whanzephruseke
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Post by whanzephruseke on Apr 13, 2017 6:37:20 GMT
The instant translator is basically lazy space magic. Even a human language cannot be translated instantly into another unless both languages allow for the same grammar, word by word. For example, German grammar allows the verb to be the last word of a rather long sentence, making that sentence impossible to translate word by word into a language that does not. For example, read the first sentence of Kafka's "Transformation" in German: Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheueren Ungeziefer verwandelt. Both halves of the sentence end with a verb, making it impossible to translate word by word to English, for example (as far as I can tell, English not being my primary language). Also, if Aliens truly spoke their own language, shouldn't the lip sync match what they're actually saying and not the translator's result? Yes, but if I'm Ryder, I also shouldn't be able to see myself without a mirror or watch the Archon talking to his minions half a cluster away, same as how the humans in Star Wars don't actually speak English. A certain amount of conceit is necessary to tell any story not in virtual reality, and after sitting through KOTOR's godawful attempt to depict what having a conversation with an alien would be like, I definitely prefer this way. |
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Post by Ahriman on Apr 13, 2017 10:31:33 GMT
Since we are beating a dead horse, I'll add somewhat related complain from me.
Why are there accents in game? That Addison's assistant with slavic accent for example. Why does he have it?
Is he speaking english? Why would he bother with that if automatic translators seem to be perfect?
Is he speaking his native language? So automatic translator carefully adds accent on translation? Is it racist or what?
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Post by Space Cowboy on Apr 13, 2017 12:19:00 GMT
Mass effect aliens are humans wearing costumes. It's always been like that. They tried a little at the beginning, with Liara not being comfortable speaking with humans and such, but at the same time, most of the other aliens were takes on various tropes like space Romans. Even Liara was not used to speaking with humans because of her personality, not because she was an alien.
"Krogan have a saying. The enemy of my enemy is my friend." Really Wrex? That's a Krogan saying?
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Bann Duncan
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Post by Bann Duncan on Apr 13, 2017 13:57:11 GMT
The instant translator is basically convenient/lazy space magic. Even a human language cannot be translated instantly into another unless both languages allow for the same grammar, word by word. For example, German grammar allows the verb to be the last word of a rather long sentence, making that sentence impossible to translate word by word into a language that does not. For example, read the first sentence of Kafka's "Transformation" in German: Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheueren Ungeziefer verwandelt. Both halves of the sentence end with a verb, making it impossible to translate word by word to English, for example (as far as I can tell, English not being my primary language). Also, if Aliens truly spoke their own language, shouldn't the lip sync match what they're actually saying and not the translator's result? Exactly. For a translator to work it would require some kind of space magic level AI (Hi, Sam!) in everyone's head. |
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Bann Duncan
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Post by Bann Duncan on Apr 13, 2017 14:00:42 GMT
In Star Wars, like in Middle Earth, English stands in for an in-universe common language: Galactic Basic and Westron, respectively. (Of course, the latter world was developed by an actual philologist and the former world by an enthusiast for foreign, especially Asian, cultures.) |
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whanzephruseke
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Post by whanzephruseke on Apr 13, 2017 16:44:19 GMT
Since we are beating a dead horse I feel like I might not have been clear enough in my original post. This is supposed to be a general discussion about xenolinguistics within the franchise, where we talk about what the games do right and what they do wrong in that regard and try to reconcile the two for a richer gaming experience. If you're not interested in that topic, then cool, go find a thread that you are interested in. Some people seem to have taken my OP to be "I'm gonna nitpick things and declare the game unplayable because of them." That was not my intent. I just get really passionate about languages. |
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whanzephruseke
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Post by whanzephruseke on Apr 13, 2017 16:48:10 GMT
In Star Wars, like in Middle Earth, English stands in for an in-universe common language: Galactic Basic and Westron, respectively. Yeah, I know. It just bothers me that the Mass Effect writers keep forgetting that this is not the case in their own games. |
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Post by Bann Duncan on Apr 13, 2017 17:10:02 GMT
Since we are beating a dead horse I feel like I might not have been clear enough in my original post. This is supposed to be a general discussion about xenolinguistics within the franchise, where we talk about what the games do right and what they do wrong in that regard and try to reconcile the two for a richer gaming experience. If you're not interested in that topic, then cool, go find a thread that you are interested in. Some people seem to have taken my OP to be "I'm gonna nitpick things and declare the game unplayable because of them." That was not my intent. I just get really passionate about languages. I'm also passionate about languages. My point is that this is something that's so inconsistent and illogical in the series as to be game-breaking if you let yourself think about it. |
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whanzephruseke
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Post by whanzephruseke on Apr 13, 2017 17:17:55 GMT
I feel like I might not have been clear enough in my original post. This is supposed to be a general discussion about xenolinguistics within the franchise, where we talk about what the games do right and what they do wrong in that regard and try to reconcile the two for a richer gaming experience. If you're not interested in that topic, then cool, go find a thread that you are interested in. Some people seem to have taken my OP to be "I'm gonna nitpick things and declare the game unplayable because of them." That was not my intent. I just get really passionate about languages. I'm also passionate about languages. My point is that this is something that's so inconsistent and illogical in the series as to be game-breaking if you let yourself think about it. I can't not think about it, so it will always be game-breaking for me, but brainstorming headcanon fixes and pointing out issues with fellow fans helps me. *shrugs* |
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sdzald
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Post by sdzald on Apr 13, 2017 17:29:52 GMT
Mass effect aliens are humans wearing costumes. It's always been like that. They tried a little at the beginning, with Liara not being comfortable speaking with humans and such, but at the same time, most of the other aliens were takes on various tropes like space Romans. Even Liara was not used to speaking with humans because of her personality, not because she was an alien. "Krogan have a saying. The enemy of my enemy is my friend." Really Wrex? That's a Krogan saying? I don't mind the cross over. In the Star Trek movie series the Klingons were constantly quoting Shakespeare as if he was a Klingon. Speaking of which I get the distinct impression (this is NOT a negative idea) that the Krogan were modeled after the Klingons. |
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whanzephruseke
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Post by whanzephruseke on Apr 13, 2017 18:42:07 GMT
Mass effect aliens are humans wearing costumes. It's always been like that. They tried a little at the beginning, with Liara not being comfortable speaking with humans and such, but at the same time, most of the other aliens were takes on various tropes like space Romans. Even Liara was not used to speaking with humans because of her personality, not because she was an alien. "Krogan have a saying. The enemy of my enemy is my friend." Really Wrex? That's a Krogan saying? I don't mind the cross over. In the Star Trek movie series the Klingons were constantly quoting Shakespeare as if he was a Klingon. Speaking of which I get the distinct impression (this is NOT a negative idea) that the Krogan were modeled after the Klingons. I actually like the idea that the krogan just happened to have arrived at a similar saying to ours. I think it makes sense for krogans to define "friend" as "one who shares my enemy," as that's basically what your first conversation with Grunt is all about. The exact wording of the saying being the same as ours I chalk up to the translator's dictionary actually having entries for common English idioms and sayings, which most translation software we use now has. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2017 19:55:12 GMT
I do wish Bioware would pivot more towards hard Sci Fi with Mass Effect, but ever since ME2 and Chris E'toile's departure they've leaned away from some of the hard Sci Fi elements and more towards Guardians of the Galaxy with their world building.
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Post by sdzald on Apr 13, 2017 20:16:07 GMT
I do wish Bioware would pivot more towards hard Sci Fi with Mass Effect, but ever since ME2 and Chris E'toile's departure they've leaned away from some of the hard Sci Fi elements and more towards Guardians of the Galaxy with their world building. To be fare to Bioware hard Sci-fi outside of books is very hard to pull off. The last real hard Sci-fi movie I can relate to is the Martian, I loved both the book and the movie. Because of the true vastness of space, to have continuity in a Hard Sc-fi story and seamless action is tough to pull off. |
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Post by wildelight on Apr 13, 2017 22:41:06 GMT
In all fairness, I think the writers did try to make it apparent that translators were being used, even if they jazz hand away the actual mechanics of interstellar communication. Gotta love every time Jaal says "Mil-ll-ky Waay" for example, where his pronunciation makes it obvious that he's using the English name rather than an Angaran title.
Also, the very fact the humans speak modern day English instead of some Clockwork Orange hybrid pretty much tells players to suspend disbelief from the get-go in my opinion.
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Post by sdzald on Apr 14, 2017 15:25:40 GMT
Not really that outlandish Wildelight. English is becoming the default global standard in science, (now if only we could get off the stick and switch to metric) international business and in international politics. Of course English would evolve over the centuries of space exploration and colonization so I bet it would be very hard for a person today to understand it.
Accents are one of the things that bother me because I believe they would be 'left behind' as the galactic language evolved. I am certainly NO language expert so maybe someone else could comment on that.
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Post by ayenari on Apr 14, 2017 15:46:55 GMT
It's just convenient space magic so people don't have to deal with kotor style subtitles for aliens that should realistically be speaking a language the player doesn't. Trying to read into it more than that just leads into an array of plotholes.
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Post by wildelight on Apr 14, 2017 20:09:41 GMT
Not really that outlandish Wildelight. English is becoming the default global standard in science, (now if only we could get off the stick and switch to metric) international business and in international politics. Of course English would evolve over the centuries of space exploration and colonization so I bet it would be very hard for a person today to understand it. Accents are one of the things that bother me because I believe they would be 'left behind' as the galactic language evolved. I am certainly NO language expert so maybe someone else could comment on that. Ah, I think you misunderstood my post. I was specifically referring the fact that the English is unchanged (Nadsat for all!), not that English is spoken by humans. I'm an ESL teacher, so well aware of it as the current lingua franca!  |
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Post by sdzald on Apr 14, 2017 20:19:28 GMT
Not really that outlandish Wildelight. English is becoming the default global standard in science, (now if only we could get off the stick and switch to metric) international business and in international politics. Of course English would evolve over the centuries of space exploration and colonization so I bet it would be very hard for a person today to understand it. Accents are one of the things that bother me because I believe they would be 'left behind' as the galactic language evolved. I am certainly NO language expert so maybe someone else could comment on that. Ah, I think you misunderstood my post. I was specifically referring the fact that the English is unchanged (Nadsat for all!), not that English is spoken by humans. I'm an ESL teacher, so well aware of it as the current lingua franca! Ok cool I did misunderstand. I am SURE you are a LOT more qualified to speak about English language then me, as I am sure you can tell. I flunked 6th grade spelling/grammar and it has been down hill form there  When I served in Germany I was taking some over seas college course, one was English 101, it was taught by a German who spoke and wrote flawless English. She put me to shame but was a great teacher and never made me feel bad about my really poor English skills. |
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When I served in Germany I was taking some over seas college course, one was English 101, it was taught by a German who spoke and wrote flawless English. She put me to shame but was a great teacher and never made me feel bad about my really poor English skills.