I'm looking at Lady Six Sky's intro line, and I think she's speaking Classical Mayan. I'm finding a lot of the words she speaks in this glyph dictionary, though not enough to fully make sense of what she's saying (plus I can't make sense of how Mayan grammar works)
Language translations for leader sayings
- Thread starter Morningcalm
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I'm almost positive she's speaking K'iche' (or, well, trying to...), which is directly descended from Classical Mayan and is therefore similar. The Mayan languages are on the extreme end of polysynthetic languages (comparable to Iroquoian languages or Tlingit) so the grammar is definitely challenging.
I’ve read (in “The Maya” by Michael Coe) that the closest extant language to the majority of the classical inscriptions is Ch’orti’ Maya
You should also keep in mind that the voice actress is not a native speaker. In fact most probably she doesn't know a word of Maya and I really doubt that anybody even helped her with pronunciation.
Or Ch'olti', yes. However, there was another classical language, Classical K'iche', which was the language of the Popol Vuh, for instance. As Red Khan says, her pronunciation is very bad, but I'm still inclined to think she's (badly) speaking K'iche' (which makes it that much more frustrating they chose a non-native speaker when it should not have been difficult for them to find a native speaker).
Any particular reason why K’iche over reconstructed Classical or Ch’orti? Personally I’m inclined to believe they’d have either gone Ch’orti or reconstructed Classical, and I’m leaning towards the latter since I can make some sense of it (which I probably wouldn’t be able to if it weren’t classical, the the languages have changed a lot, and the branches are very much not mutually intelligible as I understand it).
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I admit it's an assumption, but it's based on the fact that, as near as I can tell, Ki'iche' would have been the language of Naranjo and that it has a healthy population of modern speakers with media experience (whom Firaxis's sub-contractors clearly did not reach out to). If she is speaking Ch'orti, then maybe some instances of [ b ] in her dialogue aren't simply the failure of the voice actress to pronounce /ɓ/, however...
Personally I suspect its reconstructed Classical, since that might explain why we didn't get a native speaker (because there are no native speakers), and why no one has been able to attempt a translation (you'd probably need a degree to really make sense of it).
If it were mangled K'iche we'd probably get at least one native speaker who managed to make some sense of it (like we got Attila's lines in Civ 5, it was badly mangled Chuvash); but if it's mangled (or possibly even correctly pronounced) Classical or Ch'orti then a K'iche native probably has no chance.
If it were mangled K'iche we'd probably get at least one native speaker who managed to make some sense of it (like we got Attila's lines in Civ 5, it was badly mangled Chuvash); but if it's mangled (or possibly even correctly pronounced) Classical or Ch'orti then a K'iche native probably has no chance.
Whatever the language, it's not correctly pronounced: no ejectives and no /ɓ/. But you may well be correct that it's Classical, though again there are plenty of Ch'orti' speakers (30,000 according to Wikipedia) so they should have been able to find someone who could approximate it.
They usually try to get somebody who speaks a closely related language. Suleiman's voice actor is a Turk (that's not a big stretch but still), all the leaders speaking Ancient Greek are voiced by Greeks, Cyrus's Middle Persian is voiced by Dari speaker, Barbarossa's Middle High German by a speaker of Hochdeutsch, Harald Hardrada's Old Norse by an Icelander etc. And even Dido is voiced by a speaker of another Semitic Canaanite language - Hebrew. Also, Cleopatra is voiced by an Egyptian and Ambiorix by a Frenchman most probably because whoever did the casting thought (especially in the latter case) that their pronunciation will pass as substratum.
The only leader that I can think of (apart from Lady Six Sky and Montezuma) whose voice actor probably doesn't have anything to do with the language he voiced is Gilgamesh.
For this you need a native speaker who is interested enough either in Civ (or games in general) or linguistics, preferebly both. In case of Attila it took more than one person - me (not a native speaker, but interested in Civ) and a couple of others, who were native speakers interested in linguistics, but not in games and who were kind enough not to give up despite all my pestering.
And sometimes this combination simply cannot be found - for example we are even not 100% sure what language Mvemba a Nzinga speaks. And what surprises me most - Shaka's Zulu is still not transcribed and translated.
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Somebody did it in Wikia - https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Menelik_II_(Civ6)#Voiced
Added Romanization from Google Translate and also checked the translation, seem to be legit.
The only problem - isn't the "Attacked" and "Declares war" mixed up? The line that contains "The Lion of Judah"/Yeyihuda ānibesa/የይሁዳ አንበሳ" is named as it is when he declares war on player in my playlist on SoundCloud and as when DoWed in Wikia.
I don't have the game installed at the moment and really don't want to download and install it just to check one file. Can somebody clear it up, please?
Guandao
Rajah of Minyue, Hlai and Langkasuka
It doesn't surprise me the Zulu in Civ6 hasn't been translated. It was the same case in Civ 5 (I partially translated those using a Zulu dictionary). And the Civ 4 unit dialogue. No Zulu language speaker has clearly heard of these games.....
Still fuming over Mansa Musa just speaking Arabic (We got Askia speaking Zarma in Civ5, and this feels like a down-grade).....
Especially if Morocco is added later......
Maybe we'll get rewarded with a Moroccan leader speaking Amazigh?
WitchyStella
Chieftain
- Joined
- May 19, 2020
- Messages
- 7
I believe I've finally figured out Barbarossa's final line, which translates to "may your empire be free of hate, and of fighting." (something like "sie üer rich frii des hasses, und des striites.")
Thanks!
Can you also have a look at the Civilopedia quote, please? https://soundcloud.com/user-1372837...b?in=user-137283764/sets/frederick-barbarossa
It seems like "Deutsche Gewalt lebt ewiglich" but my German is not that good.
WitchyStella
Chieftain
- Joined
- May 19, 2020
- Messages
- 7
that's correct, yes!
Also, if you want a modern German equivalent of what he's saying, it would be "Sei Euer Reich frei des Hasses, und des Streites."
A bit of a drama queen about it, though.
Guandao
Rajah of Minyue, Hlai and Langkasuka
Here you go.@Red Khan I would greatly appreciate it if you upload Hammurabi's dialogue onto Soundcloud when you have the time.
https://soundcloud.com/user-137283764/sets/hammurabi
I wonder if @usuluh who contributed Gilgamesh's Akkadian lines will come back and help us out (also send him a PM, hope he gets a notification).
