Of course, I thought of other words than “thou”, “thy”, etc. taken from Middle English. The example in brackets was to show how it’s done most of the time, just to get the idea of the concept.
What’s confusing about Chaucer is not the spoken language but the pre-Johnson totally-crazy spelling*. Besides at the turn of the fifteenth century we are on the cusp of the court document reforms of Henry V which combined regional English into one unified language of court and marked the birth of modern English and the end of Middle.
*Seriously just spell it normally and it becomes a lot more understandable even if you can’t get the occasional word
"When that April with his showers sweet
The drought of March has pierced to the root
and bathed every vein in sweet liquor
of which “vertu”(first word that has no easy translation) engenders(a real word!) the flower"
Chaucer isn’t really that hard to understand once you get past the fact that there was no homogenised English spelling before ~1750…
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I liked the sound of the talking in the stream cause it had some extinct words mixed in with some modern ones. I don’t think it was overdone at all.
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I too liked the sound and the feel of the spoken words in the livestream. It did feel right for the setting.
The very idea that people noticed the feel of the placeholder language tells that it drew their attention.
I see that some of it is bad, but in my humble opinion it is just people nitpicking at the non-professional voice acting (which was not that bad. I do not want to get even started on AAA games with voice acting which is 10 scales lower than this one).
Anything which brings in an ‘older’ feel to the game would be a plus. Don’t start nitpicking at every corner, since there are so many other things which just CAN’T be done the way they felt/looked like in that age (appart from language). And not only for the lack of programming skills but for the sheer lack of accurate historical data. Hell, even today people around the world do not know what is going on in the countries different than their own (even neighboring ones), and would swallow whatever the “educated” people tell them in the news, analysis and such.
Damn I went off on a tangent.
Anyway I loved the introduction of the old-sounding English, and even though not perfect they DID say it is just a placeholder. I suppose it could be done in a more consistent way, even if the langauge itself is invented for the purpose and does not precisely fit 15. c. spoken English (this is where I can get back to the fact that we just DON’T really KNOW how people actually spoke back then).
In conclustion, whatever is decided in the end, I do hope we do not go with a clean contemporary English, since that would, I fear, spoil the feel of the game era/age.
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I’ll agree for English Ex-Pats in Prague their voice acting was surprisingly very good, not quite to industry standard but non the less very good indeed.
I do feel that the ‘Old-English’ style of speaking would be a nice touch to the game it may not hold with it’s local in Bohemia but none the less we are selling this game to a international community and English is an International language. Not that Czech or West Slavic isn’t a nice language it’s just not a commonly spoken global language there are about 10 to 15 mill speakers of it atm.
Im not going to use english voice in the game so its not my problem, but thinking about what the english dubbing in this game theoreticaly is, will maybe help.
In my opinion the englisch dubbing is a translation for the english speaking people in front of the pc, who are unable to understand the language the people in the game actually speaking (old czech/german). So it is a translation for people who speak 21th century english.
Would you also use old english for the dubbing of a realistic medieval rpg which plays in japan? If not, why use it for bohemia?
Your whole post seems to read “If you did not want to make Czech language support, why give any understandable support for the rest of the world as well”
This is the really not the best comparison you could have put up.
Multitude of reasons, so many they cannot be all named but let me give you just one:
Japan is an eastern culture nation/country, completely separated from the west, historically and linguistically (although in all honesty I would not mind a Japanese medeival voiced game with subtitles probably). Whereas the languages in these areas were so influenced by one another that it is not difficult to get the feel of the time by using a language majority of players can relate to and understand (ie. English). Shifting it backwards in time a bit (however unprecisely), can help in bringing in the feel of the times past.
As for the dubbing you got it all in reverse:
“Dubbing is a post-production process in which additional or supplementary recording occurs after the original recording stage.”
This game will be made in English originally, so any other language would be a dubbing of it, not the other way around.
So the people in the game will actually speak English, and other languages would be made as a dubbing for people who cannot understand it.
P.S. I live in Czech republic, and I am of Slavic origin so I am not defending English because I do not speak other langauges, to be clear. It is just a fact of life that English is more widespread and used than Slavic languages (and much easier to learn, at that).
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Don’t thou them as thous thee!
Whatever that meant…
I still think that the comparison with japan is valid. But ok … What about an Reconquista rpg? Would you give the christian knights old english voice?
The direction of dubbing is still matter of discussion. (At least I hope so)
I am aware of the fact “that English is more widespread and used”. Therefore I would suggest to make the dubbing in English. It is more widespread, used and much easier to learn then old english…
If the reason for English to be chosen as the prime game language is that it “is more widespread and used” then why not use Chinese? There are much more native speakers of Chinese than English 
Anyway I would stand for the Authentic approach, with characters speaking Czech, German (if not medieval dialects, then their modern standard versions) and Latin. The ‘Shakespearean version’ could be a good idea as for the atmosphere, but again, rather for native English speakers only.
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I think they should use old english, but maybe mix it a bit with newer so that it’s not too much
Learn old english or for us others old czech? No,thank you. I will be fine with noirmal language with no “cool, ok”, but a few old phrases, words and that’s it.
Bloody hell people! They want to be as accurate as possible and you’re all saying ‘use old-English’! First of all let’s ignore the fact that that’s the wrong language in the first place for the setting and old-English was used in the period 450 AD to 1066 AD by the Anglo-Saxons.
Here’s an example of the Lord’s Prayer in old-English:
Fæder ūre þū þe eart on heofonum,
Sī þīn nama ġehālgod.
Tōbecume þīn rīċe,
Ūre ġedæġhwāmlīcan hlāf syle ūs tō dæġ,
and forġyf ūs ūre gyltas, swā swā wē forġyfað ūrum gyltendum.
And ne ġelǣd þū ūs on costnunge, ac ālȳs ūs of yfele.
Sōþlīċe.
Does that really look like anyone could possibly comprehend that? I think not.
Now, the middle-English that would have been used at the time is much more recognisable but still requires a good deal of effort to decipher. Not to doubt the intellect of the average Kingdom Come Backer but my class still struggles with middle-English and we’ve been studying literature written in it for the past three years. I don’t think it’s the solution either. I’m all for authenticity but there are times when you have to make compromises if you don’t wish to stray into the realm of the ludicrous.
I feel Helena hit the nail on the head with her? suggestion to use neutral English with all modern idioms stripped out and to use more old fashioned words where applicable.
One more annoyance. It is most certainly not Shakespearean English. He wasn’t even born until 150 years later!
An example of middle-English from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, around the time of 1390:
Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seeke.
I leave you with a quote from the devs:
“This is actually a very interesting topic and we would definitely welcome your ideas and thoughts on this. For the publishers’ demo, we went with English that was quite ‘archaic’, with characters saying things like: ‘I smite thee!’ and 'Pray, do tell! Gramercy.'
It was no Chaucer and not even Shakespeare, more like Tristram Shandy, but even so it felt forced and not believable. At this moment we are thinking of making it even more modern, of course avoiding things like: ‘It’s cool,’ or ‘OK’, basically going for language of early 20th century.
What do you think? How common should a second person singular (thee, thou, thy) be? How should they greet each other? It would be also great if you can indicate what language version you would (ideally) play. Thank you.”
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Using modern spelling is misleading in its own way, because the pronunciation has changed quite a bit since then. Here’s a video of the same lines read using (our best guess at) authentic Middle English pronunciation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QE0MtENfOMU. It’s clearly recognisable as English, but still pretty difficult for a modern speaker to understand, at least on a first hearing.
As I said, I’d be very impressed if the devs decided to go with authentic Middle English - or even Shakespearean English - but in all honesty, I doubt it’s going to happen. I think many people here are seriously underestimating the amount of effort it would take. You need writers who are familiar with the language and able to write good period dialogue, actors who can make it sound naturalistic (and coaches to teach them), and someone to translate everything into modern English for the subtitles - and then, would they have to do the same for German and French and all the other localised versions? That’s a crazy amount of work.
And for the people saying we should mix the language from different time periods: that just doesn’t really work, unfortunately. It’s like having the characters dressed in bits of armour from different centuries - say, a Norman-style helmet with 15th-century plate armour. You end up with something that isn’t accurate to either period, and just looks stupid (at least to anyone who knows anything about the history).
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The developers weren’t sure of the appeal that a serious medieval game would have; we showed them that there is a market for that. Lowering the quality and seriousness of the product at this point wouldn’t be wise, I think.
I think a compromise would be a good idea. I like to listen to the old language. I am not a native speaker though. But many here claim correctly that the spoken language was sth like czech/german aso. I am from Germany but I’d rather have a english version (well done) of the game with some medieval terms. Most german dubbs don’t appeal to me because mostly the speaker fuck it up and it is even worse when they try to implement some historical language. And I think that is the problem for a native speaker it may sound silly if they try a certain old style and don’t nail it.
I’d want to see a proper english version with the frequent use of ancient words.
You can add small words like thee, gleeman, wench, fair maiden without risking too much and those words may add a lot of immersion.
Thus said I’d prefer a slightly changed version of the modern english with the frequent use of historically correct vocabulary. But I dont want them to implent the language of shakespear(though i love his plays); nor a czech/german version with subtitles.
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I have to much good experiences with german voices in rpgs with medieval setting. Would be a downstep for my gaming experience if the german voice is bad.
I do not know enough to call any of you wrong.
So i will just add…As long as i have a general idea of what they’re saying, i dont care.
I wouldn’t like to read subtitles the whole game though, some parts are fine…but not constantly.
The international release featuring czech/german voices and a variety of subtiles would be a really hardcore choice for the sake of authenticity, but sunds unlikely for the regular final release.
Once again, let’s not forget that this game, even though its financing seems to be pretty much ensured for the time being, is probably not going to have exactly a huge budget like some GTA 5 and the main concern would be to still make it at a reasonable cost with enough earnings to justify the further development.
The english voice acting is a neccessary compromise by itself, but if they won’t make it sound so contemporary that it would break the medieval feel of the game, it should be all right.
I still remember the disappointment I felt when I tried to play Mafia 2 with czech voiceovers, where the main characters sometimes talk to each other with the language of our today’s teenagers (with 1950s ingame)… after those great voiceovers we got in the first game, this was an icy shower. At least the english voiceovers didn’t seem to get messed up under the glorious 2K direction though.
Overall it would be better to go more for historical english and less for the current one, while maintaining some balance between understandability and historical feel. What @Pokletu wrote back there is nevertheless right. An average gamer literate in english should not have trouble to understand. Definitely not with subtitles involved.
The über period-accurate czech/german version would still be an interesting option anyway. Something to think about for some possible special extended edition of the game, made post-ACT 3?
Something like The Ultimate Medieval Bohemia Experience Pack?
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