While visiting London, Gamasutra contributor Leigh Alexander, American, noticed how gamers in the UK assign a different linguistic value than what she’s used to hearing to the term used to express that he or she has completed a game in its entirety. I almost said ‘beat’ the game but it looks like that expression is mainly used by us Yankees. She postulates, however briefly, about the cultural difference between ‘beat’ and the UK usage ‘finish’. So she took her thoughts to Twitter and posted some interesting replies on Gamasutra. The link below could be just the beginning of a legit anthropological linguistic study. Very cool.
‘Beating’ Games Around the World
Scrolling through her post brought to remembrance some recurring thoughts I had while playing Eve:Online last year. The MMO is home to over 5,000 playable star systems. A majority of the systems are named. How exactly are these names generated? Some are quite sharp and eloquent (Hakodan) while others, if sounded aloud, sound like drunken mumblings (Penirgman). Across the central cluster of New Eden you’ve got the likes of Sehmy, Keproh, Barira, Ishkad, Goni. Each name  seem to follow a loose root-and-pattern template – they do not spiral out of control, and yet, sounding some of them out can be quite the phonological workout. Being an MMO, this a fun little quirk of the EVE universe. I was on a teamspeak channel with my fleet while out on a roam, the fleet commander would call out which system to jump to, and, whoa doggies, this guy from Minnesota pronounced ‘Sasiako’ way different than I have been all along.
Ever since then I’ve had this nagging, musing wonder if someone has done some kind of phonology study across New Eden. 500,000 players from all over the world, different regions producing different phonetic practices, trekking across these 5,000 named virtual star systems. From a testing standpoint, the stage is already set: It’s a closed system with quasi-control groups and each player already has a microphone. The amount of raw data a student could collect from this would be staggering. Staggering, I tell you. From this, what could be deciphered about the Eve universe?
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