What do Roman soldiers say?

[gangster19]

I love the mod, but I wonder what soldiers and generals say when you select them in the battle map. I guess it has to be something like "sir". Is there any way to know what they're saying every time? They sound so cool!

[Septentrionalis]

Here is a listing but many are without direct translations. Perhaps we can work on one, unless someone can come up with actual translations.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...t-do-units-say

[QuintusSertorius]

Here is a listing but many are without direct translations. Perhaps we can work on one, unless someone can come up with actual translations.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...t-do-units-say

Oh dear, the second post features Ranika's fictional concoctions. It's alright from there on out, though.

[Septentrionalis]

Oh dear, the second post features Ranika's fictional concoctions. It's alright from there on out, though.

Sorry, QS. I am not sure about what you mean. Did I post something that I should not have?

EDIT: I have not reviewed those lines carefully myself, but just used the thread to look up some of them. The Latin ones seem legit all the way to vowel length markers that I think appear right.

[Septentrionalis]

Oh dear, the second post features Ranika's fictional concoctions.

Okay, now I see what you mean. The second post in the thread I linked. I had just skipped that because it looked so dodgy with all the primitive pronunciation instructions and all.

[Septentrionalis]

The regular selection sound, that I have turned off in strategic map because it is highly annoying to hear all the time, seems to be either

1.tribuni; a plural of tribunus. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_tribune for an explanation of the concept.
2. tribune; a vocative form, meaning that you are addressing a single tribune. A common example of this is the Shakespeare play portraying Caesar addressing Brutus at the time of the assassination: "Et tu, Brute" ("You too, Brutus").

I have not been able to determine which one it actually is.

[athanaric]

The regular selection sound, that I have turned off in strategic map because it is highly annoying to hear all the time, seems to be either

1.tribuni; a plural of tribunus. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_tribune for an explanation of the concept.
2. tribune; a vocative form, meaning that you are addressing a single tribune. A common example of this is the Shakespeare play portraying Caesar addressing Brutus at the time of the assassination: "Et tu, Brute" ("You too, Brutus").

I have not been able to determine which one it actually is.

Pretty sure it's meant to be the latter. The thing is, I think most, if not all, voice actors from EB I are native speakers of English, which in videogame terms basically translates to a penalty on pronouncing anything foreign (except Chinese, maybe). So, they might have had trouble differentiating between e and i, just like (e.g.) many German native speakers have trouble keeping g and k (or p and b) apart.

IOW, when you select Roman units, what they say ("tribune?") would translate to "sir?". At least that's my reading; otherwise, why would they bother with the vocative form?

[Septentrionalis]

So, they might have had trouble differentiating between e and i, just like (e.g.) many German native speakers have trouble keeping g and k (or p and b) apart.

I agree with you in other respects, but I think you are confusing German with some other language. German, like all other Germanic languages, has a voiced and unvoiced opposition in all stop consonants (p-b, k-g, t-d). Finnish, for one language, does not systematically separate those pairs.

[athanaric]

I agree with you in other respects, but I think you are confusing German with some other language.

Afraid not. Though I was perhaps not clear enough about what I meant: the pronunciation of those sounds when speaking other languages (and, to a lesser degree, how they are pronounced in the native language in certain situations, e.g. at the end of a word).

[Septentrionalis]

Afraid not. Though I was perhaps not clear enough about what I meant: the pronunciation of those sounds when speaking other languages (and, to a lesser degree, how they are pronounced in the native language in certain situations, e.g. at the end of a word).

Ah, thanks, now I understand what you mean. That is called final-obstruent devoicing and indeed occurs in German. No doubt it affects speaking in foreign languages.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final-...voicing#German

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

I'm halfway thru my latin course so I can easily know what the Romani are saying. The Greeks and others are a different matter.

"Arietâ Moenia!" - To the walls with the ram
"Moenia Quasâ!" - idem
"Arietem Adsummite!" - Take up the ram
"Murum turibus uppugnate!" - Attack the wall with the [siege] towers
"Milites, in duas acies!" - Soldiers, in two lines
"Signa Frentem!" (sp?) - Forward
"Unitas, ab unitate discedite!" - Unit, leave the unit
"Movete!" - Move (imperative plural, not evident in English)
"Uppugnate!" - Attack
"Mentulae!" - Insult, related to a man's private parts (lol)
"Turpissime Barbarie" - You disgraceful/worthless barbarians!
"State!" - Halt! Stand fast! - imperative plural - Note: German actually has a concoction which is similar to the latin meaning of this particular word here: "halt stehen bleiben!"
"Romani, Istos interficite!" - Romans, kill these!
"Hostes trucidate" - Destroy the enemies!

etc...

Now as for the rest, I can barely understand the Classical Greek. The Poeni speak something which looks a lot like Hebrew, while I would *really* like to know what the Q-Celtic injunctions below mean.

"Bano Khaki"
"Colva" (sp?)

[Wulfburk]

The voicemods in EB1 in EB 2 did wonders to set the immersion and atmosphere of the mod.


Most games about romans or greeks, even in the rare cases that they dont speak english, they speak in such a.. weakly way. Like in Age of Mithology, or in 0 A.D (when i played it at least). So much that i always thought "these puny greeks" when playing these games.


But all my prejudice on them was shattered when i first played Europa Barbarorum and had these badass guys fiercely shouting SOMATOPHYLAKES... STRATEGOU, or PHALANGITAI!! at me

[Bob69Joe]

I don't remember if it's Armenians or Gauls, but BAS, BAS, BAS sounds like a bunch of raving dogs chasing rabbits.

[Jormungand]

I don't remember if it's Armenians or Gauls, but BAS, BAS, BAS sounds like a bunch of raving dogs chasing rabbits.

Who removed 'WALOLOOOOOOOOOO'? This is the real question.

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

Lol, true. The RTW vanilla Greeks were ridiculous. LOKHOS, KATHON!

[gangster19]

Wow thank you all so much for the answers! I'll do more research

[hlidskjalf]

that BAZB BAZB BAZB thing is definitely the gauls

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

You may very well be acquainted with this already, but for the ordinary visitor to the EB board that is interested in the history of Latin, I recommend the Wikipedia article on Old Latin. Many experts apparently consider Classical Latin starting as late as 75 BC. I had some command of Latin for a long time before realizing that many conventions that I took for granted had become standard that late.

Yes, the SC de Bacchanalibus still had ablative ending in -d. As well as some archaic conventions and spelling.

In my view, the lenghtening of final a- combined with the loss of final d was one of the things that would ultimately spell the end of the ablative in the long term. In some regional dialects of Vulgar Latin the final -t and the final ablative -a were already getting muted. Not to mention the overuse of "de" and "per" as prepositions + accusative.