Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Real Language In Jade Empire

Posted by Zonk on from the great-jobs dept.

HamOperator writes "Tho Fan is a made-up language spoken by unreal people in the XBox game Jade Empire. The New York Times has an interview with the creator of the language." From the article: "...they wanted to avoid using Chinese or any other Asian language that might shackle their invented universe to actual historical events. At the same time, they did not want to resort to unintelligible nonsense."

8 of 91 comments (clear)

  1. This is exactly what we need more of. by hunterx11 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Hell, there are probably conlangers out there who would do something like this for free.

    --
    English is easier said than done.
  2. Say what? by Daetrin · · Score: 2, Interesting
    ...they wanted to avoid using Chinese or any other Asian language that might shackle their invented universe to actual historical events.

    I've read, watched, listened to and played thousands of media works that used the english language but which did not feel that use shackled them to any particular version of history or even basic reality.

    "We want to do it cause it seemed cool" would be a perfectly valid reason. "Not wanting to shackled to actual historical events" sounds like some post-modern(?) excuse to make their choice sound more important than it really was.

    --
    This Space Intentionally Left Blank
  3. A hypothetical situation by NewWazoo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Say the inventor of these languages wrote and then translated some stories (say, 50 or 100 of them). Say he also transcribed his invented histories. Further, let's assume his stories and invented history told tales of gods, their mythical deeds, and other such fabulous things.

    Now say he printed this in a book or series of books, and someone bought it, and promptly buried it, only for it to be found, oh, 5000 years later.

    It could make for some interesting theological and anthropological discussion, eh?

    B

    1. Re:A hypothetical situation by Jerf · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Like this?

      Not quite your scenario, but the likeliest explanation for that document is basically what you outline, and the result is exactly what you anticipated. A lot of people have gotten very excited about it, but the simplest explanation that fits the facts is that somebody just faked the whole thing for kicks.

  4. What about ICO? by LordJezo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ICO had the same sort of thing going for it, right?

    Shame that game is so underground. It was almost perfect.

  5. Age of Empires by JeffTL · · Score: 3, Interesting

    One of the really cool things about Age of Empires II was how the people spoke appropriate languages; the Teutons, for example, spoke German, the Spaniards spoke an archaic dialect of Spanish, the Japanese and Chinese spoke their languages, the Saracens spoke Arabic, and so forth. And yes, the Britons spoke Old English, with a bit of Latin mixed in; the British monks speak all Latin in Age of Empires. In fact, most of the European languages represented in the game have a lot of Latin thrown in.

    Wasn't always perfectly accurate -- most of the Byzantines would probably have been more comfortable in Greek than in always speaking Latin, but on the other hand, they were the eastern half of the Roman Empire and considered themselves Romans, so it isn't that far a leap. And hey, Latin's cool.

  6. Re:So... by Ayaress · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It isn't unintelligible. I have noticed some definite matches between the subtitles and what's being said. If they talked a bit slower, I could probably start matching words with their translations.

  7. Re:If they make a book about this language.... by orgelspieler · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I don't think so. There are several speakers of Esparanto who have had kids together. The oddest result is that now there are about 200 to 2000 "native" speakers of an artificial language.