Language Modding

[earwax_man]

Hey guys

I've recently started to mod Civilisation 4's language input from English to Irish Gaelic. I'm using the Finnish language mod on this forum as a base and replacing the Finnish with Irish. There's just one snag with noun forms.

English has one form of every noun in every case in use with prepositions. That's no problem at all; but with Irish Gaelic you have 4 cases of each noun (excluding vocative case).

Warrior:
Gaiscíoch (nom. sing.), Gaiscígh (gen sing.), Gaiscíocha (nom. plu.), Gaiscíoch (gen plu.)

This is extended further by adding a "h" (called lenition) in certain cases with simple prepositions to nouns or "eclipsis" (the addition of a certain letter before a complex preposition).

Don ghaiscíoch (for the warrior), I ngaiscíoch (in a warrior)

I know that Finnish has many noun forms because of its vast amount of cases (I have studied it on and off), but I'm at a loss at to know what to do with inputting nouns into xml files.

I saw that the Finnish mod used this format for warrior:

<TEXT>
		<Tag>TXT_KEY_UNIT_WARRIOR</Tag>
		<Finnish>soturi:soturin:soturia</Finnish>
		<English>Warrior</English>
</TEXT>

How would I do this with my Irish nouns and how could I call a specific form? Say, 4 basic forms, 4 eclipsed forms, 4 lenited forms; so 12 forms.

This is further complicated by making adjectives agree depending on noun gender; ie masculine and feminine.
Masculine nouns are declined with a masculine agreeing adjective: an gaiscíoch mór (the big warrior) -> an ghaiscígh móir (of the big warrior)
Feminine nouns are declined with a feminine agreeing adjective and lenition: an bhean mhór (the big woman) -> na mná móire (of the big woman)
Plural nouns in any case have the same adjective mutation: na gaiscíocha móra, na mná móra (nominative); na ngaiscíoch móra, na mban móra (genitive)
(Slender endings also cause lention in adjectives...)

This was the exact problem I had last time with translating and was why I gave up

 

[cool3a2]

Can't help you with your actual problem, but why do you replace Finnish instead of adding Gaelic as its own language? Consider mods with Finnish texts that you'd load with your translation - you would never know what is meant there. Or vice versa. All you cause is compatibility issues.

 

[The_J]

Hell...that sounds so complicated...I don't think you'll manage to get a proper translation for that, because it's just too complicated.

But whatever.
For some more hints, you might need to look at the other languages (don't know if the finish translation is too 100% correct), because they show some more options, e.g.:

	<TEXT>
		<Tag>TXT_KEY_CIV_HOLY_ROMAN_ADJECTIVE</Tag>
		<English>
			<Text>Holy Roman:Holy Romans</Text>
			<Gender>Male</Gender>
			<Plural>0:1</Plural>
		</English>
		<French>
			<Text>romain:romaine:romains:romaines</Text>
			<Gender>Male:Female:Male:Female</Gender>
			<Plural>0:0:1:1</Plural>
		</French>
		<German>
			<Text>Heilig-r&#246;misch:heilig-r&#246;mischen:heilig-r&#246;mische</Text>
			<Gender>Neuter:Neuter:Neuter</Gender>
			<Plural>0:0:0</Plural>
		</German>

 

[earwax_man]

Can't help you with your actual problem, but why do you replace Finnish instead of adding Gaelic as its own language? Consider mods with Finnish texts that you'd load with your translation - you would never know what is meant there. Or vice versa. All you cause is compatibility issues.

I'm using the Finnish mod just as a base for this, by the end it should stand as its own language within the game (if I even get that far) with only English and Irish Gaelic appearing (no Finnish at all).

Hell...that sounds so complicated...I don't think you'll manage to get a proper translation for that, because it's just too complicated.

But whatever.
For some more hints, you might need to look at the other languages (don't know if the finish translation is too 100% correct), because they show some more options, e.g.:

	<TEXT>
		<Tag>TXT_KEY_CIV_HOLY_ROMAN_ADJECTIVE</Tag>
		<English>
			<Text>Holy Roman:Holy Romans</Text>
			<Gender>Male</Gender>
			<Plural>0:1</Plural>
		</English>
		<French>
			<Text>romain:romaine:romains:romaines</Text>
			<Gender>Male:Female:Male:Female</Gender>
			<Plural>0:0:1:1</Plural>
		</French>
		<German>
			<Text>Heilig-römisch:heilig-römischen:heilig-römische</Text>
			<Gender>Neuter:Neuter:Neuter</Gender>
			<Plural>0:0:0</Plural>
		</German>

Even if I can't show all the forms in game, once I have the option to input these forms and call the correct form (regardless of lenition/eclipsis) then I'm happy German seems like a good place to sieve through...I'll try some things and Google.

From your quote, how does the colon break the different forms up? Like say:

Heilig-römisch:heilig-römischen:heilig-römische

What differentiates each form to be called at a certain time since all have been defined as being singular, and all are neuter?

 

[The_J]

I think that's determined by the program code, because you can separately call these different forms, but then again...don't really think that works in a generic way...so no clue, I'm sorry .

 

[earwax_man]

Don't worry about it, I'll figure it out somehow I see in the Finnish version that sometimes a colon comes after a noun and then a number, I guess that's the method without using plural & gender rules; perhaps combining the two methods could work somehow. Trial and error

 

[earwax_man]

Update: Haven't started on the case with adjectives yet, but it seems that I've gotten genitive case and nominitive case forms (with both lenition AND eclipsis to work!! ). Let's hope that nothing odd shows up later in game.

<TEXT>
		<Tag>TXT_KEY_POPUP_RECOMMENDED</Tag>
		<Gaeilge>%s1_ProdName (%d2_NumTurns) [COLOR_HIGHLIGHT_TEXT](molta ar son [B]%s3:2_AdvsrName[/B])[COLOR_REVERT]</Gaeilge>
		<English>%s1_ProdName (%d2_NumTurns) [COLOR_HIGHLIGHT_TEXT]Recommended (%s3_AdvsrName)[COLOR_REVERT]</English>
</TEXT>

<TEXT>
		<Tag>TXT_KEY_ADVISOR_ECONOMY</Tag>
		<Gaeilge>an geilleagar:[B]an gheilleagair[/B]:ngeilleagar:gheilleagair:gheilleagar</Gaeilge>
		<English>Economy</English>
</TEXT>

As you can see, nouns still remain in Finnish; I hope to tackle them soon and then make the adjectives agree with them using this method (hopefully!)
I have also translated all of the research topics, and they are also appearing with proper forms; ie "Priesthood", "Researching priesthood" -> "An tSagarthóireacht", "Ag taighde sagarthóireachta"