I'm curious, it sounds Arabic to me which is absurd and incredibly insulting.
I'm curious, it sounds Arabic to me which is absurd and incredibly insulting.
I haven't a clue. I did think his voice is kind of annoying which means I will probably end up trying to destroy him every game.
Justinian of Byzantine had that effect on me in 4. Not because of his voice (they didn't speak in 4), but rather because of the worst background diplomacy music ever.
Koptic I guess?
BtW, Firaxis is busy researching ancient Quechua for Huayna capac.
That is so true! I freaking hated that music and his face too. Justinian was a great leader but they made him look like a sickly pervert.Originally Posted by LeSage
Hahaha, this thread is funny. I think, I'll go on a personal vendetta against Elizabeth because she is sitting in a chair. Oh wait, a lot of them are sitting in chairs.
Yeah! Out with Lizzie. I want old Winnie back! "Why stand when you can sit, and why sit when you can lie down", eh? (And that was an actual quote by Winston Churchill, for those ignorant enough to not recognise it.)
I can confirm that he is speaking Arabic
who cares stop b1chin
Arabic?!? thats stupid
That's insulting. That's like giving Julius Caesar the Italian language, or making native american tribes speak English.
LOLWUT? When did Italian become a language? if you go over 100 miles no one speaks the same language (for that matter Germany is also fake)
Italian is a language, don't be so silly.
And WOW, he really IS speaking Arabic? Just how culturally insensitive are these game makers? As a westerner myself, I'm still frequently astounded by how historically and culturally ignorant people involved in the media are, particularly concerning the Middle-East and Asia.
Firaxis need to change that, Ramesses lived almost 1900 YEARS before the Arabs invaded, how on earth do they think this is acceptable?
Wow, just wow, the stupidity.
Last edited by BrockValentine; 06-12-2010 at 12:13 PM.
I just hope that the Ramesses' Arabic excerpt is a dummy sound waiting for full attention. Otherwise it might gather quite a bit of negative attention. I for one will not stand idle if Arabic is the final word...
Well, I made a thread asking the same thing ages ago. The answer I got from some of the users was that it would be to difficult to revive Ancient Egyptian, even though there are Coptic speakers and that is the closest thing we have to it.
I *think* he is speaking in an Egyptian Arabic accent because Egyptians replace the J sound with a hard G in speech. At least I think I heard a hard G.
From what I understand, Coptic is a spoken language mainly in certain religious (liturgical) uses with Coptic Christians(?) and that could be the problem as well as the via for getting Ramesses to speak it.
One would think that there were some Egyptian insitutes of study for a classical language as such.
Why do people even care?
I seriously think the whole language speaking thing is dumb. I would have preferred to hear all the rulers speak English to be honest.
The Egyptian language has been dead for over two thousand years! Those few that can understand it still can't speak very fluently. And did you actually expect them to make Ramesses speak Egyptian? Firaxis is good, but not that good.
Just to clarify a few things; (a) not all soft Gs get replaced with hard Gs, (b) in some parts of Egypt the soft G remains unchanged, and (c) Egypt isn't the only country where you'll find soft Gs replaced with hard Gs nor is it the only country where you'd find hard G's in the spoken Arabic so hearing hard G's does not neccesarily mean that they have replaced the soft G nor does it confirm that the speaker is Egyptian. You are correct though, he is speaking Arabic with an Egyptian accent.
The Egyptian language exists today as Coptic, which evolved from Demotic Egyptian, which in turn evolved from Late Egyptian. Its true that no one knows exactly what the earlier forms of the Egyptian Language sounded like, in the same way that no one really knows what Latin as spoken at this time of Augustus Caesar would have sounded like. I'd prefer an attempt at reconstructing the earlier forms of the language, even though I know it couldn't be perfect, I think it would have been a nice touch. Failing that, Coptic would be a far better representation of Ramesses speech than that of a completely unrelated language IMO. I know it would've meant extra work to implement either of these two options, but it seems strange that they would attempt it for all the other civs but not Egypt.
While it is true that there are few speakers of Coptic remaining and even fewer fluent speakers, they do exist, so it would have been possible to use this as a basis of Ramesses voice. Coptic is used in religious services by the Coptic church, but the services are usually also given in Arabic as otherwise very few people would understand them.
I quite like having the added touch of having the leader's speaking there own language (except for the mild annoyance of having Ramesses speaking Arabic), but I suppose its just a personal preference. I emphasize that it is only a mild annoyance, and its not really going to detract from my enjoyment of the game. It'll probably be modded out at some point anyway.
Thread winner lol
Does anyone know if there will be some kind of interpretation function, because I love the language idea however I would like to know wth they are saying without hitting up babble fish for some bastard translation?
Last edited by Skunkone; 07-16-2010 at 09:32 PM. Reason: Added second sentence
If we look carefully, there's probably another civ where they just used another language. (Not France-Napoleon's actually speaking French)
At least they got the language spoken in modern day Egypt. Its not like hes speaking Hebrew.
Yeah maybe. Back when all the leader speeches were up, UK, US, the Arabs, France & Germany were speaking the appropriate languages, and according to people who understand the languages on CivFanatics, so were Greece, China, India, Rome, Russia, Siam, Japan, the Aztecs, and the Ottomans. Persia is probably speaking Syriac, which would have been appropriate for the time. That would leave the Iroquois & Soghai as the two unknowns at the moment, but at least they weren't speaking English or French. I wonder if anyone knows what language they're speaking? So, out of the 18 we've got 15 correct, 2 unknown, and 1 wrong.
Montezuma used some Spanish words...
Yeah, the CivFanatics thread complained that he spoke modern Nahuatl including European loan words. But at least he's using the correct language though, I'd rather see that than have him speaking Spanish. Not perfect, but better than the situation with Ramesses though IMO.
Last edited by AMMK; 07-17-2010 at 06:57 PM.
Im sure that Hiawatha is correct. There are SEVERAL iroquois speakers. all the nations shared pretty much the same language. Im a bit rusty at it, but the only problem i could see is that he would have a mohawk accent/ dialect since based on the uu they leaned more towards the mohawks. Haudenosaunee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yeah I agree. I mean some modern day words probably weren't around during the time of Montezuma.
I'm pretty sure that there is. If you watch one of the videos (The one with the gameplay) It quickly shows a screen of diplomacy with Ramesses II. There is a section of the screen that says "Ramesses II says:" and then states what he is saying.
Personally I feel this is a nice touch to the game; I think it's just a way for people to see someone else's culture
Edit: You can find this at 0:33 on the trailer 2 on the official website
Last edited by dsmatt; 07-20-2010 at 01:27 AM.
I think you mean Trailer 2. I was confused at first.Good job spotting that btw.
I think you mean Trailer 2. I was confused at first.Opps sorry lol, and thanks
Ironic that you have Sean Connery as your avatar.
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