A guide to wolfspeak and why you shouldn't use it

[Miles101]

Personally I do not and never will use wolfspeak, but I also think roleplayers who prefer to use it should be free to RP with it as they so desire. I think it's kind of cute and creative to come up with new meanings for words. Language can be played with and adapted, after all. If they want to use it, let them, and if you don't like it, simply don't roleplay with people who do.

[Silhouette]

Personally I do not and never will use wolfspeak, but I also think roleplayers who prefer to use it should be free to RP with it as they so desire. I think it's kind of cute and creative to come up with new meanings for words. Language can be played with and adapted, after all. If they want to use it, let them, and if you don't like it, simply don't roleplay with people who do.

I hate to say it and I don't mean to be offensive in mentioning so but with that kind of logic that is like suggesting we shouldn't correct young children when they're learning to talk just because it sounds "cute."

There is a huge difference between a single word being used in a population by the majority and eventually becoming part of the dictionary and an entire disorganized gaggle of misused words and butchered phrases being used by a teensy portion of the population becoming part of the dictionary. Its not going to happen.

I can honestly say I really do think role playing on Impressive Title and Feral Heart (before wolf speak became so prevalent) helped develop my writing skills immensely because my friends and I were learning to write the RIGHT way instead of the butchered your-college-professor-will-fail-you-for-this wolf speaking way.

 I've seen kids on here who are thoroughly convinced and think that those "fake words" and words used by the wrong definition, that is to say, wolf-speaker words are real, proper, and correct. I have bad news for those kids, if they were write that in a paper, they would likely get counted off so many times that their paper probably wouldn't be white anymore.

I honestly would rather see a post like

"i know he's over there." she said. "but can't u make this less complikated." than I would a wolfspeaker post. That at least tells me the other person is making an effort instead of dancing away with fake word fill ins or coming up with the excuse they've been around wolfspeakers so much that they "can't help it."

It would be too easy to just "leave them alone" and "let them be" but when a large chunk of them are doing it, makes it hard for people to find an honestly "literate" roleplay without it, and a portion of that chunk is wrong when they think they're right...well, they have as much a right to ignore me as I do to tell them they're wrong. Plain and simple. You can tell me that the sky is orange with lime green spots until you're blue in the face, but when it comes down to the facts, it is blue. Just as when these wolfspeakers (although not all of them do this, so its not everyone) act like they're "better than everyone else" and "can write better" just because they wolf-speak, I am not going to out of my way to bother them, but if they come to me with an attitude like that, I'm going to tell them they are mistaken and that is that.

[Riku.]

Although I mostly use the term. Masculine,Visionaries as visionaries is the greek word of eyes such as optics and auditories.

Please refrain from double posting

[Mondevu]

I think wolfspeak as we know it should not exist. If someone wants to make up "cute little words" for their wolves, why not turn "wolfspeak" into its own wolf language instead of completely butchering the language we used to speak? Warriors, for all its greatness and all its flaws, made its own "cute little words without changing the meanings of real words in the greater context. When a normal, everyday person hears "fresh kill" they think "freshly killed." When a character in the Warriors world hears it, they think "food." These two elements are kept entirely separate, and every reader knows they are not part of everyday language.

If we were to turn "wolfspeak" into something similar (without flat-out ripping off Warriors, of course, though I can see how practicing that way might help get the ball rolling), then it would not be a big issue as a whole. I roleplay in a wolf pack that uses their own terms for things, yet we don't butcher the English language (or the American one, if you prefer). Thus, I agree with Silhouette on this. "cute little words" are not something we should reinforce to be correct. They're something we should separate from our own language entirely as something fictional to be used in roleplay or storytelling.

As for roleplays being "segregated into such topics," most roleplay is naturally segregated without the negative blacklash that comes with that terminology. If someone is hosting a lion roleplay and you want to be a wolf, naturally your roleplaying situations are going to be segregated. I'm not saying you can't have a "free for all" style RP, but you get the point.

As a result, most of us experienced (and several newbies) roleplayers don't wish to associate with butchering the language we use to communicate, thus we avoid and detest wolfspeak. There would not be so much backlash against it if most (not all) of the people who are pro-wolfspeak didn't shove it down our throats and claim they were being literate (or more literate), when the very definition of the word "literate" is "someone who can read and write." Even five year-olds are literate. They may not read and write very well, but they still fit the definition of the word.

[Satsuki]

I never seen this in game and to be honest I am happy I did not meet someone who actually did speak wolfspeak... If you ask me.  The stuff that you just wrote down, looks nothing but just plain neatly gibberish.  However I do not think all of us should not be bashing on those who use wolf speaking... Even though hearing about the way they speak seems very VERY confusing. Bad enough the"floof" got to a lot of us. You will not be seeing me using Wolf gibberish anytime soon.

[Jango_Fett]

Here  was my first reaction to this: o.O??? then as i read: Lol  Further in: -.- .....
I have friend who WolfSpeak, and I don't mind it, I don't use it (I could never remember a lot of it :3)
But that does not mean I hate them, it just makes me think hard and grab my dictionary!  It helps me learn a little bit to! (Oh, and so you know, when they say 'Brute' the other Rpers will know what thy are talking about, they use the word as in Strong, muscular Male.) So My overall opinion on this is: No comment ( and this is not that kind towards the people that use it, THEY are people too you know!)

[LookingForAStar]

I understand, some of these are wrong. But some can be used. >_>

[Nymphadora]

I don't like wolfspeak, but I don't mind correct scientific terms if used in the correct sense... And if they're understandable xD ~ If posts are filled with long, incorrect scientific wording that translates to something along the lines of: The small female lowers her head to nibble at the bone in her forelimb before falling back onto her pelvis and huffing. ~ I'm pretty sure a wolf can't chew its own skeletal structure... Nor does it rest on its pelvis. There's more to a being than their internal framing.


-Groan- I just keep to the simple head, shoulders, knees, and toes. It's what everyone understands, so why try to make it fancy?


~Nym

[BlackLuna06]

There are also those people who's words NEED to be at least 1200000 characters long each, or the post is considered illiterate. -flips table- I MEAN REALLY?

Or the ones who use the latin name for everything. I KNOW what my bones are called. I do not need to wave my fibia, I just want to move a limb. Is that so hard? *Overuses google translate*

I do agree that some words are ok, and do make sense, but honestly, the users who speak in normal, literate and common english are the ones I'd rather RP with.

[Jango_Fett]

^ I can only guess you chopped up that post, and you MIGHT have offended a part of the FH community...