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Foreign Languages and Special Training in Delta Green
🕑 Added 2021-11-15 15:00:07 +0000 UTCA rules variant for playtesting. Post comments below.
An Agent with the Foreign Language skill can learn a loosely related language as special training with the same skill rating. This option applies only to the Foreign Language skill, not an Agent's native language.
EXAMPLE: Special Agent Martinez has the skill Foreign Language (Spanish) at 50%. He wants to learn Italian and Russian. The Handler decides Italian is close enough to Spanish, another Romance language, to learn it with special training. Martinez can learn Italian with a few months of special training and use his Spanish skill rating with it. Russian is a Slavic language, not related at all. Learning Russian requires a whole new Foreign Language skill.
The Handler and players have great latitude in defining a “related language.” As a rule of thumb, most languages might have three to six languages closely enough related to master with special training rather than separate skills.
Some languages are isolates. A language isolate always requires skill in itself, not merely special training.
At Agent creation, the Handler might grant an Agent one or two instances of special training to expand a Foreign Language skill’s usefulness. Or replace 20% in bonus skill points with one instance of special training.
Here are a few rough possibilities. Edit or correct these lists as you like. Look to encyclopedias and experts for real guidance.
EUROPEAN
- Germanic languages: Danish, Dutch, English, German, Gothic, Norwegian, Yiddish
- Greek languages: Classical Greek, Greek, Medieval Greek
- Romance languages: Catalan, French, Italian, Latin, Occitan, Old French, Portugese, Romanian, Spanish
- Slavic languages: Belarusian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Polish, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Ukrainian
- Language isolates: Albanian, Armenian
MIDDLE EASTERN AND SOUTH ASIAN
- Akkadian languages: Akkadian, Ancient Aramaic, Assyrian, Babylonian
- Egyptian languages: Coptic, Demotic Egyptian, Late Egyptian, Middle Egyptian, Old Egyptian
- Indo-Iranian languages: Bengali, Hindi-Urdu, Kurdish, Ossetian, Pashto, Persian, Punjabi
- Semitic languages: Amharic, Aramaic, Arabic, Berber, Gurage, Hebrew, Phoenician, Tigrinya
- Turkic languages: Azerbaijani, Turkish, Uyghur, Uzbek
- Language isolates: Sumerian
EAST AND SOUTHEAST ASIAN
- Austroasiatic languages: Khmer, Mon, Vietnamese
- Kra-Dai languages: Lao, Thai
- Austronesian languages: Filipino, Javanese, Malay
- Sino-Tibetan languages: Burmese, Karenic, Mandarin, Min, Wu, Yue, Tibetan
- Hmong-Mien languages: Hmong, Mien
AFRICAN
- Chadic languages: Hausa, Masa, Bata
- Bantu languages: Shona, Swahili, Xhosa, Zulu
- Cushitic languages: Oromo, Somali
INDIGENOUS SOUTH PACIFIC
- Polynesian languages: Hawaiian, Maori, Samoan, Tahitian, Tongan
- Australian Pama-Nyungan languages: Maric, Nyungic, Paman
INDIGENOUS NORTH AMERICAN
- Algonquian languages: Arapahoan, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Cree, Mi’kmaq, Ojibwe
- Eskimo-Aleut languages: Alutiiq, Inuit, Yupik
- Iroquoian languages: Cherokee, Mohawk
- Northern Athabaskan or Dené languages: Carrier, Chipewyan, Chilcotin, Gwichʼin, Koyukon, Slavey, Tlicho
- Northern Uto-Aztecan languages: Hopi, Numic
- Siouan languages: Crow, Omaha-Ponca, Sioux
- Southern Athabaskan or Dené languages: Apache, Navajo
- Southern Uto-Aztecan languages: Aztecan (Nahuan or Nahuatl), Cahita, Corachol, Tarahumaran, Tepiman
- Tanoan languages: Kiowa, Tewa, Tiwa, Towa
- Language isolates: Keresan, Zuni
Comments
Kristoph Yakeba
I like this idea a lot.
Arc Dream Publishing
Thanks
Just a small note: Coptic is an Egyptian language (it is the latest stage of native Egyptian, written with Greek characters + some extra signs).
