/Speak

DESCRIPTION

/Speak (Pronounced "Slash Speak") is the gestural language developed by the Nipik race called Reskin. Since Reskin cannot speak audibly or generate UI speech bubbles they designed their language around the use of emotes (an emote is a short animation displaying an action or emotion activated by a key command often precipitated by typing "/", ex: to wave "/wave" would be typed). Reskin harvested these emotes by traveling to many Gamer Realms and trapping lone unskilled Gamers to extract their emote library. This is an extremely dangerous endeavor as even a lone unskilled Gamer is capable doing a great deal of damage and most of the Gamer Realms do not have the Fainting Rule in effect, meaning that the death of a Nipik is permanent. A great many Reskin have lost their lives trying to obtain more words for their language and these Emote Hunters are treated with a high degree of respect in their culture. When new emotes are found they are brought before the annual Reskin Council to share and attribute a definition. It is a source of pride and rivalry between the Reskin tribes to have the most new emotes to contribute to the language before each Council.

LANGUAGE STRUCTURE

/Speak has a base alphabet with each letter represented by a very short emote but the language is primarily conveyed through longer emotes that correspond to full words. Most Reskin get so familiar with the emotes being used that they do not need more than the first second of the emote animation to play to recognize the word. It is a strange fidgety display when Reskin speak to each other as they will only play the first second of an emote before canceling and moving onto the next word. For example to say "Hello" in /Speak Reskin use the emote "/wave" which is an animation where the character enthusiastically waves their arm in an animated manner. This animation typically takes 4 seconds to complete but just the manner in which the character begins to raise their arm from a resting position towards the act of waving is enough information to those fluent in /Speak to understand "Hello". This results in the /Speak gesture for "Hello" most often being a very short but distinctive hand lift instead of the full hand waving animation that is technically the word. When speaking with those who are capable of understanding the language but need the full emote animations to play to understand groups of Reskin will team up to speed up the process.