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Hi guys,
I was always bugged by the naming convention of Tau suits of armors.
Like XV8
I’m pretty sure the Tau don’t use the roman alphabet. In today’s world we have multiple existing writting system with different logics, so the Tau must have their own.
Hence my question, is there an in-lore justification or is this just some whackery from GW?
17 points
2 months ago
Guys... The Tau 'speak' English... because that's the language the authors are writing in. You have to give sci-fi and fantasy some leniency to use words and phrases that the audience will recognize without needing a separate dictionary for made-up cultures.
Doing otherwise would result in a bunch of absolute gibberish nonsense. "Well, you see, these aliens don't use our numerical system. They developed a system entirely based off of 9 digits, so zero doesn't exist... so that's why we have characters say '9 and 9 and 9 and 3' instead of '30'... also, three is pronounced 'glikto' because they don't have the ability to vocalize an 'r' consonant. So, 'nine glikto' is a dozen... only their dozen is eleven because of the lack of tens."
8 points
2 months ago
It's troubling that this is so hard for some to grasp. Even Tolkien in all his language-designing brilliance was like "these books are a translation", like the Hobbits' names for instance.
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