Translation Team: Please stop doing this...

[myahele]

I'm fine with the "ye olde english" they use from time to time

.....But I can't stand the Lominsan way of speaking. I tend to skip dialogue after a while. It's odd that Merlwyb doesnt have that considering she grew up as a pirate and her dad was a (in)famous pirate as well.

[ScarletDawn]

I'm fine with the "ye olde english" they use from time to time

.....But I can't stand the Lominsan way of speaking. I tend to skip dialogue after a while. It's odd that Merlwyb doesnt have that considering she grew up as a pirate and her dad was a (in)famous pirate as well.

Well that just shows the social class of the pirates the ones lower down tend to stick to their dialect while the higher up ones gain a more proper spoken manner. I like it it gives them all some sort of belonging.

[TouchandFeel]

That's not technically old english. Real old english is on a much higher level of confusing than how the NPCs talk.

Google the intro to the Canterbury Tales, that's a great example of it.

The Canterbury Tales are Middle English, not Old English.

Old English was the language of the Angles and Saxons, as well as some of the other Germanic tribes that spread into and took over much of Western Europe, settling mainly in what is now England.
Angles/Anglo-Saxon -> Angoland -> England -> English.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English


An example of Old English in literature is the non-translated version of Beowulf.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf

Chaucer's Canterbury Tales came much later after the language had altered due to the melding with the languages of other prominent tribes that had settled in Western Europe, primarily the Normans due to their conquest/occupation of England.
At this point the language had evolved into Middle English.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_English

Shakespeare, while antiquated, is still just an earlier form of Modern English, often referred to as Early Modern English.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Modern_English

So, again Shakespeare is not Old English although it is old.
Canterbury Tales is Middle English, not Old English.
Beowulf is Old English.

Also somebody already posted the beginning to the Canterbury Tales in this thread on pg.11 and on pg.14 is my quick and dirty translation.

Whan that aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of march hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
Tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the ram his halve cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(so priketh hem nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of engelond to caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.

Yep, its pretty much the setup for all the other tales to be told as The Canterbury Tales are a collection of tales told to the narrator by people that he meets on the road.

Pretty much it says that during Spring, when the April showers begin and the world turns green and the flowers begin to bloom, people across the land go on a pilgrimage to Canterbury.

[Averax]

Well darn then, i confused my Beowulf with my Canterbury. Since i read them at about the same time.

My english literature class had us do the original and the translations of both side by side.

[Wilhelm_Frost]

Respectfully disagree with the OP's opinions.

[Niwashi]

I love the slightly archaic and alliterative bits like what the OP complained about. (And I adore Urianger's poetry. It's always a delight to talk to him.) I also adore some of the specialty dialects like the goblins and slyphs. I'm sort of wavering on the rogues' brogue. It kind of threw me a little at first, but then as I got a little more used to it I started really liking that one too (and even the fact of taking a while to get used to it fits, as it would have been the same for my character while becoming a part of this shadowy underworld he hadn't previously known existed). For the Lominsan pirate-speak, well, I do like that they have such a dialect, though it could perhaps do with a bit of toning down in places, (not too much, as they should leave enough to keep it clear that there is an accent, but it doesn't really have to be indicated in the spellings of every word).

On the one hand, I do know that not everyone using the English version of the game is a native speaker of English. If someone learned it as a foreign language and is still struggling a bit even with basic standard dialog, then adding flavor to any of it could make it even harder. But on the other hand, I don't really like suggestions that those of us who do speak the language natively should lose out on being able to see it used with a bit of style and flavor. I don't want to be limited to the the English For Beginners version.

[Conradus]

At the cost of enjoying the games dialogue and plot?

You can enjoy the game's dialogue and plot and expand your vocabulary. And your expanded vocabulary increases your ability enjoy other dialogue and plot in future. That's how knowledge works.

[Conradus]

Hello. Hi. 'Ello. Hey. Heya.

Notice how the meaning hasn't changed at all, only the origin? And to use your examples, the meaning didn't change until you added a whole additional clause.

Of course the meaning's changed. Just not the primary meaning. A different sort of person says "Hello" than says "Heya". The meaning you convey says something about you, and that changes when you change which word you pick.

[Conradus]

That's not technically old english. Real old english is on a much higher level of confusing than how the NPCs talk.

Google the intro to the Canterbury Tales, that's a great example of it.

I posted the first part of the intro to the Canterbury Tales. It's Middle English, not Old English. Google for the original text of Beowulf if you want a taste of Old English. It is quite literally a foreign language.

[Conradus]

Chaucer's Canterbury Tales came much later after the language had altered due to the melding with the languages of other prominent tribes that had settled in Western Europe, primarily the Normans due to their conquest/occupation of England.
At this point the language had evolved into Middle English.

My favorite quip on the subject is that Middle English was the product of Norman soldiers trying pick up Saxon barmaids. A little Googling reveals that H. Beam Piper came up with that one.