EB: Voicemod Preview

[I Am Herenow]

Yeah, but what about Pontos?

[blacksnail]

If there are any additional factions which we decide will also speak Greek, they will likely use one of the existing voicemods - probably of a faction that has a very low chance of coming into contact with that one. We're still working that out behind the scenes.

[Kurulham]

I desperately want to hear an Athenian general start a pre-battle speech with "Polla ta deina kouden anthropou deinoteron pelei."

Just my two cents.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Thanks for the suggestion!

Hmm, it's gonna be tricky to tie a quote to one specific ethnicity though.

[BozosLiveHere]

I don't know if export_descr_sounds_prebattle.txt is moddable, but if it is, then it is pretty simple actually.

[Kurulham]

Oh, I don't have anything against non-Athenians using it. It's Sophocles, and prominent Sophocles, so pretty much anyone in the Hellenistic world with a literary education (which, granted, is nothing like all of them) would have known it.

Though it would be highly cool if the speeches were tied to ethnicity; if, for example, a Spartan gave a pre-battle speech of one short sentence, but the Athenian went on and on and on...

I could see that being applied to other factions, too; I suspect ethnic Makedonians would be more likely to hold forth on the "legacy of Alexandros" and that sort of thing. Just some ideas.

[Shautora]

I realize you guys have probably already handled Latin, but I have a beautiful Latin voice, and I could help record files if you like.

[Ozymandias]

Has this been done for latin, or in the process of being done?

[blacksnail]

The Latin voicemod is already in the game. There is only one faction that speaks Latin, so we're good to go for that one.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Hmm, maybe he/she meant "prebattle speeches" or "stratmap voicemod"? Anyhow I wouldn't know if they were in the works; at least I can't find a recent thread about it in the internal vaults. So, yeah I guess that's a no then.

[blacksnail]

"Not currently."

[Charge]

Why greeks have voices like easterners from vanilla? Is it maded specially or bug? "Run to the hills" This makes me laugh a lot...
version 0.8.1a

[Tellos Athenaios]

We think CA chose it to be that way. Note that everything we preview in this thread was NOT included with the 0.8x or older series.

[Kurulham]

Ooh. Just had an idea for another quote - well, it's not exactly a quote, but it's certainly something a KH general might say: Μηνιν αειδε, θεα, των Αχιλλεως τε και Αλεξανδρου υιων!

Or something like that. Still scraping the rust off my Greek.

[keravnos]

Hey, your Greek are mighty fine, and so is your text.

Think you can come up with more interesting KH or other Hellenistic factions curses against the others would be great. This is something we need to focus on.

Oh, and some disappointing news. Gr. Stratmap Voicemod will NOT be available for vol. 1. I am sorry to dissapoint, but η κυνος υιος ή θυγατηρ RL is a harsh mistress lately.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Ooh. Just had an idea for another quote - well, it's not exactly a quote, but it's certainly something a KH general might say: Μηνιν αειδε, θεα, των Αχιλλεως τε και Αλεξανδρου υιων!

Or something like that. Still scraping the rust off my Greek.

A KH general wouldn't say such things, that's for sure. Still, some Makedon might... And I think I know of an opportunity to use actually use it in a meaningful context too...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Must warn you: the metrum is broken, so you know where it's going to end up

[Kurulham]

Gah. Meant Makedonian. Sorry. Take out the τε και Αλεξανδρου and it could work for KH, I suppose.

And yes, I know it doesn't scan. I figure a general would be less concerned with that than with the sentiment. Though if you want something that scans, "Υιους αειδε, θεα, Πηληιαδεω Αχιληος" works and is actually closer to the source quote... maybe better for a KH chap.

My lack of proximity to my sources is driving me nuts; Perseus can only take you so far... oh well, back to the States in a few months and I'll be much better set.

[LusitanianWolf]

Will we have english subtitles? I will love to have the speeches in the right factional languages but I would also like to understant what my general is saying....

[I Am Herenow]

The EB team has said that they will include English subtitles for pre-battle speeches, yes.

[LusitanianWolf]

Thanks!!!

[Reverend Joe]

Earlier this year the EB team had an opportunity to work with the American University Audio Tech department

OH HELL YEAH!

That's my university, man! Outta sight!

Yeah, I know it's old news, but I haven't been around much for a while.

[Suraknar]

Hello and Congratulations for all the work done in bringing back the phonetics of the time.

I've listened to the voice samples in the first post of this thread, and while I understand much expert and detailed research has been done to represent as accurately as possibly the actual ancient Greek Phonetics, I found a small discrepancy.

In relation to the sounds of the Latin "u" in words such as "Elephantes Hulaioi Liboukoi".

More specifically how it is pronounced by the voice actor in the word "Hulaioi".

It is the letter "Ypsilon", (in phonetics written as Upsilon) pronounced better in the French alphabet, whose letters name is "i grec", meaning "Greek i", rather that its phonetic English equivalent as "why", and not "U" pronounced as "you".

The misunderstanding (most probably made initially by the scholars that transliterated the phonetic Greek alphabet using Latin letters) here may come from the fact that in Greek language the letters U and Y are actually the same letter. Written as "u" in lower case, and "Y" in upper case.

In Either case, the proper pronounciacion is the sound of "ee" like "Peek" and never the sound of "ou" like "Human".

Therefore, the phonetic sound of the word "Hulaioi" is not "Hou", but rather "Hee", pronounced as "Heelaioi", not "Houlaioi".

I really admire the work everyone participating in this has done, and I thought to help further its goal and quality by sharing this information.

Great work all!

EDIT:

A good exemple to further express this, is the word "ΦΥΛΑΤΤΕΣΘΕ", pronounced "Filatesthe", and not Fulatesthe", pronounced like "Fillament" and not "Full", even if, in lowercase transliteration it would be written as "Fulatesthe", lower case Y is written as u, but it is still a Y not a U.



In this table you can see the written Greek Alphabet and the error of linguists to attribute the letter U as the equivalent.

It should have been "Ipsilon" or "Ypsilon" not "Upsilon" as it is pronounced as "eep-si-lon" in reality, not "oop-si-lon".

It maybe time to correct this if someone has the means and part of the circles to do it. EB could be a beginning ;)

[Tellos Athenaios]

IIRC Upsilon simply means the short u. (Whatever the long u is; is anybody's guess -- though we do know that the Upsilon may be both long and short depending on various other thingies.)

[Suraknar]

You mean short y. (Actually its a "short i") ;)

In either case, I am not talking about what it means, I am talking about what it sounds. And it does not sound like a U, therefore, the result is a mispronounced Ancient Greek sound, that does not keep up to the goal of this project to express and represent the ancient language as it was.

I do understand, that it would mean much hard work to change all the words to represent the proper pronunciations in the voicemod, yet if it is decided to be kept as is, then none can really say that it is exactly as it was spoken.

And the fault is not the people involved in making this mod, the problem comes from the initial Linguists that made this mistake.

Unless of course this group, takes it upon yourself, to correct the Linguists error through this mod, just like EB as a mod corrects the History of the game.

It is really, your decision friends. And I am doing some constructive criticism pointing out the Linguistic error, in an attempt to help this team's eforts to better the end product, which I admire in the first place. :)

[Tellos Athenaios]

No. If I read the Greek rendering with accents of the Upsilon (as written in my dictionary) I can see why not.

It's upsilon with spiritus lenis and an "accent grave" + the adjective psilon; which means that towards the end of the "u" syllabe you lower the tone of your voice. That is plain impossible with the French y-Grec. But it is exactly the French short u as in "un".

[Tellos Athenaios]

Btw, I must say that I am not the most knowledgeable on how-to-pronounce-ancient-Greek on the team, and in any case I do not make the script which the Voice Actors use to get their pronounciation right.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

"U - The sounds represented by this letter correspond genetically to the back close rounded vowels "u" and "u" (macron over 'u') of related languages: e.g., Greek 'zugon' = Latin 'iugum' = Sanskrit 'yugam'; 'thumos' = Latin 'fumus' = Sanskrit dhumah; and this was no doubt the original Greek value, as is further indicated by the historical retention of this quality in some (non-Attic) dialects. The same symbol continues to be used with the value "u" even in Attic in the diphthongs au and eu (and originally ou); this quality is also presupposed by the onomatopeic verbs mukaomoai for the lowing of cattle (cf. Latin mugire) and bruxhaomai for the roaring of lions (cf. Latin rugire), and by the kokkux as the name of the cuckoo (cf. Latin cuculus)."

A change in Attic did occur early on though. Boiotians had dropped it in favor of 'ou' by 350 bc (they had Pouthio instead of Puthio in Attic). "We may safely say, then, in classical times the value of the Attic short u was similar to that of the e.g., French lune, and of long u to that of French ruse."

Quotes from Allen's Vox Graeca.

[keravnos]

Exactly.

[Suraknar]

I am not disputing your information, nor your research or knowledge of linguistics guys.

As a Greek Speaker myself, I just point out, that there has been error in the proper pronunciation of this Greek letter when carried over for Latin alphabetical and phonetic equivalence.

The sound of the letter is not of a "u" as in the French "ruse", it is instead a sound of an "i" as in the French word "rire".

If you speak Greek (native), I ask you to read this word, "ΦΥΛΑΤΤΕΣΘΕ", are you pronouncing this as a "u" like in "Fulfillment", or as an "i" like in "Filament".

The proper sound is like in "Filament", because this letter "Ipsilon", is a short I, like the "Eta" and the "Iota" but short and thin.

The only "U" sound, like "Fulfilment" in Greek comes from the "ou".

Boiotians had dropped it in favor of 'ou' by 350 bc (they had Pouthio instead of Puthio in Attic).

Are you talking about the word "Πύθιο", because the sound of this word is like the "i" in "Pina-Colada" (not exactly English, but the first that came to mind while typing this). And not like the "u" in "Pull".

Now, I am not a Linguist by profession of course, I just speak several languages, and I have an amateur affinity for Linguistics as part of my real passion which is History in reality, the language of a people is part of one's history, and in that respect learning about it is a logical extension if one is to properly understand a given History. I am sure too that most of you fine gents know these things.

I maintain that an error has been made in the case of the "Y","u" Greek letter pronounced as "Ipsilon" in Greek, yet, given a wrong equivalent phonetically as "Upsilon" in other languages.

A better example here could be the word "Φύση", meaning "Nature", but from we get the Science of Physics.

Another example "Κύπρος", yes this is "Cyprus", which is properly pronounced, "Kýpros", and not Kupros (which means another thing all together heh).

Note that in this case, the Latin letter "y" has been used and not the letter "u", because that is the proper use.

Lower case "u" n the Greek alphabet, is equivalent to the Latin letter "y" not the Latin letter "u".

The word, "Πύθιa" (upper case: ΠΥΘΙA) as in "H Πύθιa",(The Oracle) in English is written by many as "Pithia" (phonetically correct), but also as "Pythia", but never as "Puthia".

So, my point is that even if the convention of this letter is to call it "Upsilon", it is incorrect, and it brings the pronunciation of the letter in words to be incorrect as well.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Waitamminit: you are applying modern Greek sounds of vowels to ancient equivalents? You do know that those are incompatible, right?