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Unit voices - Translations for Latin


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Hello everyone,

I'd like to help with Audio voices.

So I propose here a list of Latin translations for the sentences needed. I'd like feedback about these, did I do mistakes, do you have better ideas, etc.

Lion, apparently you already did some recordings some time ago, so you should have some things to say about it!

Latin translators of the game too might have an opinion on this.

Thanks!

Quote

Hello - Ave
What is it? - Quid est?
My lord? - Domine?
I will walk - Ambulabo
I will fight - Pugnabo
I will build — Aedificabo
I will work land — Agrum colam
I will gather together — Cogam
I will herd — Agam
I will fish — Piscabor

I will attack! — Aggrediar!
I will repair — Restituam
I will hunt — Venabor
I will heal — Curabo
I will march! — Incedam!
I will retreat! — Recedam!
Battle cry — Clamate! Victrix!!
I will garrison — Praesidium (me ponam)

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  • 7 months later...

Hey, I listened to most of the sound files. I'm familiar with Classical Latin pronunciation, so I have some comments. First, the list needs some macrons and IPA transcription:

  • Hello — Avē — [ˈa.we] (final vowel shortened in popular speech)
  • What is it? — Quid est? — [kᶣɪˈdɛst]
  • My lord? — Domine? — [ˈdɔ.mɪ.nɛ]
  • I will walk — Ambulābō — [am.bʊˈlaː.boː]
  • I will fight — Pugnābō — [pʊŋˈnaː.boː]
  • I will build — Aedificābō — [ɛː.dɪ.fɪˈkaː.boː]
  • I will work land — Agrum colam — [ˈa.grũː ˈkɔ.lãː]
  • I will gather together — Cōgam — [ˈkoːgãː]
  • I will herd — Agam — [ˈagãː]
  • I will fish — Piscābor — [pɪsˈkaː.bɔr]
  • I will attack! — Aggrediar! — [agːˈrɛdi̯ar]
  • I will repair — Restituam — [rɛˈstɪ.tu̯ãː]
  • I will hunt — Vēnābor — [weːˈnaː.bɔr]
  • I will heal — Cūrābō — [kuːˈraː.boː]
  • I will march! — Incēdam! — [ɪŋˈkeː.dãː]
  • I will retreat! — Recēdam! — [rɛˈkeː.dãː]
  • Battle cry — Clāmāte! Victrix!! — [klaːˈmaː.tɛ ˈwɪk.trɪks]
  • I will garrison — Praesidium (mē pōnam) — [prɛːˈsɪ.di̯ũː meː ˈpoː.nãː]

Now some notes. Latin has a long-short vowel distinction. Long vowels are pronounced longer, even (usually) if they're not stressed. Long i, u, e, and o are also pronounced differently from the short versions: for instance long e is like ey in they; short e is more like e in met. In In the recordings, some of the vowels were short when they should have been long, such as the e in incedam and recedam. I marked the long vowels with macrons in the Latin text above, and with the colon-like symbol in the transcription. The vowel quality difference is also marked by using the correct IPA symbols.

The stress of some of the words was incorrect; for instance, curabo and all the words in -abo and -abor are accented on the a. In the IPA transcription, stressed syllables are marked by the apostrophe-like symbol before the stressed syllable (not after, as it would be in an English dictionary).

Finally (pun intended), -um and -am at the ends of words are nasalized long vowels. The m is not pronounced; it just indicates that the vowel before it is nasalized The IPA transcription above shows the length with the colon symbol and nasalization with a tilde.

Hope this is helpful.

Edited by Erutuon
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Thanks for the input Erutuon :)

I wasn't aware of the long-short distinction in Latin. I'll see if it's possible to improve that.

However, I am aware of the rules about stressing. What happened is that, during recording, we couldn't manage to get a decent result with the correct stressing: the phrases sounded artificial and emotionless, without any intensity. :(

Maybe we could try again, but I'm not certain we can achieve a good-sounding result with stresses.

And finally, I never heard anything about this nasalisation and it seems pretty weird to me. Amongst Latin languages, the ones that are closest to Latin don't have any nasal sound. Could you give a few sources as reference?

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The IPA transcription I have provided is based on the Latin spelling and pronunciation article on Wikipedia, which in turn is based on several books on reconstruction of Classical Latin pronunciation, particularly Sidney Allen's Vox Latina.

It's certainly true that relatives of Latin such as Ancient Greek, and its closest descendants, like Italian and Spanish (if they're what you're referring to), didn't have nasalized vowels (Sanskrit and Proto-Germanic did, though). But nasalization in Latin is suggested by the fact that the nasals n and m were lost in certain cases (both in inscriptions and in the Romance languages: cosol for consul; Italian mese and French mois for Latin mensis), final vowels + -m were elided before vowels in poetry, and in the cases where n and m are lost, there's indication that the preceding vowel was lengthened. Loss of nasal with lengthening points to nasalization. This is the reasoning given in Vox Latina. (Another source is Allen and Greenough's Latin Grammar; The Blackwell History of the Latin Language mentions only nasalization of final vowels before -m.)

I've been doing some recordings of Latin lately for Wikipedia, and maybe I will try pronouncing the phrases and see if I can see what you mean about emotional expressiveness. Italian has similar stress and is emotionally expressive, so maybe the problem can be worked out.

Edited by Erutuon
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  • 2 weeks later...

I've been reading Sidney Allen again, and I think the diphthong ae should probably be pronounced as a long open-mid vowel [ɛː] (that is, a long version of the vowel quality of short e, contrasting with normal long e). That's probably what it would be in colloquial Latin even as early as the Roman Republic. It certainly changed to [ɛ] in Vulgar Latin, which gave rise to the Romance languages. (The diphthong au would also be pronounced as long open-mid [ɔː], but none of the words have it.) I edited my original post to reflect this.

I also changed ɪ and ʊ to i̯ and u̯ before vowels. This represents a semivowel like English y or w. In fast and colloquial speech, the short vowels were probably pronounced this way.

I added periods to mark syllable breaks. So, anything between periods or [ˈ] (stress marks) is a separate syllable.

Edited by Erutuon
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I created soundfiles of the words to illustrate the pronunciation. I put them in a dropbox folder. Here's what they illustrate:


  • accidō aggrediar (double stops cc gg)
  • aedēs aedificābō (ae vs. long e)
  • agrum colam cōgam restituam incēdam (nasal um and am)
  • ambulābō pugnābō aedificābō cūrābō (long vowels and stress)
  • quid quod (different pronunciations of qu)

You know, if you like my soundfiles, maybe I could record the words. But I don't want to put you and others out of a job....


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  • 1 year later...
  • 3 weeks later...
On 4/12/2016 at 0:02 PM, ShadowsFate said:

Hi there, I recorded the lines sent above. Please let me know what needs fixing, I only know basic Latin nothing advanced but I did try to comprehend the wording. 

Keep in mind, I am unable to send WAV files due to the space only being at max 4 MBs. 

~ Brian W. 

AncientEmpiresAudio.mp3

Some are fine other need some pause, more relax, your pitch is better than mine try R sounds hard, the V = W

 

-------

what is your mother language? In order to help you.

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