Language translations for leader sayings

Question for mods:
Would you be willing to sticky this thread on language translations for leader sayings? It's been quoted in Civwiki too, so I think it's reached a sufficiently wide audience over a long enough period of time to deserve stickying.

Thanks Babri & The_J, I didnt notice this thread.

I found on youtube Civilization V Leaders: Declarations of War and Defeats(without Sejong).

Morningcalm said:

Question for mods:
Would you be willing to sticky this thread on language translations for leader sayings? It's been quoted in Civwiki too, so I think it's reached a sufficiently wide audience over a long enough period of time to deserve stickying.

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I do not really want to sticky another thread, it's already too crowded :/.
I'd like to add a book entry about it, but we're experiencing technical problems with that, so it's also not an option .
Would really like to do something about this thread, but i really have no idea what .

Darn. I guess as long as this thread stays on the public radar things are set...it has slipped behind in the forum pages before. I think it's just very useful/cool to have around as a link, and it's also unique because it was a forum collaboration project showcasing the linguistic diversity of this forum's members. But if there are no options, *shrug* :|

Who still isn't completely translated, out of curiosity?

Incomplete are:
1. Alexander (Attic Greek)
2. Askia (Western African tongue)
3. Darius (Aramaic)
4. Hiawatha (Mohawk)
5. Montezuma (Nahuatl with Spanish)
6. Nebuchadnezzar (Akkadian)
7. Pacachuti (Quecha)

Can't believe i just noticed this
Siam's intro isn't that accurately phrased

Intro: I am Pho Khun Ramkhamhaeng, King of Siam. It is a great honour that you would walk to visit our country of Siam. (เราพ่อขุนรามคำแหงกษัตริย์แห่งสยาม นับเป็นเกียรติอย่างยิ่งที่ท่านเดินมาได้เยี่ยม ประเทศสยามของเร&#3634

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I Pho Khun Ramkhamhaeng, King of Siam, consider it a great honor, that you have walked to my country of Siam. (เรา/"rao" can also mean "I" in addition to "us" when speaking informally)

That would be more accurate.

So it went from him being humble to him being arrogant?

Not really, his tone still sounds humble and friendly IMHO, and he still considers the visit a great honor for him....
The main difference between the two translations is mine is one sentence, and it changes the visiting part from a conditional to a perfect tense.
On the other hand, i'm not sure what the creators were intending, the ending of the sentence makes no sense grammatically, a more literal translation would be:

I Pho Khun Ramkhamhaeng, King of Siam, consider it a great honor, that you walked here, have visited my country of Siam.

Which makes no sense at all....

Maybe they were trying to say:

I Pho Khun Ramkhamhaeng, King of Siam, consider it a great honor, that you walked here and have visited my country of Siam.

That would be saying that he is honoured that you have graced his country with your pressence, essentially

Nine new leaders coming out soon!
A Celtic language, Byzantine Greek, Dutch, Yucatec Mayan, and Berber (Kabyle) are possibilities
Are we up to task?

The Mayan and Kabyle might be the hardest to translate

Byzantine Latin or Greek should be manageable, Dutch too....no idea about the others, lol. I wish Firaxis would provide official translations, since they have them already. Maybe if enough fans emailed asking, they could make a really nice press release of it. Like a behind-the-scenes of the leader screens.

Depending on what language they use for the Celts, I might be of some help (I have a friend that speaks modern Gaelic).

I'd prefer Carthage not speak Berber. It wouldn't be the end of the world, but it would be awkward. It would be like having George Washington speak Cherokee. There's a youtube video of a guy from Lebanon speaking Phoenician (I think Tyrian Phoenician, which isn't the same, but it is close). Either way, the odds of us translating it are slimmer than translating Darius.

Depends on which language they use for the Mayans. K'iche is more common and accurate, but Yucatec speakers are probably more accessible to those of us on the forum.

sukritact said:

Can't believe i just noticed this
Siam's intro isn't that accurately phrased

I Pho Khun Ramkhamhaeng, King of Siam, consider it a great honor, that you have walked to my country of Siam. (เรา/"rao" can also mean "I" in addition to "us" when speaking informally)

That would be more accurate.

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Hey, just wanna pop in and share some thought.

I actually thought that "..., that you have walked to ..." and "..., that you would walked to ..." mean the same thing, just that the latter is more polite.

Also, I think the "our country" and "my country" thing is interesting. He could say "our country", which I think would implied "me and the people's", or he could say "my country" which would be more "oh! it's mine!". Now the problem is solved handily because in Thai "rao" can be both I and We, depending on context. Which would the king have said? I honestly have no idea.

The one/two sentence depends on the preference of the translator I guess. It is interesting to note that in Thai, there is no capitalization at the beginning of the sentence, nor a punctuation marking the end. So it can get pretty ambiguous: should that entire chunk be a sentence, or should I break it down?

Anyway, it is awesome to see a fellow Thai playing ciV.

Cheers

Ps. the 'walk' thing. It's just.... bad... I can see how not much an effort is made writing the lines, but really the guy who did the voice should never made this kind of mistake. ("Dern tarng" = travel. "Dern" = walk. They are close, but I have never heard them mixed up.)

The voice actor doesn't translate the lines, it has to be done by separate people. It's a quality control to make sure the person doesn't just start cursing or something because no one would be able to call them on it.

The voice actor for Kamehameha commented on this. He refused to say anything that wasn't accurately translated and was able to convince them to let his colleague do the translations, but he still wasn't allowed to do them himself.

I have family that still speaks Kaqchikel, but I doubt that will be the language of choice. (This in regards if by some strange way Pacal ends up having this as his lang)

I actually thought that "..., that you have walked to ..." and "..., that you would walked to ..." mean the same thing, just that the latter is more polite.

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The meaning is rather different. The former implies that you have done something and it implies that he is honored by the presence, the meaning would be more like: "ที่คุณได้เดินมาแล้ว". The latter sounds more like he is honored by the fact that you have decided/deigned to come; more like: "ที่คุณได้คิดที่จะเดินมาแล้ว".

Also, I think the "our country" and "my country" thing is interesting. He could say "our country", which I think would implied "me and the people's", or he could say "my country" which would be more "oh! it's mine!". Now the problem is solved handily because in Thai "rao" can be both I and We, depending on context. Which would the king have said? I honestly have no idea.

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He is saying mine/I in both cases. The beginning rao is certainly an I and if I were to say it that in a normal sentence, I'd say puak rao just to make the meaning obvious.

The one/two sentence depends on the preference of the translator I guess. It is interesting to note that in Thai, there is no capitalization at the beginning of the sentence, nor a punctuation marking the end. So it can get pretty ambiguous: should that entire chunk be a sentence, or should I break it down?

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What Ramkhamhaeng says in-game including the breaks and when translated would be: "I Pho Khun Ramkhamhaeng <break> King of Siam <break> consider it an honor <break> that you have walked to visit our country of Siam"." consider it an honor" and "that you have walked to our country" is not split, and since there still isn't a subject in that sentence, It can't be separated with King of Siam. Even then it still talks about the King of Siam (in third person) rather than himself so it shouldn't be separated with "I Pho Khun Ramkhamhaeng".

Louis XXIV said:

The voice actor doesn't translate the lines, it has to be done by separate people. It's a quality control to make sure the person doesn't just start cursing or something because no one would be able to call them on it.

The voice actor for Kamehameha commented on this. He refused to say anything that wasn't accurately translated and was able to convince them to let his colleague do the translations, but he still wasn't allowed to do them himself.

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I did understand that the lines were written for him. I just thought that to just follow the script without pointing out such simple mistake and to just let it happen is just plain bad.

Now, given what you just said, maybe the voice actor did try but failed to convince the QC people.



I do understand where you are coming from. I still think these points are subject to the translator's preference.

IMHO:

• It's clear that he's honored. I just thought it's better to say he's honored at the very thought of them decided to visit now that they have arrived.
• The gap between [We] <--> in english is too large from the [Puakrao (We)] <--> [Rao (I/we)] <--> [Kha (I)]. Though, I agree it is clear he meant 'I'
  [*] &#3609;&#3633;&#3610;&#3648;&#3611;&#3655;&#3609;&#3648;&#3585;&#3637;&#3618;&#3619;&#3605;&#3636;&#3660;&#3629;&#3618;&#3656;&#3634;&#3591;&#3618;&#3636;&#3656;&#3591; (consider it an honour or literally [this] count as great honour) is one of those sentence that does not need a subject. It is clear the speaker of the sentence is the subject. So you can go with the implied 'I' like I did, or you could make the introduction the subject like you did.
  

Anyway, like Pouakai pointed out, it all boils down to this: he's just happy you're here.

Cheers

Here's some more info on the credited voice actors

Alexander-Miro de Monteseppia- independent music professional in Montreal

Askia-Mori Majid-no idea, possibly a Malian immigrant

Augustus: Emile Khordoc-Latinist in Montreal

Catherine: Svetlana Migdissova-Russian instructor at McGill University, Montreal

Darius: Yassin Alsalman-Iraqi journalist and hip hop MC based in Montreal

Gandhi: Avtar Sandhu-voice actor who knows Hindi and Urdu, based in Montreal

Washington: Marcel Jeannin-actor and voice actor based in Montreal

Harun al-Rashid: Laith Marouf-apparently a program director at CUTV in Montreal

Hiawatha: Kanentokon Hemlock, teacher at Kahnawake Survival school in Montreal, seems like an interesting guy

Montezuma: Alfredo Camacho-many ppl have this name, a professor at the University of Manitoba shares it, if this guy is really a Mexican, he prolly based in Mexico City

Napoleon: Greg Gobbi VP of Product development at 2K games

Nobunaga: Ryosuke Aoike-flash animator based in Montreal

Bismarck: Heinz Becker-administrator at Goethe Institute in Montreal

Elizabeth: Julia Lenardon-dialect coach at National Theatre School of Canada in Montreal

Ramesses: George Saad-chairman of Voice of Egypt in Canada

Ramkhamhaeng: Jonathon "Thon" Kong/Kongkaewpaisarn-pharmaceuticals, in Montreal

Wu Zetian: Rachel Lei Xie-production coordinator at Rudsak Inc, translator who translates English/French to Mandarin and Cantonese

Nebuchadnezzar: I guess he's an Iraqi living in Montreal

Genghis: there's a small Mongolian community in Montreal

Pachacuti: his recording may have been done in Lima,Peru

Isabella: Spanish speakers do live in Montreal

Kamehameha: recording done in Hawaii, a scholar on the Hawaiian language from University of Hawaii

Harald Bluetooth: Danish speakers live in Montreal

Sejong: Korean speakers live in Montreal

Wish they credited the DLC voice actors, will they even credit the Gods and Kings ones?
It's funny that most of the VAs live in Montreal, never realized it was quite a cosmopolitan city until I went there for a convention last year.