interesting...

philcore, can't tell if you were joking with this:

"American (native)
English (i can understand it well and speak it ok, but I cat write it)"

It's kind of the same... *Especially* written...

Interesting question, steephie.

I speak English, which is my native language.

I can also *just about* speak German, but not fluently. I can read some German if the language is not too technical. I learnt German in school, and have visited Germany twice, and got on ok - only very rarely having to use English as a lingua franca. However it is now several years since I was last over there and I can only imagine my competence with the language will have slipped a bit.

"@Fasces
I'm a bit curious as to what it is that have disqualified every language but english as real languages?"
The fact that I can't speak them :P

@Thucy ... did you learn French in Senegal as well or was that in another experience?

Most of my Hebrew comes from time spent around Israeli people and most of my conversational German is spent around German people. The only language I've ever had taught to me in a classroom setting is French. I exclude English only because I have picked up much more from speaking/hearing/writing it than I have after being taught it.

And I got Latin by self instruction, though the base of it came from middle school.

This is quite a multi-lingual group. I find that interesting. I wonder if there is some correlation between aptitude for language and aptitude for Diplomacy....

More of an effect of being a global community, methinks.

Sure, but Americans aren't known for foreign language proficiency, yet the Americans here seem to be exceptions.

I think that is mostly do to the intellect level of the site as well. This game attracts the "best and brightest" of humanity. Even if we are lying cheating theives. :-)

In other words, it isn't that language skills make one a better player, but that diplomacy attracts people of high intellect and discourages those who like to live and die by the dice.

"best and brightest" --> *thieves* not theives :)

This game certainly has its fair share of smart people, no doubt about that, but the best? I don't know if I buy that. We have our fair share of idiots and morons as well as a number of psychologically unstable folks and/or sociopaths. There certainly is a correlation of intelligence but personality profile is also a big factor, and as of yet, there is no data that show the correlation between intelligence, personality, and one's skills at Diplomacy. *This is something I intend to do in a few weeks; to do an IQ, personality, and GR regression analysis. A number of people have expressed interest in the past.*

Also, gunboaters do live and die by the dice much more than full press players. Luck has a much larger role in gunboat games than full press ones.

@zultar - It was a turn of a well known phrase (hnce my use of quotations) and thank you for pointing out a typo.

I know a lot of incredibly smart people who are fucking awful at Diplomacy. Honestly, you don't need to be that smart; you need to be a manipulator.

So we are back to proficient language skills.

Good point abgemacht. But my point was more that the inteelect is attracted to the game. Although, maybe it's more the maipulative personality that is and that the manipulative person tends toward the high side on the intellect scales.

MadMarx is clearly the best. I wonder which of us is the bright one?

@dipplayer - I still stand by the skills not being what makes a good diplomacy player. I do not believe there is a cause and effect relationship unless it is the other way around (the good diplomacy player is drawn to learn other cultures and, hence, other languages).

the *language* skills not being...

I think it goes both ways. Practice makes perfect, so they say, and good Diplomacy players write a lot. That must improve their language skills, no?

MM may be the best diplomacy player, but that doesn't make him the best person here. Arguably, that falls to our benevolent developer, Kestas.

IT would improve their language skill in the games language (i.e. English in general) but not in say, Chinese or Japanese or Italian.

Oh, I see what you're saying. No, not really, other than this website potentially giving them more access to foreign players than they'd otherwise have.

And the way sum of deez plyrz typ da msgs 2 u maks u ? there skilz.

lol I can say I've never had someone try to diplome with me in that manner, although if they did, I'd be very tempted to ban them.

Being fluent in another language increases your competency in your native language. I know my understanding of English grammar and the nuances of meaning in different words was greatly increased after I learned Russian.

I could not disagree more. When I was actively practicing German, I constantly fucked up English. To this day, I still capitalize words in English for no reason because that's how they do it in German.

@Dip .. maybe you can amend that to "another language with different characters." I've run into the same problem as Abge with French, German, and a bit Latin (though not as much), but with Hebrew, I completely agree with you.

IT is the figurative double edged sword of polylinguism. That's what comes with being a polyglot.

That's very interesting bo_sox. I wonder why that would make a difference.