Modern Polish

[WhiteIce89]

Fluent Polish/English speaker willing to do the voice-overs for the Poles.

[mac89]

Cool, youre hired except we wont be paying you.

[Beiss]

Eheheh.... yeah.

[ConstantineVII]

Is modern polish the same as medieval ones or you'll have to "polish" them a little??

[Beiss]

Arghahahah

Except he did remember to use capital letters, so it's not as funny as it could have been. Once I read a poorly spelled sign in a hotel that said "it is forbidden to wear a floating device in the pool", except it was spelled so that it meant "it is forbidden to wear a floating device in Poland". I laughed. Anyway, yeah, we don't know much about medieval Polish, unfortunately, so we might have to go with 18th century Polish.

[WILHELM_II]

Well, the thing is rather tricky. The foremost sources on Polish don't go back all the way to the year 1000 or so. Until about 1400-1500 Latin was the dominant toungue in Poland. Although Polish was being spoken even before 1200 (there are about two or three Ancient Polish sources predating that century) it wasn't quite written down. The best source on Ancient Polish comes from the 17th-18th century. The funny thing is that about the biggest source is a book (a trilogy actually) written a little bit later (19th century), completely in the medieval Polish language. This does pose a risk though since it is fiction, but apparently the writer did some research, and since the language of his time is a little bit like Medieval Polish anyway (it differs from modern Polish at least, written by Henryk Sienkiewicz), so we can be quite sure that through sources of this age (with the trilogy as a main source though) we can achieve a very decent form of medieval Polish. In fact I already have some little things translated already (very easy things, unit hails and one line of pre-battle speech) but I am getting there. I will bring forward some of the stuff later so we can try it out.

[Sanskrit_Bandit]

maybe this will come in helpful http://staropolska.gimnazjum.com.pl/slownik/

[Marcholt]

Wilhelm II
You a very wrong saying, there are only two or three medieval polish sources.. There is actually much more. Not all are available online, but you can find some of them here:
http://www.staropolska.gimnazjum.com...iecze_007.html. Although be carefully, because some of those texts on this site are modern translation from Latin…Actually the best guide for medieval polish would be some book about historical grammar of polish language… - only there you can find tips about pronunciation and accent. Hentyk Sienkiewicz books have nothing to do with medieval language (as my professor used to say: "Sienkiewicz made more for old-polish (j.staropolski) misunderstanding than 123 years of russifitation"). Old polish, which is used in Sienkiewicz books, is his imagination about the polish language of XVII/XVIII century. And it is very far from the true. It doesn’t really matter, because old-polish is not a medieval polish! The medieval polish is much different from the modern one, most polish would not understand it (like this:
Chcy ja na pannu żałować,
Nie chciałat mi trochy dać
Memu koni owsa.

Mniszli ty, panno, bych był mał?
U mniet wisi jako skal
Nożyk przy biedrzycy.

Rozżży, panno, świecyczku,
Przysuczywa dratwiczku,
Jako pirwe było.

Na pisane pierzynie
Damy sobie do wole...
Piwa i miedu.)
But I think that the language from XIV –XV century time period would do for the game. I regret I have no time, to commit myself to this project, but at least I could help with the trickiest things…just post them over here…

Sincerely
Marchołt Gruby a Sprośny

[Beiss]

Excellent heads-up. I hope this is helpful, Wilhelm.

[WILHELM_II]

Wilhelm II
You a very wrong saying, there are only two or three medieval polish sources.. There is actually much more. Not all are available online, but you can find some of them here:
http://www.staropolska.gimnazjum.com...iecze_007.html. Although be carefully, because some of those texts on this site are modern translation from Latin…Actually the best guide for medieval polish would be some book about historical grammar of polish language… - only there you can find tips about pronunciation and accent. Hentyk Sienkiewicz books have nothing to do with medieval language (as my professor used to say: "Sienkiewicz made more for old-polish (j.staropolski) misunderstanding than 123 years of russifitation"). Old polish, which is used in Sienkiewicz books, is his imagination about the polish language of XVII/XVIII century. And it is very far from the true. It doesn’t really matter, because old-polish is not a medieval polish! The medieval polish is much different from the modern one, most polish would not understand it (like this:
Chcy ja na pannu żałować,
Nie chciałat mi trochy dać
Memu koni owsa.

Mniszli ty, panno, bych był mał?
U mniet wisi jako skal
Nożyk przy biedrzycy.

Rozżży, panno, świecyczku,
Przysuczywa dratwiczku,
Jako pirwe było.

Na pisane pierzynie
Damy sobie do wole...
Piwa i miedu.)
But I think that the language from XIV –XV century time period would do for the game. I regret I have no time, to commit myself to this project, but at least I could help with the trickiest things…just post them over here…

Sincerely
Marchołt Gruby a Sprośny

Well thank you very much for this information. I was under the impression that Sienkiewicz was definetly medieval, or at least from around that era, or so I was told by numerous family members who had to read the book when they were in school in Poland. Ill have to take some measures!

http://www.staropolska.gimnazjum.com...iecze_007.html yes its a very good site, I got the Bogurodzica from it, a poem from the 15th century (well at least it was written down in the 15th century, apparently its a bit older than that).
About the books, I have two books which have real medieval texts and, concerning pronounciation, they both state that the pronounciation is just like modern polish. (both books are written by a fellow named Suchodolski. Dzieje Kultury Polskiej and Poland I think they were called) And apparently about 3/4 of the texts we find in poland that date from before the 16th century are Latin, real Polish didnt really get quite "national" until the 16th century itself, and most of the Polish stuff found are either poems, or property lists, in which most of the time only names were used.
A lot of sources on medieval polish seem to contradict eachother though but you have given me a bit more of a lead. I've come across a lot of misunderstandngs between them so that have mave caused some of the mistakes. I'm glad you are willing to help out a bit, thank you.

[suvorov]

Well, the thing is rather tricky. The foremost sources on Polish don't go back all the way to the year 1000 or so. Until about 1400-1500 Latin was the dominant toungue in Poland. Although Polish was being spoken even before 1200 (there are about two or three Ancient Polish sources predating that century) it wasn't quite written down. The best source on Ancient Polish comes from the 17th-18th century. The funny thing is that about the biggest source is a book (a trilogy actually) written a little bit later (19th century), completely in the medieval Polish language. This does pose a risk though since it is fiction, but apparently the writer did some research, and since the language of his time is a little bit like Medieval Polish anyway (it differs from modern Polish at least, written by Henryk Sienkiewicz), so we can be quite sure that through sources of this age (with the trilogy as a main source though) we can achieve a very decent form of medieval Polish. In fact I already have some little things translated already (very easy things, unit hails and one line of pre-battle speech) but I am getting there. I will bring forward some of the stuff later so we can try it out.

Do you really want to make you such a big work to translate all in a such mickey mouse language?

[Sanskrit_Bandit]

Atleast we don't slur

[Beiss]

Oh, it'll be great.

[McDonough]

Student of history and amateur linguist theoretician ready to provide necessary feedback, as per the main Xenophonia thread.

Concerning what my kinsmen mentioned above - it's bloody hard digging anything up in Olde-Polish from pure Medieval, the reason being, quite obviously, Latin. The only examples of true Polish from XI+ century are either poems (and we all know that poetry tend to deform any language more or less) or simple, single sentences that were found mostly as quotes in annals wrote entirely in other languages (for example the "famous" Daj, ać ja pobruczę, a ty pocziwej). From my point of view, it would be actually easier to base upon any linguistic treatises describing the nature of medieval Polish and its differences to the modern one and then, basing on such info, "construct" words and sentences. That wouldn't really be... genuine, true, but at least it would sound as such. And sound is all that Xenophonia is about, right?

Regards
+ McDonough

[Beiss]

Good points. Anything that can be considered historically accurate is good, and if we have to settle for historically feasible instead, I guess that's fine. What I want to avoid is having besserwissers come here and say "hey, your mod is historically inaccurate". If you think you can "fake" medieval Polish, by all means, go ahead. But if you can make something from, say, 13th century Old Church Slavonic (if such a thing exists), I guess that would work, too...

[McDonough]

Hah, won't know that before I try. I'm currently looking into Eastern-European MSD and trying out some combinations... It would seem that actual stylization of the language would be more welcome and understandable rather than trying to dig up the correct and genuine form. As I said, hardly anyone except specialists, is "fluent" in Olde Polish, fluent enough to catch any inaccuracies. Still, I'll do my best.

[Beiss]

Ok. It would be cool if you could get hold of one of those specialists though.

[McDonough]

Heeheehee... I'm afraid you're overestimating my abilities

Allright, it seems that the thing is manageable, only horribly time-consuming. Almost every sentence (and there are, like, several hundreds, if not more) requires some thinking to do before translating into medieval version. With timer and practice though, it should go smoother.

Now, I'm willing to do my part and translate as much as I can, it's actually quite entertaining and I get to know my own language a bit better Still, as I said, it's a time sink and I do have my own life to take care of as well. Once I'm done with a reasonable amount of phrases from the MSD, I'll post it here as a sample, for any other Poles out there willing to rate and review it :-)

I'm not sure about voice-acting thing, tried recording some phrases, but I'm afraid my voice could pass only for things like diplomats, tradesmen etc. - it's way too weak to make any general sound reasonable. But then again, first things first, so far there isn't that much to voice act anyway, plus, I'm sure some of my colleagues from above would be willing to try in due time.

Will keep you updated.

[Beiss]

We're going to need voice actors for the diplomats and merchants too, you know.

[Domen123]

Check this:

http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?v...eq=635;num=615