the second loophole

[fumidus.livejournal.com]

[There's a paragraph being written into your journals, Paradisans. The first version of it is in English, and it goes something like this:]

And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech... And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.  And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children built.  And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do; and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.  Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.  So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

[There's a pause, and then the same is written neatly in other languages such as French, German, Spanish, Korean, Japanese, and other various Earth languages. Scanning the minds of all the inhabitants of the island he came from really helped with the language thing.]

[The man then speaks out loud in English, faint amusement in the tone of his voice.]

Paradisa, when did you suddenly become a Tower of Babel? It seems like the other day you were all speaking the same common language. For what reason did your tower have to fall, hmmm?

The Twenty-Fourth Day

[stalkershiki.livejournal.com]

[Dictated in fluent Japanese]


So, um, from looking at the journal, it seems like the castle is doing some kind of loss something that isn't letting all of us understand each other anymore. I was thinking that maybe we should try keeping track of who is speaking what or something? And maybe see if people know multiple languages and can translate? I was also thinking that people who know the same language should know who else speaks their language, just in case they need something. I think that Earth languages will be the most common, since most of us seem to be from some version of Earth, but... people who speak other languages should know who speaks their language, too.


I'm going to try saying this again in English, by the way, just in case I can reach other people through that. I'm not very good, but... well, give it a shot.


Oh, and for anyone who doesn't speak Japanese, but knows me... it's Shiki. Shiki Misaki. Let me know if you speak something else entirely, mmkay? Maybe we can try to work something out...





[Dictated in fairly poor English]


Hello? This is Shiki Misaki. I am thinking that everyone can know who else in the... um... in Paradisa can speak the same... uh... can speak the same as them, because it is a good thing to know. I speak Japanese and a little English...


Um... I am not good at English. Do anyone I know only understand English?



[...She tried, and that's the important thing, right?]

Fourth Sign [Written in modern English]

[beyondimagining.livejournal.com]

Goodness, I never should have guessed there were so many different languages spoken here.  It's quite marvelous, in a way.



[He pauses, tapping the pencil a few times, and then continues carefully.]


I do have some talent for languages.  If anyone needs help with translations I am willing to help.



[He repeats the last sentence in Latin, Old English, Ogam, Welsh, and a number of other languages.]

Tenth Deduction [Dictated; English and Japanese]

[modernholmes.livejournal.com]

Something strange is going on!  It's like lots of people have forgotten how to speak languages.  Has this ever happened before?



Oh!  I still speak Japanese.  And I'm very good at English.  So I can help translate if someone needs help. 

Third Ghost in the Thermos. [dictated; English]

[invisibill.livejournal.com]

....Well, at least we're not stuck talking in rhyme.
 

Out of curiosity, ĉu iu povas kompren ĉi tiu?

(no subject)

[exanimatus.livejournal.com]

[dictated in this really old variant of Polish, because he's pretty sure maybe three people tops will be able to understand him.]

This really takes the joy out of gloating, but I guess the nature of this place dictates that I can't go having too much fun. Counting blessings, sure.

[and now in fluent (modern) Japanese.]

This reminds me of a time when the journal's filter system stopped working for a few days. As much as I'm sure your hosts enjoy making your lives harder, I can't help but wonder if this was planned or if the place is just experiencing... technical difficulties.

Just a thought.

[even if you don't understand any of it... one would probably be able to recognize his smarmy prettyboy voice anywhere. :|a]

Thirty Seven Years Late

[hulloeverything.livejournal.com]

[An exhasperated sigh preceeds the following. The symbols transcribed on the page as The Doctor speaks look like some odd combination of Greek letters and mathamatical symbols.]


Oh of all the times for the language circuit to break... [CRASH] Oh, come now, it can't be that difficult to fix! [FZZZ. Something shorts out with a fizzle and a POP. Disgusted, he throws down whatever tool he was using]


And I suppose it would be too much to ask that it's simply unable to translate modern Gallifreyan...



[He switches dialects and the transcription suddenly shows up as a very complex series of interlocking circles swirling across the pages]


Testing. One, two, one, two. Kunkwat. Geronimo. Platypus. TARDIS. Shoelaces. Raxacoricofallapatorian. [sigh] Oh, it's no use.



((ooc: What spoken Gallifreyan sounds like is anyone's guess. Any replies will be in Modern Gallifreyan (the mathematical one. ))

Seventeen candles

[eat-me-beat-me.livejournal.com]

Who: Nora Diniro and Mark Hunter
What: Happy Birthday Mark!
When: Midnight of 8/22
Where: Mark's room
Rating: What's a pirate's favorite letter? Arrrrrrrrrr

( You smell like a monkey and you look like one, too... )

05 ☣ Backdated to before the language event, because life devoured me...

[haveasandwich.livejournal.com]

( Hallway filter )

002

[about3seconds.livejournal.com]

[So here's Meowth, who, under the cover of darkness, is making like a good Pokemon thief and breaking into the animal sanctuary. Sadly, the castle wouldn't give him a giant mecha to make this as appopriately dramatic as possible and even if Jessie and James were here, he wouldn't be able to say the motto, so... Subtlety is also good. Really.

He has yet to realize the castle has inflicted a Loss on him and is more focused on picking the lock on the door with his claws. Surely, no one's going to be wandering around town at night to catch him. His luck can't be that bad, right?

Right?

Something startles him and he hits the ground, journal falling open beside him. It manages to procure a few interesting claw marks as he scrambles to close it, which might alert anyone's attentions to something being amiss, but Meowth isn't deterred. It's closed now. It cannot incriminate him- yeah, someone's been extra paranoid since he was informed the journals like to start dictating without your permission.

Journal put aside, he resumes picking the lock... Seriously, does an animal sanctuary really need a lock this hard to pick? It's like they don't want anyone to steal their Pokemon.]

[OOC: Available both in person and over the journal if you're wondering about the suspicious claw marks. Have at the currently not-talking Pokemon.]

drawn/action

[playdohsmash.livejournal.com]

[Chuck isn't going to bother with words -- instead, what looks distinctly like a swimming pool is being sketched out onto the pages of the journal. Happy little stick figure men and women swim -- two of them are passing a beach ball. A small table is drawn in near the pool, topped with something (probably food) and a box that is probably some sort of music player, given the tiny music notes drawn floating out from it. The drawing is pretty clearly an invitation.

When it's finished, she circles it a few times and adds a little doodle of a smiling face in the corner.

Anyone who actually goes to the pool will find her lounging in a beach chair at the side with a book, humming to herself and clearly having a good time.]

014.

[foolreversed]

[dictated Japanese]

So no one's speaking the same language anymore, huh? Well, I took English way back in high school but... how long has it been...?

[a pause, and then finally] Here goes nothing...


[attempts to write in English]

ぼくは足立です

my name is adati

i am japanese but know little english vely little took in high school long time ago

if try to speak with me in english please speak slowry or draw

like so
( Cut for intentionally badly drawn art )

thank you much



(ooc: ironically, if you ask him to say the words he spelled incorrectly out loud he'll say them perfectly fine... but mess up the ones he spelled right. And yes, he did just romanize his own name wrong.
Feel free to respond by doodling, although I don't know how long I can stand doing this style before I revert to my actual one LOL)

action; lobby;

[silentbutwinged.livejournal.com]

[ Anyone who passes through the lobby will find a certain winged girl sleeping in a chair. She's sitting upright but decidedly asleep. There's no telling how soundly she's sleeping so even just walking past might wake her! ]


[[ ooc: since about 75% of the names in this series are german and there is no indication of language past naming, i'm going with german! ]]

voice;

[fightemourges.livejournal.com]

[ neku speaks in japanese but anyone can tell that he is grumpy ]


Just for the record, this place has a sick sense of humor.



I am never going through that again.



( [ FILTER SHIKI ] )

94.5 - on the edge of seventeen

[hard-talker.livejournal.com]

[Ten PM, on the nose, the familiar strains of Leonard Cohen singing about what Everybody Knows start up, and then the record scratches to a screeching halt, replaced by a slightly out-of-tune teenager:]


Haaaaappy birthday to me, your pal Hard Har-ry, and in honor of the oc-caaaaa-sionnnnn, let's see how rude I can beeeee!

[he then proceeds to belch into the journal. LOUDLY. followed by a mischevious chuckle] Yes, that's right, folks, this is the day my dear sweet mother popped my sorry ass out into the world, covered in filth, and I've tried to stay that way ever since. You can direct your birthday wishes straight over the journal, but I take cards and presents, too, it's all good. And cake. Please, let's not forget the cake. Even if you take a couple'a Hostess snowballs, stick 'em on a plate with a Twinkie in the middle, I don't care. I am in a partyin' kinda mood, this evenin'.

[he puts on the Beastie Boys for emphasis. sure, he's played it previously, but it's a classic]

Sooooooooo, this past week, seems like everyone's slipping back into their usual routines. We've only got a couple new kids - Julia and Odd, so let's give them a hand, huh? Those of you who can understand English? You're in for a ride this week, because you, AND ONLY YOU! - get the benefit of an old-fashioned Happy Harry Hard-on broadcast. I'm pulling out all the stops --!

[he pushes a button on his tape deck. fart noises.]

I'm hitting all the sore spots!

[Arlo Guthrie's voice: "Mother rapers! Father stabbers! FATHER RAPERS!"]

I'M GOING AB-SO-FUCKING-LUTELY OFF THE GODDAMNED HANDLE TONIGHT --

[George Carlin: "Shit piss fuck cunt cocksucker motherfucker tits!"]

-- JUST BECAUSE I CAN! I might even wander downstairs and see how far I can go with my own latest personal goal: filling the swimming pool up with my own jizz. Okay, maybe not really, because I don't want to end up in the clinic for dehydration and not have any left for whatever cute nurse comes to slap the Gatorade IV in my arm, but hey - it's a nice, picturesque thought, isn't it? The kind of thought you have, not because it's good, or right, or makes sense, or because you'd actually do anything about it - you just have the thought because you CAN. Because you've got a mind that's pretty much capable of JUST ABOUT ANYTHING.

Think about that. I mean, REALLY think about it. It doesn't matter what language you think about it in, just ... THINK about it. You can come up with anything, ANYTHING IN THE WORLD, you can dream up cars that run on sunflower seed shells and unicorn farts and go five million miles an hour, backwards, underwater, up walls.

And how many of you are actually thinking up the craziest, most amazing, uniquely YOU things you can? Be honest with me, here, remember, that's the name of the game: Harry can smell a lie like a fart in a car ...

Okay, good. Now, even more honest, now, kids.

How many of you are just sitting around going "eh, castle's being stupid again, I give it a week before I can keep complaining to my friend who doesn't speak Language X about how stupid the castle's being"?

.... That's what I thought.

COME ON! GET UP! THINK! JUMP-START YOUR BRAINS! Give me ONE original thought, one thing that you know NO ONE but you could ever cook up! And I honestly don't care what it is, as long as it's YOURS.

That's what I want for my birthday. I want you all to be yourselves, for five whole seconds, and pull your heads out of this castle's collective rectum.

Lemme have it! LET'S GO!

Tre | Dictated

[alltenfingers.livejournal.com]

[Dictated in Italian.]

Can anyone tell me what exactly is going on? What happened to make everyone suddenly unable to communicate?

[Even he could gather that there was something allowing them to all communicate despite languages.]

Does anyone speak Italian here? Or French, perhaps?

Four | Dictated

[loveandstrife.livejournal.com]

[Entirely in Common, the equivalent of English on his world.]

Uh... what's going on?

[He pauses for a second.] Why is everyone suddenly speaking in different languages? Did something happen?

Is everyone okay?

(no subject)

[ofthefaintsmile.livejournal.com]

[Spoken in the language common of the Claymore world. What does that sound like? Your guess is as good as mine.]

My break from the castle and the population seems to have been extended.

[A sigh. Guess she'll just... keep talking.]

I used to weeks without conversation, you know. It was only here that I was presented with people on a daily basis. I had to learn how to socialize with people who were, for the most part, unafraid. It took a lot of learning and adjusting. I don't always seek out conversation, but having the option available...

I doubt this will last very long, but the thought of once more going for long periods of time without talking to anyone is... not something I'd want to experience again.

♐ fifty-seventh shot

[yeahihidmypants]

[ Dictated in (American) English ]

It's not surprising how multiversal and multi-linguistic this place is. I'm not sure if it's a good thing that the castle just... fixes this for us or not. I sort of wonder just how much we all would've learned about each other if we had to learn to communicate with each other first.

It also makes me wonder just how accurate the standard language was... I mean, phrases can't be as universal as we imagine them to be. There had to have been some serious misunderstandings that we were never even aware of.



[ He writes down the following phrase in three languages: Russian, Egyptian Arabic, Spanish, and French. ]

If anyone is still looking for translation services, I'd be glad to help. My name is Oliver Queen.

seventeenth phase [ english ]

[walkinthruwalls]

This kind of makes me wish I'd learned another language. Who knows how long this will even last for or if it'll happen again.

So... what important phrases would be the best to start with?