How Age of Mythology Plays with Language

Рет қаралды 69,480

Күн бұрын

Age of Mythology is one of those games where the effort put into things like language is...uneven. It gives us an opportunity to talk about some interesting things when it comes to language, accents, and even the function of being understandable.
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Thanks to everyone who helped me make this.
In order of appearance:
‪@FreddaYT‬
‪@MiaMulder‬
‪@Ludohistory‬
‪@ArmchairEgyptology‬
‪@AnRel‬
And here's the link to the Armchair Egyptology video mentioned, followed by the added resources on modern Coptic language use.
AE video:
• What is the 'Translite...
Coptic classes
• Coptic classes aim to ...
Coptic article**
www.dailynewsegypt.com/2005/1...
**Apparently the author of this article about Coptic's continued existence ~8:40 has been caught before just making up sources and stuff. So here's an article on that:
www.theguardian.com/commentis...
From what I can gather beyond the source, mostly the classes also mentioned and offhand things I've heard from people who have connection to Coptic communities, it's still likely that there are people speaking it or keeping it alive, but it's, again very small as a subset of the broader Coptic community.
I welcome anything people can find that discusses the matter further.
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Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
02:24: Language and “Authenticity”
05:55 The Egyptians and Accuracy
12:46 Intent
15:46 Language, Games, and Language Games
19:03 Conclusion
20:56 Outro
21:47 After credits secret scene

Пікірлер: 409

@gokce9521 10 ай бұрын

As a Turkish speaker for me the difference between Civ 5 Civ 6 Suleiman was fascinating Civ 5 Suleiman speaks modern Turkish but with a flair that made him sound less sultan and more like an overly comical grandpa giving gifts to his grandchildren. Civ 6 Suleiman straight up speaks courtly Ottoman, somehow sounding both elegant and ... magnificent . Hearing him legitimately makes me feel like a 16'th century Turkish peasant being oppressed by his sheer nobility. I can not understand 60% of what he says, it all sounds so familiar yet so distant.

@shinydewott 10 ай бұрын

"Sakalım ve göbeğim aşkına" moment

@thomastakesatollforthedark2231 10 ай бұрын

Funnily enough civ 5 William of Orange has the same grandfatherly tone and it works a lot better for him. He sounds very out of his depth, like the actual Prince

@lolihitler4198 10 ай бұрын

i dont know a lick of turkish but suleiman in civ5 always gave me grandpa on christmas vibes too

@shinydewott 10 ай бұрын

@@lolihitler4198 his voice and manners are very much like an overenthusiastic Mall Santa lmao

@DudeWatIsThis 10 ай бұрын

Civ 6 Felipe II: **using proper expressions and language for his time** Civ V Isabel of Castile: **some intern speaking modern Spanish**

@TheSpitfury 10 ай бұрын

Bizarrely I had the same thing with the voice lines getting stuck in my head, but rather than the Egyptian ones sometimes my brain just goes "PROSTAGMA" when I'm walking somewhere to do something.

@Rosencreutzzz 10 ай бұрын

In my "research" of people getting these things stuck in their head, prostagma seems to be most common

@victorvondroom1039 10 ай бұрын

Prostagma? Vulome! METALEFS (:

@hannahdevries3606 10 ай бұрын

I'm quite partial to a bit of 'Skiphan' myself

@QalOrt 10 ай бұрын

Tell es mar-ket

@generationm2059 10 ай бұрын

For some strange reason, I hear 'walala' every time I raise my arms.

@DudeWatIsThis 10 ай бұрын

18:08 I'm Spanish, and I have a few English friends. They say they're impressed of how grossly rude we are in short conversation, and it's precisely because of this. English-speaker picks up phone: "Yes? This is the Smiths residence, who am I talking to?" Spanish person picks up phone: "Speak." The thing is, English has no "formal" way of speaking, and what my friends fail to grasp (or don't grasp quite well) is: we don't say "Speak" when we pick up the phone. We say... "Speaketh?" - like, the formal version. We don't need to surround everything with "please" and "thank you". We don't have to say "Unfortunately" before delivering mildly inconvenient news. We can just shoot straight ahead, use the formal version of words, and call it a day. I know this doesn't have a lot to do with the video, but I found it funny that there can be such a cultural shock between two countries in the same area of the same continent.

@pavlezoranovic1859 10 ай бұрын

Funny thing I remember is about the warcry Greek units shouted when you'd order them to attack an enemy unit - Izvoli (eezwholee)! In Serbian it literally means:"Here you go". So one time when my mom entered in my room, I picked up an apple and streched my arm towards her while ordering Arkantos to attack someone. My mom just looked at me and after the third "izvoli!!!" she just said:"No, thanks. I'm not hungry".

@Audentior_Ito 10 ай бұрын

Ramses II speaking Arabic in Civ 5 is absolutely insane - I never picked up on that! It'd be like Pacal speaking Spanish or Hiawatha speaking English...

@philipmetacomet3434 10 ай бұрын

Age of Empires 4 is also worth a mention, I think! It did a cool thing with its time compression by having each faction's spoken language change every age, roughly in line with what periods they're supposed to represent. So the English faction's voice lines start out in Old English and develop into late Middle English (which you can mostly understand) by the endgame. It makes for a very evocative sense of "progress", especially with the series' usual progression of increasingly elaborate music and aesthetics through the ages.

@Rosencreutzzz 10 ай бұрын

A few people had been commenting about this. I genuinely forgot AoE4 happened until like halfway through editing this video--suffice to say I had no idea but I think that's fantastic. It's one of those things they *really* didn't have to do, so I'm surprised they did. Honestly impressed.

@mcmerry2846 10 ай бұрын

Age of 2... has a good Spanish tho

@afz902k 10 ай бұрын

That's really impressive! Now, if only the rest of the game was gud

@MensHominis 10 ай бұрын

Please tell me they’ve included Early New High German (Frühneuhochdeutsch)! 😫🖤 It was spoken around 1500 CE (±150y) and it just sounds so hilarious to a native (New High) German’s ears because it’s so close but also not.

@Mightfox 10 ай бұрын

@@afz902k It's very fun... more fun townbuildign than AOE2, and more unique faction gameplay than AOE2 but not as diverse as AOE3, matches arent as slow as AOE2 but also somewhat less rushy than AOE3, and beautiful maps with verticality that doesnt feel so hideous and artificial as 2/3.

@afz902k 10 ай бұрын

I'm a native Spanish speaker, and the voicing of the Spanish in AoE2 although not really historically accurate, is still very well done and immersive. It has a distinct "Spanish" tone and is intelligible but uses old words and phrase structures that remind me of when we read el Quixotl, or el Cid in school.

@mcmerry2846 10 ай бұрын

Santiago is definitely historically accurate

@mjbalbo 10 ай бұрын

A ELLOS

@valenhedenskstrombladviker5691 10 ай бұрын

El Quixotl???

@afz902k 10 ай бұрын

@@valenhedenskstrombladviker5691

@WikiHL 10 ай бұрын

Shoutouts to the dub. Few phrases carry as much power as "¡HA LLEGADO WALLACE!"

@mandel94 10 ай бұрын

My ex girlfriend is Icelandic. I was amazed when I heard her say "já" (the word that sounds like yao) and "tillbuin" for the first time. I showed her the game, and she understood every Norse voiceline. It's pretty much just modern Icelandic. "Alt i lagi" from AOE just means "everything's all right" in Icelandic, as far as I remember.

@Ellert00 10 ай бұрын

Allt í lagi is more of an "all right" while "everything's all right" is allt er í lagi. Fairly close but the former can be a response to a request, a confirmation that you're going to do it, but the latter is a statement about the general state of things. Fairly close but just that slight difference. :)

@afz902k 10 ай бұрын

@@Ellert00 oh so something like "all right" vs "all is right"? Very interesting! Assuming you're Icelandic do you also understand "Till bardaga", or is that one lost in time?

@apfelstrudlOfOA 10 ай бұрын

⁠@@afz902kSwede here, looked it up and bardaga means combat in icelandic according to g-translate. And the word ”till” means ”to”. So it means ”to battle”.

@afz902k 10 ай бұрын

@@apfelstrudlOfOA thanks, that clears it up. :)

@Ahmadabdal_ 8 ай бұрын

@@apfelstrudlOfOAhey man can you please tell me what "timber hu khwandi" means?

@CollinBuckman 10 ай бұрын

When it comes to historical games using language for immersion, I always find it interesting how Empire and Napoleon (I think) were the only historical titles of the Total War series to make units respond in their native language, rather than having everyone speak English with an accent.

@artsenor254 10 ай бұрын

There's also Shogun 2, though they only had to go through one language in this case.

@torinslik6577 10 ай бұрын

Imperial Glory also did this. Love that game.

@blede8649 6 ай бұрын

@@artsenor254The European units (Portuguese Terço in the main campaign, available to the Otomo clan, and the US/British/French Marines and their unique warships in the Fall of the Samurai campaign) speak their languages, if I'm not misremembering. European agents too (Christian Priests from the main campaign, Foreign Veterans from FotS).

@futhington 6 ай бұрын

@@blede8649 If I recall correctly from having played recently the Portuguese units and the missionaries speak Japanese but with a distinctive accent, and there were mods to make them speak Portuguese. In Fall of the Samurai the units all speak English so the British/American units do sound authentic, but then this is contrasted against the Japanese units you play with most of the time going "RINE INFANTRY"

@HeadsFullOfEyeballs 6 ай бұрын

I like that about Empire and Napoleon, but I wish they'd taken a bit more care with it. The translations are pretty awkward and literal. For example the German-speaking units will say "Ja, sir!" for "Yes, sir!". Which would make sense if it was a German translation of something an English person is saying to another English person (the title "sir" would be left untranslated there). But it's supposed to be a German officer talking to a German commander! IIRC some of the Japanese lines in Shogun 2 are also borderline gibberish and/or assigned wrong.

@ahumpierrogue137 10 ай бұрын

A good example of how games play around with historical language is Total War three kingdoms. While not an official position advocated by CA or anything, a lot of the western audience for 3K prefer to play with the Chinese dub. To us, it sounds "more authentic" and fits more with the period. This is despite the fact that modern Mandarin chinese is literally nothing like(spoken) Han dynasty chinese.

@sakesaurus 10 ай бұрын

I'd go Cantonese for a bit more authentic souns

@ahumpierrogue137 10 ай бұрын

@@sakesaurus A) Despite common claims by cantonese speakers about how they speak like, the true chinese of the ancestors or whatever, ultimately it must be remembered that Cantonese is ultimately a pretty specific dialect from the southern reaches of china, which has still had 2000 years of differentiation since the Three Kingdoms period(~900 ish since the commonly accepted advent of Old Mandarin). It has still diverged greatly from the old Eastern Han chinese which would have been spoken by the upper crust of china's elite. While it certainly has preserved some things, it is not some timecapsule language that can be honestly used to claim superiority over the north in terms of classical authenticity. Especially given that for much of the Han dynasty and before, whatever language or dialect was spoken in the now cantonese speaking areas of china would have been considered equally barbaric in their own times. No one can claim to have the true authentic descent or pronunciations, because every chinese subculture is equally as far away. B )The game also doesn't have a cantonese dub to my knowledge, so this is all for naught :P

@emilsoderman3691 Ай бұрын

Interestingly, the 3K chinese voice acting got a lot of praise from chinese speakers for being well... Not *accurate* but at least like, "Chinese Period Drama" accurate?

@weirdofromhalo 22 күн бұрын

@@ahumpierrogue137Not to mention that the Three Kingdoms time period takes place during the transition from Old Chinese to Early Middle Chinese, and would have sounded like none of the modern Sinitic languages. Old Chinese, from what has been reconstructed, was not a tonal language and relied on many more consonant clusters that turned into tones in Middle Chinese. Old Chinese sounds really weird to modern ears, because it's nothing like any variety of Sinitic language!

@PlatinumAltaria 10 ай бұрын

It's a little frustrating that Civ refuses to either depict Cleopatra as a Greek, or to swap her out for a native Egyptian queen like Hatshepsut. The actual model they use in 6 actually looks a lot more like Hatshepsut than it does like any depiction of Cleopatra. But we're indebted to the first game, where the Zulu are a major civilisation because of that one time they beat the British despite the abundance of other African cultures to draw from.

@freealter 10 ай бұрын

Still waiting for a playable great Zimbabwe

@Rosencreutzzz 10 ай бұрын

I think the oddest part, to me, is that they otherwise were very committed in 6 to starting out with "lesser known" leaders when they could. Seondeok, Catherine di Medici, Jadwiga-- and these weren't even scraping any barrels for relevant women, like they fully chose Catherine instead of...Catherine (Russia). It's clear they wanted more obscure figures generally. Cleopatra is an odd one out in that light. She's like *the* pharaoh people think of besides "king tut" and as you pointed out Hatshepsut is right there.

@PlatinumAltaria 10 ай бұрын

@@freealter Don't worry, the Shona will be fully playable in Civ 12... for a small fee, of course.

@PlatinumAltaria 10 ай бұрын

@@Rosencreutzzz Maybe one day we can beat Russia as the Wabanaki or Maraura. It's a little disappointing that the foremost alternate history franchise relies so much on famous faces instead of letting the historical losers get their chance to win!

@dftp 10 ай бұрын

@@PlatinumAltariaHey at least we got modders to fill in the gaps oh wait they just make Hitler and what the CIA thinks Stalin and Lenin were like as leaders...

@SirDarthDragon 10 ай бұрын

This reminds me of the choice of language by magicians in Fate Zero´s original Japanese dub: -Thosaka Tokiomi usus German, as the head of an ancient traditional magician clan, devoted to tradition and staying true to the magicians path. -Kiritsugo meanwhile uses english, as a highly efficient magician-assassin, with magic beeing only used to support his gunnery, and a "the ends justify the means" mentality

@Appers 10 ай бұрын

Slight note about the use of "thou", I think some modern uses of it accidentally do nail the original usage of the word despite themselves. Like in the Persona example you used, Christians were encouraged to refer to god using the more familiar "thou" form rather than the respectful "you" form (as you can hear from how pretty much every hymn still uses that archaic "thou" form today). So the "religious voice" being evoked in Persona is probably right to use "thou", even if it reads completely differently to how it would have been understood at that time.

@hi-i-am-atan 10 ай бұрын

well, relating it to that religious usage isn't exactly inapt, given how many personae are divine figures ... but it's also fording the river the long way round when the bridge is right in front of you, because the iconic "i am thou, thou art i" line is taken from what a persona says when their user first awakens to it which is to say, it's what a part of someone's inner self says to ... themself it's hard to say the familiarity is inappropriate when it's coming from something that literally knows you better than you do, and also _is_ you

@MisterFoxton 10 ай бұрын

That line bugs me a little, it should be "I am thee, thou art me." But your point makes sense. My native language doesn't have formal and informal pronouns, but I am curious if there are different people who do, whom may refer to themselves in their inner monologue by different forms. I know some using plural pronouns, or second person, or even only by name. I think it's feasible a pain could refer to themselves in any way.

@vladprus4019 10 ай бұрын

The language drift here is an interesting topic. There are some mods for Crusader Kings 3 that are using "immerive names" with the titles in tthe language of leader... but here's the catch: those are not nessecarily in the modern language. The way it was used in my country "Poland" was using real archaic terms, but those terms roughly exists in the modern day, but are having different connotations and unless tthe Polish person would be versed in the history of those terms, they would sound rather out of place. Essentially, breaking immersion my accidentally making the game sound like something that could be put as a joke mod. Examples: Duchy level ruler is "Ksiądz". This word is archaic for "prince", but in the modern Polish it means Christian priest (mainly of a "Catholic", that is "western", latin, rite) Region of Greater Poland is called: "Wielka Polszcza", with "Polszcza" being archaic name for Poland... problem is it is VERY similar to "Polsza" which in modern Polish is essentially mocking way of saying "Poland". Moreover, modern name of the region is "Wielkopolska" while "Wilka Polska/Polscza" sounds less like a region and more like "Poland that is Great". The whole things is basically ressembling an ironic name someone would put as a way of mocking some Polish irredentists. Count level ruler is "Żupan" which is an old Polish office, but in modern Polish primarily understand as the naame of a certain element of clothing. Those three things was initially giving me an impression of the meme mod untill I've realized that those are meant to be archaic terms.

@Rosencreutzzz 10 ай бұрын

The duchy ruler name thing actually somewhat came up in my research for the bannerlord video when I was making the argument about Sturgia being Kievan Rus inspired, and how Kniaz was the title-- a few people, I think one from Poland and one from Montenegro mentioned that it read as/nearer a religious title in a modern context. It also reminded me of how "primate" used to be a common term for a bishop, and is still used in some translations of Orthodox titles in English... and how that runs into the problem of the more common use of the word primate meaning a monkey.

@vladprus4019 10 ай бұрын

@@Rosencreutzzz Well, with Polish, we have the title of "Prince" with basically the same etymology, that is "Książe". We use the word "Kniaź", but nearly always as speaking about the princes of the region of the Rus. But yeah, it is quite similar. The transition mappened in the Early Modern Period when "Ksiądz" became more commonly used as basically "lord", "leader" and overall rather the honorific title of influential people. Initially it was used as the way to refer to the bishops (as "lords/princes of the Church"), but later it gradually got widened among the priesthood and it's usage to refer to the secular people decreased in favor of "książe" untill it became basically as just "priest" with it's original meaning completly burried over.

@kuman0110 10 ай бұрын

may i ask what mods those are? they sound interesting

@vladprus4019 10 ай бұрын

@@kuman0110 Modpack is linked in the description of the video "FORMING Poland is PURE MADNESS!" by OneProudBavarian. I don't remember which mod specifically does this.

@kuman0110 10 ай бұрын

@@vladprus4019thank you

@Argacyan 10 ай бұрын

Another way in which language authenticity often plays a role in games is with place names. There's a lot that could be written about what various games use to name a place, and if they allow for midgame changes based on things like ownership then which places it allows to be changed into what options. When it comes to games like Eu4 I myself have worked with larger overhaul mods in order to fix & fill in gaps left by Paradox in the original state of the game. Something that is notable with Age of Mythology is that while NPC ai-enemies usually use place names, the ones for the Egyptian faction use Greek names for places in Egypt ("Heliopolis" instead of Iunu, "Thebes" instead of Waset, etc).

@PhoenixStriker1 10 ай бұрын

In the game Humankind there are a lot of ancient era cultures like the Olmecs or Harappans which use city titles of their modern day archaeological dig sites or modern cities closest to those sites because we really have no idea what they would’ve called their cities.

@akai4942 10 ай бұрын

Getting a voiceline stuck in your head is TOO REAL. "GOMEREI O" "ooOOOose no tori ni!" "IKUZA JA"

@cfv7461 10 ай бұрын

SUGUNIKAKARIMASU

@thegreatestfallout1794 10 ай бұрын

I have had "WOLOLO" branded onto my psyche as a child. I remember hearing it when my younger siblings were playing Minecraft one day and being devastated to see them *not* playing AoE2.

@Kawabongahlive 3 ай бұрын

JA? BISMARCK. SASAT. SESTURMA. or however it's written. Goth / Teutonic voice lines are the ones that always pop up in my head.

@BrigitteEmpire 10 ай бұрын

Every ancient Roman faction in gaming should speak modern Italian, just for fun

@Sorenzo 6 ай бұрын

I was so upset when I realized the Civ5 Viking leader speaks modern Danish. And like, modern "children's TV Danish", excessively enunciated and with a weirdly friendly glee in his voice. He's supposed to be a 1000-year-old Viking badass and he sounds like the guy from a show I watched when I was 5. I blame everybody involved in making this voice-over.

@synomuumi 10 ай бұрын

You ever see something really niche and immediately have that overpowering feeling of "This was made for me". This video was made for me, personally

@draunt7 10 ай бұрын

I feel you fam.

@asheep8019 10 ай бұрын

My favorite example of language's use in games is actually the Arab units in Stronhghold Crusader. For all the stereotypes of the enemy Arab lords, the actual units speak perfectly fine, fluent arabic without really any of the stereotypical flavor you might expect from the named characters. (My personal conspiracy theory being they recorded those voice lines before 9/11 and then the named characters after 9/11)

@BurnBird1 28 күн бұрын

What's wrong with their names?

@asheep8019 27 күн бұрын

@@BurnBird1 Theyre pretty stereotypical. Especially the Wazir and the Caliph.

@MiguelThePig 10 ай бұрын

I think everyone who played aom as a kid knows most of the voice line by heart. So iconic

@aleksasimovic2985 10 ай бұрын

As a non-American, I can tell you that I never payed much attention to Washington's accent in Civ 5.

@zeroqp 7 ай бұрын

That bit about pallet swapped Nordic flags and your almost perfect impersonation of a Nord was amazing 😂 I love your humor, timing, editing. Subbed!

@octapusxft 10 ай бұрын

Age of Mythology was quite popular in Greece. We were really glad to see the ancient greek faction speak a language that we can mostly understand. The pronunciation of the words was all over the place and often wrong, but I found it hilarious as a kid. The game was great and felt flattering. It was still a better attempt to speak ancient greek than a certain notorious scene in the first season of Xena where Gabrielle says random greek words from some tourist guide book one of which is not even greek but a merger of greek and spanish.

@nosebleedinc6434 10 ай бұрын

5:38 I'm Icelandic. "Allt í lagi" is a common modern phrase in Icelandic that translates to "okay".

@pedroholsbach8592 10 ай бұрын

The greek lines are engraved in my head forever. Prostagma? OOORTHOS! Very good video

@bernard832 10 ай бұрын

As a Civ player, this got me interested and I actually listened to some of the leader dialogue. The one that surprised me was Robert the Bruce speaking Scots, which is an English dialect spoken in lowland Scotland. That was my fault for assuming he would be from the highlands and speak Gaelic. Most of the Bruce family's lands were in the lowlands and northern England, and he likely spoke an early form of Scots, Gaelic, and Anglo-Norman. And don't get me started on Anglo-Norman. I hate how people complained about Kevin Costner's American accent in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, but had no issue with Alan Rickman using RP, or Sean Connery giving Richard I a Scottish accent. Richard I spent most of his time in Normandy and didn't even speak old English. My biggest linguistic gripe with pop culture is using the association of RP with modern English aristocracy to make it the default accent for a lot of medieval fantasy, when it didn't even develop until the late 19th century.

@nicf1555 6 ай бұрын

Honestly i find RP english the as default fancy accent really interesting, its like if u have to signify nobility, remoteness, relative historical distance or several other forms of otherness, the dub defaults to RP. It reminds me of how my (italian, terminally online) group of friends uses english for memes, gravitas or general emphasis, or the way written japanese uses katagana: its still an intelligible language, but its used sort of in antithesis to the "plain" version

@ExValeFor 10 ай бұрын

I'm so relieved that there exists even a single other person whose frame of reference for AOM's voicelines isn't limited to going 'prostagma?' and thinking its the peak of comedy. For me, the Egyptean and Atlantean lines were earworms to match the greeks. HUGE bonus points to specifically the dwarves, ther way they say every line is unfathomably iconic. Genreally, it's very niceto see someone finally covers the phenomenon that is AOM voicelines! It's one of a kind. As far as I can tell most of it is pretty shaky, but, yknow, whatever! Strill interesting.

@SirDarthDragon 10 ай бұрын

Prostagma? That hurt, but I can´t say you´re wrong :-/

@syrvitor696 10 ай бұрын

Prostagma. :( k fine. I also like how the dwarves say Grotsfinn/Timbursfinn (Wood/gold or w/e I don't know) is pretty cool. The most iconic for me would be SKEPAN because it sounds a lot like my name.

@Awootistic 10 ай бұрын

Ok, how about... Yao?

@BababooeyGooey 10 ай бұрын

This a certified prostagma moment.

@AlexiusScholius 10 ай бұрын

For me the most iconic voice line is "Biu nefer" (Bw nfr, "good, well" in Middle Egyptian). And dwarves indeed sound NICE, I love how they pronounce "Korreósvedt" (sorry, I do not not how it is properly spelled in Icelandic) (Update: tried to make it a bit closer to Icelandic)! ^^ After all, one of things many people like about AOM is actually these languages and voice lines.

@Fenris8800 10 ай бұрын

"Let games like this be a site of curiosity, but never the end of your learning". Great conclusion! :) AoE1 was the start of my interest about the ancient and history itself...back in 1997 :D And your written line is damn true. No matter which games we speak of. F.e. Warthunder. Iam also intereseted in military things and as i come to games like this i also started to read about the vehicles. Or the orgins of their names. Even the same for AoM which has this great feature of this little red "i" on the unit avatar. Sometime i spend much during a campaign mission to learn about my units or buildings. Rome 2 is also a great example for this. Many (and quite long) textlines of informations about culture, military, relgions, daily life etc. depending which unit/building info you have open. Thx for your video. Iam from germany and currently its 8:18am and this was great start into my first day on holiday^^

@ls2260 6 ай бұрын

Rosencreutz: "I'm sure many differnt people have many different lines burnt into their head, ..." Me: "ZE BLOOD ON LA HIRE'S SWORD IS ALMOST DRY!"

@plebisMaximus 10 ай бұрын

Being a norseman (Danish) myself, I can actually speak on something for once, yay. I much prefer when game developers or filmmakers try, rather than just putting an accent on English. It doesn't have to be accurate old norse, not like I can tell anyway, just make something that vaguely sounds right, or even just use a living descendant. Language is one of the most integral parts of culture, if you want to represent a culture in a work of art, I feel the bare minimum would be to not overwrite one of their fundamentals with your own just because it's easier.

@jordinagel1184 10 ай бұрын

Yeah, if you can’t get accuracy, go for verisimilitude instead

@zalandarr 10 ай бұрын

i mean could just have some rando talk icelandic and it will be accepted by all scandinavians as norse enough. find it more weird the age of empires series "nordic" is just some strange hybrid.

@dawoifee 4 ай бұрын

@@zalandarrIcelandic or Faroese would be my choice to go with "old norse".

@tylerparziale868 10 ай бұрын

"Choppa" - Celt Lumberjack

@hieratics 10 ай бұрын

It is the Briton one

@WWFanatic0 10 ай бұрын

Rare algorithm win getting recommended this video. Exactly my mix of games, history, and esoteric academic studies. Cheers mate!

@nickyliu8762 10 ай бұрын

I am a speaker of Chinese-Hakka and German-Austrian (and English-American). So the two Civs in Civ V, that represent my culture perfectly are empress Wu Zetian and empress Maria Theresia von Habsburg. Even though Wu Zetian, as an intermediate regent of the Tang, was supposed to speak Hakka, in-game she speaks modern Mandarain style with a modern Mandarin accent. E.g., she calls China _Zhongguo_ which is actually a modern name for the _nation of China._ Maria Theresia also speaks with a modern dialect, to be very precise, it sounds like the variant with attitude called "Schönbrunner Dialekt", which, come to think of it, is actually very fitting for the empress in her imperial summer palace Schloss Schönbrunn. I don't mind either interpretation, as I find it pretty cool, that they even bothered with languages to this extent in the first place.

@Rosencreutzzz 10 ай бұрын

As a non speaker of Chinese I noticed the Zhongguo thing too. There were alternatives but I imagine more than anything they were trying to go for a "timeless" title that matches what the civilization name is in game. Zonghua could have been used but before that it would largely have been dynasties and if she said Da Tang, it wouldn't fit the way that Civ is vaguely timeless, I imagine.

@HoppouChan 2 күн бұрын

Also Austrian German speaker here - I would agree that it sounds vaguely accurate. Probably not fully accurate - that would be hard for me to judge anyways - "standard german but distinctly austrian" does capture the vibe pretty well though

@CockulousChenning 6 ай бұрын

Always nice to see someone talk about one of my favorite childhood games. AoM, AoE and RoN got me interested in ancient history. Me and my brother still say the barks and taunts to each other irl lol

@adagamefreak 10 ай бұрын

Modern Greek speaker here I have to point something out. Arkantos does indeed have a different accent when speaking Greek. You can hear it mostly with "Lege" which is "speak" as in asking the commander to give orders. Sort of a "talk to me." The way he says it is more of a j sound? Leje, vs the other units correct pronounciations of legge, having a more soft g sound than a sh j sound if that makes sense. I excused it as an "Atlantean" accent lore wise to not make me upset with him.

@thesilentavenger 10 ай бұрын

“Lines burned into my head” Briton villagers building something randomly pops in my head while I’m at work. Bulden

@louissteyn6871 10 ай бұрын

As an Afrikaner I always found the Dutch unit barks from Age of Empires 3 interesting, what I can make out vs what is completely foreign to me

@jurgenronaaz4695 10 ай бұрын

First time coming across this channel and... DEFINITELY going to look into more this is very much a lot of Things I'm Interested In all together in a way that's interesting, well thought out, and makes sense!

@uglymeez236 10 ай бұрын

Pretty cool video. It's wild to see a game that had such a big part of my childhood making such a comeback. Thanks for being a part of the aom comeback!

@0Dighs 10 ай бұрын

"I hear another howl of the jaguar... Is this a bad Omen?"

@RabidNemo 6 ай бұрын

Great video! It's obvious you put a lot of work into this and it's much appreciated I never got as heavily into age of mythology as I did age of empires but it's still a great game.

@boertjiereviews3473 10 ай бұрын

It was a joy to watch, thank you for your effort

@anonymousanon3055 8 ай бұрын

Nice vid, thanks for making and sharing

@TheMetalwolf77777 10 ай бұрын

That was an amazing video and it hit me right in the nostalgia, I still remember most of the cheat codes, all that aside this game might be one of the ones that I didn't know got me into picking up on different languages

@stephend6172 10 ай бұрын

some of my favorite things, rosencruetz and AOE. can't wait

@GarfieldRex 6 ай бұрын

I'd love that characters talk original language in AoE3. One of the saddest things is how they depict Isabela of Castile, absolutely unfair, both voice qnd character.

@Aurekbeshisk 10 ай бұрын

Languages always play an important role in how we understand things, even if we always focus more on what is said than the language itself. When I play a videogame I always look for the language selection menu to see which ones are there and which ones are not. The videogame industry is always very very anglophone, but I haven't seen much debate or discussion about it. Funny thing, I've never played a videogame in my own language in all my life, and I will never will. The big or powerful languages are always there, but the weak or "inferior" ones just are not taken seriously or are not important. Anyway, I just wanted to support with a comment. Interesting video.

@ThatDangDad 10 ай бұрын

I never played AoE or AoM (or Civ) but I did play Warcraft 2 and the orc going "Who wants to sing?" when you click on him is burned into my brain permanently

@Rosencreutzzz 10 ай бұрын

for me its "work work" from 3 when it comes to Warcraft, possibly because I am a peon at heart

@user-gb3jn9vg3e 4 ай бұрын

Great video!!

@dionisio5831 10 ай бұрын

I speak Spanish, and it seems our language hasn't changed much apparently lol. In Civ and AoE, Spanish is perfectly understandable, save for a few quirks here and there, like they use "archaic" sounding words that are so similar to modern words you can understand them anyway. The weirdest thing that comes to mind is when Phillip II introduces himself, he says "nos soy Felipe" (I am Phillip). It almost sounds like "no soy Felipe" which means "I'm not Phillip", but other than that I understand everything, not sure how accurate the older Spanish is, though

@julicor98 10 ай бұрын

Es por la real academia de la lengua. El imperio espanol fue pionero en estandarizar las normas gramaticales desde el siglo XVI temprano. Antes de eso el espanol era mucho mas diverso y por eso hay tanta diversidad linguistica en la peninsula. S e podria decir que fue bueno para mantener consistencia dentro de la lengua, pero algo detrimental para la diversidad linguistica.

@wwguess8589 10 ай бұрын

Excellent video!

@The-Autistic-Gamer 10 ай бұрын

0:17 “William Wallace, a giant of a man” Back when I was 4 I would just play the tutorial campaign, and team with family to beat the Ai in skirmish. 3 players (me, dad, and a few years later, little sis. Dad was good but wasn’t much of a gamer. He just wanted to spend time with us, and this is what we wanted to do) Where was I? Right. So, 3 players all playing as a single color. I’d build the defenses, sis would manage to economy, dad would be the forward scout and use the army I made to poke the enemy as I got us more and more intrench than I’d go build FOBs (forward operating bases) on the enemy’s island. We played team islands. We also had one Ai on our team so it was technically a 2vs2. This was all AOE 2. Fun memory’s. I also enjoyed the Empire Earth franchise. (I really love some of the intentions behind EE3 though the execution was a bit of a miss) I want more RTS games with a global domination grand strategy element (similar but better than EE3. I guess I’ll have to stick with Total War for now. (It’s not the same. I want a total war like game where the battles are more like AoE. Maybe out of battle I could go into a map and preemptively fortify. It’s a wish)

@The-Autistic-Gamer 10 ай бұрын

Also I have, “Saladin, where are you going with that huge army?” as one of my more memorable quotes.

@TayoEXE 8 ай бұрын

You just tickled my linguistics tastebuds. Fascinating discussion!

@victorhenrique1287 9 ай бұрын

If its well remembered: "february 19th, army camp near vancouleur. This morning i awoke to a vision of fire and Steel..."

@pedrom.8525 9 ай бұрын

Great video!! I love AoM and many voicelines are burn into my memory. On the topic of language, I would love to see you analyse the "Chaos Language" on the NieR games, It is absolutelly fascinating to me.

@TheAltair716 10 ай бұрын

amazing video!

@DJYungHoxha 4 ай бұрын

That little roast against Scandinavians at 4:30 was unexpected but some of the funniest shit I ever heard. "Bunch of guys with palette swaps of the same flag"

@Cheesenommer 10 ай бұрын

Prostagma?

@Rosencreutzzz 10 ай бұрын

hetoimos

@akai4942 10 ай бұрын

@@Rosencreutzzz VULOME

@Argacyan 10 ай бұрын

Esto

@tbotalpha8133 10 ай бұрын

EES VO LEE

@TheD3rp2 10 ай бұрын

Coincidentally enough, I was actually reading about language as immersion just this morning in a note found at the very end of my copy of The Name of the Rose. There, Eco discusses how the many Latin sentences peppered throughout the book were intended purely for immersive purposes, and how he was disturbed upon discovering that some readers were going through it with a Latin dictionary in hand. Just thought it was interesting that I've read and heard about essentially the same niche subject in two completely different mediums on the same day. To add something to this comment more directly related to the video, one thing I've noticed about Age of Empires' (and Mythology's by extension) unit voice acting is how flat much of it is, especially in comparison to other RTS games. I suppose it's a result of voice actors trying to correctly pronounce languages they're unfamiliar with, but I think it's one of the reasons I was never able to really get into the franchise. It's difficult to relate to my dudes when they all speak in the exact same monotone no matter the situation.

@Rosencreutzzz 10 ай бұрын

It's one of those topics I *sort of* see in lots of places, but AoM felt like the best opportunity to bring it up aside from a short about the "thou" thing. It also sort of reminds me of how people read too deep into name origins for charcters on wikis and will dive into trying to compare a Fire Emblem character to the story of the bible that the name (for example Rachel) comes from, or like when people try and find meaning in the choices for Latin "spellcasting phrases" in a game. (Did Josh Sawyer convince you to read Name of the Rose?)

@TheD3rp2 10 ай бұрын

@@Rosencreutzzz Pentiment may have elevated my interest (I played it on release), but the book had been on my bucket list for a while. The most direct cause was probably me trying to recover from a concussion and it being at the top of my shelf.

@MrMessiah2013 10 ай бұрын

Having done this myself fairly recently, I’m imagining the reason you read the bit this morning is because you spent all of last night reading the last ~half of the book after taking half a year to read the first half… Maybe that just me, either way congrats!

@ARStudios2000 5 ай бұрын

They did a damn fine job, all right, every units language and lines is burnt into my brain. It was my go to strategy fantasy game for me as a kid, and still holds special memories for me even today.

@cfv7461 10 ай бұрын

I always like to remember that Napoleon would have a corsican/italian accent, not the stereotypical frenchy one XD

@Rosencreutzzz 10 ай бұрын

it messes with me every time someone brings this up. However, I do raise that if he learned English "via French" in the hypothetical world where he speaks fluent English with an accent, its a bit more complicated and potentially wraps back around to a French accent.

@ShallowContrarian 10 ай бұрын

It's funny that the Norse speaking Icelandic was a dead end for this video, because personally I would've never found it as a kid because my Icelandic dad specifically bought it because he found out there was a norse faction that spoke Icelandic.

@Thylacinus 10 ай бұрын

It's funny, ever since I started learning Icelandic I started to actually understand many of the Norse voice lines, as Icelandic is still very close to old Norse ^^

@IIITrunks Ай бұрын

fun fact: the beautiful intricacy of the AOE4 units voice lines got me interested in learning Arabic. I go back now and listen to their lines and actually understand some now.

@willnash7907 10 ай бұрын

Very interesting perspectives.

@mud213 6 ай бұрын

The Civ V thing is very interesting since they sort of took the "what would they sound like if they were around today?" approach rather going for a more historical approach. This gets you the Ramses speaking Arabic and Washington speaking with a drawl. It gets around having to try to reconstruct dead languages, but also does some crazy immersion breaking if you know a thing or two about languages other than English. Very interesting video as always.

@silvershine2261 10 ай бұрын

Guess its time to thank youtube again for randomly recommending something I didnt know I needed but watched in full anyways and learned something new. To the subscribe button!

@kayinoue2497 5 ай бұрын

This is a subject I've thought a lot about vis a vis real world languages as stand ins for fantasy languages in my own D&D homebrew setting (lots of Slavic and Baltic influenced in the world). How language relates to identifying culture and ideas is something that fascinates me

@Bishox 9 ай бұрын

You should watch polyMATHY videos on Latin in Civilization games, and that will shine some light on the way the games treat language. Its an afterthought besides fitting in the general feel and vision of the developers

@bsolos214 8 ай бұрын

That was a pretty good impersonation at 4:32 😂

@michaelpsellos770 10 ай бұрын

To be fair about Cleopatra she was one of the last to know egyptian hieroglyphs so maybe tbe civ logic is that she would overstate her "Egyptianness" in the same way Philip II speaks Spanish but probably spoke French and Italian at home.

@Jane-oz7pp 5 ай бұрын

A little note on the Old Norse thing, they're speaking Icelandic in AOM, which is the closest to Old Norse currently spoken. They use words kind of randomly, though, like building is classed under banditry? If the voice lines are meant to reflect the task anyway. Ahaha okay, I can actually answer the mysterious bark- it's (and I'm going to not use the word because I do not actually know the spelling properly) the Icelandic word for Bandit, but mispronounced.

@Jane-oz7pp 5 ай бұрын

(Uptilagi?) Something along those lines. I finally put it together after watching an Icelandic man talking about street names in Iceland literally a couple of days ago.

@Jane-oz7pp 5 ай бұрын

Or it may be an attempt at making the Icelandic word seem more archaic and Old Norse.

@childrenofthesun471 10 ай бұрын

As an Icelandic speaker the Norse language they speak is fully understandable to me, every single word.

@TheCsel 26 күн бұрын

You said Egyptian bark, I thought you were talking about the boat. Then you mention Viking longship confirming my original boat leanings 😅

@saltshaker1961 10 ай бұрын

The Age of Empires campaigns had a lot of lines that I can still remember years after the fact. "I have lost my faith, but Joan has not lost her's, and that is enough for me."

@InternetMameluq 7 ай бұрын

11:Worth noting that she's the only member of her dynasty to actually speak the language, and she took her role ceremonialy seriousy, so I would argue that it is appropriate for her to speak Egyptian. Broadly speaking the dynasty took to the Egyptian culture faithfully, which is one of the reasons they were able to intergrat themselves as rulers well.

@nicksande6880 2 ай бұрын

8:21 i find it interesting that they immediately attribute it to "racism takes many forms", when the same wikipage you presumably linked them pointed out "early 2000s internet", if they had nothing else to go on at that moment, would it have been better to have the egyptians speak english in their opinion?

@thetruekhanofkhans 10 ай бұрын

As a Mongolian speaker from Mongolia, AOE 2 has some damn fine Mongolian. They’re most certainly native speakers just like Chinggis Khan from Civ 5 and Kublai Khan from Civ 6. Civ 6 Chinggis speaks with a distinctive Inner Mongolian accent.

@Krazylegz42 10 ай бұрын

Great video, but I'm also just excited to see Mia show up somewhere seemingly random like this

@MrAllmightyCornholioz 6 ай бұрын

It's such a common troupe that Greeks and Romans have Anglicized-accents. Meanwhile, other ethnic groups have accents.

@Tom3PT 10 ай бұрын

We are without a leader. The dead king of Scotland has no heir.

@pierlorepisa 10 ай бұрын

Do you know that in age of empires IV the language evolves gradually from its archaic forms as you progress your civilization? I think that would be very interesting to cover

@Casketkrusher_ 9 ай бұрын

Egypt seems to be the most difficult culture to nail in videogames. Even in Rome Total War its completely off, while set in 270 BC they use Bronze Age Egypt, at that timespan it should've be the Ptolemaic Kingdom, (Greeks).

@bertberw8653 10 ай бұрын

My line that I've never forgotten is "IT IS COLD OUT HERE" from the Mongols campaign

@matiasbarth5121 9 ай бұрын

Age of Empires I and II were my first pc games and the thing that stuck the most was the languages of the civilizations: they fascinated me - and still do - just like in more recent games (Age 4, Civ 5 & 6). Somehow I think these games have helped to "shape" my interest in history and languages that I have now. :D So yes, I think the subject of this video is fascinating and deserves a deeper analysis given the influence it might have, even though it is "just a game".

@UltraProchy 10 ай бұрын

You can take this to the extreme and play empire earth, which starts in the prehistoric age. I always love when made up lines are delivered with such conviction that it makes them seem real.

@ianbrown7066 10 ай бұрын

Empire Earth voice acting is absolutely LEGENDARY

@CommissarMitch 10 ай бұрын

I have never heard the Nordic Frags be said as Pallet Swaps and now I can not unsee it.

@maede3ta34 10 ай бұрын

this shits great because I thin k of things like this but cant ever put it to words after and its real neat to learn about things and how things work by association

@jcpoly3205 10 ай бұрын

This is a fantastic vid, as soon as you started talking about your memory of the voice lines in AOE I immediately thought of the Civ V voice lines I remember from my countless runs

@1nf3ct3dTT 10 ай бұрын

bro your nordic accent was incredibly perfect 😂

@bruellwitz 10 ай бұрын

"Nennt mich reich, nennt mich Ritter oder sogar Herrscher. Aber ich bin Bauer und arm." The Settlers 3, Asian Campaign, first mission. Burned so deeply into my brain that it sometimes just comes up out of nowhere. Even thought about getting it tattooed.

@barbiquearea 10 ай бұрын

As someone of Chinese decent that grew up playing these games. For the longest time I had always assumed that Mandarin, the language spoken by most people living in China was unchanged. Its like as if the vernacular of my ancestors had always been static no matter what period they lived in. It didn't help that in all the games the Chinese were featured in, which includes AOE II, III and even Mythology (the Shang from AOE 1 don't count), modern Mandarin was always the dialogue used by this civilization's units upon selection.

@mrmistmonster 10 ай бұрын

Le Ton beau de Marot has a section on a translation of The Gulag Archipelago in which everything is translated into the most appropriate English possible and it just ended up sounding wrong. Basically sapped anything Eastern European out of it and replaced it with a story about street toughs in London.

@theaseus654 10 ай бұрын

Im glad im not the only one who went down this rabbithole 😅

@_saw_aom 10 ай бұрын

Thank you for making this video! The voice lines of Age of Mythology is one of the most iconic elements to the game that has been cherished by many for years.

@nathanielstanford3115 10 ай бұрын

5:14 hill forts date from the bronze age. I'd be more concerned about the 3000+ year gap between the dynasties that built the pyramids and the first Viking raiders.

@DowaHawkiin 10 ай бұрын

Lmao that post-credits scene

@byali4360 10 ай бұрын

3:38 Devs still do this thing with languages. For example Poles in AoE2 DE. They use archaic vocabulary, but their pronunciation and accent is 100% modern. It is incorrect considering the game's time period, but I also assume it's much cheaper than finding a good native voice actor that also dabbles in reconstruction.