What language does Ramessess II speak?
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Randarkmaan
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No, it's arabic. Egyptian arabic to be precise.
Reviving dead languages is a lot of trouble anyway and will never give you anything like what the actual dead language sounded like. Though you can "ancientize" a modern version of an ancient language. I can easily imagine that they have done with nahuatl for montezuma, meaning they've reintroduced a few old words into the vocabulary but still use the modern grammar, syntax and the like, they may have done the same for Ramesses's Egyptian arabic (though not being a speaker I can not tell first hand, and I imagine one would need more sample clips in order to determine if they have done that). I'm also curious as to whether Suleiman speaks modern turkish or Ottoman turkish (though I haven't heard him speak yet), as the difference between the two is rather marked (especially considering the number of arabic and persian words used)
Reviving dead languages is a lot of trouble anyway and will never give you anything like what the actual dead language sounded like. Though you can "ancientize" a modern version of an ancient language. I can easily imagine that they have done with nahuatl for montezuma, meaning they've reintroduced a few old words into the vocabulary but still use the modern grammar, syntax and the like, they may have done the same for Ramesses's Egyptian arabic (though not being a speaker I can not tell first hand, and I imagine one would need more sample clips in order to determine if they have done that). I'm also curious as to whether Suleiman speaks modern turkish or Ottoman turkish (though I haven't heard him speak yet), as the difference between the two is rather marked (especially considering the number of arabic and persian words used)
Who confirmed this? I doubt it. Thats a slap in the face to the Egyptian rulers for way back when.
Randarkmaan
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Read back a few pages several people say they have heard arabic speakers confirm that indeed he speaks Egyptian arabic, one says he is familiar enough with Egyptian arabic to notice it when he hears it spoken. So that's it.
I have a hard time imagine how they would care, considering the state they're in. And it's a dead language, and has been for something like 2000 years, meaning people don't speak it and (more importantly) don't know how it was spoken (even though they might be able to read it to some degree)
Also it would be interesting to see which language Darius speaks, I expect him to speak (modern) persian (often called farsi, which I think is a bit silly which would be a bit like referring to the german langauge as deutsch) though it would be better if they had him speak dari (the eastern dialect, spoken in, amongst other countries, Afghanistan, which contains far fewer obvious loanwords and influences), or somehow reconstructed ancient persian (though that would again be hard, compared to just "ancientizing" modern persian)
I have a hard time imagine how they would care, considering the state they're in. And it's a dead language, and has been for something like 2000 years, meaning people don't speak it and (more importantly) don't know how it was spoken (even though they might be able to read it to some degree)
Also it would be interesting to see which language Darius speaks, I expect him to speak (modern) persian (often called farsi, which I think is a bit silly which would be a bit like referring to the german langauge as deutsch) though it would be better if they had him speak dari (the eastern dialect, spoken in, amongst other countries, Afghanistan, which contains far fewer obvious loanwords and influences), or somehow reconstructed ancient persian (though that would again be hard, compared to just "ancientizing" modern persian)
Dead language dosent mean no one knows how to speak it. It means that no one uses it in any cultural region throughout the world. There are, more likely than not, people out there that know how to speak it, just they dont in everyday. Just as a thing they study or something. And no, they arent going to care. But that really says "Your once strong and vibrant county is now being represented by a language of your past opressors
". THATS what I mean by slap to the face.Does it make you feel better to know that Ramses II had been dead for almost 2000 years when the Arabs came? By that account, should we ask Napoleon to speak gaulish instead of french (= latin and frankish)
Noone knows how Ramses II actually spoke, and we will never know. Don't let an artificial reconstruction from coptic fool you into thinking that we might be able to. Languages evolve fast, just look at Shakespeare.
Thats a terrible anolgy. That dosent even remotly work. Napoleon's land wasnt conqured and forced to speak another language. You have it backwards. Ramesses, in the game is speaking the language that was spread throughout the country to unify the under the Arad control. So that Napoleon anolgy is totally not fitting. They should have at least tried to recreate the old Egyptian language (which there are people that know it!).
cybrxkhan
Asian Xwedodah
Actually, as I stated in an earlier post, it is almost impossible to recreate true ancient Egyptian, only because the Egyptians didn't put in a lot of vowels in their word.
However, I do think that Coptic would have been a better alternative to the Egyptian dialect of Arabic.
However, I do think that Coptic would have been a better alternative to the Egyptian dialect of Arabic.
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....and do not know exactly how to speak it. Anyone can speak dead languages but speaking them right is where people run into brick walls.
Louis XXIV
Le Roi Soleil
Well, there's that youtube link that shows there are good approximations and coptic would have been good as well (an analogy for Coptic would be having Augustus speak Ecclesiastical Latin. I would suggest having him speak Italian would be comparable to speaking Arabic, but it might almost be more fair to pick a far more distant indo-european language like English or German).
Ramesses
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It is interesting how ancient languages like Egyptian and Hebrew have no written vowels. It's practically a basic rule of any modern language, so it's almost inconceivable to imagine a time when vowels were seen as being unnecessary, trivial garnishments.
Personally, it's one of the things that bugs me about the Hebrew language. I am, by and large, a visual learner, so it made my Bar Mitzvah a pain in the ass to practice.
Jacsó Benjámin
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Yeah, I'm fairly sure it's Arabic (just compare it to Arabia's clip).
Anyways, this is because ancient Egyptian is such a dead language that it troubles experts even to understand what they wrote, not let alone speak it. Chances are, no-one in the last 2000, 3000 years spoke it.
Anyways, this is because ancient Egyptian is such a dead language that it troubles experts even to understand what they wrote, not let alone speak it. Chances are, no-one in the last 2000, 3000 years spoke it.
sensual benny
Commander
Jacsó Benjámin;9512808 said:
Rameses certainly spoke it though. It's pretty disappointing that they chose to go with Arabic, which makes absolutely no sense, especially when they went to such effort to try to be accurate with Montezuma. It's kind of cheating to just make him speak a totally different language, counting on the fact that we won't notice.
I'd much rather have him speaking inaccurately-pronounced Ancient Egytian (since literally no one would notice that being off) or Coptic.
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I mean, it isn't like its easier to find people speak the Aztec language than people who spoke the language of Rameses.
I mean, they're acting like it hasn't been spoken for 2000 years.
sensual benny
Commander
I mean, it isn't like its easier to find people speak the Aztec language than people who spoke the language of Rameses.
I mean, they're acting like it hasn't been spoken for 2000 years.
It's not about the feasibility of getting it right, it's about making the attempt at all. As has been proven in this thread, it's possible to at least attempt approximations of what it might've sounded like. Failing that, Coptic is a better option than Arabic. Having him speak Arabic is little better than having him speak English -- how would you feel about that?
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Yes. Let's all stand up and boycott the developers for not spending money to train actors to speak a language that no one in the world can speak fluently in 2000 years.
Arabic isn't as big as a leap as English. I rather the guy be able to speak the language convincingly than them to get a guy to make an "attempt". I'm not paying for "attempts".
Randarkmaan
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It hasn't been spoken for something like 2000 years. And with nahuatl you at least have about one and a half million people who speak the modern version of the language, and this modern version is only some 500 years removed from the original compared to how far removed coptic would be (and that there are like only 300 speakers of coptic worldwide) from what Ramesses II spoke (Late Egyptian, which ceased to be spoken sometime in the 7th century BC, to be supplanted by Demotic Egyptian, and then coptic came sometime in the 1st century AD)
Don't see why people are shocked and or somewhat angry at this. It's basically the same thing that they did with Civ IV, in fact it's exectly what theyt did with Civ IV. And if I remember correctly Firaxis said that leaders would speak the native languages of their countries. Arabic fits the bill. I also doubt that Elizabeth of England speaks english as it was spoken in the 16th century. One of the civs where I imagine they would have hit the mark the best would be Arabia, where I imagine that Harun al Rashid might be speaking classical arabic (that is the arabic of the Quran)
generalwar
Philosopher
Egyptian language is extinct, tou we now to translate it, but don't know grammatic for old Egyptian so, we can only guess how is it read. I heard that we can read for sure only knosonants of old Egyptian.
I don't know hwy they have removed voices of other leaders. Alexandar is saying something like: Hi, I'm Alexandar(the gret)... Can't remember whole his voice and this is only my first year of old Greece and I'll try to translate him. I'm really curious, if that's really old Egypt, who's voice is that? I mean, old languages are hard to read if you're a beginner(like me
) so you have to read a sentence 100 times to read it properly without stuttering. Maybe that voice is from some egyptologist or someone like that
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sensual benny
Commander
I never claimed that I'd boycott the game, or that this represents anything more than a mild disappointment. But if "The Mummy" can at least pretend to have spoken Ancient Egyptian in it, I don't see why it's unthinkable in Civilization.
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