Khalifate Unit Naming

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Noy
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Re: Khalifate Unit Naming

Post by Noy »

bloodymarx wrote:Say, do the Khalifate have background lore written for them so far?
1/2 done.
bloodymarx wrote:For example, what is the land they hail from called? If you want to rename the faction, then that'd be a good place to turn to. "Knalgans" (Knalgan Alliance in full) is a good example, after all. Personally, I think something like that might fit in with the other factions better than the current name does: none of those refer to systems of government, after all. (Not to mention that the Caliphate is afaik a quite specific reference to a real-life government.) In my opinion, it might work better if they were named the "XY Khalifate", and if there's a good name for their land, then maybe use that for short. Of course, that all depends upon whether somebody comes up with a good name for their homeland or not.
That's actually how its supposed to be used... Ummayad and Abbasaid were the two large periods. I've been considering it.
I suspect having one foot in the past is the best way to understand the present.

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taptap
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Re: Khalifate Unit Naming

Post by taptap »

I would replace the formal english transliterations of Arabic names by a transliteration that allow people to pronounce, at least the assimilated lam, better. Qatif an-Nar instead Qatif al-Nar. It is not a translators course after all. Gh and kh are destined to be pronounced g and k by most people anyway, it might be admissable to write directly Gazi (as in Turkish) instead of Ghazi, which people will usually pronounce incorrectly as Gazi anyway... in other cases I am not sure how useful correct transliterations are when they directly lead to wrong and clumsy pronounciation as in Mighwar, Khaiyal, Khalid, to me even a simple h sounds better than what most people will make of kh (inevitably k, no?).
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AI
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Re: Khalifate Unit Naming

Post by AI »

Now you've made me want a pronunciation guide. (possibly ending up as a full arabic alphabet course)
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Simons Mith
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Re: Khalifate Unit Naming

Post by Simons Mith »

How about starting with a special_notes_pronunciation macro in the unit descriptions?
 
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Temuchin Khan
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Re: Khalifate Unit Naming

Post by Temuchin Khan »

taptap wrote:I would replace the formal english transliterations of Arabic names by a transliteration that allow people to pronounce, at least the assimilated lam, better. Qatif an-Nar instead Qatif al-Nar. It is not a translators course after all. Gh and kh are destined to be pronounced g and k by most people anyway, it might be admissable to write directly Gazi (as in Turkish) instead of Ghazi, which people will usually pronounce incorrectly as Gazi anyway... in other cases I am not sure how useful correct transliterations are when they directly lead to wrong and clumsy pronounciation as in Mighwar, Khaiyal, Khalid, to me even a simple h sounds better than what most people will make of kh (inevitably k, no?).
I appreciate your desire to help people correctly pronounce the Arabic, but I'm not sure if it will possible. After all, the Arabic language contains sounds that many other languages, including English, simply do not have.

If you can figure out a way to do it, though, I'll be happy to see it.
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rmj
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Re: Khalifate Unit Naming

Post by rmj »

Keeping the names of the units Arabic is fine except that there are twenty-five different names. Reducing the number of khalifate names would make them more accessible, would fit the flavor of Wesnoth better.

A possibility:
Use modifications of a name for related units by creating suffixes or prefixes that denote rank or ability. Thus instead of Hakim and Tabib, have Hakim and Hakim-ghat. Or an Arif would advance to an Arif-ka who would advance to an Arif-katu. The suffixes would apply to others as well: Rami, Rami-ka, Rami-katu.
If there are two different lines of similar units one might give names that point to a similarity, for example, Arrami and Qarami could be two separate lines of horsemen.
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Sapient
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Re: Khalifate Unit Naming

Post by Sapient »

Although based on arabian/persian history, I don't see why they have to be completely preserved if they don't sound right in the target language.
If name "X" sounds too weird for a unit_type "Y", then you could create a hybrid word X-Y or combination of X and Y. That's really a question for the translators, though. As for the english versions, I think the added flavor and distinctness is well worth the unfamiliarity. I even remember threads in the past complaining about "X Fighter" unit type names.
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wolkenwand
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Re: Khalifate Unit Naming

Post by wolkenwand »

Hello, i was thinking of making the same thread before found this one, i hope it is okay to post in this old thread. I think it is okay to make some foreign sounding unit, but the problem is there are too many unit with this foreign name, i mean its not a problem if there are just jundi, arif, khaiyal, or hakim yeah i can remember them but then they are leveling up to different unit with too many random names to remember. There are user who mention ghazi in another thread http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php ... 60#p566840 and i even can't find which one it is by looking at the picture. I think it will be nice if the name change to be more easy to recognize, like "khaliph skirmisher" or "khaliph rider", then i can find it more easily by looking the sprite and i can easily communicate with other player to tell which unit i mean. If i said "mufariq" i think most of the player doesn't know which one it is without looking at the unit table, compare if i said "khaliph grand knight" then most of player will easily recognize it. Yeah i know using those generic names sound cliche' and not cool but it's very efective and accessible to the player.
fabi
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Re: Khalifate Unit Naming

Post by fabi »

We can translate into every language, even into US American English.
I mentioned US English because it is also the source language of the translation process.
Still you can translate into it and shadow the text in the source files.

Thus the translators have the complete power to control what the player reads in the game.
If a unit name does not make sense in your target language or can't even be pronounced properly
you can just define your own or translate what the US American translators produced.

This should also work for units.wesnoth.org.

So it is just a matter of some civil disobedience, organizing the US English translation,
and getting more translation teams to translate the original or English ones properly.
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Iris
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Re: Khalifate Unit Naming

Post by Iris »

fabi wrote:So it is just a matter of some civil disobedience, organizing the US English translation,
and getting more translation teams to translate the original or English ones properly.
Encouraging this kind of thing when it’s not what was intended by the maintainers is highly improper.
Author of the unofficial UtBS sequels Invasion from the Unknown and After the Storm.
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wolkenwand
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Re: Khalifate Unit Naming

Post by wolkenwand »

Thank you fabi for the answer ^_^ . Still, getting translated version into mainline would be nice, well just my opinion though.
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