Language translations for leader sayings

[t.d]

I don't hear the "en" frankly. XD

And yes, while that translation may be more accurate--it isn't what is in-game, and it's a bit awkward: "great desire and envy of discovering" doesn't make grammatical sense in English.

Maybe we should do translations where we compare the in-game vs. the "actual" translation (i.e. "my realm" as opposed to "the realm" for Catherine's intro)?

Or if people prefer, we can just put up the actual translations, though we may need to tinker with them a bit to get the English straightened out and less awkward.

I hear "Bienvenue en mon royaume" too. Plus, "Bienvenu à mon royaume" sounds weird , almost like a mistake to me.

I hope the voice is not final by the way, cause she speaks with a very unpleasant accent.

 

[Morningcalm]

Do we have anything on Tomyris? I'm really interested to know how they handled "scythian" language.

An earlier poster noted she was speaking Ossetian.

I hear "Bienvenue en mon royaume" too. Plus, "Bienvenu à mon royaume" sounds weird , almost like a mistake to me.

I hope the voice is not final by the way, cause she speaks with a very unpleasant accent.

Ok, corrected parent post. Her voice is final. What makes the accent unpleasant? Do you detect an Italian accent?

Updated parent post with Frederick I and Cleopatra, with some source attribution as well.

 

[Paradisk]

Remember it's "Catherine de' Medici" in English and not "Catherine de' Medicis" which is mixed with French and Italian versions of her name

 

[Morningcalm]

Remember it's "Catherine de' Medici" in English and not "Catherine de' Medicis" which is mixed with French and Italian versions of her name

Already fixed.

Though there is something to be said about using the name given by the language the leader speaks...

 

[AbsintheRed]

Cleopatra is NOT speaking Coptic! She is speaking Middle Egyptian, the "classical" form of Ancient Egyptian prominent between ca. 2000 - 1350 BCE, and the ancestor of Coptic (after evolving through Late Egyptian and Demotic, the latter being the variant of Egyptian that Cleopatra would've actually known).

As far as I can tell, her lines deconstruct like this:

Declare War

Transliteration: iw m (aA-pA.i ?) n.k! / sSm imn-ra n.n!
Transcription: Iu em ('a-paï?) en-ek! / Seshem Amun-Ra en-en!
Direct Translation: /be in (enough?) to-you!/ /may-guide Amun-Ra to-us!/
Notes: I can't find a direct translation for the "enough" segment. Middle Egyptian doesn't appear to have a directly equivalent word, so she must be using some idiom I'm not familiar with.

Defeated

Transliteration: iw kmt nhw.ti / ir nn sxn.i [s-pA.ii ?] (mrr ?) sxn.i n Ax.t!
Transcription: Iu Kemet nehuti / Ir nen seheni es-paï merer seheni en ahu!
Direct Translation: /be Egypt lost/ /if not embrace-I [man of-mine?] (beloved?/that I love?) embrace-I to serpent!/
Notes: The [s-pA.ii] segment sounds like "man of mine", so I wrote it in hieroglyphs as such. But (mrr)/merer is harder to place. It sounds like a form of the verb /mr/ (to love), but I can't recognize the geminated verb form. It might be a relative form - will be back at some point to confirm.

Greeting
[Place held - Don't have time to analyze that one today]

Fantastic, thanks for this!

 

[Paradisk]

Already fixed.

Though there is something to be said about using the name given by the language the leader speaks...

Because all of the other leaders are having their English names too.
I personally would prefer an annotation of their self-called name

 

[Zaarin]

I wonder what Gilgamesh will speak... that's probably the trickiest one left. Pronunciation aside, which is probably weird anyway.

Sumerian is extremely well-attested for an ancient language. True, the exact phonetic details aren't always clear, but we have a pretty solid idea how Sumerian is pronounced. Sumerian is actually much easier than Middle Egyptian (if true) for Cleopatra. (Actually, I'm a little baffled they chose Middle Egyptian for her--while it's impressive, she actually spoke Coptic, which, courtesy the Coptic Church, is much easier to work with.)

 

[AliasMittens]

That would be beyond fantastic if true.

It's true. Firaxis outdid themselves! I don't know what more to tell you to prove it beyond giving more translations

That's truly fascinating! Thank you for the transcript

Fantastic, thanks for this!

I enjoyed the practice

Sumerian is extremely well-attested for an ancient language. True, the exact phonetic details aren't always clear, but we have a pretty solid idea how Sumerian is pronounced. Sumerian is actually much easier than Middle Egyptian (if true) for Cleopatra. (Actually, I'm a little baffled they chose Middle Egyptian for her--while it's impressive, she actually spoke Coptic, which, courtesy the Coptic Church, is much easier to work with.)

You and I both ... Cleopatra would've spoken Demotic, but by that point it was getting close enough to early Coptic that it would've been less of a jump than Tomyris speaking Ossetic.

Perhaps they only sourced/worked with Middle Egyptian because they have another, earlier Egyptian leader coming down the DLC tube at some point...

 

[Siptah]

Sumerian is extremely well-attested for an ancient language. True, the exact phonetic details aren't always clear, but we have a pretty solid idea how Sumerian is pronounced. Sumerian is actually much easier than Middle Egyptian (if true) for Cleopatra. (Actually, I'm a little baffled they chose Middle Egyptian for her--while it's impressive, she actually spoke Coptic, which, courtesy the Coptic Church, is much easier to work with.)

I knew that there is an incredible amount of Sumerian (+ Akkadian ones, I think there is a chance he might speak Akkadian) texts around today, I didn't know there is someone who has the faintest clue about how to pronounce it. Thanks for the info that there is!
For Middle Egyptian, I've read how people try to reconstruct the pronunciation. It is heavily relying on coptic, if I remember right.
Because of my info that I had before your post, I figured Sumerian would be the tricky one.
If they go out of their way that much to give leaders authentic languages, I really hope they won't screw up Gilgamesh's look and portrait him as an Assyrian again.

 

[Zaarin]

You and I both ... Cleopatra would've spoken Demotic, but by that point it was getting close enough to early Coptic that it would've been less of a jump than Tomyris speaking Ossetic.

Perhaps they only sourced/worked with Middle Egyptian because they have another, earlier Egyptian leader coming down the DLC tube at some point...

If they do, I'd think that would be all the more reason to make Cleo speak Demotic or Coptic, to more clearly distinguish the two. Then again, maybe they wanted to save money on not hiring two linguists. (Of course, it would probably be pretty easy to find an Egyptologist familiar with both, and Cleo's melodramatic lines aren't exactly going to be appropriate for Ramesses or Hatshepsut--or even for fellow drama queen Akhenaten. )

I knew that there is an incredible amount of Sumerian (+ Akkadian ones, I think there is a chance he might speak Akkadian) texts around today, I didn't know there is someone who has the faintest clue about how to pronounce it. Thanks for the info that there is!
For Middle Egyptian, I've read how people try to reconstruct the pronunciation. It is heavily relying on coptic, if I remember right.
Because of my info that I had before your post, I figured Sumerian would be the tricky one.
If they go out of their way that much to give leaders authentic languages, I really hope they won't screw up Gilgamesh's look and portrait him as an Assyrian again.

I'd be surprised if Gilgamesh spoke Akkadian. It would be extremely anachronistic, Sumerian is almost as well attested, and the same techniques by which we reconstruct the phonology of Akkadian apply to Sumerian (actually, Sumerian is in some ways easier: Akkadian is written in Sumerian Cuneiform, which fits Sumerian's phonology much more neatly than Akkadian's). Which is to say, our understanding of both Akkadian and Sumerian pronunciation are indirect, incomplete, and in some cases controversial, but between the two there wouldn't really be any advantage in making Gilgamesh speak Akkadian, a rather minor language of northern Mesopotamia in Gilgamesh's day.

Yes, reconstructions of Egyptian's vowels rely heavily on Coptic--but also internal reconstruction of Proto-Afroasiatic and loan words in languages that do preserve vowels like Greek, Latin, and (Masoretic) Hebrew. Egyptian consonants are clear enough from their native script. Egyptian isn't the mystery it once was, but it's still not as clear or relatively uncontroversial as Sumerian and Akkadian.

Well, there is still one significant controversy surrounding Akkadian: the fact that it's no longer regarded as one language but now divided into Akkadian, Assyrian, and Babylonian. Eblaite may or may not be a dialect of Akkadian.

 

[Lord Lakely]

Hey, while their language choices for Cleo and Tomi are kind of questionable, at least they make sense unlike Attila and whatever monstruosities he commited to the Chuvash language. Small victories, right?

 

[Zaarin]

Hey, while their language choices for Cleo and Tomi are kind of questionable, at least they make sense unlike Attila and whatever monstruosities he commited to the Chuvash language. Small victories, right?

I'll do anything to never have to hear Ramesses' Arabic and Bouddica's Welsh again. Given the state of our knowledge of Scythian, I'm okay with Tomyris speaking Ossetian, and if Cleo's language must be anachronistic at least they went for a language older than the one she actually spoke.

 

[AliasMittens]

If they do, I'd think that would be all the more reason to make Cleo speak Demotic or Coptic, to more clearly distinguish the two. Then again, maybe they wanted to save money on not hiring two linguists. (Of course, it would probably be pretty easy to find an Egyptologist familiar with both, and Cleo's melodramatic lines aren't exactly going to be appropriate for Ramesses or Hatshepsut--or even for fellow drama queen Akhenaten. )

Not that Middle Egyptian would be entirely appropriate for those Late Egyptian-speaking pharaohs, either

Incidentally, I don't think they actually hired a linguist or Egyptologist... Cleo's grammar is pretty atrocious (even my direct translations are pretty cleaned up - she's using some wrong pronoun forms and not distinguishing between /n/ "to" and /n{y}/ "of"); it's like they read the introductory chapters of Gardiner and patched the sentences together with a dictionary... And she's using Late Egyptian possessive adjectives (in violation of syntactic rules), to boot.

Hey, while their language choices for Cleo and Tomi are kind of questionable, at least they make sense unlike Attila and whatever monstruosities he commited to the Chuvash language. Small victories, right?

Cleo's mangled Middle Egyptian is still leagues ahead of Arabic-speaking Ramesses II. I will never forgive them for that

And really, I'd say Ossetic is the perfect choice for Tomyris, given that the Scythian languages (yes, languages, plural) aren't well documented enough to be reconstructed reliably. Ossetic, as the last surviving descendant of that branch (unless you count Yaghnobi, but that's almost extinct and more closely associated with the Sogdians), is as good an approximation as we can get.

 

[nunor]

Not that Middle Egyptian would be entirely appropriate for those Late Egyptian-speaking pharaohs, either [emoji38]

Incidentally, I don't think they actually hired a linguist or Egyptologist... Cleo's grammar is pretty atrocious (even my direct translations are pretty cleaned up - she's using some wrong pronoun forms and not distinguishing between /n/ "to" and /n{y}/ "of"); it's like they read the introductory chapters of Gardiner and patched the sentences together with a dictionary... And she's using Late Egyptian possessive adjectives (in violation of syntactic rules), to boot.

Send them a message offering your services. Who knows, you might even be the voice of a new future leader for Egypt...

 

[greatagain]

I doubt Cleo would speak Egyptian..
Maybe Egyptian Arabic like Ramses II or Coptic?

 

[Morningcalm]

I doubt Cleo would speak Egyptian..
Maybe Egyptian Arabic like Ramses II or Coptic?

She speaks a broken form of Middle Egyptian. I guess they couldn't find a Coptic speaker.

 

[Zaarin]

She speaks a broken form of Middle Egyptian. I guess they couldn't find a Coptic speaker.

It's a shame that there are no Copts in America.

 

[Morningcalm]

It's a shame that there are no Copts in America.

Indeed, alas. I guess the good news is the Cleopatra voice actor has some acting in her. I think given how little I understand of Middle Egyptian I'm ok with good voice acting and a mangled ancient language. (I was also ok with Attila since his voice acting was *really* good, and he actually sounded angry when you declared war on him, not just mildly put off and defiant).

But for languages I know, hmmm....

Looks like AliasMittens updated his Egyptian post. Updated parent post with details.

 

[cools0812]

I have to admit that Qin Shi Huang cant have a better VA than this. His modern Madarin was pronounced fluently and accurately, and it really fit in with the character of him - a mighty emperor and conqueror. Even though Chinese wasnt pronounced that way during Qin dynasty (they spoke Old Chinese then, which was completely different from modern madarin - a northen accent influenced by the manchu language during 17th century), it's still OK because using a dead and extremely complicated pronunciation in acting is hardly doable.

But the dialogue writing seems very amateurish to me, showing that the writer's knowledge on Qin Shi Huang and imperial Chinese history is very limited. All dialogues are written in Literary Chinese, a classical style of written Chinese used from 5th century BCE to 1920s, so technically it fits in with Qin Shi Huang's era. It's only "technically"; because Literary Chinese is a constantly evolving literary language throughout its entire 2500 years history. An experienced reader can easily tell the differences of grammar and vocabulary between the 5th century BCE Analects and the 18th century History of Ming, both typical Literary Chinese texts. And although Qin Shi Huang's Literary Chinese is quite readable, it doesnt appear to be from 3th century BCE. Let's examine one of these sayings:

Greeting:
今汝之來也，岂欲观秦国山川之圣？ 寡人乃秦之主也。
Jīn rǔ zhī lái yě, qǐ yù guàn qín guó shān chuān zhī shèng? Guǎ rén nǎi qín zhī zhǔ yě
You've come today.Is it possible that you want to view the scenery of mountains and rivers in the State of Qin? I am the ruler of Qin.

I'd like to direct your attention to these two words: "秦国"(qín guó, State of Qin) and "寡人"
(guǎ rén, I).

When Qin dynasty was mentioned in the literature of its era, it is usually "秦"(Qin) alone without“国”(state), because “秦国” means specifically the State of Qin, a vassal kingdom of Zhou dynasty, major player in the Warring States period eventually became the Qin dynasty through conquering other states. Qin Shi Huang is famous for this unification under his reign, thus he created the title of Qin Shi Huang (秦始皇, First Emperor of Qin) as the first emperor of a centralized Chinese empire. Before the unification, his title was Qin Wang Zheng (秦王政, King Zheng of Qin).

So, Qin Shi Huang referring to his civilization as “State of Qin” is really inconsistent with the fact that he is called Qin Shi Huang and he is the sole ruler of a unified Chinese empire in the game.

Now let's check the word "寡人". When translated into English, it's "me" or "I" and lost a great amount of information it conveys. There're many ways to say "I" in Literary Chinese, most are related to the social status of speaker, "寡人" is one of them, used by vassal kings of Imperial China, warlords in later ages, and sometimes emperors themselves. So if this word was said by any other Chinese emperors, it's fine. But anyone familiar with Qin Shi Huang would know his contribution to the first-person singular pronouns of Literary Chinese, that he made the word "朕" (zhèn) the formal first-person pronoun of emperors themselves and no one else, shortly after the unification.

Before Qin dynasty, "朕" can be used by anyone regardless of one's status, but after Qin Wang Zheng became Qin Shi Huang, and during the 2000 years of imperial Chinese history, people can be beheaded for using that word. According to The Records, Qin Shi Huang used “朕” for 9 years, from 221BCE to 212BCE, then he changed to "真人"(zhēn rén, a term very closely related to Taoism) due to his obsession in seeking immortality, briefly before his death in 210BCE.

So once again, Qin Shi Huang would only say “寡人” BEFORE he becomes Qin Shi Huang, but in this game what we got is Qin Shi Huang and we are playing China, instead of one of its warring states. It simply doesnt add up.

Well, so much for nitpicking, I'll translate the rest of his lines in detail.

Declaring war:
敢犯天威， 寡人将发大军，毁汝宗庙，灭尔人民，誓无遏抑！
gǎn fàn tiān wēi, guǎ rén jiāng fā dà jūn, huǐ rǔ zōng miào, miè ěr rén mín, shì wú jié(è) yì ！
How dare you enrage the heaven's might! I will send a great army, desecrate your ancestral shrines, eliminate your people. I swear I won't restrain them!

Actually the last phrase seems very confusing, with this pronunciation I came up with lots of phrases but none of them fit. Now I believe that “jié” is a mispronunciation of "遏" (è). The VA might mistook it for a similar character “揭”(jié). And I just said that the VA spoke madarin accurately....

Agenda-based Disapproval:
汝观寡人，疆域之广，文武之盛，而贵国何有乎？
rǔ guàn guǎ rén, jiāng yù zhī guǎng, wén wǔ zhī shèng, ér guì guó hé yǒu hū ？
You look at me, (you see) how vast my empire sprawls, how thriving we are both culturally and militarily. And what does your empire have?

BTW, if you come across any other Qin Shi Huang's line, you can give it to me for translation, and nitpicking.

 

[Guandao]

I wonder what Harald Hardrada will speak. Modern Norwegian or something more archaic?