Language translations for leader sayings

Interesting. How much variation is there in the written Mayan languages, as opposed to the oral dialects? What I mean is, do speakers of different Mayan languages/dialects have an easier time understanding each other in writing than they do orally?
 
Lordleoz said:
I met Pacal for the first time in my recent game. His somewhat intermittent voice really sounds odd. And it's really cool that you know Mayan language so well. About how many people in the world know Mayan language?
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I don't speak Yucatec, but I assume it sounds like that because of the ejective consonants.
 
Browd said:
Interesting. How much variation is there in the written Mayan languages, as opposed to the oral dialects? What I mean is, do speakers of different Mayan languages/dialects have an easier time understanding each other in writing than they do orally?
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Well I am no expert on this being that I don't speak any Maya dialect myself but when I have asked my grandparents to teach me some phrases they phonetically sound out what they want to write down. A lot of the Maya languages probably don't have official written scripts - although Yucatec may be the exception because I think its taught in some schools in some places.
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And if you mean ancient hieroglyphic writing - that varied a ton depending on the city/region as well. Many words have many different glyphs mostly because of the various language that developed them. The many different symbols allowed scribes to be creative with their codices though I believe and create more diverse artistic designs.
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And Yucatec isn't the only Maya language with ejective consonants but its easier to hear in Yucatec from my experience. My grandfather was explaining to me how to do those consonants in Kaqchikel and there are at least 4 different distinct guttural tones that he told me could be used to provide different enunciation.
 
Gucumatz said:
Well I am no expert on this being that I don't speak any Maya dialect myself but when I have asked my grandparents to teach me some phrases they phonetically sound out what they want to write down. A lot of the Maya languages probably don't have official written scripts - although Yucatec may be the exception because I think its taught in some schools in some places.
====

And if you mean ancient hieroglyphic writing - that varied a ton depending on the city/region as well. Many words have many different glyphs mostly because of the various language that developed them. The many different symbols allowed scribes to be creative with their codices though I believe and create more diverse artistic designs.
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From what I've found on the subject (although I've focused mainly on yucatec,) written versions of languages are a lot less common and even the ones that do have written versions, the native speakers often can't read (like Guatemala Quiche, I think? one of my missionary friends was complaining about the difficult time he had teaching to people there from Quiche books they couldn't read.) Yucatec has a latin-ised written language, although I don't know the literacy rate for native speakers.

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Glyph wise, it wasn't just words that had multiple glyphs, every syllable has two-three different glyphs to choose from (eg, ch'o could be a certain kind of head, or a pair of eyes), so words could be spelled many different ways (and this is all just one language!) this was because the people that could read and write were often wealthy and artists. Writing was 100% an art form at the time because only artists really knew what they wrote. So, in the end, writing was so complicated back then it wasn't a great form of communication at all.
 
I noticed there was no Arabic for Harun Al Rashid, so I transcribed it. I have included suggestions for the translations. Source:speak Arabic, have studied it; now advanced student.

Attacked—.أحمق. سوف تندم أشد الندم. أقسم على ذلك (Ridiculous! You will greatly regret this. I swear it.)
DeclareWar—.سيكون العالم أجمل من دونك. ____ للحرب
Hatehearit1—ما هذا!؟
Hatehearit2—.أكمل حديثك (Finish your speech.)
Hatehello—.آه...إنه أنت
Hateno1—.هذا أمر غير مقبول (This is a matter which is unacceptable.)
Hateno2—لا يمكن أن تكن ___ في هذا الطلب
B]Hateyes1[/B]—.حسنا جدا
Hateyes2—.إذا وجب عليَّ (If it is necessary upon me.)
Intro—.مرحبا أيها العجمي. أنا هارون الرشيد، خليفة العرب. هلم إليَّ وحدثني عن إمبراطوريتك (Greetings, O Stranger. I am Aaron the Guided, Caliph of the Arabs. Come to me and tell me of your empire.)
Neutralhearit1—ما هذا!؟
Neutralhearit2—ماذا كنت تقول؟ (What were you going to say?)
Neutralhello—.السلام عليكم
Neutralno1—.كلا (Of course not.)
Neutralno2—.بالطبع، لا (With all certainty, no.)
Neutralyes1—.حسنا (All right.)
Neutralyes2—.ممتاز
Request—.تعال دعنا نتاجر
 
I wonder what languages will be added with Brave New World.

The Polish will probably be mainly modern with a few archaic words, like many of the European languages in the game are.

If Assyria are confirmed, the leader will prolly speak Akkadian and hopefully not grunt like Nebby.

As for the other potential civs, many should be easy to find speakers to help translate. Brazilian Portuguese, Italian, Portuguese...

But African (Zulu), Amerindian (Lakota, etc), and perhaps even Indonesian (though my parents know Malay which is close) may be difficult. We haven't got people to translate the Amharic!
 
I'd actually guess that Zulu (and, furthering this, Yoruba or Swahili) wouldn't be that hard to find speakers for. Believe it or not, they're surprisingly common, and are taught fairly widely at American universities (and I'm certain in their respective countries, as well). In other words, while a native speaker might be a bit hard-pressed, I don't think we'll be unable to find someone to speak it.

And Indonesia has a LOT of people, I'd be very surprised if nobody could be found to translate it.

Any US/Canadian indigenous or particularly old/dying language will be a bit hard-pressed, though, as always...
 
Guandao said:
If Assyria are confirmed, the leader will prolly speak Akkadian and hopefully not grunt like Nebby.
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Yeah, that was always disappointing. I'm glad they found someone who could speak Phoenician with a little higher IQ level, so I'm optimistic that they'll do better this time. If they go with Akkadian again, hopefully it'll come out better. If they can't find someone, it's worth noting that a common language spoken by the end of the Assyrian Empire was Aramaic so they could go down that route (and Xerxes was able to talk a little more).
 
CivOasis said:
I'd actually guess that Zulu (and, furthering this, Yoruba or Swahili) wouldn't be that hard to find speakers for. Believe it or not, they're surprisingly common, and are taught fairly widely at American universities (and I'm certain in their respective countries, as well). In other words, while a native speaker might be a bit hard-pressed, I don't think we'll be unable to find someone to speak it.

And Indonesia has a LOT of people, I'd be very surprised if nobody could be found to translate it.

Any US/Canadian indigenous or particularly old/dying language will be a bit hard-pressed, though, as always...
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Hm, never thought of it that way. Only reason I thought African languages would be hard to find speakers was because Amharic translations for Haile Selassie have not come up (maybe there is no Ethiopian civ players here :()
 
Maybe. I was just thinking that I'd noticed that those three languages - isiZulu, Swahili, and Yoruba - are actually fairly common courses at schools in the US, which doesn't even have substantial speaking populations. Perhaps its just because they strike people as interesting, but in any event, it's a good sign for translating any civs that would use those. Granted, Oyo seems to be the only major Yoruba-speaking kingdom known to much of the West, and I doubt it would be included, but still.
 
Can anyone translate Pedro II's Intro line and Ashurbanipal's attacked line?
Pedro II definitely spoke Portuguese, while Ashurbanipal sounded similar to Nebby (meaning it's prolly Akkadian).
 
Guandao said:
Can anyone translate Pedro II's Intro line and Ashurbanipal's attacked line?
Pedro II definitely spoke Portuguese, while Ashurbanipal sounded similar to Nebby (meaning it's prolly Akkadian).
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Pedro speaks Portuguese, with Brazilian accent (from Rio de Janeiro, if I am not mistaken). His intro line:

Eu sou Pedro, Imperador do Brasil. Tenho pouco tempo para gracejos. O que o traz aqui?
"I am Pedro, Emperor of Brazil. I have little time for pleasantries. What brings you here?"
 
Guandao said:
Can anyone translate Pedro II's Intro line and Ashurbanipal's attacked line?
Pedro II definitely spoke Portuguese, while Ashurbanipal sounded similar to Nebby (meaning it's prolly Akkadian).
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Can you give a link to the video, please?
 
Pydgie said:
I noticed there was no Arabic for Harun Al Rashid, so I transcribed it. I have included suggestions for the translations. Source:speak Arabic, have studied it; now advanced student.

Attacked—.أحمق. سوف تندم أشد الندم. أقسم على ذلك (Ridiculous! You will greatly regret this. I swear it.)
DeclareWar—.سيكون العالم أجمل من دونك. ____ للحرب
Hatehearit1—ما هذا!؟
Hatehearit2—.أكمل حديثك (Finish your speech.)
Hatehello—.آه...إنه أنت
Hateno1—.هذا أمر غير مقبول (This is a matter which is unacceptable.)
Hateno2—لا يمكن أن تكن ___ في هذا الطلب
B]Hateyes1[/B]—.حسنا جدا
Hateyes2—.إذا وجب عليَّ (If it is necessary upon me.)
Intro—.مرحبا أيها العجمي. أنا هارون الرشيد، خليفة العرب. هلم إليَّ وحدثني عن إمبراطوريتك (Greetings, O Stranger. I am Aaron the Guided, Caliph of the Arabs. Come to me and tell me of your empire.)
Neutralhearit1—ما هذا!؟
Neutralhearit2—ماذا كنت تقول؟ (What were you going to say?)
Neutralhello—.السلام عليكم
Neutralno1—.كلا (Of course not.)
Neutralno2—.بالطبع، لا (With all certainty, no.)
Neutralyes1—.حسنا (All right.)
Neutralyes2—.ممتاز
Request—.تعال دعنا نتاجر
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Just filling in the blanks:

In 'Declare War', the missing word is إستعدٌ, prepare yourself. Pronounced Ista'aidda

In 'Hate no2', the missing word is جدًّا, serious. Pronounced Jaddan.

Also, in 'Attacked', the word Ahmaq means fool.
 
For the Aztec DOW, it should be Ximicacan (to conform with Latinized Nahuatl orthography). Note that "x" is pronounced "sh" and there is no "k," since Latinized Nahuatl orthography is based on Spanish orthography.

I believe that for the rest of the Aztec sayings, replace all "sh" with "x" and replace all "k" with either "c" (preceding a, o, and u) or "qu" (preceding e, i, or y).
 
In Kaqchikel/Cakchiquel its the same thing. The letter "x" in latinized letters sounds like "sh" when spoken
 
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