Civilization 7 Leaders Dialogue Translations

[tedhebert]

I wanted him in a Flyers jersey and saying “that’s my jawn” when you made a deal with him but they said no.

Funniest thing I've read in a long while.... buuuuuuutttttt... Go Habs Go

 

[Snipee356]

Which video shows Ashoka speaking?

 

[Andrew Johnson [FXS]]

Trajan's VA wasn't American, but Italian. Augustus' VA in Civ5 was Emile Khordoc, who is Canadian. I can't tell if Khordoc returned to voice Augustus again.

Just because ancient Egyptian is an Afro-Asiatic language, doesn't mean Arabic is an appropriate choice for Hatshepsut to speak. Let's make the Aztec, Inca, Maya leaders speak in Latin American Spanish then. I'm the opposite of you, leaders are what drew me into the Civ franchise in the first place. If Civ5 stuck to the voiceless Civ4 styled leaders, I wouldn't have played the game. I doubt there's gonna be a lot of special dialogue between the leaders in this game if they aren't focused on them.

Hatshepsut being the leader of the Abbasids would make me hate Firaxis for a long time. There's gotta be a real Arab leader in the game, probably Harun al Rashid again.

Hatshepsut speaks Late Egyptian. We definitely don’t have her speaking Arabic.

 

[Andrew Johnson [FXS]]

Which video shows Ashoka speaking?

No idea. I’ve seen most of the release videos but forgot what was exactly shown.

 

[Ryansinbela]

No idea. I’ve seen most of the release videos but forgot what was exactly shown.

I think in the Nintendo showcase trailer. The one with Himiko and Meiji Japan

 

[notNamed]

I think in the Nintendo showcase trailer. The one with Himiko and Meiji Japan

Nah, this thread predated that, he speaks here:

"...Indoge ego mahan raga*. ??? mahan ???."
Just guessing but "Indoge" could directly relate to "India" and "mahan raga" being a version of "maha raja/great king".

*I use a 'g' but the phonetic value seems different.

 

[Ryansinbela]

Nah, this thread predated that, he speaks here:

"...Indoge ego mahan raga*. ??? mahan ???."
Just guessing but "Indoge" could directly relate to "India" and "mahan raga" being a version of "maha raja/great king".

*I use a 'g' but the phonetic value seems different.

Yeah I also remember it being here, I just forgot

 

[Snipee356]

Nah, this thread predated that, he speaks here:

"...Indoge ego mahan raga*. ??? mahan ???."
Just guessing but "Indoge" could directly relate to "India" and "mahan raga" being a version of "maha raja/great king".

*I use a 'g' but the phonetic value seems different.

He says "Hindu ke eko mahan raja, aur ek mahan papi", "A great king of the Hindu and a great sinner". Pure Hindi except using the Pali word "eko" instead of "ek" once for some reason. The word "Hindu" is a Persian word that wasn't used by Indians until more than 1500 years after Ashoka. Ashoka calling himself a sinner is not only a wildly inappropriate thing for an emperor to do, but the concept of being a sinner is itself foreign to Buddhist philosophy

 

[Andrew Johnson [FXS]]

He says "Hindu ke eko mahan raja, aur ek mahan papi", "A great king of the Hindu and a great sinner". Pure Hindi except using the Pali word "eko" instead of "ek" once for some reason. The word "Hindu" is a Persian word that wasn't used by Indians until more than 1500 years after Ashoka. Ashoka calling himself a sinner is not only a wildly inappropriate thing for an emperor to do, but the concept of being a sinner is itself foreign to Buddhist philosophy

Thanks!

Re: the language - I’d be interested if a magahi speaker found it incorrect; this could be an anachronism in the translation. We double checked the translations with multiple scholars and speaker, but I don’t have the skills to do this myself.

Re: sinner - my intent here was to capture the emotional weight of the Kalinga war upon Ashoka. “I have done something deeply wrong.” Pāpa, in Pali. “Sinner” is shot through with Christian connotations, but was the best way imo to get that “I have changed my ways and have a new path forward” across to a mostly non-Buddhist audience in one word.

It’s always a balancing act: convey a sense of personality to those who do not know the figure while being as accurate as we can to those who do.

 

[Razpor]

Thanks!

Re: the language - I’d be interested if a magahi speaker found it incorrect; this could be an anachronism in the translation. We double checked the translations with multiple scholars and speaker, but I don’t have the skills to do this myself.

Re: sinner - my intent here was to capture the emotional weight of the Kalinga war upon Ashoka. “I have done something deeply wrong.” Pāpa, in Pali. “Sinner” is shot through with Christian connotations, but was the best way imo to get that “I have changed my ways and have a new path forward” across to a mostly non-Buddhist audience in one word.

It’s always a balancing act: convey a sense of personality to those who do not know the figure while being as accurate as we can to those who do.

I am not a magahi speaker ,but i do understand modern magahi (somewhat) and a native hindi speaker.Pali/prakrit afterall is closely related to sanskrit,which i also do understand to a degree.

The word usage does seem to have confused me that it was hindi ,because it was very easily understandable(perhaps the bgm didn't help),also i was confused as to why Ashoka would say 'hindo' instead of 'bharad' (Bharat) ,;hindo/india was more of a western word of referring to the region.

 

[Siptah]

I am not a magahi speaker ,but i do understand modern magahi (somewhat) and a native hindi speaker.Pali/prakrit afterall is closely related to sanskrit,which i also do understand to a degree.

The word usage does seem to have confused me that it was hindi ,because it was very easily understandable(perhaps the bgm didn't help),also i was confused as to why Ashoka would say 'hindo' instead of 'bharad' (Bharat) ,;hindo/india was more of a western word of referring to the region.

I think Hindo and Bharad are both mistakes. I don‘t see why Ashoka should say such things when he‘s actually king of the Protestant Normans.

 

[Teutonic_Tirade]

Church Latin versus Classical you say? Perhaps we're getting a Latin speaking religious leader? Boniface VIII and Papal States?

 

[Razpor]

I think Hindo and Bharad are both mistakes. I don‘t see why Ashoka should say such things when he‘s actually king of the Protestant Normans.

Yeah well ,civ 7 is gonna be a tough one ,i can see it already

 

[Thenewwwguy]

We really try for this, or at least to get as close as we can. There are always unexpected hurdles - some languages are just lost in time so we have to go with what we can best fit. At times, really ancient dialects can even sound rude or offensive to modern day speakers (IIRC Ramkhamhaeng uses the pronoun กู, which is overly familiar/rude to modern ears), or simply unexpected - we are used to historical dramas where people speak with upper class modern British accents, have good hair and teeth, and no pox scars

I feel like this comes up a lot in my life at least. I’ve seen so many irl greek ppl stressed when they hear ancient greek because they don’t realize it had different pronunciation rules (apparently ancient greek is taught with modern greek pronunciation out there). There’s an ancient linguist on tiktok (@arumnatzorkhang) who often faces this with them and indians who can’t believe that sanskrit isn’t pronounced as modern brahmins pronounce it as well.

I wanted him in a Flyers jersey and saying “that’s my jawn” when you made a deal with him but they said no

reminds me of Kupe using kiwi slang in civ 6’s written dialogue, lol. I think this would be unironically fun.

 

[Guandao]

I wonder if I could tell if Tecumseh's Shawnee is distantly related to Poundmaker's Cree? I hope some more lesser known languages, either living or extinct, get featured in this game.

 

[Zaarin]

I wonder if I could tell if Tecumseh's Shawnee is distantly related to Poundmaker's Cree? I hope some more lesser known languages, either living or extinct, get featured in this game.

Shawnee and Cree are not closely related, but they should both sound "Algonquian" if you have the ear for it. (Arapaho and Cheyenne are the weird ones that don't sound Algonquian even though they are.)

 

[Meluhhan]

Ashoka is speaking Hindi atleast in the trailer

Does not sound like Hindi to me. Infact, it isn't even Sanskrit which Chadragupta spoke in Civ 6. It sounds like some form of Prakrit.

 

[Ryansinbela]

Does not sound like Hindi to me. Infact, it isn't even Sanskrit which Chadragupta spoke in Civ 6. It sound like some form of Prakrit.

Andrew mentioned it was Magadhi Prakit specifically

 

[Guandao]

So Confucius is speaking modern Mandarin, maybe with some antiquated dialogue or words (like Qin Shi Huang in Civ6). I don't expect Himiko to speak Old Japanese then. Japanese used to sound pretty different prior to Chinese linguistic influence.

 

[Black Gate]

Old Japanese just isn't possible unfortunately. Unlike modern Japanese with its five vowels, Old Japanese appears to have eight vowels and no one is quite sure what those were. So even ignoring the sound and grammatical changes we do understand and the difficulty of finding a modern speaker, there's just too much unknown about it.

But yes it was quite different. Here's a comparison of the original opening line from The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter in its original Early Middle vs Modern Japanese.
今は昔、竹取の翁といふ者ありけり
今となっては昔のことだが、竹取という者がいた

If we're lucky, Firaxis will do something a little anachronistic and have Himiko speak Classical Japanese despite its role as a literary language like Classical Chinese.