Punic speech a bit stilted

[Yitzhakofeir]

I've noticed in your mod that your punic is basically Hebrew... But as an Israeli the voice sounds a bit stilted... Not like the words are wrong, of course they're different, but rather the speaker doesn't sound like he's actually speaking a language but rather reading drolly from a script. Which is not uncommon when people are reading languages they don't speak.
I'm not suggesting you should do away with them and make new ones or anything, they're pretty fabulous and I'm just weird... But, if you've need of more Punic sound files I would like to offer my services, as I natively speak a related language. (Hell, I can perfectly understand say 95 of the sound files, and names of unti cards, etc.). But I'm certain you'll probably not need them.

{Edited to clarify my issue, sorry for the earlier confusion}

[Basileus_ton_Basileon]

If the units are speaking hebrew, indeed the sounds are weird and stilted. My friend, however, ancient punic isn't Hebrew. They are similar, though, because modern hebrew was pieced together through several surviving Canaanite languages, along with what that is left of ancient Hebrew and (you've guessed it) ancient punic! (yay!)

:)

[vartan]

I have noticed something similar, Yitzhakofeir. But if we look at it from a historical linguistic perspective, there is nothing surprising. The language was a Semitic one so any and all cognates and surprisingly similar constructions should not be all that surprising at all.

----
Bless the Maker and all His Water. Bless the coming and going of Him, May His passing cleanse the world. May He keep the world for his people.

[Moros]

Indeed Punic and (Modern) Hebrew are very much a like. Both in grammar and vocabulary.

[gamegeek2]

It's like modern hebrew? That'd be surprising because Modern Hebrew is quite different from Ancient Hebrew, which was quite a bit more like Aramaic if I'm not mistaken (especially thanks to the way verbs worked).

[Yitzhakofeir]

Sorry, I don't meant the words themselves are wrong, sorry about the confusion. I just noticed that they don't sound like a native speaker... Like the inflection in the voice is off. I'm granting that the words themselves would be different. (Although by far most of the words are perfectly understandable. Like, for instance, when you voice file says Sulamim Kadamim... That's just ladders forward...)

[Moros]

It's like modern hebrew? That'd be surprising because Modern Hebrew is quite different from Ancient Hebrew, which was quite a bit more like Aramaic if I'm not mistaken (especially thanks to the way verbs worked).

Modern Hebrew is partly based on Punic. We're not comparing it to ancient Hebrew.

[Yitzhakofeir]

It's like modern hebrew? That'd be surprising because Modern Hebrew is quite different from Ancient Hebrew, which was quite a bit more like Aramaic if I'm not mistaken (especially thanks to the way verbs worked).

Actually, yeah, it is. Now, Modern Hebrew isn't that different than ancient. The main differences are Modern has vocabulary for modern items, and the verbs work differently. The perfect, preterite, imperfect system in Hebrew became past, prestent, future... Incidentally the verb forms stayed exactly the same. So like, the word Rayiti means I have seen in ancient, but I saw in modern. This however isn't a modern innovation, that was due to Aramaic influence in the Mishnaic period. Which means Modern is more similar to Aramaic in its verb system than Ancient was. (Also the Mishnaic period added a lot of Aramaic words, that are still used.)
But also Ancient Hebrew was like Aramaic still, the both belong to the Northwest branch of the Semitic Languages. Hebrew however falls in the Canaanite language family, which included Phœnician, and indeed Punic. So I presume that's why they used words similar to Hebrew. As there isn't much knowledge of the Punic language to be had. (Our full modern knowledge of the language is a few words the Romans quoted, the Greeks quoted, and a few Punic inscriptions. Unfortunately like many people, the Carthaginians had a habit of writing on surfaces that time destroys.

[Shigawire]

I could give this feedback to the voice actor Kikosemmek.

I made this decision to have Kikosemmek make (modern) Hebrew translations of the voice commands, then we went through them with a fine comb (Dr. Charles Krahmalkov's Phoenician-Punic Dictionary and Grammar books) to try to "punify" the language as much as possible.

Dr. Charles Krahmalkov and I have corresponded on which method was best to use, and in his own words:

Just using good modern Hebrew would probably suit you just fine. If you wanted a touch of
something a bit purer, have your Hebrew speaker use the pronunciation "w"
instead of "v" for the letter "waw/vav". You might be interested to know
that modern Hebrew is, in fact, very closely related to Phoenician-Punic:
modern Hebrew is based on so-called Rabbinic/Mishnaic Hebrew, a language
that is historically not true Hebrew but a Phoenician dialect.

There's more where that came from. :)

[Basileus_ton_Basileon]

Pardon my tangent question. If modern Hebrew isn't really an ancient Hebrew-derived language, why bother calling it Hebrew? That's like calling English 'Modern German', isn't it?

[Shigawire]

That's a question I don't have an answer to. :)

[vartan]

Sorry, I don't meant the words themselves are wrong, sorry about the confusion. I just noticed that they don't sound like a native speaker... Like the inflection in the voice is off. I'm granting that the words themselves would be different. (Although by far most of the words are perfectly understandable. Like, for instance, when you voice file says Sulamim Kadamim... That's just ladders forward...)

I'm starting to wonder what you may have originally been meaning by this. Do you think there is an issue with how the voice actor did the syllabification of the Punic? and/or the stress and meter? If these were slightly off it would all seem off and incorrect. I'm not intimately aware of syllabification and stress in any Semitic tongue so I cannot catch any of these if they are off in EB's voice acting.


Pardon my tangent question. If modern Hebrew isn't really an ancient Hebrew-derived language, why bother calling it Hebrew? That's like calling English 'Modern German', isn't it?

Language nomenclature in that sense is a petty (if at all) issue, if you ask me.

[Basileus_ton_Basileon]

True. It was simply out of curiosity, that's all. :)

[Yitzhakofeir]

Do you think there is an issue with how the voice actor did the syllabification of the Punic? and/or the stress and meter? If these were slightly off it would all seem off and incorrect. I'm not intimately aware of syllabification and stress in any Semitic tongue so I cannot catch any of these if they are off in EB's voice acting.

Sorry, English isn't my first language at all, so I may be way off with what I'm trying to say. I would say may issue is with more... I think the word is tempo? For example, in the file Punic_General_1_Group_Formation_Cavalry_First_3_Lines_1.wav the tempo goes from normal to really fast between words... And I suppose it's the fact that I can actually basically understand what the guy is saying that throws it off for me. Then again, I'm also the kind of person who gets anal about incorrect Kerning in fonts... Otherwise he's doing fine with stress. (shockingly well in fact) and he pronounces the specific sounds well enough that I as a Mizrahi am impressed. (Like I caught him pronouncing a Qof correctly, and I don't think I've ever heard any native speaker of an Indo-Euro language pronounce that correctly (besides Persians, but they have that sound))

[vartan]

Well, first of all I don't see why it should be shocking if the voice actor pronounces phonemes correctly, especially if the voice actor is a native speaker of any modern Semitic tongue. Next, tempo is a non-issue. There is overwhelming variation among tempos in native speakers' speech. And tempo does not change "between words". Tempo can change across phrases (usually sentence-long phrases). Frankly, I don't see how the quicker pacing of the latter part of the command is but a more emotionally surged part of a larger phrase (or set of phrases). That said, it is normal to expect consistent tempo in one person's turn in dialogue. Even then we see tempo fluctuation, especially since we tend to stumble and correct ourselves as speakers.

[Shigawire]

The voice actor is either abou or kikosemmek. I'm not sure.. but in Kikosemmek's case, he IS essentially from Palestine.. so the language comes natural to him. He says he spoke textbook hebrew with punic inflections.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Pardon my tangent question. If modern Hebrew isn't really an ancient Hebrew-derived language, why bother calling it Hebrew? That's like calling English 'Modern German', isn't it?

Not if you are comparing the two. Then English is like a natural language, and modern Hebrew is an Esperanto created in the mid 20th century and made up solely for the benefit of nation building Israel. The big exception to other such efforts being, of course, that this one survived and thrived.

[moonburn]

yeah right english is as natural as making a chocolat cake and then taking out most of the chocolat and replacing it with cream (french anyone ?) and sprinkling it with barbacue sauce (norgé anyone ? ) and then ofc adding litle tastes of all diferent languages they ended up encountering like hindustany and so forth

then you have the diferent flavours and traditions of baking it you got irish uk american australian south african and i bet hundreads of other ways of speaking it (cajun is considered english?)

[bobbin]

No he means it wasn't purposefully constructed, English today is the product of various interactions with a whole load of different languages which occurred naturally without any direction.

Modern Hebrew is the product of a concerted effort to combine the various versions of Hebrew that the Jews were speaking at the time. It is comparable to someone today trying to take all the variations of English and make a single language out of them.

[vartan]

What bobbin said. English has a rich diversity of origins for its modern lexicon but its development to that state was completely natural. Loans are part of all languages, and to nativize them through your tongue's phonological filters is completely natural.