Lok up A&A p.137 Priscian (sixth century) and compare with
, especially
So there is from the 13th century on a creative school of grammar: and it influenced the learning of Latin - and the thinking in Latin - by university students.
But A&A uses Artes Liberales (Grammar) to cover this. The maximum useful spoken and written ArM5 p.64 (Dead Language) may hence be easily more limited and modeled after ArM5 p.66 (Living Language).
EDIT: See also A&A p.96 box Academic Learning and Experience Points. So in Ars Magica you can really learn Latin by studying Artes Liberales.
I don't think that starts at a score of 8. Language evolves all the time before people create new words and phrases. If only the 8+ experts contributed, language would evolve a lot slower ...
I didn't mean to imply that people with a lower language skill couldn't create new words. Whether these new words would be adopted by the language and persist is not guaranteed. And they would probably start off small, as specialist terms or limited to people in specific locale.
With the example of Shakespeare, he added new words and phrases at the drop of a hat, many becoming common and wide-spread, with broad meaning.
Perhaps an analogy (if I can make one): Since any commonly shared language is used mainly by skill level 5's, with skill level 6 needed to no odd dialects and whatever.
Think of the common language as the public pool that everyone swims in. level 6 language can dive deeper and perhaps see further. A level 8 comes along and enlarges the pool.
a skill 8 is by implication carrying far more language than is in common parlance. A skill 8 simply and automatically expands the language pool by wading in.
I am sure he also introduced a lot of words and phrases that nobody took notice of. It is a well established fact that the most successful people are those who make the most mistakes. It is reasonable to expect that to hold here as well.
But, sure, I don't think we really disagree, I am just not so keen on hard thresholds and automatic successes ...
At this point he has English 8 or he has English 6 and Shakesperean English 6, a closely related language that he created and that can be spoken by English speakers at -1? And a few words from that were slowly integrated into "standard English"? (Another option is that he created his own "dialect", English (Shakespeare).)
Also, I'd see the creation (or adaptation) of words in itself as unrelated to a particular Ability or a particular score, people will name things and concepts for the sake of convenience. Of course, skillfully or systematically naming things would require a high Language (are you sure that there is no other word for this thing), and possibly Poetry or Artes Liberales.
Is it? Again, the very motivation for the topic is that Language 6 technically represents complete domain of a Language (being a few things, such as cultural differences, not accounted for in Language), and therefore, what would even be the meaning of Language beyond score 6. The pool example seems to not translate to me because it is pretty obvious that you can have a larger pool, but it is not immediately obvious (at least to me) what a higher Language even entails. If it's words or ways of constructing your phrases that no one else uses this is pretty much another language, not an improvement on your current one. You are not in a larger pool, you are in a pool of your own.
Can you elaborate? To me it seems to work exactly as it should.
This is only partially true, since you need to be able to read and write a language to avoid corrupted copies (in game terms, Language 3 and Artes Liberales 1 suffice).
[Slightly off topic]: this is a more general problem with the later Ars Magica sourcebooks: the proliferation of Profession/Craft abilities where none would be needed. I think this runs against the spirit of how the ArM5 corebook envisions Craft and Profession, and creates significant "overlap" problems.
Canonically, Craft covers "countless Abilities, all dealing with handiwork of some type. In general, Craft Abilities are distinguished by the material they work with, although you may also take a Craft Ability that allows the charac ter to work with several materials in one specific way." It's physical stuff, so there should be no Craft:Poetry or Craft:Musical Composition. Those are explicitly covered by Language and Music.
Profession is, instead, "The ability to do a job which does not involve making something. Examples include jongleur, reeve, sailor, steward, teamster, and washerwoman." Implicitly, this seems to cover only stuff that's not covered by other abilities; which means there should be no Profession Storyteller (Canonically: Language for telling stories, Lore for repertoire), Profession: Physician (that's covered by Medicine, and indeed in Ars & Academe a Physician earns labour points based on Medicine), or Profession: Kennel Master (that's covered by Animal Handling).
Some people might say "hey, those are in later sourcebooks, so they evidently "correct" the corebook". I disagree: later material only takes precedence if it explicitly says it overrules previous material - and in general, this should be limited to cases where later material offers an "expanded" version of the rules, so either version is fine depending on the level of detail desired. Otherwise, we face an inconsistency that should be addressed in the errata. This is, in fact, something that I would very much like to see in the errata.
Craft:Poetry in particular should not exist. Writing poetry is already covered by language skill, and it should not be Craft since those should be about creating things with your hands from physical materials.
(I'll also note that in the rules for Charms in HoH:MC, creating a poetry-based charm is indeed properly based on your language skill, and not on any profession or craft)
Profession:Storyteller and similar is not as bad. While storytelling itself is covered by language skill, the Profession ability can include skills that let you earn living from it (as all Profession and Craft abilities should do, at least theoretically). Skills like knowing where and when to tell stories, which story to tell based on your audience, what stories you should absolutely not tell to the bishops, etc, etc.
Professions in general (in Ars Magica) seem to cover little bits of several things that often partly overlap with other, more specialized, abilities.
In particular for Craft:Poetry or Craft:Musical Composition, while it can be stretching definitions too much, I can totally see them as craft. It is also possible that there was a slight shift in the definition of Craft towards something that encompasses "any Ability that produces something". And in this context, Craft:Poetry produces something new that anyone can read (or listen to) and learn, being different (but related) to your ability to declamate. In the same way Music allows you to perform already known musics, not to create new ones.
But again, to me this is but another side of the discussion "are Craft:Swords and Craft: Iron two different things? Do they need to be?" or "How much of OoH Lore is contained within House Tytalus Lore and vice-versa?". In the end the answer depends on how the troupe wants to deal with that.
I would still want to separate, in my table, Poetry from Language. These are very clearly two entirely different things. You can be a good linguist and a lousy poet (although the opposite doesn't seem likely). But then again, this is no different of how you can speak a language and have no talent to lie or to convince people of things. The proper language score is a tool, not the ability itself.
A small note regarding related languages.
Knowing one language really good should never let you write in another language, even if similar.
Knowing English lets you understand a lot of Low German, and vice versa. But no matter how much English you learn, that will not allow you to write in Low German because that is written differently and you haven't learned how.
The issue is that there are already abilities to cover that stuff. Repertoire is covered (canonically) by Lore abilities. When and where to tell stories is Area Lore. What stories you should absolutely not tell to the bishops is very clearly Etiquette.
Being "professionally successful" requires a combination of abilities in Ars Magica, and many of those can be useful outside your profession. For example, a successfull Craftsman (by C&G rules) needs more than a Craft Ability: he needs an adequate Leadership (or he won't be able to manage assistants) and a decent Bargain (or he won't be able to monetize his skills), And of course, one who frequently deals with the upper classes needs Etiquette; one who needs to navigate the politics of his guild needs Intrigue etc.
Lumping everything into a single "job" skill dramatically changes the xp balance, makes for very one-dimensional characters, and makes it very hard to adjudicate how a character can leverage his work abilities in a story. In general, I think that Profession abilities should be reserved for areas of competence that fall outside the scope of other abiltiies. For example, Profession: Seaman conveys a clear understanding of how to handle a ship, how to store food at sea, how to tie knots, safety issues at sea etc. It does not allow you to negotiate payment as sailor (Bargain), how to handle a crew (Leadership), how to deftly scamper up a mast (Athletics) or the specific dangers of the Aegean (Area Lore).
There should not be a Profession ability if there's not enough "original material" left once you remove stuff covered by other abilities:so no Profession:Soldier, Merchant, Storyteller, Prostitute.
Simply speaking there should be some form of bonus effect to translating Ancient Greek to Latin if you have both languages with an ability of 9 rather than 6, even if it just means you translate faster.
But it has. Currently the benefit is exactly that: you translate it faster. You accumulate points just as if writing a summa (Com+Language every season), and once the points equal the level the translation is complete.
A lot of this, it seems to me, comes into a core conflict between writers- some wanted professions which required a set of abilities and a simple list of abilities, while others wanted to be able to put any profession into a single ability so it could simply be given a score to keep it simple. Both sides striving for simplicity wound up creating a far more complicated set of rules, in part because the issue was never directly addressed but instead individual authors would offer rules adjustments in their supplements trying to push their preferred solution.
Where did you get that? Music by the ArM5 corebook is: "The ability to sing, play musical instruments, and compose new music. Specialties: sing, compose, any one instrument."
I would [sort of] disagree, in terms of ArM5 mechanics. Language is not just knowledge of the words, it's also about how to put them together in a compelling fashion. Of course, doing so in a way that follows the existing social norms (Etiquette), that reflects the currently accepted rules of meter and rethoric (Artes Liberales) etc. is different. But to write "freeform" poetry, Language covers it all.
Abilities are sufficiently broad that we can imagine someone great at one side of them, and not so good at others, For example, one can certainly be a great singer, but a mediocre composer -- and never have picked up a lute (Music). One can be a great long-distance runner (a valued skill in normandy) but no better than the average person at contortions (Athletics). And really, one could be a great rethor without the most elementary understanding of geometry (Artes Liberales). That's part of the granularity of the system. If you really want to highlight these differences, you can do so with specialties, characteristics, and V&Fs. You should not use this as the basis of "oh we really need more abilities" though.
To represent a crude sheperd who can, with limited vocabulary and poor grammar (Language 4, no Artes Liberales) compose verses that touch the heart give him Free Expression, not a separate Craft Poetry Skill.
This comes from direct observation of real life. I repeat my opinion: no one had thougth of Craft:Poetry or Craft:Composition in this way. Probably because Craft was so tied to physical things. It doesn't mean that it is "the right way". It may also have something to do with what silveroak said: different conflicting views of the designers.
To put things simply: I am explicitly disagreeing with the core rules about this. Poetry is one thing, Language is another. Call me crazy if you will.
In a more direct example, if I have a player that really digs into music and comes to me and say "hey, I don't really like how Music also covers for composition" I have two choices. I can adapt it or I can follow what is in the core rules. There isn't a "right choice". Maybe at one table it is perfectly fine to bundle them together, and at other I would not only separate Music and Composition, but also separate between different instruments. As you said, that is entering the field of system granularity (and if I want to separate "Play Flute" from "Play Lute" from "Play Harp" you could question if I'm playing the right system at all).
I agree that this is one way to do things, but I wouldn't argue that this is the default way to go. It should totally be a case by case analysis.
I see what you are saying. However, one should also keep in mind how the rest of the abilities system is set up.
First, as with all games, you want some semblance of balance: there should not be an ability that covers far too much or far too little ground compared to others. One could obviously argue that this varies with the game one is playing: in a courtly game where almost no combat takes place, except possibly in tournaments, a single abilitly to cover all forms of combat would be balanced against Charm, Etiquette, Folk Ken, Guile and Intrigue. Similarly, in a game that's all about music, you probably would want an ability for composing, one for each musical instrument, etc. However, designing a new set of abilities for every saga is ... tricky. There are (typically far more lightweight) games that support this, but Ars Magica does not.
Second, Ars magica xp allotments and "typical ability scores" mean that a "normal" character ought to have several, but not too many Abilities at the "competent" level. So a single ability should cover definitely less than his whole "job", but he should not need 10 different abilities to do his job well.
Third, Ars magica does not allow "cross ability" teaching. Arguably, being a ship captain and the captain of a small mercenary company have many things in common. But if you have a hypothetical Profession: Ship Captain you cannot teach someone to be better at Profession: Mercenary Captain. On the other hand, if being a ship captain is Seamanship + Leadership + Bargain + Area Lore and being a Mercenary Captain is Weapon skill + Leadership + Bargain + Area Lore, it all becomes much easier.
I do agree that the proliferation of Professions and Crafts is problematic and difficult to manage. However, using Language for storytelling creates numerous other problems, the most important of which is that the difference between an unskilled storyteller with mere fluency in the language and a seasoned storyteller who has spent 75 xp to improve, to reach a score of 7, for +2. Profession: Storyteller means that the professional storyteller mechanically performs significantly better than an average peasant.
The same point can be made about craft: poetry. Merely spending 5xp on AL to learn to write does not make a seasoned poet, just because one writes in one's native language.
I guess it is problematic whichever way you turn this though.
I would assume that every village has a consumate story teller; think of all those long winter evenings just flying by. They will be distinguished by a high presence rather than the native language at 5, whach all villagers will have.
Is there any reason why the storyteller should be only genetically distinguished, while the carpenter would be distinguished also by training?
Both poetry and storytelling are trainable skills. The solution, I suppose, may be to lump it into Profession: Entertainer and not distinguish between different kinds of entertainment.
