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[Urist mcJesus]

From following this topic, it looks to me like gender-specific names are impossible until castes come out. As for encoding, I'm not too sure, ANSI or UTF-8 would likely work, I guess. Maybe use the search-and-replace function to change any accented letters that won't save? Where's the OP, anyway? Does he still come here?

Also, if anyone's interested, I've been working on a language for Deon's nords; mostly been using the Germanic Lexicon Project. It's nowhere near finished, though. I was planning on making a custom language file for the Alzheda (advanced, desert-dwelling humans), but when I started on the nord one, I did not know just how long it takes. As it is, I think I'm mad at CTRL + C and CTRL + P now.
I have a lot of respect for anyone who finishes a language file.

[DennyTom]

I have 1/4 or 1/5 done...

There are lots of hommonyms in that file! Also I am surprised WHAT words does this game use. I already had to use thesaurus and I am translating to my mother's language!

[Sean Mirrsen]

Random buglike error in the latin translation - there's a trailing comma in the frist line(the filename), and the name of the translation. It may or may not cause errors, but I think it better be fixed.

[chinkeeyong]

A useful tip you guys might be interested in: spaces at the end of words don't show up unless there is another word following them. 

[yarm102]

OP here.

moved house. still waiting for the internet to be connected.

until that happens, no more progress can be made on my translations.

ETA 30 June for re-connection.

ADDS: I tried the surname thing to create dutch-style surnames (van [first word][second word]), but this did not work as planned.

I also modified the latin file with latin names, but am unable to upload with the internet unavailable at home.

[DaveT]

I sort of forgot about the whole thing for a while as well, I still might come back to sorting out a couple more languages but at the moment the desire isn't really there.

[DennyTom]

I have found error in latin file. Word TWO is translated as "duo -ae o" or something like that. There are all possible endings like in a dictionary. I suggest correcting and using only "duo".

BTW. I just finished Z... and noticed that I am in half of the file! The rest of it is not in alphabetical order.

EDIT:

In latin file there are also at least two duplicit entries - word Desert is translated twice.
I do not know if it is imporant, but some words with adjective, verb, noun variants do not have underscore in tag - DESERT_VERB vs DESERTVERB.
Also (and this drives me mad) lots of words have adj., verb, noun variants and are listed only once, last thing I remember is vomit - does it mean "vomit" or "to vomit"?
And lastly... does the game REALLY use all these words? There are quite a few words I have never seen or seen used. Have you ever seen words like weevil, mucus, froth, whore, smut, sullen or shimmer in game? Before translating this file I had no idea, there are four? words for swamp, six for phlegm, etc.

[DaveT]

There are probably a fair few more errors in the Latin file. Feel free to change and reload it to the file site if you want. I probably won't bother for a little while. Maybe next week...we'll see.

As for what sort of word you are dealing with. In language_words.txt you'll find the word with information about it such as whether it is a noun or verb etc. I didn't bother using that as I didn't notice until after I'd finished translating the latin file.

[DennyTom]

OK. This will take me some more time, I will try to do my file correctly and if I find some free time, I will correct some mistakes in Latin file.

[yarm102]

I have found error in latin file. Word TWO is translated as "duo -ae o" or something like that. There are all possible endings like in a dictionary. I suggest correcting and using only "duo".

BTW. I just finished Z... and noticed that I am in half of the file! The rest of it is not in alphabetical order.

EDIT:

In latin file there are also at least two duplicit entries - word Desert is translated twice.
I do not know if it is imporant, but some words with adjective, verb, noun variants do not have underscore in tag - DESERT_VERB vs DESERTVERB.
Also (and this drives me mad) lots of words have adj., verb, noun variants and are listed only once, last thing I remember is vomit - does it mean "vomit" or "to vomit"?
And lastly... does the game REALLY use all these words? There are quite a few words I have never seen or seen used. Have you ever seen words like weevil, mucus, froth, whore, smut, sullen or shimmer in game? Before translating this file I had no idea, there are four? words for swamp, six for phlegm, etc.

I ran into that problem.

I tended to go for the noun version, or the version that would look best as a part of a more complex word.

and the synonym problem, too, was interesting. I have duplicated a word more than once because the language in question only had one or two words for a thing where english had plenty. english borrows not just from its germanic (saxon/danish) roots but also the romance overlays from latin and french. thus: synonyms galore.

[DennyTom]

I ran into that problem.

I tended to go for the noun version, or the version that would look best as a part of a more complex word.

and the synonym problem, too, was interesting. I have duplicated a word more than once because the language in question only had one or two words for a thing where english had plenty. english borrows not just from its germanic (saxon/danish) roots but also the romance overlays from latin and french. thus: synonyms galore.

I have checked language files in vanilla version and I see that some of latin "problems" are already there, so I will not try to correct it. Therefore only potentional problem remains coma in name and translation for TWO.

My language luckily has plenty synonyms in general but lots of them are old and not used anymore (only in poems, etc). We also have borrowed lots from germanic languages (especialy german) but it usually is not so obvious thanks to our grammar, pronounciation, use of diaritics and tendency not to use long and composed words.

The problem is that sometimes I am not really if word I am looking at is synonym to the one I translated later or it means something slighty different. For example, could you tell me difference between swamp, marsh and bog? Until today I thought that these are just synonyms for wetland. The same for my own language and "bažina", "mokřad" and "močál". And now I stare on wiki on definitions of them and am amazed. Also thesaurus is double bladed weapon. You can never be really sure that those "synonyms" are really synonyms or just a little.

I know that this has no meaning in game, but why then why these words are in the language file anyway? I usually try not to bother and conect them as I wish but... something in me (some SM part of me) wants to do good work.

I wish I had better control (I mean some control) over gramatic, that is what gives languages their flavor. You do not use infinitives in speach and we do not neither. But I have no choise but to translate verbs in infinitives because I have no idea how they will be used. Our words look quite different depending on meaning, subject, conjugation, etc. On the other hand it would take me not week to finish this but at least one year.

[DaveT]

Realistically there is no sensible way to deal with all language types though.

For some languages you'd have to contend with myriad cases on nouns which modify the noun itself (like you are saying that Czech does) and with some you'd have to worry about how to conjugate verbs as the verbs change significantly (like Latin). Then again with others (like English) we can use the same form of the verb for many uses. Even better with something like the verbnouns in Welsh where they only change for a few tenses and not at all when given a different person of the verb.

I would be interested to know how this stuff might be used in the game. At the moment is it just used for naming places/people? If so then all that theorizing about cases and tenses is essentially meaningless.

On another note I was thinking about writing a quick script to parse the language_words.txt file alongside the other language files and change the entries into the language database so that it indicates more obviously whether they are verbs, nouns or adjectives.

What I mean is taking a word like Vomit and parsing its entry in language_words:

Code: [Select]

[WORD:VOMIT]
[NOUN:vomit:vomits]
[FRONT_COMPOUND_NOUN_SING]
[REAR_COMPOUND_NOUN_SING]
[THE_COMPOUND_NOUN_SING]
[THE_NOUN_SING]
[OF_NOUN_SING]
[REAR_COMPOUND_NOUN_PLUR]
Then change the entries in the language files to VOMIT_NOUN.

There are also words which have multiple entries in the language_words file as follows:

Code: [Select]

[WORD:VOICE]
[NOUN:voice:voices]
[FRONT_COMPOUND_NOUN_SING]
[REAR_COMPOUND_NOUN_SING]
[THE_COMPOUND_NOUN_SING]
[THE_NOUN_SING]
[OF_NOUN_SING]
[REAR_COMPOUND_NOUN_PLUR]
[THE_NOUN_PLUR]
[OF_NOUN_PLUR]
[VERB:voice:voices:voiced:voiced:voicing]
[STANDARD_VERB]
We would want to break that into multiple entries so that languages which do not use the same word for voice as a verb and voice as a noun could translate both.

Any opinions?

[yarm102]

you would have to create seperate words.

you would have to have a vomit and vomit_verb as seperate words.

there are some examples of this in the existing language files.

it would dramatically increase the complexity of the language file and make it more correct.

however, since the language files only seem to be used to generate names at this stage, it may seem like a lot of work for nothing. if there was an indication that the language files might be used in-game for dialogue, or for other things, it might be worthwhile and fun to do (reading sub-babelfish versions of histories in legends would be a scream, especially if you were fluent in the relevant language ).

my inner perfectionist would love to have a crack at correcting the language files, adding to them and correcting the syntax, but my inner realist tells me that the initial translations are going to be a hard enough slog for now. the outcome is worth it. i like that all of my dwarves have dutch names, my humans have german names and elves have latin names, and that gobbos have names like "malefictus" and "odium" and "furchtbar". more languages, at this stage, should be a priority.

[DennyTom]

You are right. If there will be more use for language, it might be worth the work. But today's system of complete random generation from extremely big (and still incomplete), half-sorted library of words is not.

I still do not get why there is such huge ammount of words. I also cannot imagine the work of manufacturing original languages.

[DaveT]

I imagine it was an automated process. Shouldn't be too hard to write out a list of rules and autogen a bunch of good sounding words. However, if he did do some actual work on inventing the languages then kudos.

Anyway I agree, it's worth translating the word files on the off chance that future versions will use them but I'm not going to put much effort into making sure they're right.