Language translations for leader sayings

Ironically, a professional voice actor with a vocal coach probably is the next best thing to a native speaker; having a scholarly knowledge of a language is not necessarily the same thing as knowing how to speak it (e.g., if you listen to recordings of Tolkien talking about Old English, he was one of the foremost scholars of Old English in the 20th century but his pronunciation was...not great). It is interesting that both Gilgamesh and Hammurabi are voiced by Latino actors, but I have to say that Jose Daniel Martinez Robles (Hammurabi) did a magnificent job (I mean, Gilgabro's delivery is great--his pronunciation, not so much). I've tried doing some searching, but I haven't been able to find any background on Robles or why he has such a great command of Akkadian. (In a pinch, I'd probably be looking for a Georgian actor to play Akkadian speakers--Georgian has most of the right sounds and is probably one of the more widely-spoken languages with ejectives.)
I guess so. But some of the voice actors in Civ5 were scholars and they did just fine (ex: Kamehameha, Emil Khordoc as Augustus). Since Ashurbanipal's voice actor has the Hispanic surname Calderon, I suspect he was Mexican. And maybe Nebuchadnezzar too, though sadly he was never credited (along with the rest of the DLC leaders). I wish the voice actors for the new Civ6 leaders got credited too......:(
It seems like Nader Shah has the same voice actor as Cyrus.
 
Snowgigas kindly uploaded videos with all the voicelines from the new leaders.

(According of comments, Yongle speaks beautiful Mandarin Chinese).

There is also a video with the new Qin Shi Huang, but we already know his lines from the old one, so I won't link it.
 
I just happened to come across this piece of crap.
This is so stupid to number of degrees
 
This is so stupid to number of degrees
Welcome to the Steam Community, the one place on the internet that might be worse than Twitter and TikTok. :p It is interesting, though, that this person thinks that languages did not exist until they were written...or that languages cannot be written in multiple scripts (e.g., hanja is Korean written in Chinese characters, not Chinese)...or that Koreans appeared out of the aether when Sejong commissioned hangul. Does someone want to tell them that hangul was suppressed until the late 19th century for fear of the repercussions if peasants learned to read? :mischief:
 
Actually I was wondering this too, why translators are not present during the recording, this would eliminate a lot of mistakes and misreadings. Or at least make the VA and the translator to read through the text together. By this some simple misreading mistakes can be avoided (for example Trajan's "Lovis" instead of "iovis", Saladin's عُدَّة instead of عِدَّة).

@Red Khan Can you upload the new leaders (Julius Caesar, Nzinga Mbande, Abe Lincoln, Tokugawa, Nader Shah) lines onto Soundcloud whenever you have time? I would greatly appreciate it! :)
Been kind of busy lately, but I'll try to do it in the nearest future.
 
Actually I was wondering this too, why translators are not present during the recording, this would eliminate a lot of mistakes and misreadings. Or at least make the VA and the translator to read through the text together. By this some simple misreading mistakes can be avoided (for example Trajan's "Lovis" instead of "iovis", Saladin's عُدَّة instead of عِدَّة).


Been kind of busy lately, but I'll try to do it in the nearest future.
That's a big shame about the poor Latin for Julius Caesar. Did Firaxis used one of their interns to write the dialogue? Might as well hire this youtuber for writing the Latin dialogue in Civ7.
We see this problem for some of the other leaders as well. Lady Six Sky, Gilgamesh, Ambiorix sounding too French, etc
I can only hope Firaxis and whoever they hire to do the recordings improve for the next game. At least do accurate Classical Latin dialogue. Let the translator/or fluent language speaker coach the voice actor on pronunciation.

Please take your time. At least I can listen to the leader dialogue on the Civilization Wiki now. :D
 
Also I spotted on Reddit that AliasMittens (who translated some of Cleopatra's dialogue) is also present there and he provided a transliteration/translation for Ramses II's Greeting. I'm gonna have to search for that oneday.
 
Might as well hire this youtuber for writing the Latin dialogue in Civ7.
I was thinking that they would hire him to do Caesar dialogue, but alas. In the video he actually says that he is open for cooperation, so let's hope Firaxis contact him.
Lady Six Sky, Gilgamesh, Ambiorix sounding too French, etc
I think Ambiorix sounding French is intentional, because of substratum.
Also I spotted on Reddit that AliasMittens (who translated some of Cleopatra's dialogue) is also present there and he provided a transliteration/translation for Ramses II's Greeting.
Do you have a link?
 
My knowledge of German is basic, but this sounds to me like Hochdeutsch, not Bairisch.
I am fairly confident it's standard German. I can understand him rather well - I believe he says: "Ich bin Ludwig von Bayern, König dieser Lande. Der Schwanenritters alte Sage lebt in mir erneut."

I'd translate that as "I am Ludwig of Bavaria, king of these lands. The old legend of the Swan Knight lives in me anew." The official translation is close enough to that.

Whether he speaks with a Bavarian accent or not though, that I can't tell - I am not a native speaker to have ear for such nuances.
 
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That's a big shame about the poor Latin for Julius Caesar. Did Firaxis used one of their interns to write the dialogue? Might as well hire this youtuber for writing the Latin dialogue in Civ7.
I was thinking that they would hire him to do Caesar dialogue, but alas. In the video he actually says that he is open for cooperation, so let's hope Firaxis contact him.
I'm pretty sure it's @Andrew Johnson [FXS] that wrote the dialogue for him, if not all the leaders, at least translated into English?
 
I am fairly confident it's standard German. I can understand him rather well - I believe he says: "Ich bin Ludwig von Bayern, König dieser Lande. Der Schwanenritters alte Sage lebt in mir erneut."

I'd translate that as "I am Ludwig of Bavaria, king of these lands. The old legend of the Swan Knight lives in me anew." The official translation is close enough to that.

Whether he speaks with a Bavarian accent or not though, that I can't tell - I am not a native speaker to have ear for such nuances.
Im native german, so I can help out a bit. The only thing you have incorrect is "Der Schwanenritters", I think he says "Des Schwanenritters" which makes a lot more sense grammatically, though im not 100% sure, its kinda tough to understand and maybe it was correct 200 years ago? But to todays standard, I would say it that way. Your translation is spot on, nothing to add there, and Im not a complete dialect expert, but to me it sounds like a bavarian trying to speak "normal" german, because everything sounds "normal" except the word "Sage" (meaning something like Saga / Legend) which is pronounced a bit different. About the difference between what is spoken and what the subtitles say: In the end, they have the same meaning, but the word "embodiment" ("Verkörperung") doesnt exist in the voice lines, though it would work well and give it a nice, epic-sounding tone to say that you embody something rather than saying that something lives in you. Another difference is that the voice lines are split into 2 sentences and the on screen translation fused them together, which works well with the addition of "embodiment", because he says "I am [...] King of ... and embodiment of..." .

Here are some comments about this video:

-His voice acting is SUPER exaggerated, I dont know if there is something about Ludwig that I dont know, but for me it is far from a way somebody would naturally speak (bavarians could be seen as """weird""" speakers maybe, but what Im talking about isnt related to the dialect) and I actually laughed the first time I heared it because its lowkey funny (its a bit difficult to explain what i mean by "exaggerated", but it sounds like he is stuck in a movie and thinks he is the main character in everything there is, maybe intentionally to (strongly) portray a self loving character? Maybe some history experts can pick up on that one)
-> This also makes it tough to differentiate between exaggerated voice acting and a dialect, "Lande" and "alte", simmilar to "Sage", (maybe?) have a slight bavarian tone to it, there might be even more indicators for any form of a dialect, but since im not bavarian or a dialect expert and its difficult to tell apart, I cant help out more on that one

-I would phrase the last thing he says a bit different, he says "Des Schwanenritters alte Sage lebt in mir erneut", but I would put "erneut" before "in mir", both are perfectly fine, neither are wrong, I dont know if on microscopic level what he says is right / better, but in every day talk I would say it the other way around, specially when you want to sound epic, you make a cool statement, talk about how cool you are, and then "anew" is your last word, kinda weird isnt it, "in me" would be an """impressive""" way to end your sentence [Paying closer attention to this makes me think that why does something live in you "anew"? Wouldnt that imply that it lived in you before, died inside you, and now lives in you "again"? Or am I just interpreting that wrong?]

-Some germans pronounce "g" like a "ch" (not like "k" or "tsh" but a sound somewhat close to a "sh", I cant find an english word that contains that sound right now, the very first words he says ["ich"] has that sound), so "Könich" and "Ludwich" (still written as "König" and "Ludwig", just pronounced differently), but this voice actor doesnt, which I believe aligns with a bavarian trying to speak high german style of speaking (I think neither bavarian or high german exchange the "g" for "ch" [maybe im completely wrong and this "g" and "ch" stuff isnt related to dialects but to something else])

-This dude seem to like swans quite much, there are enough sources in english (even for the legend of the swan knight), maybe my history knowledge is bad or this whole swan stuff isnt really that big of a deal, he is in direct connection to the "Schloss Neuschwanstein" ("Castle Newswanstone" for those who want a literal translation on that), famous historic building, which is depicted in the background (and apprently in the background of Frederick as well), and he seems to have built quite a lot of castles ("a lot" needing a relation, anything over 1 castle built would be a lot for me, my quick research told me he was involved in building / planning / demanding / commanding / whatever word fits of at least 3 (bigger / well known / ...) castles, but he apparently built / planned / ... more, earning him the title of "Märchenkönig" ["Fairy tale-King"), and many times, the first thing you read about him is that he built castles, might be a hint to his leader ability, but, among other artists / cultural projects, he seems to have funded famous musician Richard Wagner, so being known for building castles and funding artists sounds like a cultural victory type of leader?

Maybe I will come back when the full voice lines are published and nobody else has translated that, and one last note: The difference between the literal translation of what was being said and the on screen translation is a thing I have realized when trying to translate german, many times I will translate a sentence, look at it and try to give a better / epic / cooler sounding tone to it, not refering to translating word for word and making grammar work, but having a fully functional english sentence and tuning it a bit without changing the meaning.

[If I am wrong on anything or missed out on key parts, feel free to correct me, I dont know a lot about Ludwig (in fact, everything I wrote about him is a result of a quick research) and though I am interested in languages I am not a professional]
 
-His voice acting is SUPER exaggerated, I dont know if there is something about Ludwig that I dont know, but for me it is far from a way somebody would naturally speak (bavarians could be seen as """weird""" speakers maybe, but what Im talking about isnt related to the dialect) and I actually laughed the first time I heared it because its lowkey funny (its a bit difficult to explain what i mean by "exaggerated", but it sounds like he is stuck in a movie and thinks he is the main character in everything there is, maybe intentionally to (strongly) portray a self loving character? Maybe some history experts can pick up on that one)
-> This also makes it tough to differentiate between exaggerated voice acting and a dialect, "Lande" and "alte", simmilar to "Sage", (maybe?) have a slight bavarian tone to it, there might be even more indicators for any form of a dialect, but since im not bavarian or a dialect expert and its difficult to tell apart, I cant help out more on that one

[...]

[If I am wrong on anything or missed out on key parts, feel free to correct me, I dont know a lot about Ludwig (in fact, everything I wrote about him is a result of a quick research) and though I am interested in languages I am not a professional]

Yeah, where I live we call that TV or "adult movie" German. I don't know why, but Germans on TV always sound so fake and not at all like their real life counterparts.

As for the language expertise, I'm thinking about asking one of my friends to have a listen. She has a master in German linguistics (and is a native), but I don't know if she has time for these kind of shenanigans.
 
-His voice acting is SUPER exaggerated, I dont know if there is something about Ludwig that I dont know, but for me it is far from a way somebody would naturally speak (bavarians could be seen as """weird""" speakers maybe, but what Im talking about isnt related to the dialect) and I actually laughed the first time I heared it because its lowkey funny (its a bit difficult to explain what i mean by "exaggerated", but it sounds like he is stuck in a movie and thinks he is the main character in everything there is, maybe intentionally to (strongly) portray a self loving character? Maybe some history experts can pick up on that one)
As far as I can tell from my last visit to Munich (and Neuschwanstein, btw) this could be spot on with Ludwig’s character, as he was very nostalgic of the King-Hero / King-Saint figures of old, believing (or wanting to believe or embody) the idea royalty were “chosen” bloodlines. (And even feeling depressed modern times did not see that idea as fact).
The swang knight he mentions is probably tied to some legend in Swan Valley (Schwanegau), were Neuschwanstein is bult, and also other castles of bavarian royal family, and were he spent long periods at childhood.
 

Like I said in the other thread better than last time he was in civ.

I like how he refers himself as "과인" (gwain) as that is formal way for a king to refer himself in Korea.

Overall as Korean-New Zealander I have no problem with his introduction...
Although... what the hell is he talking about in division?
 
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