Who does all the languages in Civ 4?

[gps]

Everybody will understand "Zur Aktion bereit", but noone would actually speak like that.

Noone would? Well, just as an example here's an article that uses the phrase in exactly the same way:

http://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2012-11/netanjahu-barak-israel-angriff-iran-atomstreit

"Die Streitkräfte hätten dann zur Aktion bereit sein müssen."
(= "Then the forces should have been ready for action.")

 

[Abegweit]

As for the Latin, I believe that the game actually uses (or tries to use) Vulgar Latin instead of Classical Latin. I don't speak either but the similarity to French is striking enough to make me think so. Vulgar Latin would be correct as that is that the soldiers spoke.

Anyone schooled in the Classical Latin would naturally find it to be strange.

 

[Kallikrates]

Admittedly, I am hardly familiar with military speech.
I am not even sure if the expression in the linked article may be influenced by "ready for action".
But as an acknowledgement after a command it just sounds too much like a lame translation from the english.
Proper Prussian/Nazi movie jargon would be "Jawoll!" "Zu Befehl!"

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Noone would? Well, just as an example here's an article that uses the phrase in exactly the same way:

http://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2012-11/netanjahu-barak-israel-angriff-iran-atomstreit

"Die Streitkräfte hätten dann zur Aktion bereit sein müssen."
(= "Then the forces should have been ready for action.")

If I as a native German speaker may add my two cents, I think "Aktion" here refers specifically to a military operation gainst Iran. Jastrow was right with his explanation of the term, although his articles are off.
"Zur" btw is a portmanteau of "zu" and "der", meaning in this context "for the", so the correct translation for the quoted sentence would be "Then the forces should have been ready for the (as in, this specific military operation)action."

Hope I could clear this up for all of you non-Krauts.

The German translations in Civ 4 really do suck, I switched over to English after I found out that the Graph for "Elektrizität" was in actuality for military power, not for electricity.

 

[gps]

But as an acknowledgement after a command it just sounds too much like a lame translation from the english.
Proper Prussian/Nazi movie jargon would be "Jawoll!" "Zu Befehl!"

I am not quite sure this is really the direction I would like the game to aim for when representing the Germans. And yes, in that context some of the commands sound a bit lame, but lame is not wrong. From all the German commands only one to me sounds a bit strange: "Es ist so gut wie gemacht!" - which should be "Es ist so gut wie erledigt!". Or maybe "Was benötigen Sie?", which sounds kind of out of place as much as the English original "What do you need?" The rest from my point of view is correct and accent free delivered German. If all the other languages where of the same quality I'd say there would really be no reason to grumble...

 

[Jastrow]

Jastrow was right with his explanation of the term, although his articles are off.

In my defense, German is the 5th language I learnt, and I learnt it mostly by conversing as opposed to any formal training, so yeah, my declinations and gender assignments are pretty random...

The bottom line is that to me, it looks like all languages (at least those I can judge) in the game were translated from the english, as opposed to simply being written from scratch, and that in many cases, the translators appear to not have understood the game or the context.

Imp. Knoedel's example is indeed perfect to illustrate that. The English word power can be translated to many different things in German (Elektrizität, Mächtigkeit, Potenz, Vollmacht off the top of my head). In context, it is clear that the one needed here is "Macht" or something closely related, but without context of the game, the translater picked one, effectively, at random.

 

[gps]

In my defense, German is the 5th language I learnt,...

The bottom line is that to me, it looks like ... the translators appear to not have understood the game or the context.

Then please trust me as a native German speaker, that the spoken German troop dialogue does not sound as wrong as some think it is or try to make it. There's stuff like "Auf gehts!", "Stehe zu Diensten!" or "Alle vollzählig zur Stelle!" where the translater clearly knew the proper German construct or phrase rather than putting single translated words together. As said, apart from "Es ist so gut wie gemacht!" there's nothing in it that would be even remotely strange or wrong.
Sadly this is not true for the written text translaions. Those are really - well, let's just say a good reason to not play the German version...

 

[Jastrow]

There is no trust involved... I have my opinion on the translation (which appears to be in line with that of several other native speakers, including some in this forum, and others I work with who also enjoy the game), and you have yours (which I am sure is also shared by many others.)

I am BTW, certainly not suggesting the translator put individual words together. That is what yahoo translator does, and produces completly gibberish. That is not what we have here. I assume the translator was was compentent (quite possibly native) German speaker. What I am suggesting is that he was given the text to translate without being given the details of the game design, and thus did not know in which exact context they phrases would be used.

 

[Abegweit]

In my experience, that's pretty typical of software translation. I think you nailed it.

 

[gps]

What I am suggesting is that he was given the text to translate without being given the details of the game design, and thus did not know in which exact context they phrases would be used.

And what I am suggesting is that stuff like "Auf gehts!", "Stehe zu Diensten!" or "Alle vollzählig zur Stelle!" is correct German no matter what and there's no context imaginable that would turn any of those into wrong or unappropriate. After all this is not the translation of a Schiller-Drama...
And yes, I've seen Psyringe's comments in the other thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=377643) - to be honest I find many of his comments a bit nit-picking and excessive. Most of the criticized "mistakes" are very subtle nuances that most people in spoken language would hardly ever notice or care about - if they weren't desperately searching for something that could be wrong. As you correctly noted there: "Wir sind (schon) dabei!" is a common expression. I especially find his comments about the southern dialect irritating. I am from the south and am familiar with the dialects - and there's nothing even remotley southern in those samples.

 

[Doshin]

@Abegweit

It's not Vulgar Latin, but translationese. For instance, the ubiquitous use of praesti to mean "ready" can be viewed in two lights. Either the author has (a) misapplied a basic rule of Latin morphology (that adjectives and adverbs decline) to an indeclinable form, praesto; or (b) he has invented an adjectival back-formation on the basis of the one surviving instance of this phenomenon (CIL 6. 12013).

While we cannot categorically rule out (b), we would also have to account for the fact that other, much more commonly attested vulgar usages are not employed (e.g. de + acc.); that markedly "high" Latin terms are used (e.g. actio, since abstract nouns are avoided in common usage); that there are out-and-out mistakes (in via sumus, mentioned above); and that vocabulary is invented to "match" the English original (nulla problema. At best, a problemata is a transliteration of a Greek technical term referring to the subject matter of philosophical debates).

In terms of economics, it also makes little sense to hire experts to produce translations when a team member's own efforts (or the efforts of enthusiastic dilettantes on the internet) come close enough.

So I prefer (a). But really, I don't mind. It all adds to the flavor of playing a particular Civ. The reality matters less than the reality effects.

 

[Doshin]

Also, these problems would not apply for modern languages. There are numerous language learning forums on the internet where native speakers are more than happy to proofread and correct short translations. And a modern language also has a modern audience who can immediately identify and ridicule incorrect translations. ("All your base are belong to us.") So there's a greater incentive to produce correct versions.

 

[Jastrow]

And what I am suggesting is that stuff like "Auf gehts!", "Stehe zu Diensten!" or "Alle vollzählig zur Stelle!" is correct German no matter what and there's no context imaginable that would turn any of those into wrong or unappropriate. After all this is not the translation of a Schiller-Drama...
And yes, I've seen Psyringe's comments in the other thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=377643) - to be honest I find many of his comments a bit nit-picking and excessive. Most of the criticized "mistakes" are very subtle nuances that most people in spoken language would hardly ever notice or care about - if they weren't desperately searching for something that could be wrong. As you correctly noted there: "Wir sind (schon) dabei!" is a common expression. I especially find his comments about the southern dialect irritating. I am from the south and am familiar with the dialects - and there's nothing even remotley southern in those samples.

Actually, I had forgotten about that old tread. When I said others in this forum, I was thinking of the likes of Imp. Knoedel.

It is also not clear to me who, for example, has suggested that "Auf gehts!" is anything other than perfectly natural, but for what its worth, all the examples you give here do indeed sound perfectly natural to me. The ones that dont are the specific examples I have given.

 

[Odin2006]

And its not just the Ancient languages...

For example, no German soldier would ever say "Zum Aktion bereit". While not incorrect in this use, the work "Aktion" in german general referes to something like a campaing, a propotion, etc, not an individual act. In German, one would normaly just say "bereit!"

"Haben Sie einen Plan" almost sounds like questioning wether the order is random... Something like "Wie lautet die Plan" would be more normal.

The Germany soldiers also sometimes say "Okay", which admitedly is *almost* a part of German in the current generation, but "In Ordnung" would have been appropriate for the time period of the rulers in the game.

In the French, "Considérez ce travail accompli", for example, just sounds a big long and clumsy in responce to an millitary order, and "De quoi avez-vous besoin?" sounds more like something a nurse would say to a patient, than a soldier to his commander.

I noticed the German units saying "OK", too, and I laughed.

 

[Odin2006]

As for the Latin, I believe that the game actually uses (or tries to use) Vulgar Latin instead of Classical Latin. I don't speak either but the similarity to French is striking enough to make me think so. Vulgar Latin would be correct as that is that the soldiers spoke.

Anyone schooled in the Classical Latin would naturally find it to be strange.

It sounds like Classical Latin to me.

 

[SamSniped]

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the Latin translations are mostly done in a word-for-word manner and would receive several red crosses at the hands of any self-respecting Latin schoolteacher. To take two examples:

in via sumus = lit. "on the way, we are"

= "we are physically located on a path"​

Quod exspectas? = lit. "which are you waiting for?"

= "[there is a thing] that you are waiting for?"​

The first phrase attempts to translate one language's idiom (a figurative use of language) into another's literal equivalent. The author has consulted a dictionary, discovered the Latin word for "way," the correct form of the verb "to be" and plugged the words together.

The second phrase fails to distinguish between the uses of the relative pronoun/interrogative adjective 'qui/quae/quod' and the interrogative pronoun 'quis/quid.' In brief, 'quod' can be used either to introduce a relative clause ("there is a plan that I'm concocting") or, when attached to a noun, as an interrogative adjective "what plan are you concocting?"). It cannot serve as an interrogative pronoun ("what are you concocting?").

For single words or basic phrases, the Latin is fine (e.g. eamus = "let's go").

My guess is that the same dictionary technique underpins the other ancient languages.

I always thought "in via sumus" was way off. Now that you mention it, the second one is a pretty glaring mistake (and I'm only in Latin II).
---
As usually happens, once I learn something, I notice it. In this case, it's the Hortatory subjunctive being used in Civ4; specifically "eamus"
---
Also, just wondering, and slightly off-topic, is "ita" really the best way to translate "yes" in Latin?

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Also, just wondering, and slightly off-topic, is "ita" really the best way to translate "yes" in Latin?

Maybe. It could also be "Sic" (which means pretty much the same as "ita") or "Sic est", after all that later on evolved to the "Si" in Modern Spanish and Italian.

 

[civvver]

The german is done as formal german. Most native speakers use slang and abbreviations and formal german gets wordy. But that's how it's done. There's a civ5 thread somewhere listing the languages the leaderheads speak. I would imagine civ4 is similar for the units. As someone noted, Egyptians speak arabic iirc, so no, they don't speak dead languages aside from like Latin, which is dead but still known.

 

[AdamCrock]

It would be fun to have more diversity in ethnic languages for example English units saying "Aye! mate !" or some historical flavour like Roman preat saying "Alea iacta est" "In other news" I've noticed that Roman units sometimes said something about "imperia" (I think) Can somebody clarify this ? My latin is a bit rusty Thx

Edit: nvm. I've found it in other thread