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So we have tons of lasguns but not laser jets. What a joke.

Yes. Welcome to 40k, where we fly starships with stained glass windows hundreds of meters tall that feature stone-floored cathedrals lit by thousands of candles through the voids of space.

It's the Dark Ages in Space. It's a trope of the setting, The "purity seal" that is affixed to a suit of power armor is a strip of paper with the "Quality Check: PASSED" inscription of a Tech-Priest on it in ink that is affixed to the armor by means of a wax stamp.

 Psienesis wrote:

So we have tons of lasguns but not laser jets. What a joke.

Yes. Welcome to 40k, where we fly starships with stained glass windows hundreds of meters tall that feature stone-floored cathedrals lit by thousands of candles through the voids of space.

It's the Dark Ages in Space. It's a trope of the setting, The "purity seal" that is affixed to a suit of power armor is a strip of paper with the "Quality Check: PASSED" inscription of a Tech-Priest on it in ink that is affixed to the armor by means of a wax stamp.

I thought candles are just for style points, which don't supplant modern/future tech.

That *is* the modern tech! If a lightbulb blows out, the only Forgeworld that can make a replacement bulb might be 25000 light-years away and currently under attack by Tyranids. You better figure out another way to produce light, or you're going to be cleaning your wargear in the dark.

 Psienesis wrote:
That *is* the modern tech! If a lightbulb blows out, the only Forgeworld that can make a replacement bulb might be 25000 light-years away and currently under attack by Tyranids. You better figure out another way to produce light, or you're going to be cleaning your wargear in the dark.

Haha I'm pretty sure they stock up on light bulbs. And lighting a candle on board a spaceship will consume a lot of oxygen.

Besides the point, what do you think would be an aesthetically pleasing form for the gothic script?

It's WingDings.

Haha I'm pretty sure they stock up on light bulbs. And lighting a candle on board a spaceship will consume a lot of oxygen.

Stock up? Mate, there's one ForgeWorld producing these bulbs, by hand, with the labor of five thousand people, to fit the sockets of fifteen million lightsockets across the Imperium that use this one type of bulb, which is produced at the rate of 100 bulbs per Standard Year that meets the Mechanicus' exacting specifications.

You will receive your one (1, being primaris, singular) bulb from the Forgeworld, in exchange for your due tithe, and you had better take care of that bulb, lest the Emperor-who-is-the-Omnissiah strikes you down for your heresy! As per the treaties signed with the Mechanicus and your world in M34, you are alloted one (1, being primaris, singular) every seven hundred, thirty-two years Standard. Ave Imperator. Ave Omnissiah.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So this is what Gothic looks like:

Caslon Antique

 Bottle wrote:
Caslon Antique

Don't be so sarcastic.

STOP SAYING LATINISH!!! JUST STOP! YOU'RE MAKING ME WANT TO CLUB A BABY SEAL! IT IS LATIN FROM THE LATIUM REGION OF THE ITALIAN PENINSULA. GET IT RIGHT, BEFORE I HACK YOUR COMPUTER, FIND YOUR IP, TRACK YOU DOWN AND PUNISH YOU FOR YOUR TERRIBLE GRAMMAR!!!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It seems to me that High Gothic would be an amalgam of many languages, with English being predominant - English is spoken in just about every country in the world as a first or second language. Latin being a large part of it due to a second Enlightenment period, (possibly during the Great Crusade, though probably before the Age of Strife) wherein the Latin language and Roman culture were glorified as the most civilized and most Enlightened and educated language/culture.

 dusara217 wrote:
STOP SAYING LATINISH!!! JUST STOP! YOU'RE MAKING ME WANT TO CLUB A BABY SEAL! IT IS LATIN FROM THE LATIUM REGION OF THE ITALIAN PENINSULA. GET IT RIGHT, BEFORE I HACK YOUR COMPUTER, FIND YOUR IP, TRACK YOU DOWN AND PUNISH YOU FOR YOUR TERRIBLE GRAMMAR!!!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It seems to me that High Gothic would be an amalgam of many languages, with English being predominant - English is spoken in just about every country in the world as a first or second language. Latin being a large part of it due to a second Enlightenment period, (possibly during the Great Crusade, though probably before the Age of Strife) wherein the Latin language and Roman culture were glorified as the most civilized and most Enlightened and educated language/culture.

They aren't saying latinish in the same sense as english, they are saying latin-ish because what we get from GW isn't really latin.

 dusara217 wrote:
STOP SAYING LATINISH!!! JUST STOP! YOU'RE MAKING ME WANT TO CLUB A BABY SEAL! IT IS LATIN FROM THE LATIUM REGION OF THE ITALIAN PENINSULA. GET IT RIGHT, BEFORE I HACK YOUR COMPUTER, FIND YOUR IP, TRACK YOU DOWN AND PUNISH YOU FOR YOUR TERRIBLE GRAMMAR!!!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It seems to me that High Gothic would be an amalgam of many languages, with English being predominant - English is spoken in just about every country in the world as a first or second language. Latin being a large part of it due to a second Enlightenment period, (possibly during the Great Crusade, though probably before the Age of Strife) wherein the Latin language and Roman culture were glorified as the most civilized and most Enlightened and educated language/culture.

Except it's not really Latin, it just looks like Latin. The words, in Latin, don't often mean anything, they're gibberish.

 Psienesis wrote:
Specifically this bit:

This developed during the Dark Age of Technology. It derives from the common tongue of the time, an assimilation of English, European and Pacific languages which developed over many centuries in the American/Pacific region.

While there's a lot of cultures in the Pacific region, the biggest swinger is China. Tagalog doesn't have the population to become a majority influence, for example.

Well thankfully that is just your interpretation because nowhere says it that its chinese in particular, nor that china did have the biggest influence.

So this is what Gothic looks like

What exactly are you smoking? Gothic looks like gothic font, just like the buildings which are gothic buildings look like gothic buildings and not some weird azz sh!t. It wouldnt be gothic otherwise.

 Keep wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Specifically this bit:

This developed during the Dark Age of Technology. It derives from the common tongue of the time, an assimilation of English, European and Pacific languages which developed over many centuries in the American/Pacific region.

While there's a lot of cultures in the Pacific region, the biggest swinger is China. Tagalog doesn't have the population to become a majority influence, for example.

Well thankfully that is just your interpretation because nowhere says it that its chinese in particular, nor that china did have the biggest influence.

Again, for those skipping the important bits:

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/High_Gothic#.U6B0zXamVqM

... note that the list of contributors is alphabetic, not by rank of significance.

 Keep wrote:

What exactly are you smoking? Gothic looks like gothic font, just like the buildings which are gothic buildings look like gothic buildings and not some weird azz sh!t. It wouldnt be gothic otherwise.

 Psienesis wrote:


http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/High_Gothic#.U6B0zXamVqM

... note that the list of contributors is alphabetic, not by rank of significance.

Ummmmmmmmmm.....

 Psienesis wrote:

High Goth was proper English
Low Goth was non school English

High Gothic is the language that the technical manuals were written in when Humanity began to spread throughout the stars. It is, primarily, Chinese in basis, though also features several elements of various European languages and American English. By the time the M41 has rolled around, however, it has become entirely incomprehensible to anyone who spoke any of its founding languages.

OK.......

 Psienesis wrote:
Of course. By the time even the 22nd century had rolled around, China was the world's major super-power.

So, despite your only source being a wiki, and one which makes absolutely no claims to the specific levels of contribution to the language, you attributed your own levels based off of your predictions of the distribution of world political power nearly 90 years in OUR future, forgetting the fact that 40k is not our future and that the reference listed in the aforementioned wiki was written at a point where one of the prevailing economic beliefs was that Japan would become the worlds leading superpower (pre-1990's 'oops')? And then you chose to take that prediction and state it as an absolute for the universe? Right, OK, that's good to know.

Now, I suppose those quotes are slightly unfair, because you did mention demographics, which seems a fair point; however, the ability to create extraterrestrial colonies would seem to necessitate funds and power, which gets back to the power distribution thing, which is silly to even predict out that far.

Anyway, point: The source never gave any clue as to what language, if any, gave the lion's share of the contributions to this fictional language, so making definitive statements to that affect, based off of predictions of world power distributions 85 years in our future, is somewhat silly. That being said, it doesn't really matter considering whatever it became was essentially gobbledygook.

Anyway, to the OP: As others have pointed out, it looks like a Latin alphabet written in funny, scribble-ish Gothic font. Or block-y, depending on where you see it.

EDIT: That being said, if there's some source that states China 'won', then fine. I don't know of one, but that doesn't really mean gak.

Chinese is unrealistic as a major influencing language because it is too complicated, whereas English does make a lot of sense because it is a very simple language.
When Chinese people want to speak to non-Chinese speakers, they learn English, not the other way around. That is not likely to ever change because Chinese simply is too complicated to learn like that.


Also, this thread has a shocking lack of the one and only true Gothic alphabet:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Chinese is unrealistic as a major influencing language because it is too complicated, whereas English does make a lot of sense because it is a very simple language.
When Chinese people want to speak to non-Chinese speakers, they learn English, not the other way around. That is not likely to ever change because Chinese simply is too complicated to learn like that.


Also, this thread has a shocking lack of the one and only true Gothic alphabet:

Either English or Spanish becomes the main language of earth for trade. I'd actually bet more on Spanish, considering currently the whole of South America speaks it, and IIRC South America becomes a unified super power in the future of Terra in 40K.

Plus Spanish is the spawn of latin, along with Italian.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Chinese is unrealistic as a major influencing language because it is too complicated, whereas English does make a lot of sense because it is a very simple language.
When Chinese people want to speak to non-Chinese speakers, they learn English, not the other way around. That is not likely to ever change because Chinese simply is too complicated to learn like that.


Also, this thread has a shocking lack of the one and only true Gothic alphabet:

Either English or Spanish becomes the main language of earth for trade. I'd actually bet more on Spanish, considering currently the whole of South America speaks it, and IIRC South America becomes a unified super power in the future of Terra in 40K.

Plus Spanish is the spawn of latin, along with Italian.

Actually Portuguese is the most common language in South America, followed closely by Spanish.

 Orblivion wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Chinese is unrealistic as a major influencing language because it is too complicated, whereas English does make a lot of sense because it is a very simple language.
When Chinese people want to speak to non-Chinese speakers, they learn English, not the other way around. That is not likely to ever change because Chinese simply is too complicated to learn like that.


Also, this thread has a shocking lack of the one and only true Gothic alphabet:

Either English or Spanish becomes the main language of earth for trade. I'd actually bet more on Spanish, considering currently the whole of South America speaks it, and IIRC South America becomes a unified super power in the future of Terra in 40K.

Plus Spanish is the spawn of latin, along with Italian.

Actually Portuguese is the most common language in South America, followed closely by Spanish.

Meh. Same difference to my gringo ears.

Maximus Bitch wrote:
They should invent something new for the imperium

No, they really shouldn't. Tolkien invented writing for his Middle Earth. Tolkien was an expert on scripts and languages. There is no one with such skills at GW and they would utterly balls it up. They do a pretty miserable job with the runes for the Space Wolves as it is. In regards to that, why are most of the runes black on the decal sheet when the runes are simple enough to draw on with black marker pen?

It's also nice to have a good idea what the words mean when it's the imperials you see most of the time and pretty much every building kit is an imperial one.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wyzilla wrote:


I'd actually bet more on Spanish, considering currently the whole of South America speaks it, and IIRC South America becomes a unified super power in the future of Terra in 40K.

Plus Spanish is the spawn of latin, along with Italian.

Maybe the North Koreans invade and at the time of this South American super power they all speak some dialect of Korean.

Computron wrote:

Maximus Bitch wrote:
They should invent something new for the imperium

No, they really shouldn't. Tolkien invented writing for his Middle Earth. Tolkien was an expert on scripts and languages. There is no one with such skills at GW and they would utterly balls it up. They do a pretty miserable job with the runes for the Space Wolves as it is. In regards to that, why are most of the runes black on the decal sheet when the runes are simple enough to draw on with black marker pen?

It's also nice to have a good idea what the words mean when it's the imperials you see most of the time and pretty much every building kit is an imperial one.

Oh, don't be such a wet blanket. The space wolf runes are nothing new, they look just like the medieval ones.

The Orks have their cuneiform, the Necrons have their weird writing which look like constellations and concept maps.

Colchisian runes look like cuneiform apparently. In the Forgeworld HH series, the Word Bearers use an alphabet that looks like Armenian or Deseret. The Chthonians have gang scratches. And the Alpha Legion uses the ancient Terran "Helac" script aka Hellenic aka Greek alphabet.

Also, the Eldar writing devised by GW looks great! So yes, they do have the capability to invent a nice looking Gothic script for the Imperium.

Although admittedly, the Tau alphabet looks awful.

I remember the guy who does Phil40k once rendered High Gothic as English phonetically transcribed into one of the Japanese scripts.

Maximus Bitch wrote:


Oh, don't be such a wet blanket. The space wolf runes are nothing new, they look just like the medieval ones.

I like runes, I'd like to see some proper norse style runes, serpent runes and the like so a rune priest would have bands of runes winding around his armour plates and an image of the one who first gave the legion their runes - a huge red one eyed being with massive horned nipples.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Also, this thread has a shocking lack of the one and only true Gothic alphabet:

whats this called?

Maximus Bitch wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Also, this thread has a shocking lack of the one and only true Gothic alphabet:

whats this called?

It is called the 'Atta unsar' which is Gothic for 'Our Father'. It is the Gothic-language version of the most well-known Christian prayer.