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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."

7 of 91 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Quite nice, by Keeper · · Score: 4, Informative

    RTFA

    "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."

  2. If they make a book about this language.... by whitetiger0990 · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'd go insane.

    And I'd buy it! I never could grasp elven... That's a new language to add to my list.

    1. Klingon
    2. Elven
    3. Newspeak
    4. Japanese
    and now...
    5. Jade Empire language

    --
    You have been warned.
    1. Re:If they make a book about this language.... by schild · · Score: 5, Funny

      Please don't breed.

      --
      schild
      editor, f13.net
    2. Re:If they make a book about this language.... by M.C.+Hampster · · Score: 5, Funny

      Please don't breed.

      I believe his interest in pretend languages pretty much assures that.

      --
      Forget the whales - save the babies.
  3. Re:Say what? by centauri · · Score: 4, Insightful

    One of the main reasons they made up this language is so that they didn't have to pay different actors to speak every single line of dialog for every piddling NPC. They just have a few different tracks of gibberish for different moods, genders, races, etc. and loop those depending on the character and the way the conversation is going. Drove me nuts in KOTOR, and was well on its way to doing so during the time I played Jade Empire.

    --
    Don't blame me, I voted for Durga.
  4. Re:This is exactly what we need more of. by nacturation · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

    To me, a cost of $2000 over four months sounds like free with a rounding error. Small price to pay for some professional work I think.

    --
    Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
  5. This has been done before by computertheque · · Score: 4, Informative

    Sega did this already with the Panzer Dragoon games. It's a weird hybrid language of Japanese and German, but it's definately not real.