Unit speech in all languages: does someone have the transcripts?

[Ray Patterson]

I don't speak most of the languages the units speak. After some time that gets irritating: hearing my Mongol units say the same thing over and over, I wonder what they're actually saying. So does someone have the actual transcripts/translations? If not, I propose to make them in this post. Wonder if we'll find anyone who speaks Sumerian, but hey, we can try, right?

As a model first the English:

Activation:

Englandselect000 Reporting for duty
Englandselect001 At your service
Englandselect002 Tell me what to do
Englandselect003 Awaiting your orders
Englandselect004 Ready for action
Englandselect005 What's the plan?
Englandselect006 Yes
Englandselect007 Your orders
Englandselect008 What do you need?
Englandselect009 All present and accounted for

Carrying out orders:
EnglandOrder000 As you wish
EnglandOrder001 Move out
EnglandOrder002 Certainly
EnglandOrder003 We're on it
EnglandOrder004 No problem
EnglandOrder005 Consider it done
EnglandOrder006 Very well
EnglandOrder007 On our way
EnglandOrder008 Let's get moving
EnglandOrder009 You can count on us


So... turns out for the English there's 10 of each! (at least) Seems to me most of the ancient languages don't have so many. And who are speaking an ancient language anyway? Are the Egyptians speaking ancient Egyptian or Arabic? The Persians and Greeks modern or ancient Greek and Farsi? Edit: yes there are! Every civ has 10 of each.

Status of the postings below so you know what you can contribute:

China: non-native speaker (Jerrymander)
Germany: native speaker (Psyringe)
Greece: non-native speaker (George547)
Holy Roman Empire (Middle Low German?): non-native speaker (Ray Patterson)
Korea: non-native speaker (Supervisor84)
Netherlands: native speaker (Ray Patterson)
Rome (Latin): non-native speaker (Ray Patterson)
Spain: non-native speaker (j0anne)

Thanks for all who contributed so far! At some point it should all be collected into one file, but not now and not here. For now, let's keep them coming! And in particular if you're a native speaker of the languages the non-natives transcribed, please give your feedback!

 

[Psyringe]

There have been numerous threads and posts about the subject, some listed the utterances in their language, like in this post. A forum search might yield some treasure. I'm not sure whether anybody every managed to collect all those posts into one resource; if it exists, I'd be interested in it.

Most units say the same things as the English units, just in their respective languages.

The Egyptians are speaking Arabic (the pronunciation of ancient Egyptic has been lost).

 

[Ray Patterson]

Thanks. I figured out thanks to that French post and some of the others that most languages indeed have the exact same phrases, sometimes adapted a little (the Dutch don't say "reporting for duty" but "this soldier reports himself").

So listing those might be excessive. But what of those who have less phrases?

 

[joanne]

Yeah it would be totally cool to have transliterations & translations for all the units' utterances and pretend to be able to speak more than 30 languages at once I'm really interested in what the Dutch are saying; some of them sound very similar to English owing to their relation obviously but most of them make units sound like they're snoring

 

[Ray Patterson]

Alright, I'll give you the Dutch texts:

Activation:
1 "Iedereen aanwezig" - "everyone present"
2 "Tot uw dienst" - "to your service"
3 "Ik wacht op uw orders" - I wait for your orders
4 "Klaar voor actie" - same
5 "Deze militaire meldt zich" - "this soldier reports himself"
6 not found
7 "Wat heeft u nodig?" - same
8 "Wat is het plan?" - same
9 "Ja" - same
10 "Uw commando" - your command

instead of 6 there is "wat moet er gebeuren?" which means "what should happen?"

Carrying out orders:

1 "Zoals u wilt" - same
2 "Zeker" - same
3 "Komt voor elkaar" - idiomatic, lit "comes for each other"
4 "Wegwezen" - lit "being away"
5 "We gaan" - "we go"
6 "Geen probleem" - same
7 "Vooruit, op pad" - "Forwards, on the way"
8 "Heel goed" - same
9 "We zitten er bovenop" - "We're sitting on it" (more informal than the English version)
10 "U kunt op ons rekenen" - same, though lit "you can calculate on us"

 

[Psyringe]

Hey, thanks! I'm just playing a massive game as Willem, and I kept wondering all the time what the units were saying. I can't speak Dutch, but my native language is German, so I could guess the meaning of some utterances ("Zoals u wilt", "Geen probleem"). But I utterly failed at others - "U kunt op ons rekenen" sounded to me like "It could just be raining" ("Es könnte bloß regnen" in German)

I could provide the German texts in case someone's interested, though I'm pretty sure that they must be hidden somewhere in these forums already.

 

[joanne]

@Ray Patterson

Thanks, I think its the "-ig" part of #s 1 & 7 under activations that sound like snoring/pig grunting(no offense to dutch civfanatics)

@Psyringe

Yes please go ahead - then Ray could edit all contributions into the OP for thread winnage well, maybe not all of them; I don't know where anyone could get the ancient mesopotamian & carthaginian ones

 

[Ray Patterson]

@Ray Patterson

Thanks, I think its the "-ig" part of #s 1 & 7 under activations that sound like snoring/pig grunting(no offense to dutch civfanatics)

none taken. As has been remarked more often: "Dutch isn't a language, it's a throat disease".

 

[Ischenous]

I was under the the impression that they were all the same just in different languages, obviously acounting the translation differences. I'm probably very wrong though.

 

[Psyringe]

Okay, due to popular demand of a single lady ... :

Activation:
0 - "Melde mich zum Dienst!" - ("Reporting for duty")
1 - "Stehe zu Diensten!" - ("At your service")
2 - "Sagen Sie mir, was ich zu tun habe!" - ("Tell me what I have to do!") - The pause on the comma is slightly odd, a native speaker probably wouldn't make it.
3 - "Erwarte Ihre Befehle!" - ("Awaiting your orders!")
4 - "Zur Aktion bereit!" - ("Ready for action!") - Note: The sentence is grammatically correct and will be understood by every German, but no German would actually say this. We'd simply say "Bereit!" ("Ready!"). "Aktion" is a very abstract word and isn't a good translation for the more hands-on "action" either. Actually, the word "action" (as in "action movie") itself has migrated into the spoken German language since our "Aktion" doesn't really capture it. A younger German might say "Bereit für die action", though it would be regarded as very colloquial, and still a bad fit for the English sentence.
5 - "Haben Sie einen Plan?" - ("Do you have a plan?") - This would actually come across more offensive as the original "What's the Plan?", as in "Do you you really have a plan?" or "Do you have a plan at all?". Îf you're giving orders, then you're supposed to have a plan, so asking whether you actually do isn't very polite. A better translation would have been "Was ist der Plan?" or "Wie ist Ihr Plan?", which is also closer to the original English sentence.
6 - "Jawohl!" - ("Yes") - Actually a special and now antiquated form of "Yes", it might still be in use in the military. A normal "Yes" would simply be "Ja".
7 - "Ihre Befehle?" - ("Your orders?")
8 - "Was benötigen Sie?" - ("What do you need?")
9 - "Alle vollzählig! Zur Stelle!" - ("All accounted for! Present!") - Odd long pause between the two segments, usually the sentence would be said without the pause, and with the "vollzählig" as an adverb to specify the "zur Stelle".

Carrying out orders:
0 - "Wie Sie befehlen!" - ("As you order!")
1 - "Rücken Sie aus!" - ("Move out!") - Only military and similar organizations will use that phrase, but it fits very well.
2 - "Natürlich!" - ("Of course!")
3 - "Wir sind dabei!" - ("We are part of it!") - actually meant to be "we're on it", but the pronunciation slightly shifts it to "We are part of it", or (figuratively) "We agree / We will join". Bit hard to pinpoint that one. A better translation might have been "Wir sind schon dabei" ("We're on it already!"), but that might sound a bit offended ("We're on it already, so why do you order us again?!". Additional note: The speaker exhibits a noticeable South German accent here. The second word ("sind") would usually start with a soft "z" sound, but he pronounces it with a hard "s". That's a pretty distinctive characteristic of South German accents like Bavarian.
4 - "Kein Problem!" - ("No problem!")
5 - "Es ist so gut wie gemacht!" - ("It is as good as done!") - antiquated, but will be understood. Again a South German accent showing through on the third word.
6 - "Okay!" - ("Okay!") - Not really a German word by origin, but very common in everyday language by now. "In Ordnung" (an agreeing "It's in order!") would have worked as an actual "German" translation, but it already starts to sound antiquated in everyday language.
7 - "Es geht los!" - ("It starts!") - Much more common in German than it sounds in English. "Jetzt geht's los!" ("Now it starts!") is an extremely common chant among football fans (or similar) when a wait is over or when the action intensifies.
8 - "Auf geht's!" - ("Let's get moving") - The German version is idiomatic and the words are totally different from the English phrase, but the meaning of the phrase fits very well.
9 - "Sie können sich auf uns verlassen!" - ("You can count on us!")

Note: I took the numbering directly from the sound files. This led to a different numbering than in Ray's posts, I'm not sure why.

 

[Ray Patterson]

Note: I took the numbering directly from the sound files. This led to a different numbering than in Ray's posts, I'm not sure why.

The explanation is simple: I'm an idiot.
Didn't even look in the files yet, just got the samples in-game. Ergh. I'll try to see what numbers they have later. Tomorrow maybe.

 

[joanne]

Thanks Psyringe! I think those have indeed been posted in the forums somewhere, but your descriptions are very nice Unfortunately I don't know much of the in-game languages besides english, but I'll see what I can contribute tommorow

 

[george547]

The Greeks (Alexander and Pericles) their units do speak modern Greek. Byzantines, not so much.

note 1: any time I type a "y" in a pronounciation, it is pronounced as the "y" in the english word "yes."
note 2: I have noticed that several of these Greek sayings mean the same in Greek as the English sayings of the same number. some also match the German sayings posted before these.
note 3: my Greek is decent but not perfect and I am sure I have made some spelling errors in my Greek. I have also left out the accents and such because... that is how poor my Greek writing is!

GreeceSelect-000: διαταξτε (pronounced "diatakste," means "order [us, or me]")
GreeceSelect-001: στις διαταγες σας (pronounced "stis diatayes sas," means "at your service" or literally "at your orders")
GreeceSelect-002: πιτε μου τι να κανω (pronounced "pite mou ti na kano," means "tell me what to do")
GreeceSelect-003: περιμενω οδηγιες (pronounced "perimeno odiyee-es," means "i'm waiting for orders")
GreeceSelect-004: I hear it as ετοιμοι για βραση (pronounced "etimi yia vrasi," means "ready for action" like other languages but it literally means "ready for boiling")
GreeceSelect-005: ποιο ειναι το σχεδιο (pronounced "pio eine to shedio," means "what is the plan." for anyone actually pronouncing these, "shedio" is not pronounced with a "sh" sound, Greek doesn't really have sh sounds. the s and the h are pronounced separately.)
GreeceSelect-006: ναι; (the ";" signifies it is being asked, as a question. pronounced "neh," literally means "yes?" interestingly, "neh" is less formal than greek "oriste" which also means "yes?")
GreeceSelect-007: τι διαταζετε (pronounced "ti diatazete," literally means "what are you ordering," but you wouldn't hear it being used in a restaraunt. these kinds of orders are διαταγες, not restaraunt orders. so it roughly translates to "your orders?" like the other languages)
GreeceSelect-008: τι χρειαζεστε (pronounced "ti hriazeste," literally means "what do you need")
GreeceSelect-009: ολοι παρων τας και ετοιμοι (pronounced "oli paron tas ke etimi," means "all present and ready")

GreeceOrder-000: Οπως διαταξτε (pronounced "opos diatakste," means "however you order")
GreeceOrder-001: φυγε (pronounced "fiye," means "go" or literally "leave")
GreeceOrder-002: βεβαιως (pronounced "veveos," means "of course")
GreeceOrder-003: αφηστε το πανω 'μας (pronounced "afiste to pano mas," literally means "leave it on top of us," means "leave it to us")
GreeceOrder-004: κανενα προβλημα (pronounced "kanena provlima," means "no problem")
GreeceOrder-005: πιτε οτι εγινε (pronounced "piteh oti eyineh," means "say [to others] that it has been done")
GreeceOrder-006: πολυ καλα (pronounced "poli kala," means "very good")
GreeceOrder-007: φυγαμε (pronounced "figame," means literally "we left" or "we're gone")
GreeceOrder-008: ας ξεκυνησουμε (pronounced "ahs ksekinisoume," means "let's get going")
GreeceOrder-009: (sadly, I can't really hear what is said, he speaks too fast)

 

[Jastrow]

3 - "Wir sind dabei!" - ("We are part of it!") - actually meant to be "we're on it", but the pronunciation slightly shifts it to "We are part of it", or (figuratively) "We agree / We will join". Bit hard to pinpoint that one. A better translation might have been "Wir sind schon dabei" ("We're on it already!"), but that might sound a bit offended ("We're on it already, so why do you order us again?!". Additional note: The speaker exhibits a noticeable South German accent here. The second word ("sind") would usually start with a soft "z" sound, but he pronounces it with a hard "s". That's a pretty distinctive characteristic of South German accents like Bavarian.

Actually, in Bavaria, I hear 'Wir sind dabei!' and 'Wir sind schon dabei' used in responce to orders (In buisiness, not the millitary) pretty much interchangeably, and both are considered perfectly fine. No offence is taken. Maybe it is just part of the local dialect.

8 - "Auf geht's!" - ("Let's get moving") - The German version is idiomatic and the words are totally different from the English phrase, but the meaning of the phrase fits very well.

Might "Let's Go" be a more accurate translation in this case and contect?

 

[CHEESE!]

This is when I wish I spoke a different language.

One day...

 

[fdgsgds]

What language do the Holy Romans speak?

 

[Psyringe]

The explanation is simple: I'm an idiot.

I strongly disagree. You understand Dutch (and apparently are able to pronounce) Dutch, that's a task way beyond my puny abilities, so you can't be stupid.

The Greeks (Alexander and Pericles) their units do speak modern Greek. Byzantines, not so much.

So the quotes you listed are those for Greece, but not applicable to Byzantium, correct? I think I'll play a game as Greece when I finished my current Dutch game.

GreeceOrder-009: (sadly, I can't really hear what is said, he speaks too fast)

I found that the utterances with the same numbers usually have the same meanings, so it might be something along the lines of "You can count on us!"?

Actually, in Bavaria, I hear 'Wir sind dabei!' and 'Wir sind schon dabei' used in responce to orders (In buisiness, not the millitary) pretty much interchangeably, and both are considered perfectly fine. No offence is taken. Maybe it is just part of the local dialect.

Thanks - it's also possible that I'm simply wrong here, it's definitely the description I'm the least certain about.

Might "Let's Go" be a more accurate translation in this case and contect?

Might be. I wrote "Let's get moving" because that's what the English units say in their respective utterance. Is there a difference in meaning between "Let's go!" and "Let's get moving!"?

This is when I wish I spoke a different language.

As a native speaker of English, you're at a disadvantage - a billion people already learned your language, so the incentive to learn another language is smaller for you, you can already communicate with tons of people. For me, learning English was like opening a window to the world (and it's a beautiful language anyway ).

What language do the Holy Romans speak?

I think they are speaking a medieval form of German (I'm not a home and can't check right now). I could try to guess the words, but it would be very inaccurate; I think their language resembles contemporary German just a bit more than contemporary Dutch does. So someone who actually knows medieval languages would be far better suited to do the job.

 

[Ray Patterson]

The Holy Romans brought up again, nice. I'll transcribe them with Dutch orthography: to my ears they speak more Dutch than German... or rather, it sounds very much like Gronings, the dialect from my home province.

EmpireSelect-000: Ik ben in deinst - I'm in service - sounds like Dutch form of "I'm enlisted" to me.
EmpireSelect-001: Ik ben sowiet - I am that far = I'm ready
EmpireSelect-002: Wat kan ik voor die doan? - What can I do for you?
EmpireSelect-003: Ik teuf op dien bevelen - no idea what "teuf" means, apparently "wait", for then it becomes "I wait for your command"
EmpireSelect-004: Loat ons losgoan - Let us go ahead
EmpireSelect-005: Wat is dien plan? - What's your plan?
EmpireSelect-006: Jo - Yes, or indeed more accurately "Yo", as in "hey man, what's up". In Groningen this is not an imported word but original dialect.
EmpireSelect-007: Dien bevelen? - your orders?
EmpireSelect-008: Wat broekst doe? - What do you need?
EmpireSelect-009: Al te hoop on afstelt? This is just a guess. Maybe Psyringe can hear this one better. I have no idea frankly.

EmpireOrder-000: Als doe dat wilst - If you want that. As Psyringe said of some German phrases, this one is kind of impolite. It suggests mild dissent with the order (are you sure?).
EmpireOrder-001: Al te hoop hoed - makes no sense to me
EmpireOrder-002: Zekker - certainly. This is just an imagined pronunciation. It has the Dutch "Z" and the German thick "k". But it sounds extremely contrived. Nobody would speak like that I think.
EmpireOrder-003: Wie sund dabie - We're with it/on it. Seems one of the most German.
EmpireOrder-004: Geen probleem - no problem. Would have expected a flowing g... as North German and Dutch have. Instead the G becomes so abrupt it sounds more like a k. Weird... and in my intuition a mistake.
EmpireOrder-005: Dat is meer als afsloten - That's more than finished. Sounds like idiom.
EmpireOrder-006: Allerbest - (the) very best, or very good.
EmpireOrder-007: Ik ben gloaks doa - I'm gloaks there, whatever 'gloaks' means.
EmpireOrder-008: Dat gait loas - Lit. That goes lose, i.e. that begins
EmpireOrder-009: Doe kunst mit ons reken - you can count on us.

 

[Ray Patterson]

And I'll have a shot at Latin... corrections appreciated.

RomeSelect-000: Praesti sumus - we're at hand, we're ready to help
RomeSelect-001: Stipendia facemus - the word stipendia can mean soldier's wages, but I guess here it means "contribution", so - we make our contribution.
RomeSelect-002: Impera - order!
RomeSelect-003: Praesti at imperia - ready for order
RomeSelect-004: Praesti de actione - supposedly ready for action.
RomeSelect-005: Quid concilium est? - What's (your) advice? (yeah, concilium does not mean order)
RomeSelect-006: Ita - Yes
RomeSelect-007: Tua imperia? - Your order?
RomeSelect-008: Quod expectas? - what do you expect?
RomeSelect-009: Omnes at sumus et praesti - We're all there and ready

RomeOrder-000: Ut lubebis - not sure about this one
RomeOrder-001: Eamus - We go, let's go
RomeOrder-002: Certe - certainly
RomeOrder-003: Incubimus a distur - not sure here
RomeOrder-004: Nul problema - no problem
RomeOrder-005: Labor factus - lit "work done"
RomeOrder-006: Bene - good
RomeOrder-007: In via sumus - We're on (the/our) way
RomeOrder-008: Adeamus - Let's do it (lit Let's dare it)
RomeOrder-009: Fide de nobis - (have) faith in us

 

[Psyringe]

Wow, thanks! Much appreciated!