Voice-over artist

[Lion.Kanzen]

1 minute ago, Itms said:

Nothing is set in stone, and historical accuracy is what we aim at. So I'm writing down that Aramaic/Hebrew mixed with Proto-Berber suggestion in my notes

Indeed, here the importan is have options, after all is an RTS, the choices are important. 

Proto berber interesting...

[Abdurrahman Al Sayad]

but ppl bear in mind practicality if the language is difficult to find then let's go with the nearest option.

Edited February 26, 2018 by Abdurrahman Al Sayad

[Stan`]

Having more voices won't hurt @Abdurrahman Al Sayad It will always be time to tweak them to be more accurate  Less talking more acting !

[Itms]

12 minutes ago, Abdurrahman Al Sayad said:

but ppl bear in mind practicality if the language is difficult to find then let's go with the nearest option.

Let's just try our best and be ambitious In the mean time I'd love to hear some Hebrew version.

Just now, stanislas69 said:

Having more voices won't hurt @Abdurrahman Al Sayad It will always be time to tweak them to be more accurate  Less talking more acting !

Well more talking actually, in this situation

[Nescio]

Proto-languages are called “proto-” for a reason: they are hypothetical, reconstructed, unattested languages; e.g. Proto-Berber is the latest common ancestor of all Berber languages and Proto-Indo-European is the common ancestor of all Indo-European languages. Using proto-languages would certainly be ambitious but not historically correct

26 minutes ago, Itms said:

Nothing is set in stone, and historical accuracy is what we aim at.

In that case we should seriously consider using Aramaic for the Persians: it was the lingua france of the Near-East and the language of the Persian Empire's bureaucracy. Old Persian was limited to Persia proper but certainly not widely used.

[Itms]

6 minutes ago, Nescio said:

In that case we should seriously consider using Aramaic for the Persians: it was the lingua france of the Near-East and the language of the Persian Empire's bureaucracy. Old Persian was limited to Persia proper but certainly not widely used.

Even among the common people that formed the military and civilians? In the game, units are not bureaucrats. But it sounds like we will have to turn our attention to Aramaic anyways

[Nescio]

17 minutes ago, Itms said:

Even among the common people that formed the military and civilians? In the game, units are not bureaucrats. But it sounds like we will have to turn our attention to Aramaic anyways

Especially amongst the common people: it was adobted as the language of the bureaucracy because Aramaic was spoken by far more people than any other language at the time. Old Persian was probably spoken amongst the Persian elite, but the Persians themselves were a tiny minority in the ethnically diverse Achaemenid Empire.

PS To clarify, I do not have any objections to the use of Old-Persian, which is well attested and was certainly spoken and written; it was also an official language of the Persian Empire, as were Elamite and a few other prestigious languages.

However, if you want to know which language was used in communication between different ethnic (army) groups, in trade, and in daily usage by a large part of the population, then the answer is Aramaic.

Edited February 26, 2018 by Nescio
ce

[Sundiata]

@Nescio comparing Proto-Berber to Proto-Indo-European is totally not a legitimate/genuine comparison though... Indo-European languages are spread from Bangladesh to Iceland... Berber on the other hand is spoken by... Berbers. They are all closely related dialects. Also a historically reconstructed language like Proto-Berber is explicitly intended to be the most historically accurate approximation of the language at hand. I don't see how an equally hypothetical language from another continent is any more historically accurate. It's not like they just made up some stuff... They have written text and archaic forms of modern berber to work with. 

 

1 hour ago, Nescio said:

we should seriously consider using Aramaic for the Persians:

Hmmm, we should have Old Persian for Heroes and Champions.

Wikipedia says:

Spoiler

Old Persian is one of the two directly attested Old Iranian languages (the other being Avestan). Old Persian appears primarily in the inscriptions, clay tablets and seals of the Achaemenid era (c. 600 BCE to 300 BCE). Examples of Old Persian have been found in what is now Iran, Romania(Gherla),^[2][3][4] Armenia, Bahrain, Iraq, Turkey and Egypt,^[5][6] with the most important attestation by far being the contents of the Behistun Inscription(dated to 525 BCE). Recent research into the vast Persepolis Fortification Archive at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago have unearthed Old Persian tablets (2007).^[7] This new text shows that the Old Persian language was a written language in use for practical recording and not only for royal display.^[7]

I'm not saying Aramaic wasn't important because it obviously was, it just wasn't universal or exclusive to Persians. Achaemenid Persia is bigger than the Aramaic world...  It's also not a good idea to have the ancestors of Iranian muslims speak what's undoubtedly going to end up sounding like Hebrew, especially if the historicity isn't on point. It will be a bit cringeworthy. Aramaic is perfect for Western Provincial levies, but the let the actual Persians speak actual Persian, seen as that's what they spoke... You wouldn't let the Romans speak Greek just because Greek was more widely spoken in the Roman Empire, would you?

[Lion.Kanzen]

i good mixing of both can be nice. or even civilian have some language like Syrian women and Aramaic vs Elite heroes speaking  Greek. an example.

 

[Nescio]

9 hours ago, Sundiata said:

@Nescio comparing Proto-Berber to Proto-Indo-European is totally not a legitimate/genuine comparison though... Indo-European languages are spread from Bangladesh to Iceland... Berber on the other hand is spoken by... Berbers. They are all closely related dialects. Also a historically reconstructed language like Proto-Berber is explicitly intended to be the most historically accurate approximation of the language at hand. I don't see how an equally hypothetical language from another continent is any more historically accurate. It's not like they just made up some stuff... They have written text and archaic forms of modern berber to work with.

To clarify, I certainly did not want to equate Proto-Berber to Proto-Indo-European. Proto-Indo-European is the latest common ancestor of a complete language family, therefore Proto-Afro-Asiatic would be comparable; Proto-Berber is the latest common ancestor of a specific branch within a family, as was e.g. Proto-Germanic.

Furthermore, I absolutely did not intend to belittle reconstructed languages. In fact, I'm a great admirer of comparative linguistics. With very limited material and an analytic approach they can reconstruct what has been lost. PIE frequently turned out to be correct where archaeology stubbornly favoured theories which turned out to be wrong.

My concern with the use of proto-languages is multi-fold:

• Only a handful of experts worldwide have knowledge of proto-languages (except for PIE, which is taught at several universities, and better known than all others combined)
• Although grammar and morphology (word forms) can be reconstructed with reasonable certainty, its exact pronunciation is just a guess
• When something is written down, it enters history. Proto-languages existed per definition long before any of their descendants was written down. E.g. the language we now call Proto-Berber probably ceased to exist before 3,000 B.C.

Again, if you can find anyone who can provide translations and pronunciations for Proto-Berber, or actually any Berber language, great, you have my blessing!

9 hours ago, Sundiata said:

let the actual Persians speak actual Persian

No objections at all. Is it possible to use multiple languages for a faction? If so, then ethnic Persians (heroes, Immortals) and Medians (light cavalry, healer) should speak Old Persian, Eastern Iranian units (e.g. Bactrian lancer) Avestan, other units Aramaic, unless a better equivalent can be found in specific cases (e.g. for the “Persian” Indian War Elephant).

9 hours ago, Sundiata said:

You wouldn't let the Romans speak Greek just because Greek was more widely spoken in the Roman Empire, would you?

Our current timeframe predates the Roman Empire ; besides, even though two-thirds of the population spoke Greek under the Roman Empire at its height, Latin was the language of the state and the military, and continued to be so until 620 A.D.

Likewise, Greek was spoken by a minority in the Seleucid and Ptolemaic kingdoms, but it was the language of the government and the military, therefore the language 0 A.D. uses for them should be Greek.

Edited February 27, 2018 by Nescio
ce

[Sundiata]

47 minutes ago, Nescio said:

My concern with the use of proto-languages is multi-fold:

• Only a handful of experts worldwide have knowledge of proto-languages (except for PIE, which is taught at several universities, and better known than all others combined)
• Although grammar and morphology (word forms) can be reconstructed with reasonable certainty, its exact pronunciation is sometimes just a guess
• When something is written down, it enters history. Proto-languages existed per definition long before any of their descendants was written down. E.g. the language we now call Proto-Berber probably ceased to exist before 3,000 B.C. 1000 BC

Agreed, sort of  Also, don't underestimate the similarities between Berber languages on one hand (I know they're not always mutually intelligible) and especially Touareg in particular as the most "divergent/isolated" archaic branch of this language group. Some Berber language(s) have been written down since BC era's so we know a little more about the Berber  spoken in our timeframe than hypothetical reconstructions. 

 

54 minutes ago, Nescio said:

If so, then ethnic Persians (heroes, Immortals) and Medians (light cavalry, healer) should speak Old Persian, Eastern Iranian units (e.g. Bactrian lancer) Avestan, other units Aramaic, unless a better equivalent can be found in specific cases (e.g. for the “Persian” Indian War Elephant).

Exactly  

 

54 minutes ago, Nescio said:

Our current timeframe predates the Roman Empire ; besides, even though two-thirds of the population spoke Greek under the Roman Empire at its height, Latin was the language of the state and the military, and continued to be so until 620 A.D.

Greek Dialects were, and sometimes still are spoken to some degree in parts of Southern Italy, especially during our timeframe, but I'm sure you knew that  Sicily and the Mediterranean coastal areas of France and Spain also had some Greek speakers even before the Roman conquest. I'm just cherry picking example here though, I know... 

[Nescio]

4 minutes ago, Sundiata said:

Greek Dialects were, and sometimes still are spoken to some degree in parts of Southern Italy, especially during our timeframe, but I'm sure you knew that  Sicily and the Mediterranean coastal areas of France and Spain also had some Greek speakers even before the Roman conquest. I'm just cherry picking example here though, I know... 

Yes, I'm fully aware of this. Naples continued to be “Greek” until c. 1100 A.D. However, languages are not mutually exclusive; e.g. Oscan was spoken there from long before the Greek colonization to at least the eruption of the Vesuvius in 79 A.D. Roman theathre, the oldest form of Latin literature, also originated in Campania, which is culturally and linguistically one of the most interesting areas.

11 minutes ago, Sundiata said:

Some Berber language(s) have been written down since BC era's so we know a little more about the Berber  spoken in our timeframe than hypothetical reconstructions.

(Since we're cherry-picking again.) I won't deny Berber languages were important in the area controlled by Carthage; the coastal cities were Punic, the inland population was Berber (North Africa), Iberian (Spain), Sicul (Sicilia), or something else (Balearics, Corsica, Sardinia, Malta). However, even though we know the Massyli and Masaesyli (the Numidians) were ethnic Berbers, very little has survived from the Numidian language; we can state it's probably Afro-Asiatic, but it can not be determined whether their language was Berber, Punic, both, or neither. (All of them are realistic possibilities; the evidence is just too scanty).

On the other hand, we know the Carthaginians did speak Punic, which seems to have been different from, but mutually intelligible with Aramaic. Besides, most of their armies consisted of mercenaries, and there is evidence Carthaginians also used Greek to communicate with their soldiers.

26 minutes ago, Sundiata said:

Exactly

As usual, we agree in general, we just happen to like disagreeing on minor details

[Stan`]

@Abdurrahman Al Sayad Any updates or anything we can listen to ?