Language translations for leader sayings

I asked about that too. He said that "Old Persian is not known sufficiently, but, if desired, by using reconstruction of Old Persian, you can make a plausible likeness for any text without anachronisms."
Reconstructed languages are used for some leader - for example Cleopatra and Gilgamesh.

 

As a venezuelan, i can tell Bolivar accent does sound north-center venezuelan. In fact he kinda sounds like the current legal president, Juan Guaido.




The thing about north-center venezuelan accent is that... it's actually rather close neutral accent, we just tend to not fully pronounce the "S" but public speakers like politicians generally try to do when talking formally. Also as mentioned earlier, the "vuestro" isn't common nowdays but it was during Bolivar times

 

Cleopatra, yes, Gilgamesh not really. Akkadian is very well attested; no reconstruction necessary*. I've suggested using reconstruction for a number of languages, but Firaxis seems to prefer to use modern languages where the ancient one isn't well understood. Or maybe they simply aren't reaching out to the right experts--if they had, it shouldn't have been that difficult for Gilgamesh to speak Sumerian, for instance.

*Unless you mean pronunciation, in which case they went with the Akkadian equivalent of Egyptological pronunciation.

 

Well, if you listen to someone talking like Guaidó in Bogotá not a single person will say he's speaking in a neutral accent, everyone will instantly identify that he's from Venezuela. That's the problem with most Spanish-speakers both in Latin America and in Spain. Everyone tends to think that their native accent/variety is the neutral one. I say this from experience, as I used to think that the accent from Bogotá, my own native accent, was the most neutral one in the world, but of course it isn't. There's not a single Spanish accent or variety (at least natively spoken) that is neutral. The thing with Bolívar's lines in-game is that it doesn't sound like an accent that you would hear someone speak natively. It is almost identical to the "constructed" neutral accent used when dubbing English-language films and TV programmes, just turn on your local Spanish-dubbed Discovery Channel in Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico or Argentina to see what I'm talking about. However, lots of these dubbings were done in Mexico, but also in Venezuela and Chile, which is why there must exist Venezuelan, Mexican and Chilean people who speak in these "constructed" neutral accent when they are at work, but who would naturally speak in their native accent when outside of it. Not a single person I know whom I've shown in-game Bolivar talking, including Venezuelans here in Colombia, have said that he has a distinctive Venezuelan or Colombian accent, he has the "constructed" neutral Latin-American accent for international TV broadcast. Proof of this is the intonation and not omission of consonants at the end, which clearly Guaidó does in the video you mention. To me, in-game Bolívar does actually sound "Mexican", but that's because of what I said.

In spite of this, I do think in-game Bolívar should have had a stronger accent from Venezuela than the "neutral" accent they portray him with. That would have been more historically accurate, as he was born in Caracas, Venezuela. If in-game Bolívar spoke like Guaidó speaks in your video I would be way happier with the way in which he is showed in the game. Though I'm not disappointed at all either by the way in which he has been represented.

 

I'll ignore the first part of your post because i'm simply not gonna get into that "opinion" war. I consider the center-venezuelan intonation is closer to the one in the neutral latin american accent than the others. I can't help but lmao at the notion that things like the argentinian, chilean or dominican accents can be compared in neutrality to the center-venezuelan one but opinions are free

i outright mentioned this in the previous post. He does not sound "neutral" besides actually using the S.

 

Bless you!



So I took a shot at some of Dido's lines, might be helpful:

Dido
Greeting:

• English letters: Anuk Dido, hamalkot u ha'um leCarth-hadash. Makademe shum lekon bishun kin banei kana'an
• Hebrew: אָנוּךּ דִידוֹ, הַמָלְכּוֹת וּהָאוּם לְקָרתְ'-חָדָש. מַקָדֶמֶה שוּם לֶכֹאן בִּישוּם קִין בָּנֵי כַּנָעָן
• In-game translation: I, Dido, queen and mother of Carthage, greet you on behalf of the Phoenicians.
• Notes: The first sentence is very similar to Hebrew and has exactly the same meaning as the text. The second sentence starts with familiar words (Makademe = greet? – the Hebrew equivalent is "Mekademet" מקדמת; lekon = here? "Lekan" לכאן), it ends with "banei kana'an" (בָּנֵי כַּנָעָן) – "The sons of Kna'an" instead of "the Phoenicians" that appears in the text.

Agenda approval:

• English letters: Yaboh osher lemakom kom…Harahokim misapat ha'yom
• Hebrew: יָבוֹא עוֹשֶר לְמָקוֹם קוֹם...הָרָחוֹקִים מִשַפָת הָיוֹם
• In-game translation: May prosperity come to your cities – the ones away from the coast.
• Notes: the exact same meaning as the text. Shockingly close to Hebrew, except "lemakom kom", or is it supposed to be one word together? "lemakom" = "to a certain place" is too general.

Agenda disapproval:

• English letters: Haptsenu la la'arth - hu lekom - Ma ha'yom u sapathu hu le'amenu
• Hebrew: חֹפְצֶנוּ לֹא לָאָרץ' – הוּא לֶקוֹם – מַהָיוֹם וּשַפָּתוּ הוּא לֶעָמֵנוּ
• In-game translation: We have no interest in the land - that is for you to claim – but the seas and the shores are Phoenician
• Notes: exact meaning as the text and very close to Hebrew. "le'ameinu" is a more general term (then the text) that means "our people" / "our nation". I'm starting to get the feeling that "kom" might mean "Him" as a formal way of actually address someone important. So "hu lekom" means "that is for him".

 

That's rather fascinating because that suggests she's speaking Neo-Punic, which the entire rest of her dialogue does not agree with at all. I would have preferred ʾibrok liMilqart / ʾibrok liTinnit (I greet you in the name of Milqart/Tannit) or ʾisillem ʿalt ʾattim (I greet you--see my comment below on the use of plural) or simply a greeting that many players would find very familiar, salôm--or salôm Baʿal (Baal's peace) or salôm Milqart (Milqart's peace), if you like.

The Phoenicians called themselves Kᵉnaʿanīm "Canaanites" as well as Pônnīm "Phoenicians," so it comes to the same thing. Also (as you probably know), bny [gentilic] is a stock expression for "people of [nation]." I don't know if this expression is used in Arabic or Modern Hebrew, but it's common in Biblical Hebrew, Akkadian, and virtually every form of Aramaic (including Neo-Aramaic). In the plural, bny really means "children" more than "sons," unless the gender is implied by context.

Phoenician and Biblical Hebrew are very closely related, comparable to Norwegian and Swedish, though what Dido speaks seems to be more "archaic Hebrew with a Phoenician accent" than Phoenician proper, as I said in my original comment.

-kom is the second person plural pronoun enclitic. hū is the third person singular independent pronoun. So this is a very literal translation of "it is for you (pl)"--the plural here perhaps meaning "your people," but more likely because Phoenician has gendered second person pronouns and they didn't want to record separate lines for male and female leaders. I'm not well-versed enough to say how it ought to read, but it doesn't feel idiomatic to me. I think it should be something like ʾīs likom.

Until I saw this I didn't even notice they used the Hebrew/Aramaic negative particle lā instead of the correct Phoenician negative particle ʾal.

 

Thanks! Added your translations to the front page.

 

Videos of both Bolívar and Lady Six Sky's animations with the in-game translations of their lines.

 

Can you also add ınformation from this post, please?

 

Thank you for you comment, Zaarin! always happy to be of use to this wonderful community
I'm resubmitting the 3 lines, together with 2 new ones, in the spoiler below. As I don't know much about dialects and phonetic spelling, would appreciate if you could look at what I wrote under "English letters" and make the proper adjustments. I need help with the second sentence of the "Greeting" line and the 3rd word in the "Declares War" line.

Spoiler :

Greeting:

• English letters: Anuk Dido, hamalkot u ha'um leCarth-hadash. Makademe shum lekon bishun kin banei kana'an
• Hebrew: אָנוּךּ דִידוֹ, הַמָלְכּוֹת וּהָאוּם לְקָרתְ'-חָדָש. מַקָדֶמֶה שוּם לֶכֹאן בִּישוּם קִין בָּנֵי כַּנָעָן
• In-game translation: I, Dido, queen and mother of Carthage, greet you on behalf of the Phoenicians.
• Notes: The first sentence has exactly the same meaning as the text. Not sure I've heard the beginning of the second sentence right. It starts with some familiar words (Makademe = greet? – the Hebrew equivalent is "Mekademet" מקדמת; lekon = here? "Lekan" לכאן), "banei kana'an" (בָּנֵי כַּנָעָן) = "The children of (the land) Kna'an" instead of "the Phoenicians" that appears in the text.

Agenda approval:

• English letters: Yavoh osher le'makomkom…Harahokim misapat ha'yom
• Hebrew: יָבוֹא עוֹשֶר לְמָקוֹמכֹּם...הָרָחוֹקִים מִשַפָּת הָיוֹם
• In-game translation: May prosperity come to your cities – the ones away from the coast.
• Notes: The exact same meaning as the text and shockingly close to Hebrew. "le'makomkom" means "to your places", where "your" is in plural form. The Hebrew pronunciation would be "le'mkomkhem" (לֶמְּקֹ֣ומְכֶ֔ם) / "le'mkomoteikhem" (לֶמְקֹומֹֽתֵיכֶ֑ם). She uses the common metaphor "lip of the sea" (sapat ha'yom שַפָּת הָיוֹם) for "the coast", instead of the direct word "khof" (חוֹף).

Agenda disapproval:

• English letters: Hoptseinu la la'arth - hu lekom - Ma ha'yom u sapatu hu le'ameinu
• Hebrew: חֹפְצֶנוּ לֹא לָאָרץ' – הוּא לֶכֹּם – מַהָיוֹם וּשַפָּתוּ הוּא לֶעָמֵנוּ
• In-game translation: We have no interest in the land - that is for you to claim – but the seas and the shores are Phoenician
• Notes: exact meaning as the text. "ameinu" is a more general term (than the text) that means "our people" / "our nation".

Declares war:

• English letters: (Sigh) Ato malkhoma bi'tavkeinu. hibitu bayom – ato ha'up ma'le be'onyiotai
• Hebrew: עָתוֹ מָלְחוֹמָה בִּתָבְכֵּינוֹ. הָבִּיטוּ בָּיוֹם – עָתוֹ הָאוּףּ מָלֵא בְּאוֹנִיוֹתָיי
• In-game translation: Now we have war between us. Look to the seas – already the horizon is crowded with the sails of my fleets.
• Notes: "Ato" probably means "now" ("ata" in Hebrew, עַתָּ֣ה), "malkhoma" is almost identical to "milkhama" in Hebrew for "war". Not sure I've heard the 3rd word right, it might be "Nidavkeinu" (=we got infected, נִדְבָּקנוּ). "ha'up" is similar to "ha'ofek" (the horizon) in modern Hebrew, I don't think that word appears in the old testament. "ma'le be'onyiotai" translates to "filled with my ships".

Attacked:

• English letters: Malkhoma? Ha'kesilem antum? Makomkom yida'u khurb ki'Epirus Sagunt.
• Hebrew: מָלְחוֹמָה? הָכֵּסִילֶם אָנְטוּם? מָקוֹמכֹּם יִדָעוּ חוּרבְּ כִּאָפִּירוּס סָגוּנטְ
• In-game translation: War? Are you a fool? Your cities will suffer the fate of Epirus and Saguntum.
• Notes: "kesil" is a common word in the old testament for "fool". I am not familiar with "antum", it might be related to the word "atum" (אָטוּם) which literally means sealed/opaque/clogged. "khurb" is very similar to "destruction" in both hebrew and arabic.
• I remember reading here that the events of Saguntum happened long after Dido's time. Isn't it possible there have been multiple sieges/conquests of the same city?

I've searched the root "mekadem" in the old testament and couldn't find a single match.

I decided to write the literal direct translation, but you are correct, in this context it might mean "people of (the land) Kna'an". It seems possible to me that firaxis wanted to include elements from other cultures of the region & era into this civ's design. I, for one, feel somewhat represented by it.

Ha! of course! that makes so much sense.
The hebrew equivalent would be "khem"/"khen" suffix, the former is the male form but also used when referring to a large, mixed group. "makomkom" = "your (pl) places" would translate to "mekomkhem" / "mekomoteikhem". "hu lekom" = "it is for you (pl)" would translate to "hu lakhem".

'ʾal' is the imperative form in hebrew. It's present in Dido's defeat line in that context - "do not take pride..."

 

To my knowledge lā / lô is unattested in Phoenician or Punic inscriptions; they used ʾal or bāl (the latter technically meaning "does not exist"). Now let me grab my Phoenician notes and I'll see what I can do about marking length and emphasis on your transcription...

ʾAnūk Dīdô, hamalkot u-haʾum leQart-ḥadaš. Makademe šum lekon bišun kin bnay Kᵉnaʿan.

Note: u-haʾum is a mix of Neo-Punic and Modern Israeli Hebrew; should read wa-haʾam. I'm unsure about the vowel length in šum, (bi)šun, and kin.

Yawoh ʾošer lemaqomkom...Harahokīm misapat hayom.

Hopṣeynū lā laʾarṣ - hū lekom - mā hayom u-sapatū hū leʿameynū.

Note: As above, u-sapatū should be wa-sapatū.

ʿato malḥoma bitawkeynū. Hībiṭū bayom - ʿato haʾup male beʾonīyotay.

Notes: As you suspect, ʿato is "now," but kᵉʿan would have been more Phoenician. Malḥoma should be milḥamot.

Malḥoma? Hakesilem ʾantum? Maqomkom yidaʾū ḥurb kiʾEpirus Sagunt.

Note: See above on malḥoma. ʾantum is the second-person plural independent pronoun and should read ʾattim in Phoenician or ʾantim in Punic (the Queen of Tyre, of course, spoke Tyrian Phoenician, not Punic). Sagunt should be Sagūt in Tyrian Phoenician.

General Notes: As Phoenician merged shin, sin, and samekh, š should be s. All instances of ey should be ē; all instances of aw should be ô. Most instances of ay should also be ē. Phoenician was much more aggressive about collapsing diphthongs than Hebrew was. Forgive mistakes; Phoenician is a hobby for me and I'm not an expert (plus the translators used quite a few Hebrewisms where I can't actually find a Phoenician equivalent).

 

As a native swede I'd like to offer some clarification on the one of Kristina's lines that's caused some confusion.
What she says is "Jag antar att du endast synar konst i god när den förenar rummets estetik (,din borgarbracka)". Which is formal and archaic, but grammatically correct, as far as I can tell.

"Synar i god" or "syna i god" means something like "view in a good light"
"Förenar rummets estetik" or "Förena rummets estetik" means "unite the aesthetics of the room".

So it translates to something like "I guess you merely value art when it enhances the aesthetic of a room, you borgarbracka"

Borgarbracka is difficult to translate directly. It's an insult towards people with right-wing political views (borgare) and implies the person is rich but vapid/shallow. So "Vapid fop" might be a close enough equivalent.

She's basically telling you that you only collect art because it looks pretty, but without having any actual deep understanding or appreciation for the pieces.

-D3

 

Thanks again! I pasted your text in my file, will post it together in one piece when we're done.
It seems that Dido is always using the plural form when directly addressing you, perhaps this is the formal way.

Defeat line:

Spoiler :

• English letters: Al titga'avu vine šḥakom. Bayum aḥad tira'u maqomkom hakol ba'eš
• Hebrew: אָל תִתְגַאָוְוּ בִינֶה שְחָקוֹם. בָּיוּם אַחָד תִירָאוּ מָקוֹמכֹּם הָכֹּל בָּאֶש
• In-game translation: Do not glory in your conquest. One day you may see your capital bathed in flame.
• Notes: Al titga'avu means "Do not take pride/glory", šḥakom (šḥakim in hebrew) means "great heights". Those terms often appear together in hebrew texts, but the vine between them (supposed to mean "up to"?) is unfamiliar to me. The second sentence is a direct, accurate translation.

​

Pep talk

Spoiler :

• English letters: ʾAnūk dana it kil mi lo yoten it ḥa'yu le'šum Qart-ḥadaš
• Hebrew: אָנוּךּ דָנַה אִת כִּל מִי לֹא יוֹתֶן אִת חָיוּ לֶשוּם לְקָרתְ'-חָדָש
• In-game translation: I condemn anyone who would not lay down their life for Carthage.
• Notes: dana would directly translate to "to give sentence" (feminine form) in hebrew, rather than "condemn". A few other differences in pronunciation: ḥa'yu / ḥa'yaw = "his life". Seeing le'šum (le'šem in hebrew) = "for" is making me think of those undeciphered words in the greeting line.

​

Denounce you

Spoiler :

• only found this video of her screaming

Are you sure I've heard those word properly?

would be more accurate?

After some more listening the sound file I think the highlited vowel is actually shorter, as in hebrew.

Do those words make sense to you? I easily could've misheard the first one.

Could someone familiar with those references elaborate, please?

 

It may be formal (there's some instances of plural majestis in the Hebrew Bible); Phoenician also has gendered second person pronouns, which would have meant recording two lines depending on the gender of the leader the human is playing as (or else going with masculine as "default").

I am not.

Yeah, that one slipped past me.

It's very possible the Israeli voice actress is simply not making length distinctions.

I'm not familiar with either word, no. The first looks like it's of the form bi-[WORD]-ū (LOC-WORD-3sm--e.g. at/in/from his/its WORD).

The reference is anachronistic. Saguntum was an Ibero-Roman town that sided against the Carthaginians in the Second Punic War. I don't know of any Phoenician connection to Epirus, except that Pyrrhus of Epirus started his military campaign against the Carthaginians before turning on Rome.

(I'll check the Defeat Line and Pep Talk later.)

 

The quote in Civilopedia is actually voiced, you can hear it in if you click it. Or you can check out all if Dido's lines on SoundCloud.

It can actually be a real quote of hers or from other Carthaginian source.

Denouncements are not voiced, at least in speech.

 

@Reckoner, I added your new translations to Dido's entry. Thanks!

Thanks! Added your notes to the Kristina entry, and distinguished your translation from the other one as well (I kept both in for now).

 

Thank you! I've been listening to this soundcloud list all day long =]
I think I've found the pep talk quote, is it the one that appears here?
"I condemn anyone who would not lay down their life for Carthage."
It makes a lot of sense with the transcription from the sound file.

Thank you for your time and effort! I'll post all lines together when we're done deciphering and discussing.

A few suggestions regarding the thread, if I may:
* why not create a resource, post all entries in it and put a link in the OP? all this post-reserving feels unnecesary.
* Links to soundcloud / youtube playlist beside each entry would be very helpful
* maybe even arrange the different lines in a similar order across all entries

 

Yes, Civ's wiki takes it from Civilopedia.

What I actually meant is that this quote might be taken from some historical source. For example the "pep talk" for Queen Victoria is actually her historical quote, Trajan's "Divide and conquer!" is not his quote but certainly an original Roman aphorism. Tomyris's quote is by Anacharsis, the Scythian philosopher who caused quite a stir in Athens, but the original one is probably in Greek and was just translated to Ossetian via English.

So Dido's quote can be taken from a historical source too. Although not all quotes can be found, I, for example, couldn't find any source English nor Russian with Peter's quote.

OK, I might want to take that back. I was googling the exact line Peter says and now I realized that his line in Russian might be a "back translation" - that is translated from Russian to English as a long explanation of it's meaning, then it was looked up in an English source by game designers and given to translator without any context. So when I googled in Russian "Peter the great soldier hungry" it reminded me that there is a Russian proverb / saying "Голодный солдат – плохой солдат." (A hungry soldier is a bad soldier.) I guess that's what it was initially was. It's a shame that they missed such an opportunity, the laconic brevity of this proverb matches Peter's historical character very well and sounds like something he would really say. Unlike the cumbersome and long current one.

Context is important in translation and even a very good translator needs it!

@Morningcalm, can I please ask you to add the following note to Peter's pep talk line:

Also can you please add the following information to Cyrus's entry?

And also please add these transcriptions:

Agenda-based Approval: Nēk dānam kē jahišn hā hast, kē widardam mē tuwān
Agenda-based Disapproval: Agar frēb šāyad, xwāhēm kē pad dast ī man abāz bawēd.
Attacked: Afsānhā rā mēšenawīst-ēh, ayādgār ī spāh ī amāwand ī man? Raw ud wēn!
Declares War: Nūn pad mardomān ī tō namāyēm, kē čiyōn azēr ī framān ī ādūg pādixšāy tuwān wāng ??? dāštand
Defeated: Ham nēmag ī kārzār saxt kam dīd ēstād hēm
Greeting: Raw, pēš ī kūruš ī wuzurg ī pārsī ēstāda ī. Dānēm kē zōr dōst šawēm, pad kāmistīh nūn rāy
Pep Talk: Az garānī ī dušmanān ī amāh ranjūr mā bawēd ud az āfarīn ī dōstān ī amāh halag mā bawēd. abestān ō xwēš dārēd, mā abārīgān

 

@Red Khan Added your modifications! Let me know if I missed anything.

A resource, like a website? I don't really have the know-how for that. XD

I added links to Soundcloud just now, but the post reservations are useful to have all the translations in one place at a glance - hyperlinks are nice in concept but as multiple edits and revisions are made to each leader (sometimes months or years apart), it's often more work to track down the changes on that basis than just collating everything across multiple early posts. As for consistency, that would be challenging because almost none of the translations follow the same order, and going back through and editing for order would take several hours (even though each leader has only some seven lines). Notably, some users provide more info than others (transliterations, multiple translations I mixed in, etc.)