Allow foreign characters in dragon names

[Fuzzbucket]

People do that anyway, though. I for one would like to see at least accents available. If I want to name my dragon Frühstück, just to pick a random word (I can never think of good examples when I need them), I don't want to spell it Fruehstueck, it just looks tacky, imo.

Me too. But on the other hand...

 

Words that mean other things in other languages are a minefield...

 

 

 

[Wokenulape]

Perhaps the best idea would be to add in tréma or umlauts. Diacritic marks like èéêë

 

Then people would't be able to write in obscene things without being obvious.

 

I know umlauts have been mentioned before, but this reasoning hasn't.

 

ù ú û ü ý ÿ à á â ã ä å æ è é ê ë ì í î ï ñ ò ó ô õ ö

Edited January 4, 2015 by Wokenulape

[Ruby Eyes]

Sure they would still be able to - nobody is forced to use any special characters anywhere (except to pass really obnoxious password checkers ...)

[TJ09]

Yeah, I don't really consider the moderating argument to be a particularly valid one, because that same problem already exists for transliterated names; allowing different character sets is orthogonal (or at most tangentally related).

 

That said, Unicode is a complex beast, and only certain subsets would be allowed (people shouldn't be able to name their dragons with mathematical characters or Blackletter), but where is the line drawn?

[whitebaron]

That said, Unicode is a complex beast, and only certain subsets would be allowed (people shouldn't be able to name their dragons with mathematical characters or Blackletter), but where is the line drawn?

strictly technically: I'd just use unicode block latin-1-supplement, letters only.

it's basically what is allowed within names in our governmental webapps, and most browsers understand those without additional hassle.

[LibbyLishly]

That said, Unicode is a complex beast, and only certain subsets would be allowed (people shouldn't be able to name their dragons with mathematical characters or Blackletter), but where is the line drawn?

Since there are words (and names) that have wandered into the English language that have accent marks (Fiancée is the example that leaps to mind and I have a friend with the fabulous last name of Nuñez), I think the line could at least be drawn beyond that point. It's always driven me nuts that I can't use any kind of accent mark even though a word is technically misspelled if it doesn't have the proper markings.

Edited January 4, 2015 by LibbyLishly

[Mondat]

That said, Unicode is a complex beast, and only certain subsets would be allowed (people shouldn't be able to name their dragons with mathematical characters or Blackletter), but where is the line drawn?

Well that is up to you, TJ.

 

Although I really would like to write decent Japanese I'm fine with accepting that it's not possibe to implement for various reasons and would be very happy about getting "only" foreign umlauts and accents anytime too.

Transcribing äöü as ae, oe and ue is not something I personally like and therefore I do not give my dragons German names which would make me do so.

[mpolo]

The greeting cards that we just had with the gifts allowed at least a much bigger set of Unicode than the dragon names currently allow (I received a couple of gifts in Chinese or Cyrillic characters, as well as messages in Polish and in Elvish, and sent a few in Ancient Greek just to see if I could). Which is at least an indication of the technical possibility, if not an answer to TJ's question about which Unicode to allow. And Emojis open a whole other bag of worms, especially since few people have proper Emoji fonts on their computers.

 

<off topic>The umlaut and diaresis are technically two different symbols, but since the advent of computers are generally represented identically. (I really can't remember which is supposed to be closer to the character being modified.) An "umlaut" changes the sound of the letter, while a "diaresis" indicates that a certain letter should be pronounced separately from the other surrounding letters, like the old-fashioned spelling of coöperate, or the Spanish examples mentioned earlier in the thread, like "güero". [EDIT based on a later post: And "trema" is another name for the same symbol, emphasizing the form rather than the function]</off topic>

Edited January 5, 2015 by mpolo

[Ruby Eyes]

Well, my greeting cards show underscores in people's names as a capital Omega ...

[whitebaron]

<off topic>The umlaut and diaresis are technically two different symbols, but since the advent of computers are generally represented identically. (I really can't remember which is supposed to be closer to the character being modified.) An "umlaut" changes the sound of the letter, while a diaresis indicates that a certain letter should be pronounced separately from the other surrounding letters, like the old-fashioned spelling of coöperate, or the Spanish examples mentioned earlier in the thread, like "güero".</off topic>

actually, the proper term people were searching for is diacritical marks. no matter what it's meaning in the language, a diacritical sign is something added to a letter. a trema can be used for umlauts or diaresis or whatever other languages I do not know of might use those dots for.

[mpolo]

Well, my greeting cards show underscores in people's names as a capital Omega ...

Yes, mine did that, too. I assume that a webfont was being used there, but don't know that for a fact.

[Ayelldee]

I'd really rather we be allowed to use punctuation in names - like the period after Mr. or an Ampersand, and an exclamation point or question mark.

[olympe]

*snip*

<off topic>The umlaut and diaresis are technically two different symbols, but since the advent of computers are generally represented identically. (I really can't remember which is supposed to be closer to the character being modified.) An "umlaut" changes the sound of the letter, while a "diaresis" indicates that a certain letter should be pronounced separately from the other surrounding letters, like the old-fashioned spelling of coöperate, or the Spanish examples mentioned earlier in the thread, like "güero". [EDIT based on a later post: And "trema" is another name for the same symbol, emphasizing the form rather than the function]</off topic>

Well, even though there is a very definite difference between umalut and diaresis, the look is the same. And that's what counts in this instance. (Please don't tell me about umlauts - I'm German. I use them every day.)

[Mondat]

The greeting cards that we just had with the gifts allowed at least a much bigger set of Unicode than the dragon names currently allow (I received a couple of gifts in Chinese or Cyrillic characters, as well as messages in Polish and in Elvish, and sent a few in Ancient Greek just to see if I could). Which is at least an indication of the technical possibility, if not an answer to TJ's question about which Unicode to allow.

Oh, good you mentioned that. Thank you.

During the 2014 Valentine’s Day Event I wrote and received flowers with Japanese and German messages which were shown perfectly fine - in case of Japanese when it was a rather short message, at least.

 

I don't really think it's needed. Some of my dragons have portuguese names but I can read portuguese perfectly well without accented words ("Coração" and "Coracao"), just the same way you can read japanese perfectly well even if it's romanized.

I wasn't sure if I should reply but now I think I want to. I really do not think you can compare Japanese with Portuguese (Japanese uses a complete different character writing system).

Let me give you some examples of romanized Japanese words where the reading/writing is the same but the meaning differs depending on which Kanji you use:

kaze - could be "wind" or "a cold"(illness)

sentaku - could be "choice/option", "laundry" or "divine oracle"

hanasu - could be "to speak/talk", or "to let go of X", or "to separate"

atsui - could be "thick" (a book or curtain, for example), or "hot/warm"(weather, liquids&food, passion..and yes, there are also different Kanji..there is one Kanji for the weather and another for drinks, feelings and anything else that can be hot/warm...)

 

To name a few I could think of at the moment. Your "Coração" probably stays "heart" even if you write it as "Coracao" while with romanized Japanese you can name your dragon "choice" or "laundry" with one sentaku.

 

(Edited because of my choice of words)

Edited January 6, 2015 by Mondat

[AnanoKimi]

Perhaps the best idea would be to add in tréma or umlauts. Diacritic marks like èéêë

 

Then people would't be able to write in obscene things without being obvious.

 

I know umlauts have been mentioned before, but this reasoning hasn't.

 

ù ú û ü ý ÿ à á â ã ä å æ è é ê ë ì í î ï ñ ò ó ô õ ö

If characters are allowed, I believe this should be the limit. English is the dominant language for the site, as such allowing other languages to come in that do not use English alphanumeric symbols is setting the site up for disasters. Not everyone who speaks the language will catch obscene names and such so some dragons will slip the "No naughty names" rule.

 

I can understand that native speakers/writers of other languages may not like this but it is the only way to ensure that the names of dragons are treated equally to ensure the site is minor friendly. I dn't support this suggestion in its entirety but accented characters and even characters like ç and those like it that can resemble English Alphanumeric characters can be allowed. Just nothing outside of that to ensure that even if said characters are used improperly, the names remain in understandable and readable English.

[_Sin_]

Your "Coração" probably stays "heart" even if you write it as "Coracao" while with romanized Japanese you can name your dragon "choice" or "laundry" with one sentaku.

Actually, as someone that has been speaking Portuguese since I was a toddler, I wouldn't have recognized "Coracao" phonetically. At all. I'm sorry that the forum doesn't allow me to make you listen to the VERY different sounds.The "heart" is phonetically ku.ɾɐ.ˈsɐ̃w̃. Coracao sounds like korakao.

Edited January 6, 2015 by _Sin_

[Ruby Eyes]

During the 2014 Valentine’s Day Event I wrote and received flowers with Japanese and German messages which were shown perfectly fine - in case of Japanese when it was a rather short message, at least.

Perfectly fine? This is what I see (2 sample messages):

 

[Fuzzbucket]

Perfectly fine? This is what I see (2 sample messages):

 

I could see all mine - probably because I have about 40 million fonts installed, and also have set my browser to see the fonts of others. But still - my bigger concern would be words which mean completely different things - we can to a degree spot them in Roman script - but it would be harder in other alphabets - and I am aware of people who have been challenged on names and had no idea they meant anything else.

 

I take that back - just saw that AW's sig comes up as Amazonwarrior (oops - well the underline came up as an omega.) Same with two other sigs with underlines.

 

I also recall the boy who was taken to task for wearing an Italian T-shirt with a slogan when I was in teaching practice. He bridled and argued till one of the teachers took him aside and told him what was written across his chest... He blushed furiously, turned it inside out and went home to change. I wish my Italian had been better then; I never did find out... we don't all know what we are saying with other languages, and given what on line translators can turn up, I think adding other alphabets would make avoiding offensive names/false reports almost impossibly complicated.

 

I am sad for Mondat's kanji, but this is - as has always been stated - an English speaking site... I imagine she has Japanese fonts installed and was sending and receiving among other Japanese speakers.

 

I'm with _Sin_ on coracao, though (editing because I got a tag I didn't intend, so taking the opportunity:) @ Ruby Eyes - but what sound does coracao make in your head ? If not the sound the owner intended - the name isn't working !

 

That font looks like comic sans - which is what all my messages came in as. Nope. Researching now

Edited January 6, 2015 by fuzzbucket

[Ruby Eyes]

I also prefer to at least *pretend* I can read things - "coracao" at least makes a sound in my head that I can memorize when looking at lineages, kanji don't do that. I would see double meanings like "choice" and "laundry" as the perfect opportunity for a description containing both and playing with these words. Too bad that the descriptions queue is still an issue.

 

@fuzz: I don't know, I've never seen that font that these cards use before either. If they had just been plain old Arial (I have the Unicode version of this), I'd probably see everything alright.

[Keileon]

Support for diacritics and punctuation, mixed on IPA and other characters, no for things like Kanji.

 

I don't have much else to say than that. I've been wanting diacritics for a long time.

[Ruby Eyes]

I'm with _Sin_ on coracao, though (editing because I got a tag I didn't intend, so taking the opportunity:) @ Ruby Eyes - but what sound does coracao make in your head ? If not the sound the owner intended - the name isn't working !

Actually, it makes the sound with the sharp "s" for the second "c," so it's more or less like the version with "decorated" letters for me. You know, there is this blue alcoholic beverage with a similar name and they pronounce that one in TV commercials - I never noticed the tiny differences between the two "c" things Whatever sound it makes - I wouldn't know the translation anyway, and for many names, I don't actually care to check. There are so many fantasy names out there and so many languages, how would I even know which language to try the translator with? So technically, it doesn't even matter *which* sound it makes for me, as long as it makes one *I* can memorize. Most Asian scripts don't do that for me; Cyrillic or Greek scripts are borderline for me (with lots of effort, I can "read" them but not understand them).

[Fuzzbucket]

Actually, it makes the sound with the sharp "s" for the second "c," so it's more or less like the version with "decorated" letters for me. You know, there is this blue alcoholic beverage with a similar name and they pronounce that one in TV commercials - I never noticed the tiny differences between the two "c" things Whatever sound it makes - I wouldn't know the translation anyway, and for many names, I don't actually care to check. There are so many fantasy names out there and so many languages, how would I even know which language to try the translator with? So technically, it doesn't even matter *which* sound it makes for me, as long as it makes one *I* can memorize. Most Asian scripts don't do that for me; Cyrillic or Greek scripts are borderline for me (with lots of effort, I can "read" them but not understand them).

Ah yes Curaçao. Fair enough; people HAVE heard of that, so it could carry over. So - Hamecon ? (a name I might actually decide to use ? ) How would you say that ?

 

And what about the diaeresis - like aï. That gives you two separate vowel sounds - "but" - mais (meh) vs "corn" - maïs (maa-ees). Two completely different words separated by a pair of dots.

 

Someone wanting to call their dragon "mangeur de maïs" - corn eater (yes OK why would anyone, but still) - would not be happy to see it eat "buts" instead....

Edited January 6, 2015 by fuzzbucket

[Ruby Eyes]

German for "corn" is actually "Mais" with the "ai" pronounced like English "I" Hamecon (pre-googling) makes me think of an anime convention ...

 

I'll leave this arena now for people who actually know the languages you're referring to

[Fuzzbucket]

German for "corn" is actually "Mais" with the "ai" pronounced like English "I" Hamecon (pre-googling) makes me think of an anime convention ...

 

I'll leave this arena now for people who actually know the languages you're referring to

I know. I speak German too .

 

But it's the general point that bothers me. Losing some accents/cedillas/diaereses can completely change a name.

 

(Hameçon - with cedilla - is a fishhook ! Pronounced with an s rather than a k !)

[olympe]

*snip* So technically, it doesn't even matter *which* sound it makes for me, as long as it makes one *I* can memorize. Most Asian scripts don't do that for me; Cyrillic or Greek scripts are borderline for me (with lots of effort, I can "read" them but not understand them).

I can only agree with that. It doesn't really matter if I get a totally wrong sound from the name of your dragon, as long as I can somehow memorize it so I don't have to copy and paste its name whenever I need it. And, since this an English site, I think that the Latin alphabet is a common denominator. Some variations like á, à, â, ä and whatever else you can find out there are fine in my book. If I don't know what the tiny little symbol above (or below) a letter means, I can ignore it - and still arrive at something with a distinctive sound I can memorize.