Help Wanted: Sounds and voices

Ok guys, we need your help. We would like to add some new sounds and voices to enhance some of our current factions, but we can't without your assistance.

So if you want your voice to be heard, and you are a native speaker of German or a Scandinavian language, please contact me! Also, we can use a strong Hebrew speaker, or more than one.

Thanks!

-khel

I'm a native Finnish speaker - Finnish makes for good barbarian talk, he he.

Would be happy to help... impressive project.

I speak Danish and I would gladly help out, but if you want something resembling old Norse (Germanic) language you will need someone from Iceland, their language haven’t changed much since they migrated, which is around a 1000 years ago.

hi, i speak hebrew as a strong second language, basically fluently, and i'm attending yeshiva u. so i can definitely find others to help out.

question, though: wouldn't aramaic be more appropriate for this time period? hebrew, (especially the kind i speak, which is about 120 years old) was not used very much at the time
aramaic speakers are harder to find, though i know some sephardic jews who might know it as a second language. i can do aramaic if i had to, but it's not especially easy...

Modern "Hebrew" is in fact closer to Punic than Aramaic is.
Aramaic is to Punic like German is to Norwegian.
Hebrew is to Punic like Norwegian is to Danish.

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.

In Krahmalkov's Phoenician-Punic dictionary and grammar books, you will see that 95% of Punic is similar, in most cases IDENTICAL, to Hebrew words. You will be lucky if you find 3% of similarity between Aramaic or Akkadian to Punic.

We will not be using Hebrew per se. We will be using Punic as a base, but any missing bits and pieces, gaps of information, will be cemented and sealed shut with Hebrew. Not all words imaginable are in the dictionary.

Just to give you examples of similarities:
The letters will be in latinized ASCII form, but represent Punic and Hebrew letters. Though the dictionary use a latinized form, this is not exactly how the dictionary deals with it, because there are some macrons I don't have on my keyboard. I'll be using some random characters which I have in this latin ASCII format (which more people have anyway).

\ = Aleph (simple glottal stop)
B = Beth (bilabial plosive)
G = Gimel (velar stop)
D = Daleth (alveolar stop)
H = He (glottal fricative)
W = Waw (bilabial) represented in Latin-leter orthography by U (V)
Z = Zayin (affricate of the shape [ZD] or [DZ], represented in Roman orthography by sd and ss in the spelling of the demonstrative pronoun Z ("this")
¤ = Heth (pharyngeal fricative) ¤NB@L (¤anniba@al)
% = Teth (retroflex stop) emphatic dental stop, almost like T
Y = Yodh (palatal glide) Represented in Latin-letter orthography by i
K = Kaph (velar stop) Represented in Neo-Punic Latin-letter orthography by CH - aspirated plosive K, like Classical Greek letter "Chi" like Kick
L = Lamedh (alveolar lateral resonant) regular L
M = Mem (bilabial nasal resonant) regular M
N = Nun (alveolar nasal resonant) regular N
S = Samekh (alveolar groove fricative) regular S
@ = Ayin (glottal obstruent) Sounds like a short french R, or "iRaq" in the old 'Syric' dialect.
P = Pe (bilabial simple stop) regular P
£ = Sadhe (alveolar affricate) TS like TSunami
Q = Qoph (uvular stop) regular unaspirated K - Kitchen
R = Resh (alveolar median resonant) is sometimes Geminated, i.e., the consonant is pronounced twice as long as it would normally be, and is also treated as belonging to both the preceeding vowel and the following.
$ = Shin (reflex of PWS) In hebrew Shin is pronounced SH as in "SHine", but in Phoenician, the letter Shin lost its fricative nature some time in the 5th Century B.C. Therefore, in Punic it was pronounced like a regular S.
T = Taw (simple alveolar stop) aspirated plosive T

[ABC] = transliterated pronunciation in hebrew or punic


Happiness
Punic: \$R [\oser]
Hebrew: \$R [\osher]

Belly
Punic: BTN [beten]
Hebrew: BTN [beten]

Sanctuary
Punic: MQD$ [mikdas]
Hebrew: MQD$ [mikda$]

Army
Punic: M¤NT [ma¤net]
Hebrew: [ma¤ne]

Stone quarry
Punic: M¤£B [ma¤£eb]
Hebrew: [ma¤£eb]

Those are some few random examples.. there are Akkadian and Aramaic connections as well, but I really have to look hard to find them, because that's how rare they are compared to the Hebrew connections.

So now you understand why Hebrew and Hebrew speakers are such a natural choice.

The dictionary is 500 pages, the grammar is 300 pages.

my mistake, i wasn't aware this was intended for use instead of punic you're right, aramaic was in its own linguistic family, seperate from hebrew and phoenician, it was much more prominent east of the levant where it eventually replaced the last akkadian-derivative languages. in that case, yes, mishnaic hebrew (with which i'm fairly familiar, in a practical, if not scholarly capacity) would certainly be preferable. i'd have numerous dictionaries and guides at my disposal to help.
as for mishnaic hebrew not being the 'true' hebrew, it's clearly a direct descendant of the biblical hebrew in the bible, which is pretty much universally recognized as part of a canaanite (nw semitic) language family, along with phoenician. so, i'm not sure what your comment was getting at, if there is another 'true' hebrew predating mishnaic out there, i'm not aware of it.

Well, it wasn't "my" comment per se. It was something Dr. Charles Krahmalkov told me, the guy who created the dictionary and grammar books. I've emailed some with him. That's how he explained it to me.

Here's a few direct quotes :

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".

About Hebrew. Hebrew's real name, as recorded in the Bible, is Yehudit, which means "Judean", that is, the Semitic language spoken in the southern highlands of Palestine, from Jerusalem southwards into the desert. Yehudit became the official national language of the Jews about 1000 BC, because it was native language of King David, who was born in Bethlehem of Judah and was for a short while king in Hebron of Judah. The other languages of Palestine continued to be spoken however, chief among them Ephraimite, used in the northern highlands, from Jerusalem up to the Jezreel Valley. We have only a few texts in this once important language, but the Bible preserves a number of interesting stories about it, the most famous of them being the Shibboleth incident: speakers of Yehudit were able to identify Ephraimites by asking them to say the word "shibboleth." In Ephraimite there was no "sh"-sound (as there is none in Greek). The Ephraimite could hear the "sh" but could not articulate it; the best he could do was "sibboleth," giving his tribal identity away and earning an unpleasant death by drowning in the Jordan River. Modern Hebrew is based partly on Biblical Hebrew but also heavily on so-called Mishnaic Hebrew (also called Rabbinic Hebrew). This seems to have been the very ancient, pre-Yehudit language of coastal plain of south-western Palestine. It never really died out but seems to have been pushed aside when Yehudit was declared the national language. Very much like Norwegian could and would not be eliminated when Danish was imposed as the national language of your region. The old Semitic coastal language was really the southernmost dialect of Phoenician, the Semitic spoken along the coast and plain of Lebanon and Palestine. Some features of this coastal language (and therefore also of modern Hebrew) is the pronoun she-("which") instead of Yehudit asher; the pronoun anu ("we") instead of Yehudit anahnu; and the pronoun zo ("this", feminine) instead of Yehudit zot.
Small but significant differences.

well... i can speak german. sound like a german to the germans.
i may have a slight swiss influence though....
comes from living in switzerland i guess.. DAMN IT.

i would like to help EB in any respect. just let me know what i would have to do, or what else i have to bring with me apart from speaking a language.

I speak Swedish if it is for any use...

I am a native german speaker, also i have only a normal pc microphone.

I've posted this in the TWCenter.net forums, but there was no answer, so here I go again:

I'm a Hebrew speaker, born and raised in Israel. I'm in love with this mod and am pretty sure that it will consume my social life when it gets released. I'd love to contribute. I have a normal computer mic.

Modern German has very little in common with the language the Germans of this time period would have spoken... but then again, close enough!

I don't think it has anything to do with how well people know the current languages' vocabularies, but with accents and dialects. People who know Hebrew and contribute their voice do not know Phoenician, but a language that is very close to it when accents are considered. I trust EB's lead in this, as they do, after all, have professionals among their ranks.

I don't know if I can be of any assistance, my native language being Dutch (and my technical capabilities severly limited), but in respect to the accent bit, I would like to point out that there are large differences between West-German (German, Dutch, Frisian and English), North-German (Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and Icelandic) and East-German (all died out, but for example Gothic or Burgundian) tongues. In this respect, look to the difference in the names of Germanic Gods: Woden, Woten, Wodan (West-German); Odin (Norse) or Donar (West-German) and Thor (Norse).

Otherwise, keep up the good work! Really nice!

Originally Posted by Brutus

I don't know if I can be of any assistance, my native language being Dutch (and my technical capabilities severly limited), but in respect to the accent bit, I would like to point out that there are large differences between West-German (German, Dutch, Frisian and English), North-German (Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and Icelandic) and East-German (all died out, but for example Gothic or Burgundian) tongues. In this respect, look to the difference in the names of Germanic Gods: Woden, Woten, Wodan (West-German); Odin (Norse) or Donar (West-German) and Thor (Norse).

Otherwise, keep up the good work! Really nice!

It is true that the languages differed later in the Roman period, but the division of Proto-Germanic isn't believed to have appeared before 100 AD. Therefore it seems to me to be a good solution to use the Proto-Germanic language for all of the Germanic tribes in EB.


Best regards, Baeksen

How close is English to proto-German (ignoring all the French words)? That's all I can offer.

I speak Swedish, Danish and Norwegian, fairly good German and some French. I've also studied Latin in university and has a pretty good grasp of older dialects and pronounciation when it comes to older Scandinavian words ( mostly from my studies of Nordic religion ).

Let me know if I can help.

Well im welsh if that helps lol

Welsh eh? Well, I don't think we have a use for that language. It's too mixed.
You might be interested to know that Welsh is related to Hebrew. Welsh is mixed between Celtic and some Phoenician.

Examples:


--------Welsh-----------------|--------Hebrew--------------
Ochoren ballodddi hoc-dena----|---Acharei belothi hedenah----
Yni all sy dda------------------|---Ani El Saddai--------------
Angheni a gowan--------------|---Angini eu gouan------------
Ysgoefon a gwirion------------|---Isgoahvon u giwaeon-------
Be heulo leuferfo--------------|---Be hilo leavorvo------------
Nesa awyr peneu chwi---------|---Nesah auor panei cha------


Intriguing, no?

who is gonna do the greeks?

Originally Posted by Kikosemmek

I've posted this in the TWCenter.net forums, but there was no answer, so here I go again:

I'm a Hebrew speaker, born and raised in Israel. I'm in love with this mod and am pretty sure that it will consume my social life when it gets released. I'd love to contribute. I have a normal computer mic.

Hi Kikosemmek. I actually left you a PM in the TWC forums since we are indeed very much in need of hebrew speakers for our mod. Please recheck it and contact us through the adresses I left you in that PM. Thank you for your offer once again and, if all goes well, may I be the first to welcome you to our humble team

Originally Posted by Idomeneas

who is gonna do the greeks?

Well on their way to being done Idomeneas. But can't give an exact estimate of the completion date. The chap is from Thessalonika, btw, and I for one can't wait to hear it in-game like we can do for the latin right now.

Originally Posted by Teleklos Archelaou

Well on their way to being done Idomeneas. But can't give an exact estimate of the completion date. The chap is from Thessalonika, btw, and I for one can't wait to hear it in-game like we can do for the latin right now.

watch his ''Λ'' accent

just joking offcourse.

What exactly do you need? Im from Piraeus and my bro is sound engineer (serving in the army right now)

Originally Posted by Teleklos Archelaou

Well on their way to being done Idomeneas. But can't give an exact estimate of the completion date. The chap is from Thessalonika, btw, and I for one can't wait to hear it in-game like we can do for the latin right now.

yeah i heard the comander screaming testudo without teh freaky texan accent. had a good ring to it.

i heard it on the rtr site, with the massive previuew that look like EB. still thinking the two shoudl meet and discus. I can wait another year for teh mod

Originally Posted by jerby

yeah i heard the comander screaming testudo without teh freaky texan accent. had a good ring to it.

i heard it on the rtr site, with the massive previuew that look like EB. still thinking the two shoudl meet and discus. I can wait another year for teh mod

Not sure what you mean here jerby. The voicemod can be used by RTR as far as I know (though I have not tried it on a version of RTR) and will even work on vanilla now. It is the same voicemod that will work with EB too. A version of the Latin has been released but is not totally done by any stretch. The final one will have at the least the campaign commands too.

i was just complementing the voice mod team. and stating that the roman factions without the texan-accent (or whatever) give a good authentic feel

About RTR, i was just giving my source where I heard it.

and the next was just another part of a brainless discussion

Well thanks for the compliment. It was my voice you heard in the latin voicemod.

sounds nice. good longs probably. altough I though ancients latin would be more fluent

A note on Celtic languages:

For Gallic, it is not remotely similar to Gaelic, so Gaelic speakers need not apply here; the language is almost entirely different. Preference is for Latin speakers, because it should sound fairly similar, and we have several already I'm quite sure. Latin and Gallic both heavily affected eachother into this period. Many Latin words have Gallic roots, due to a great deal of trade and war. Likewise, many Gallic words have a kind of Latin sound to them, and were inversely affected by the accents in the Italic peninsula (as well as Greece, so Greek speakers may be useful too).

For the British language; the Britons spoke some Gallic and some P-Celtic languages. We're using a mix. Once again, Latin speakers are preferred. The P-Celtic stuff may be a bit tough for you, but we can feel you through it. Hebrew speakers are also welcome, because there was a good deal of semetic influence in the language, and it likely affected the accent; this comes from centuries of trade with Phoenicians and the like. Modern Welsh is essentially no good, the accent is likely all wrong (too much Latin, Gaelic, Anglo-Saxon, and Norman influence, in that order) and pronunciations are different. It's easier to teach some one from scratch with a more similar accent then to tell you to forget everything you know, if you understand my meaning.

The Iberians I believe we're opting to use Latin for; I'm aware they aren't Celts, but many spoke a few different Celtic languages. No one confirms for me what exactly we're doing for them. I was thinking of using a stripped down Q-Celtic (from which the Gaelic languages stem; it held on in much of Iberia and parts of eastern Europe as well, but for our purposes, Iberia is all that matters here, it spread from there into Ireland). However, we have a number of options, and I don't think we're ready to recruit any speakers until we decide what is being done with it. Like with Welsh though, if we use stripped down Q-Celtic, Gaelic speakers won't be able to help that much. Accents will be all wrong, they've changed far too much, the language would look totally foreign. Aside from grammar, you'd be looking at an almost completely different language than what you may understand, and it's really just easier to teach somebody from scratch to pronounce some phonetics than try and read an improvised language and bringing in their own subconscious linguistic biases about pronunciation. This is not a dig at anyone (I am actually a native of the Gaeltacht, and Irish is my first language); I'm simply saying, that it's just not something you can be used for without it sounding incorrect. No matter how much one tries to clean their accents, it can be very difficult to pronounce what one needs appropriately.

I should note, it is most unlikely Q-Celtic will be used for the Iberians, but we really don't know what we're doing right now for it, so please please don't assume you can help with it yet, until we have something more final for them.

Ranika if Gallic and Geallic are so different to each other why are these languages placed in the same celtic language family?
What is the reason that they are placed in the same "group" ?!