemporary endonyms used in both Aquitaine and Catalonia, this representing the Catalan-Occitan continuum of troubadour fame used as a prestige language for literature, poetry, and lyric in much of Europe, oftentimes even considered to have influenced the development of Gallo-Italic at least in the literary form due to its omnipresent nature)

Galician (alternatively "Portugalician" or "Trobadorismo" for an endonym relating particularly to its literary use, Galician had a very strong independent literary tradition and actually dominated Christian Iberian literature for a while between the fall of Latin and the rise of Castilian, even if areas that did not natively speak it.***)

Asturian (alternatively "Asturleonese", this represents the predominant administrative language of the kingdoms of Asturias and Leon during earlier medieval times.*^)

Spanish (alternatively "Iberian", "Hispanic", or "Castilian", this represents the dominant linguistic current of late medieval Iberian society. More particularly, this is an umbrella covering that should also cover Navarro-Aragonese.*^^)

Gallo-Italic (Perhaps influenced by Occitan poetry and literature, the official Italic of northern Italy took on its own unique literary, poetic, and courtly tradition. Its own life, really. This becomes especially clear when it is noted that Gallo-Italic was carried to Sicily and Basilicata, demonstrating that more than a local development of the north, it was a living tradition and the preferred attachment of many Italian influentials of the day, carrying weight worth bringing elsewhere instead of simply adapting to local languages)

Italian (Based on Tuscan and Romanesco, helped along by Dante, with currency in central and southern Italy as well as nearby Dalmatia. We might also want to lump Venetian into this, as Venice generally had more in common with Dalmatia and central/southern Italy than with its north-Italian neighbors, and Venetian is distinctly atypical of northern Italian languages anyway. The particular placement of Venetian runs into issues of cultural identity as much as the particulars of linguistics, but to my understanding, Venice identified itself and its literary tradition more with the Italian than the Gallo-Italic)

This covers the Romance of Western Europe. I don't have much to say about Romanian. I hope my line of logic makes sense in all of this, and I tried to explain my reasoning with decent detail and more elaboration underneath. Part of the issue with this is that strictly speaking we shouldn't rely entirely on simple language families, because very closely related languages can identify very differently and emphasize or exaggerate those differences accordingly, and while there would be intelligibility between them, they'd make a point to distinguish where possible and would hold pride to that end. The various Oil languages have a relatively unified literary tradition compared to the West Iberian languages, despite them emerging at comparable times and being the same taxonomic level. Although Ligurian and the Gallo-Italic of Sicily are decently distinct geographically and technically, especially in this time period their literary, poetic, and courtly tradition was just one big continuum flourishing along the same lines. This logic really does blur with the Normans, who have a peculiar identity and an independent place of authority for their own language, but nonetheless tended to fall in line with French and played much more into similarities than differences when given the choice. It's all a big mess so this is just how I imagine it, basically. Trying to weave the historical narratives into even the smaller details like this.




*More accurately stated, it would start as the default court language of Arles or Burgundy or any court set up with this region. As there is no distinct culture with which to tie Arpitan as a culture, this is likely to remain the case until such an option is added. Perhaps optionally as flavor for these courts, there could be a decision or event that could introduce Arpitan as a court language alternative, which may or may not be tied to the birth of a new culture or a great discount on creating a new culture to go with it - the latter leaving it up to the player whether they want a complete cultural identity split or merely their own language to play with.

**Norman has a case for being its own court language due to a strong independent literary-judicial tradition not just in Normandy proper, but in England, Sicily, and the Crusader realms as well. The main question at this point is not if Norman Oil is sufficiently independent to count for its own sake (it was), but whether it was sufficiently distinct (in the proper timeframe) to qualify as a distinct language. I, personally, wouldn't consider it distinct from Old French proper so to speak, and would consider them all just broadly "Oil". One could make the case that Old French and Old Norman are truthfully just dialects of a Proto-Oil language, even, though for my purposes it is sufficient to say whether or not they are counted as separate languages, they are not sufficiently distinct to distinguish.

***I here distinguish it from Castilian due to significant linguistic difference and different cultural attachments. From the 15th century, Castilian replaced most uses outside Portugal, including displacing the troubadouresque literary and musical style that Galician carried with it. The distinction between Galician and Castilian also helps to flavor smaller details in plausible alternate histories

*^This usage is almost entirely contingent on Latin not being used in earlier times with vulgar languages replacing it later on, as historically Latin was official during most of this time period in most of Europe. Barring that, though, Asturian was used administratively, was outclassed by Galician in the 13th-14th centuries in terms of cultural prominence, and would be upended alongside Galician by Castilian the closer one gets to the 15th century. If Latin is used as the dominant European language at start, then this instead will be useful to represent an alternate history scenario, particularly regarding where Castile doesn't come to dominate in quite the way it did historically, and fits best in the early Asturias vs. Andalusia timeline taken to a natural conclusion.

*^^Although Navarro-Aragonese is more closely related to Mozarabic, the cultural currents attached to these languages favor a sort of "Christian Reconquista" unity and the origins of many Castilian nobles among the Basques. Altogether, Castile, Aragon, and the Romance-speaking nobility of Navarra had enough in common in terms of identity and politics that I feel comfortable sorta combining these groups since the delineation of Iberian linguistics was largely politically driven. Topping this off is that Navarro-Aragonese showed continual development toward Castilian for pretty much its entire history and never quite carried the cultural weight, wide usage, and scale of official support and patronage that Portugalician, Asturleonese, Castilian and Ladino, and Occitano-Catalan did in this time period. This can be attributed in no small part to the dominance of Catalan in the Crown of Aragon and its territories, and the romance-speaking population of Navarra being extremely limited to a small niche of the nobility who were easily influenced by powerful neighbors as well as their initial Basque-speaking majority. This is also the reason I won't propose Basque as a court language to start with, though it could be elevated to one by the player or AI later.

 

[wilcoxchar]

Really like this dev diary. I can tell that even just watching the court language map shift over the years is going to be interesting.

 

[Voodoo Lilium]

Exactly. It's mind-boggling that you can just set your steward over a county and erase potentially thousands of years of culture in the span of three to four years. The only way that happened was through genocide and colonization and even that took decades. What's funny to me is that Paradox did make it harder to convert people to other religions, which is ridiculous in the face of historical evidence - it's way more common to see populations convert to religion while keeping their cultural heritage than the reverse. I'm not sure you should be able to convert populations at all, but if they're so adamant on having you be able to do it, then it should be an arduous process that takes centuries and tens of thousands of gold in investment. If you really want to erase a culture so much then you should have to put on your big boy pants and sacrifice growth, economy, and safety to do so.

Though I'll say that in their defense, they might not really view counties as populations as all. Perhaps all you're doing when you're setting the steward to the task is replacing public buildings, connecting roads, and bringing in trustworthy administrators from your culture. But if that's really the case, then there should be some representation of the fact that despite this superficial shift for administrative purposes, there's still an underclass of oppressed commoners that don't identify with your culture and will definitely betray you and target your people any chance they get. This would also make ruling empires made up of different pops way harder and far more interesting than just growing into a homogeneous blob that feels more like an oversized county than a massive empire spanning different civilizations and hundreds of unique cultures.



That's true, it could be that it's not that important, but all I meant to say (and maybe failed to convey) is that this could've been an opportunity to make the world feel more alive by having certain aspects of it evolve organically against the player's wishes. I personally would like to see more of that.

This is why I always slow down conversation in the game rules. Leaving it on default just feels ridiculous.

 

[Koyraboro]

Iberian languages were actually pretty heavily politicized all things considered, each kingdom basically pushing its own language. It'd still be easy to divide them into broader language groupings, but I think the broad West Iberian is a mistake given that those 3 all actively competed for cultural dominance in the core of the game's timeframe, and each had a multigenerational heydey at different points during it. Personally I would split it like this:

Oil (alternatively "Gallic", this representing the Oil continuum and encompassing the Arpitan-speaking region which historically used French or Burgundian as its prestige language*, and also including Norman for the use of England**)

Provencal (alternatively "Proensal" or "Lemosin" as contemporary endonyms used in both Aquitaine and Catalonia, this representing the Catalan-Occitan continuum of troubadour fame used as a prestige language for literature, poetry, and lyric in much of Europe, oftentimes even considered to have influenced the development of Gallo-Italic at least in the literary form due to its omnipresent nature)

Galician (alternatively "Portugalician" or "Trobadorismo" for an endonym relating particularly to its literary use, Galician had a very strong independent literary tradition and actually dominated Christian Iberian literature for a while between the fall of Latin and the rise of Castilian, even if areas that did not natively speak it.***)

Asturian (alternatively "Asturleonese", this represents the predominant administrative language of the kingdoms of Asturias and Leon during earlier medieval times.*^)

Spanish (alternatively "Iberian", "Hispanic", or "Castilian", this represents the dominant linguistic current of late medieval Iberian society. More particularly, this is an umbrella covering that should also cover Navarro-Aragonese.*^^)

Gallo-Italic (Perhaps influenced by Occitan poetry and literature, the official Italic of northern Italy took on its own unique literary, poetic, and courtly tradition. Its own life, really. This becomes especially clear when it is noted that Gallo-Italic was carried to Sicily and Basilicata, demonstrating that more than a local development of the north, it was a living tradition and the preferred attachment of many Italian influentials of the day, carrying weight worth bringing elsewhere instead of simply adapting to local languages)

Italian (Based on Tuscan and Romanesco, helped along by Dante, with currency in central and southern Italy as well as nearby Dalmatia. We might also want to lump Venetian into this, as Venice generally had more in common with Dalmatia and central/southern Italy than with its north-Italian neighbors, and Venetian is distinctly atypical of northern Italian languages anyway. The particular placement of Venetian runs into issues of cultural identity as much as the particulars of linguistics, but to my understanding, Venice identified itself and its literary tradition more with the Italian than the Gallo-Italic)

This covers the Romance of Western Europe. I don't have much to say about Romanian. I hope my line of logic makes sense in all of this, and I tried to explain my reasoning with decent detail and more elaboration underneath. Part of the issue with this is that strictly speaking we shouldn't rely entirely on simple language families, because very closely related languages can identify very differently and emphasize or exaggerate those differences accordingly, and while there would be intelligibility between them, they'd make a point to distinguish where possible and would hold pride to that end. The various Oil languages have a relatively unified literary tradition compared to the West Iberian languages, despite them emerging at comparable times and being the same taxonomic level. Although Ligurian and the Gallo-Italic of Sicily are decently distinct geographically and technically, especially in this time period their literary, poetic, and courtly tradition was just one big continuum flourishing along the same lines. This logic really does blur with the Normans, who have a peculiar identity and an independent place of authority for their own language, but nonetheless tended to fall in line with French and played much more into similarities than differences when given the choice. It's all a big mess so this is just how I imagine it, basically. Trying to weave the historical narratives into even the smaller details like this.




*More accurately stated, it would start as the default court language of Arles or Burgundy or any court set up with this region. As there is no distinct culture with which to tie Arpitan as a culture, this is likely to remain the case until such an option is added. Perhaps optionally as flavor for these courts, there could be a decision or event that could introduce Arpitan as a court language alternative, which may or may not be tied to the birth of a new culture or a great discount on creating a new culture to go with it - the latter leaving it up to the player whether they want a complete cultural identity split or merely their own language to play with.

**Norman has a case for being its own court language due to a strong independent literary-judicial tradition not just in Normandy proper, but in England, Sicily, and the Crusader realms as well. The main question at this point is not if Norman Oil is sufficiently independent to count for its own sake (it was), but whether it was sufficiently distinct (in the proper timeframe) to qualify as a distinct language. I, personally, wouldn't consider it distinct from Old French proper so to speak, and would consider them all just broadly "Oil". One could make the case that Old French and Old Norman are truthfully just dialects of a Proto-Oil language, even, though for my purposes it is sufficient to say whether or not they are counted as separate languages, they are not sufficiently distinct to distinguish.

***I here distinguish it from Castilian due to significant linguistic difference and different cultural attachments. From the 15th century, Castilian replaced most uses outside Portugal, including displacing the troubadouresque literary and musical style that Galician carried with it. The distinction between Galician and Castilian also helps to flavor smaller details in plausible alternate histories

*^This usage is almost entirely contingent on Latin not being used in earlier times with vulgar languages replacing it later on, as historically Latin was official during most of this time period in most of Europe. Barring that, though, Asturian was used administratively, was outclassed by Galician in the 13th-14th centuries in terms of cultural prominence, and would be upended alongside Galician by Castilian the closer one gets to the 15th century. If Latin is used as the dominant European language at start, then this instead will be useful to represent an alternate history scenario, particularly regarding where Castile doesn't come to dominate in quite the way it did historically, and fits best in the early Asturias vs. Andalusia timeline taken to a natural conclusion.

*^^Although Navarro-Aragonese is more closely related to Mozarabic, the cultural currents attached to these languages favor a sort of "Christian Reconquista" unity and the origins of many Castilian nobles among the Basques. Altogether, Castile, Aragon, and the Romance-speaking nobility of Navarra had enough in common in terms of identity and politics that I feel comfortable sorta combining these groups since the delineation of Iberian linguistics was largely politically driven. Topping this off is that Navarro-Aragonese showed continual development toward Castilian for pretty much its entire history and never quite carried the cultural weight, wide usage, and scale of official support and patronage that Portugalician, Asturleonese, Castilian and Ladino, and Occitano-Catalan did in this time period. This can be attributed in no small part to the dominance of Catalan in the Crown of Aragon and its territories, and the romance-speaking population of Navarra being extremely limited to a small niche of the nobility who were easily influenced by powerful neighbors as well as their initial Basque-speaking majority. This is also the reason I won't propose Basque as a court language to start with, though it could be elevated to one by the player or AI later.

I suspect your setup for Gallo-Romance is already in Vanilla since it's pretty straighforward and fits PDX design. Arpitan could be added as a culture but the nobility should be French since that's what they mainly spoke.

As for the rest, you're never gonna push this into Vanilla, your atomized Iberian way too much for the way the system work.
According to them we won't have Language Families cause broad groupings are gonna be used in the first place. The bonus to learning will come from shared heritage.