The Magpie on 26/2/2008 at 13:33
Seems like the localization people on TDP might sometimes have been branched off from the regular asset development flow. Maybe LGS decided to change something after the assets were produced in Europe. Case in point:
You all know the regular opening from the Book of the Stone in the intro?
You know,
"Ye shall not rob from the house I have built"?
Well, I just saw this old (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN_G3jz2XCU) promo trailer for the German Thief Gold on YouTube, and I couldn't recognize this intro text:
Du hast die Finsternis durchreist,
doch was weisst du?
Das Auge is das Licht des Leibes,
wenn aber das Licht in dir Finsternis ist,
wie gross wird dann die Finsternis sein!
--Das Buch der SteineLoosely translated, near as I can understand:
You have journeyed through darkness,
though what do you know?
The eye is the light of the body,
but when that light in you is darkness,
how great is not the darkness, then!
--The Book of the Stone
Just go ahead and post better translations, if you please.
So, uh, have any of you German version owners ever had the opportunity to compare the flavor texts properly? Because I'm deeply curious as to whether there are more occurences of diverging texts. :)
--
Larris
fibanocci on 26/2/2008 at 15:14
I have the german version of Thief Gold as well as the english one.
The first conversation of the guards at Baffords is different. Doesn't sound that fancy in the german version ("Nicht für Geld und Güter" instead of "couldn't pay me enough" :rolleyes: ). Otherwise, it's a good localisation.
The Magpie on 26/2/2008 at 15:21
I've never doubted that it's good. Truth is, I admired the quotation I discovered today so much that I was eager to see if there were even more secret goodies in the German version. ;)
(Or the French one, but I haven't had much success finding that intro movie yet.)
--
L.
Beleg Cúthalion on 26/2/2008 at 20:34
I'd just change...
You have journeyed through darkness,
though what do you know?
The eye is the light of the body,
but when that light in you is darkness,
how great is not the darkness, then!
--The Book of the Stone
...although I don't know if you can use this "not" in the same way you would use it in German. Otherwise it's good I think (that was no online translator I guess...? I believe xxcoy posted it here somewhere somewhen). Anyway, I still want to bugger Lars Wittkuhn to get some info about the why's and how's of the quite independent German localisation (especially in TMA).
Regarding the other translations; they are usually done quite well and harmonic without the impression of being translated from somewhere else. For instance, "The essence of balance is detachment" is translated with "Distance is essential for balance". I don't know about most of the other books though. The song "If I had a hammer" is faithfully translated into German. :p
BTW: Because the German voices etc. were so excellent (and I guess the French etc. too) the fans fell into a deep hole with TDS being left in English. Do you think anyone here complained about some strange movement of Garrett?
ataricom on 26/2/2008 at 21:25
I wonder, then, who wrote the quotations for the non-English versions? Was it someone within LGS that had a literary knowledge of other European languages, or different individuals involved with translating the game as a whole? As far as I understand, any of the quotes from other versions, if they're not direct translations from English, are definitely good enough to stand on their own. It's almost as if Sara Verilli herself wrote the texts for the French/German/whatever else versions.
The Magpie on 26/2/2008 at 23:40
Quote Posted by Beleg Cúthalion
(that was no online translator I guess...? I believe xxcoy posted it here somewhere somewhen).
Yup, that would be my own inept attempt at lyrics translation. I added the "not" in order to get it to sound more like a demonstrative, rhetorical question, which was how I interpreted the statement in the German original. And xxcoy did post it earlier in (
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1476770#post1476770) this post. I quite stupidly searched for "Finsternis" when researching my post, so neither of the previous threads mentioning this turned up. Oh well. Another owner of both versions said that this was the most extreme example he knew of, but that there were considerable differences elsewhere.
The thing is, I guess at least this particular verse was not created by the localization team independently. It smacks of LGS writing. But I think it's likely translated from a now lost English original. (Gee, one'd think we were discussing Biblical manuscripts.) Anyhow I can imagine a couple of reasons why the two versions differ. What do you think? And how have the other localized versions handled this?
Anyway, it's cool to have discovered a brand "new" excerpt from the Book of Stone. :cool:
--
L.
jtr7 on 26/2/2008 at 23:48
Was it bukary that posted screenshots of a German briefing some years ago, before he made his Polish translations? I'll be looking for that post.
jtr7 on 27/2/2008 at 04:11
That's the one, spix! Thanks. I knew it had something to do with transcripts, because I saw that thread in my many searches for various transciptions before I had my own copies of the games. I guess I was thinking bukary was connected because his translation project was a major impetus for the Names List outside my own fanfic reasons.
The Magpie on 27/2/2008 at 05:30
Hah. Thank you, SC. Well, it took KublaiKrim two and a half years in that thread to work it out, and I found his answer quite surprising, yet very logical:
Quote Posted by KublaiKrim
The Bible! Mathew 6-22,23 (and Luke 11-34):
"The eye is the lamp of the body. (If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.)
If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!"
We
were discussing Biblical manuscripts, after all! That's what I always say, the great religions aren't
that incompatible. Builder vs. Jahve in this case. But I figure we evidently know why the quote would need to be reworked, in any case. Can't present Scripture as "Book of the Stone", really. Plus, *ahem* the matter of copyrights, of course.
Quote Posted by myself
Anyway, it's cool to have discovered a brand "new" excerpt from the Book of Stone.
:joke:
--
L.
jtr7 on 27/2/2008 at 05:33
\o/
