How Age of Mythology Plays with Language

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

[@gokce9521]

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]

"Sakalım ve göbeğim aşkına" moment

[@thomastakesatollforthedark2231]

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]

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

[@shinydewott]

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

[@DudeWatIsThis]

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

[@TheSpitfury]

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]

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

[@victorvondroom1039]

Prostagma? Vulome! METALEFS (:

[@hannahdevries3606]

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

[@QalOrt]

Tell es mar-ket

[@generationm2059]

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

[@philipmetacomet3434]

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]

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]

Age of 2... has a good Spanish tho

[@afz902k]

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

[@MensHominis]

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]

@@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.

[@DudeWatIsThis]

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.

[@mandel94]

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]

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]

@@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]

⁠@@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]

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

[@Ahmadabdal_]

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

[@PlatinumAltaria]

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]

Still waiting for a playable great Zimbabwe

[@Rosencreutzzz]

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]

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

[@PlatinumAltaria]

​@@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]

​@@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...

[@Audentior_Ito]

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...

[@ahumpierrogue137]

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.

[@sakesaurus1706]

I'd go Cantonese for a bit more authentic souns

[@ahumpierrogue137]

@@sakesaurus1706 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

[@pavlezoranovic1859]

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".

[@BrigitteEmpire]

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

[@afz902k]

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]

Santiago is definitely historically accurate

[@mjbalbo]

A ELLOS

[@valenhedenskstrombladviker5691]

El Quixotl???

[@afz902k]

@@valenhedenskstrombladviker5691

[@WikiHL]

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

[@CollinBuckman]

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]

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

[@torinslik6577]

Imperial Glory also did this. Love that game.

[@blede8649]

​​​@@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]

@@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]

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.

[@Appers]

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]

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]

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.

[@synomuumi]

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]

I feel you fam.

[@vladprus4019]

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]

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]

@@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]

may i ask what mods those are? they sound interesting

[@vladprus4019]

@@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]

​@@vladprus4019thank you

[@SirDarthDragon]

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

[@Argacyan]

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).

[@nicholaskalas-hernandez7339]

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.

[@asheep8019]

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)

[@akai4942]

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

[@cfv7461]

SUGUNIKAKARIMASU

[@thegreatestfallout1794]

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]

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

[@zeroqp]

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

[@MiguelThePig]

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

[@bernard832]

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]

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

[@plebisMaximus]

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]

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

[@zalandarr]

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]

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

[@octapusxft]

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.

[@pedroholsbach8592]

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

[@ExValeFor]

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]

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

[@syrvitor696]

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]

Ok, how about... Yao?

[@BababooeyGooey]

This a certified prostagma moment.

[@user-bt1kx3fv6x]

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]

"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^^

[@aleksasimovic2985]

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

[@CockulousChenning]

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

[@tylerparziale868]

"Choppa" - Celt Lumberjack

[@hieratics]

It is the Briton one

[@WWFanatic0]

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

[@nosebleedinc6434]

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

[@jurgenronaaz4695]

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!

[@boertjiereviews3473]

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

[@uglymeez236]

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!

[@anonymousanon3055]

Nice vid, thanks for making and sharing

[@RabidNemo]

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.

[@louissteyn6871]

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

[@TheMetalwolf77777]

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

[@Aurekbeshisk]

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.

[@stephend6172]

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

[@TayoEXE]

You just tickled my linguistics tastebuds. Fascinating discussion!

[@Cheesenommer]

Prostagma?

[@Rosencreutzzz]

hetoimos

[@akai4942]

@@Rosencreutzzz VULOME

[@Argacyan]

Esto

[@tbotalpha8133]

EES VO LEE

[@user-gb3jn9vg3e]

Great video!!

[@wwguess8589]

Excellent video!

[@pedrom.8525]

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]

amazing video!

[@willnash7907]

Very interesting perspectives.

[@TheD3rp2]

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]

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]

@@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]

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!

[@nickyliu8762]

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]

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.

[@dionisio5831]

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]

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.

[@The-Autistic-Gamer]

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]

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

[@silvershine2261]

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!

[@Thylacinus]

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 ^^

[@mud213]

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.

[@maede3ta34]

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

[@ARStudios2000]

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.

[@DJYungHoxha]

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"

[@kayinoue2497]

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

[@ThatDangDad]

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]

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

[@matiasbarth5121]

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".

[@GarfieldRex]

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.

[@Jane-oz7pp]

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]

(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]

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

[@SaltyChickenDip]

@Rosencreutzzz FYI that article that you referenced at 8:40 about how Coptic still being spoken was written by Joseph Mayton. A freelancer who got busted by The Guardian for making up sources and interviews. They wrote an editorial denouncing the dude.

[@Rosencreutzzz]

...cool. I'll make a note. From what I've read (and heard from some people in the community) it's def a very small but lingering tradition, so I don't think the whole section is blown out, but uhh... thanks Joseph.

[@pierlorepisa]

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

[@cfv7461]

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

[@Rosencreutzzz]

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.

[@donatodiniccolodibettobardi842]

Somebody is also was enchanted by the unit bark voice acting in these games.

[@thetruekhanofkhans]

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.

[@bsolos214]

That was a pretty good impersonation at 4:32 😂

[@theaseus654]

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

[@bruellwitz]

"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.

[@Casketkrusher_]

AoM is my favorite, played this so so much, still do.

[@ShallowContrarian]

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.

[@adagamefreak]

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.

[@ls2260]

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!"

[@byali4360]

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.

[@bertberw8653]

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

[@DaVinc-hi7hd]

Age of Mythology was the first ever game that I ever bought !! Brings back memories , sorry for the odd spacing it's have to do with me playing starcraft 2 recently :P

[@victorhenrique1287]

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

[@easttowest7839]

In grade school my friends would constantly quote the Norse lines at each other as a joke. "Shkeepan?" "Gerumstrait!"

[@erencanayhan8514]

16:44 in age of empires 4, turkish soldiers shout "there is fire" as if there is a wild fire near them when they are under missile attack

[@TheTytan007]

I wonder if the upcoming remake - AOM Retold will have the same approach to the languages as AOE4 which is that the factions use historical stages of each language and World's Edge / Relic put some effort into implementing that feature

[@Bishox]

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

[@Krazylegz42]

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

[@CommissarMitch]

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

[@DowaHawkiin]

Lmao that post-credits scene

[@UltraProchy]

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]

Empire Earth voice acting is absolutely LEGENDARY

[@neofromthewarnerbrothersic145]

Can't wait for the AoM remake soon!

[@childrenofthesun471]

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

[@Bobogdan258]

"Ye" was read as "the" since Y replaced the runic Thorn (Þ, þ), so "you" used sound like "thou" either way until Y became a vowel.

[@michaelpsellos770]

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.

[@InternetMameluq]

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.

[@thesilentavenger]

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

[@mrmistmonster]

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.

[@0Dighs]

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

[@StrongZeroPowerHour]

it makes me happy to think that there is some universal experience around the language used in these games. (or maybe it's not universal and that's the point. idk)

[@titusbaum9690]

"A bunch of guys with palette swaps of the same flag" lolol. Brutal, and oh so true

[@anarchopupgirl]

:o mia mulder cameo

[@saltshaker1961]

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."