What would the leaders speak?

[CivLuvah]

I just saw the "Inside Look" video and it mentions how the different faction leaders would speak in the diplomacy interface. It's interesting for me since the faction leaders are going to speak in a hybrid of languages, like how Suzanne Marjorie Fielding is speaking English with some Spanish - sort of a reflection of how Spanish might equal in number of speakers with English in the future in the US.

Let's have some speculation here. What combinations of languages do you think would the leaders speak in the game - in relation to recent language trends in their respective countries?

My guess:


I assume that everyone would at least speak in English in some degree in the diplo interface and the quotes. This is a list of any possible languages blended into their English.
Brazilia - Un-nasalized Portuguese. From what I know Spanish and Portuguese speakers can understand each other well with little difficulty. If Portuguese isn't nasalized.
Franco-Iberia - Mixture of French and Spanish (surprise surprise), and some Italian?
Kavithan Protectorate - Hindustani and Pashto blend (since Kavitha is from the Hindu Kush)
Panasian Cooperative - Chinese and Khmer interchangeable blend (like bilingual interchangeable methinks)
People's African Union - Somali and Swahili mix.
Polystralia - Bahasa Indonesia
Slavic Federation - Russian. Duh (?)


You guys can change the list as info about the factions gets released bit by bit.

 

[3of5]

They had very nice voice acting in Civ4, with the languages that i know pretty well integrated (even if in latin and old greek the opinions on how some things were pronounced differ from expert to expert, italian hat a slight accent, if i remember correctly, german and english were well done). So in Civ5 they put quite some thought and effort into the languages, i am pretty confident, that might be the case in BE too.

And it obviously also saves a lot of costs, because you don't have to syncronize voice for every single localisation, Fielding will speak spanglish in teh german version of BE too, which will save firaxis some money and hassle.

Tech quotes got localized though, i fear the linguistic flavours will get lost in translation there. Then again all quotes will start out in english anyway...

 

[GoodSarmatian]

The walkthrough video showed Barre speaking heavily acented english and my guess is al leaders will do the same, maybe with some words from their native language mixed in when they get agitated.

After all practically any high level politician or CEO or just anybody with a secondary education nowadays speaks english.

 

[TPangolin]

Well seeing as each of the tech quotes will be chosen by their leader - most likely accented english with a few other non-english phrases sprinkled in there when dealing with them for diplomacy. We've already seen Barre speak a bit of English.

It's also evident from Sochua's piece of Friday PR that she speaks English (when she argues with her counterparts on the panel).

Oh - and I HIGHLY doubt Polystralia would have anything to do with Samoan words. Iirc, Hutama is an Indonesian surname and not a Melanesian/Polynesian one.

 

[GeoModder]

It's also evident from Sochua's piece of Friday PR that she speaks English (when she argues with her counterparts on the panel).

That was just a translated excerpt for our convenience.

 

[TPangolin]

Eh, I doubt it.

 

[CivLuvah]

Well seeing as each of the tech quotes will be chosen by their leader - most likely accented english with a few other non-english phrases sprinkled in there when dealing with them for diplomacy. We've already seen Barre speak a bit of English.

Oh - and I HIGHLY doubt Polystralia would have anything to do with Samoan words. Iirc, Hutama is an Indonesian surname and not a Melanesian/Polynesian one.

Wait, what? What did I miss when I was hidden in that dark cave called College Homework?

Also the quote to leader relationship really reminds me of SMAC
That would also be interesting.

So this means all of the leaders have to speak at least some level of English. Darn forgot that detail.

 

[Louis XXIV]

If they speak English, I wonder if they'll translate it for other translations of the game. Might be one reason they only went with eight.

 

[Lord Tirian]

If they speak English, I wonder if they'll translate it for other translations of the game. Might be one reason they only went with eight.

Translating the game isn't such a big deal. Localised VA isn't exactly a rarity and the leader snippets are nothing compared to RPGs and so on.

 

[Lord Shadow]

Brazilia - Un-nasalized Portuguese. From what I know Spanish and Portuguese speakers can understand each other well with little difficulty. If Portuguese isn't nasalized.

Given Brasilia apparently leads one Organization of South American States, I'm guessing Spanish will have as much presence as Portuguese as a language.

 

[AriochIV]

Like it or not, English is the modern lingua franca.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Esperanto.

 

[Smith of Lie]

Like it or not, English is the modern lingua franca.

Which brings up an interesting question, why did it remain so after Great Mistake (if indeed all leaders speak English)?

Current status of English as lingua franca comes from influence of US as superpower (and was up to apoint rivaled by Russian for certain countries). I have not watched the show but I heard that the status of "common tounge" was held by Chinese in Firefly univers.

Considering the collapse of countries and nations in their today shape and great political and cultiral upheaval of Beyond Earth world, one does wonder how it came to be that English is still the international language.

It doesn't need to be a big reason, I'd just like to see if there is one. Simple convenience could work.

 

[3of5]

Which brings up an interesting question, why did it remain so after Great Mistake

A linga franca remains for several generations after the reason for its dominance ceases to exist. Thing "Latin"; the roman empire had ceased to exist for 1000 years before Luther translated the bible for the common folk to understand. Sure, today would not pass 1000 jears, but 2-4 generations? i can easily see that happening, especcially with a great mistake type event in between. And even if another language would become linga franca in the business world, in academia it would remain. Once all relevant scientific information is written in english every scientist would have to speak (or rather read/write) english to work in his trade. For ease they would then publish in english, continuing the cycle.

 

[AriochIV]

Which brings up an interesting question, why did it remain so after Great Mistake (if indeed all leaders speak English)?

Current status of English as lingua franca comes from influence of US as superpower (and was up to apoint rivaled by Russian for certain countries).

I would argue that it has less to do with US power and a lot more to do with American culture and, more to the point, technological leadership. We're writing in English right now primarily because English is the language of technology, computers, and the internet. We don't know much about exactly what the post-Mistake "dark age" entailed (and we probably never will), but it doesn't seem plausible that the nations of Earth lost all technology or the ability to communicate with each other. If they had, they wouldn't be able to build starships just after emerging from this "dark age."

It's also worth pointing out that the developers of the game are American. "We still speak English" is a pretty convenient choice, and one that really doesn't require any explanation.

 

[Smith of Lie]

As for latin outliving the Roman Empire - well, there's a reactionary and powerful (at the time) organization to thank for that in the "person" of Church. Current status of English, which also is pretty interesting, came to be much more organically.

And the points brought up by Arioch - I'd be willing to bet that simple expedience could be reason for English remaining lingua franca. After all the educational infrastructure is already in place and number of people who speak it in non-English countries is relatively high in comparison to population as a whole.

My point was less of questioning if English should retain the role and more curiosity of how the changes in political, cultural and social spheres could affect it and wheather Firaxis will even mention this.

Considering it is a detail that most people would not care about I doubt so.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Yeah, a lingua franca usually outlasts the empire that made it a lingua franca. Fun fact: in large parts of the Roman Empire the lingua franca wasn't Latin, it was Greek. Mainly because of Greek expansions towards the east and their impact on classical culture and philosophy which meant that everybody who deserved to be called educated understood it.
English also has one significant advantage beyond all the media and scientific papers aleady published in it: Being somewhat of a pidgin dialect that evolved into a proper language it is very easy to learn. Many native speakers who don't know a second language don't realize just how simple English grammar is compared to pretty much every other European language.

 

[TPangolin]

Current status of English as lingua franca comes from influence of US as superpower (and was up to apoint rivaled by Russian for certain countries). I have not watched the show but I heard that the status of "common tounge" was held by Chinese in Firefly universe.

In Firefly, all they did was swear in Chinese.

 

[shaglio]

In Firefly, all they did was swear in Chinese.

Yeah, I was going to comment on that, but I thought maybe my memory was a bit fuzzy. I own the DVD's and have watched them several times, although not in the past few years since my daughter was born). I don't recall them saying anything about a lingua franca. They mentioned in the Special Features, that American and Chinese were the two dominant cultures in their version of earth's future. I know they said that the reason they swear in Chinese is to get by the FCC's censors.

 

[Smith of Lie]

I see. Well, then I got a wrong idea from the few discussions of the series I stumbled upon. Mea culpa, sorry for muddling the issue.