Alexander's... "Greek"

[Pydgie]

Also worth noting that Harun, Ramesses, and al-Mansur are all speaking with different dialects. Harun is using modern peninsular Arabic, Ramesses is using Egyptian Arabic filtered through an amazing VA, and al-Mansur is using Moroccan Arabic.

Actually as an Arabic speaker, Ramesses isn't speaking Egyptian Arabic. He is speaking Classical Arabic (similar to the language found in the Koran) with an Egyptian accent, not the Egyptian dialect. Harun is also speaking Classical Arabic but with an Arabian accent. Ahmad on the other hand is speaking the Moroccan dialect, but without a lot of the French influences seen in popular Moroccan Arabic.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I've heard all the voice actors, at least in vanilla, were Canadian.

It's my understanding that not all were, but they certainly gave priority to Canadian voice actors because they were recorded in Canada and that would save them a ton of money.

Specifically, Corsican French.

Yeah, it's worth pointing out that his French would have sounded heavily Italian. My personal view is that would have been terrible. He's in the game to give life to the French language. Even though the real Napoleon had a very different accent than most French people, that little detail needs to be ignored, imo.

Pretty sure we know what Gandhi and Haile Selassie sounded like.

That's true. From what I recall, Haile Selassie doesn't sound too bad. Interestingly, circling back to my previous point, Gandhi apparently spoke English almost exclusively as a modernizing thing. But, in the game, it's better for flavor for him to speak Hindi.

OP: Attila's language (Chuvash) contains some very broken grammar and it's apparent that the voice actor had no idea what any of the words meant.

Attila was who I had in mind when I said that the Civ5 language system wasn't perfect. To me, we know so little about the Huns that it probably wasn't a good idea to include them. I've heard (from probably biased Slavic sources) a good argument that the Huns were Slavs. There's the still held but widely discredited argument that they were the Xiongnu (pronounced "Hunnu" at the time). They went with a Steppe language that's as good a guess as any, but there are flaws in both the grammar and pronunciation, which suggests both the translator and voice actor (always separate people in Civ5) didn't quite know the Chuvash language.

Also worth noting that Harun, Ramesses, and al-Mansur are all speaking with different dialects. Harun is using modern peninsular Arabic, Ramesses is using Egyptian Arabic filtered through an amazing VA, and al-Mansur is using Moroccan Arabic.

Yeah, it's worth pointing out that, were it not for the Quran and shared common heritage, these Arabic dialects would almost certainly be considered separate languages. They're barely intelligible if you speak slowly. People who speak Arabic who tried to translate Al-Mansur's lines seemed to struggle more than someone who spoke Hebrew translating Dido's Phoenician lines.

However, if he's speaking Classical Arabic, that's different. I didn't recognize that it was the same language at first because he uses a lot of different words and says things very differently. I suspect, however, that they used classical Arabic to save money on the translator even if they got an Egyptian to say the lines. In that sense, Egyptian Arabic would have been better for greater diversity, but that's criticizing the solution they came up with for not being the second best solution while the heart of the problem is still that it's not Egyptian.

 

[PhilBowles]

That's true. From what I recall, Haile Selassie doesn't sound too bad. Interestingly, circling back to my previous point, Gandhi apparently spoke English almost exclusively as a modernizing thing.

Interesting, but also makes sense given that he spent more of his life in officially English-speaking territories: England itself, South Africa, and of course India.

Attila was who I had in mind when I said that the Civ5 language system wasn't perfect. To me, we know so little about the Huns that it probably wasn't a good idea to include them. I've heard (from probably biased Slavic sources) a good argument that the Huns were Slavs. There's the still held but widely discredited argument that they were the Xiongnu (pronounced "Hunnu" at the time). They went with a Steppe language that's as good a guess as any, but there are flaws in both the grammar and pronunciation, which suggests both the translator and voice actor (always separate people in Civ5) didn't quite know the Chuvash language.

Is not knowing Chuvash really a flaw that can be laid at the feet of voice actors? I doubt there's enough call for Chuvash-speaking voice actors for there to be any professional ones. And while it may sound terrible to anyone who does know the language, the delivery of Attila's lines sounds perfect to me for the kind of character we would expect him to be. His voice acting and leaderscreen swayed me from a vehement anti-Hun sentiment to enjoying finding them in my games.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

Well, Chuvash is not the language Huns used, so the "mistakes" could simply be interpreted as an attempt to make it different and more aggressive sounding. I think Atilla sounds awesome and his voice acting is great.


Now about Casimir. Well, his accent is weird. He also seems to have a problem with the letter "ć", because to my ears it sounds much more like "cz". He uses modern Polish while adding an archaism here or there, which is fine. I don't think anybody would really like the medieval Polish used.

Overall? Well, it could be much worse, but I can't really call it good.

 

[EulerMcE]

Well, Chuvash is not the language Huns used, so the "mistakes" could simply be interpreted as an attempt to make it different and more aggressive sounding. I think Atilla sounds awesome and his voice acting is great.

It's an interpretation but I think they would have mentioned it as an artistic choice if it were intended. Given how often companies get screwed by poor translators I would say the dominant probability is on it being a poor job.

 

[TheLohoped]

If you take into account that the Hun civ has the style of barbarians who adopt things from all other civilizations (city names) completely broken Chuvash could be an artistic choise.

 

[otaman1]

Well, the Huns were probably descendents of the Xiongnu, so a Tungusic language would've been the closest thing to what the Huns spoke.

 

[Pydgie]

Yeah, it's worth pointing out that, were it not for the Quran and shared common heritage, these Arabic dialects would almost certainly be considered separate languages. They're barely intelligible if you speak slowly. People who speak Arabic who tried to translate Al-Mansur's lines seemed to struggle more than someone who spoke Hebrew translating Dido's Phoenician lines.

That is very true. North and West African Arabic are barely intelligible with middle eastern and East African Arabic.

However, if he's speaking Classical Arabic, that's different. I didn't recognize that it was the same language at first because he uses a lot of different words and says things very differently. I suspect, however, that they used classical Arabic to save money on the translator even if they got an Egyptian to say the lines. In that sense, Egyptian Arabic would have been better for greater diversity, but that's criticizing the solution they came up with for not being the second best solution while the heart of the problem is still that it's not Egyptian.

Actually, more likely is that they chose Classical Arabic because it is more formal. It is often used in formal settings even today. I was surprised when I heard Ahmad speaking Moroccan Arabic the like of which is spoken on the streets. It seemed a little off as a ruler would definitely not speak like that especially not in the 16th century before colonization and everything.

 

[tat501]

Napoleon's accent is ok. The guy probably speaks better French than Napoleon actually did. His grammar was by all accounts a trifle "off", being an uneducated upstart from Corsica. Before he became Emperor, some of the military commanders he served under, who hadn't been purged for being of the ancient regime used to mock him for it.

 

[Sturmgewher88mm]

I was really surprised to hear Washington with a Southern accent. I always imagined a not-so-British British accent.

I also, having almost no knowledge of middle eastern or North African language, am surprised that Rameses doesn't speak ancient Egyptian
Sounds Egyptian to me

Plus, I love Napoleon and Bismarck's accents

 

[Abraxis]

Anyone have any insight into Dido? What language she's speaking? Whether it's good or not?

 

[Pydgie]

I was really surprised to hear Washington with a Southern accent. I always imagined a not-so-British British accent.

I also, having almost no knowledge of middle eastern or North African language, am surprised that Rameses doesn't speak ancient Egyptian
Sounds Egyptian to me

Plus, I love Napoleon and Bismarck's accents

Yes, I think the Texan Washington was a big mistake. I would think Washington would've had an accent somewhere in between a British accent and a New York accent.

Anyone have any insight into Dido? What language she's speaking? Whether it's good or not?

I am not sure, but I've heard from other people that she is speaking Phoenician with a modern Israeli accent. Israelis who spoke modern Hebrew were able to understand her for the most part. From an Arabic standpoint, I can pick up a couple words, but other than that, I don't know.

One thing that puzzles me is why Darius speaks Aramaic. There would've been no difficulty finding a Persian speaker, and I don't think the archaic element would matter much, because Persian has not significantly changed for over 2000 years from what I understand. For the most part the Aramaic is understandable from an Arabic perspective, because the languages are very closely related.

 

[PhilBowles]

I was really surprised to hear Washington with a Southern accent. I always imagined a not-so-British British accent.

It's a Virginia accent, I think (or intended to be), which is a fairly light Southern accent. It's consistent with the way he's usually portrayed in US dramas such as John Adams, so is probably what the US audience expects. He was born in Virginia, merely at a time when it was owned by the British, but there's no way of telling when the accents diverged. Of course modern British accents are unlikely to closely resemble those of the 18th Century - it has been suggested that the colonial accents may reflect the way English was pronounced (at least by the classes and regions that were most heavily-involved in colonisation) at the time of colonisation, although there will obviously have been a degree of drift. If that's the case 18th Century British accents would have sounded closer to Australian than to modern southern English, and America would already have had its own established regional accents by that time. Certainly anything approaching a southern English accent would be at least as off for Washington as it is for Elizabeth.

 

[AW Arcaeca]

Yes, I think the Texan Washington was a big mistake. I would think Washington would've had an accent somewhere in between a British accent and a New York accent.

^ This.

One thing that puzzles me is why Darius speaks Aramaic. There would've been no difficulty finding a Persian speaker, and I don't think the archaic element would matter much, because Persian has not significantly changed for over 2000 years from what I understand. For the most part the Aramaic is understandable from an Arabic perspective, because the languages are very closely related.

Apparently, Aramaic actually was the official language of the Achaemenid Empire, the specific Persian dynasty Darius ruled. So I guess back then Old Persian was just widely spoken, and not official?

And while Persian may have been widely spoken in the Persian homeland, Aramaic was spoken all over the place in Mesopotamia, one of many lands ruled by the Achaemenids. Persian was (and seemingly still is) a more "isolated" language, so to speak, i.e. its use is limited to just one area.

What good ol' Wikipedia has to say about the use of Aramaic in ancient Persia:

Following the conquest of Mesopotamia, the Aramaic language (as used in that territory) was adopted as a "vehicle for written communication between the different regions of the vast empire with its different peoples and languages. The use of a single official language, which modern scholarship has dubbed Official Aramaic or Imperial Aramaic, can be assumed to have greatly contributed to the astonishing success of the Achaemenids in holding their far-flung empire together for as long as they did."[86] In 1955, Richard Frye questioned the classification of Imperial Aramaic as an "official language", noting that no surviving edict expressly and unambiguously accorded that status to any particular language.[87] Frye reclassifies Imperial Aramaic as the "lingua franca" of the Achaemenid territories, suggesting then that the Achaemenid-era use of Aramaic was more pervasive than generally thought. Many centuries after the fall of the empire, Aramaic script and – as ideograms – Aramaic vocabulary would survive as the essential characteristics of the Pahlavi writing system.[88]

Although Old Persian also appears on some seals and art objects, that language is attested primarily in the Achaemenid inscriptions of Western Iran, suggesting then that Old Persian was the common language of that region. However, by the reign of Artaxerxes II, the grammar and orthography of the inscriptions was so "far from perfect"[89] that it has been suggested that the scribes who composed those texts had already largely forgotten the language, and had to rely on older inscriptions, which they to a great extent reproduced verbatim.[90]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achaemenid_Empire#Languages

 

[Louis XXIV]

Aramaic was the official language of the Persian Empire. Darius issued proclamations in it. When people throughout the empire needed to communicate, they spoke in Aramaic. That being said, whether Darius personally spoke it or had a translator speak it is probably unknown. I do think, if they added a Parthian or Sassinid Civilization, they should speak some form of Persian, but it makes sense for the Persian Empire of the time to speak the official language of the Empire.

Yes, I think the Texan Washington was a big mistake. I would think Washington would've had an accent somewhere in between a British accent and a New York accent.

Why would he speak a New York accent? The New York accent is a mixture of Dutch influences and later Irish and Italian influences. It probably didn't entirely exist back then, but, even if it did, it would make no sense for Washington to speak it. He was a southerner.

The modern British RP accent makes no sense either because it was a later invention. Washington's Great-Grandfather was the one who came to America, so the accent by his time was almost certainly not the accent of his homeland (even leaving aside the generations apart, people tend to pick up the accent of where they live, not the one of their parents).

The "Texan" you're thinking of doesn't sound all that Texan to me, but it does sound southern of some kind. The best accent for Washington would be a Tidewater Accent. The accent can be heard here and, to be honest, it sounds pretty close to what Washington sounds like in game. People usually say he sounds like Bill Clinton not a Texan, which is an Arkansas accent. But if they told me they got someone from Williamsburg to speak the accent, I'd find it plausible.

 

[Pydgie]

^ This.

Apparently, Aramaic actually was the official language of the Achaemenid Empire, the specific Persian dynasty Darius ruled. So I guess back then Old Persian was just widely spoken, and not official?

And while Persian may have been widely spoken in the Persian homeland, Aramaic was spoken all over the place in Mesopotamia, one of many lands ruled by the Achaemenids. Persian was (and seemingly still is) a more "isolated" language, so to speak, i.e. its use is limited to just one area.

What good ol' Wikipedia has to say about the use of Aramaic in ancient Persia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achaemenid_Empire#Languages

Oh, that makes sense.

 

[Louis XXIV]

BTW, the talk of Washington having an English accent inspired me. You know who shouldn't have an English accent (well, not a modern one)? Elizabeth. People complain about her voice being annoying, but the more noteworthy thing is that she has a received pronunciation accent.

In reality, this is what she should have sounded like

That link has people discussing the accent at the time of Shakespeare. They give you both the modern and old accents.

 

[PhilBowles]

BTW, the talk of Washington having an English accent inspired me. You know who shouldn't have an English accent (well, not a modern one)? Elizabeth. People complain about her voice being annoying, but the more noteworthy thing is that she has a received pronunciation accent.

In reality, this is what she should have sounded like

That link has people discussing the accent at the time of Shakespeare. They give you both the modern and old accents.

Interesting - I've made the point a couple of times in this thread that Elizabeth shouldn't have an RP accent, but I hadn't heard the reconstructions of Elizabethan accents themselves.

Strangely, it sounds a little like an Irish accent.

 

[local_hero]

Gustavus Adolphus speaks a perfectly fine Swedish. Yet he sounds so silly because I can't imagine that he spoke modern Swedish as he does in the game. And it doesn't help that he looks more like Erik XIV rather than the actual Gustavus Adolphus.

 

[PhilBowles]

Gustavus Adolphus speaks a perfectly fine Swedish. Yet he sounds so silly because I can't imagine that he spoke modern Swedish as he does in the game. And it doesn't help that he looks more like Erik XIV rather than the actual Gustavus Adolphus.

He's one of the game's most recent leaders, so the modern language isn't out of place for him - though, as with Elizabeth, the accent is almost certainly wrong. By contrast, Harald's modern Danish is wholly out of place (but I don't care since (a) I don't speak Danish, and (b) I love the way he sounds).