Oh. My. Bob. THANK YOU. You don't get to see this degree of nerdery nearly enough, it makes my heart so happy. And everything about Alex leads "Fanzine in Latin" to be perfect.
I didn't know about nouns having cases - that sounds so exhausting!
Also, as a fellow leftie, I too love hearing the word "sinister" anywhere possible.
Finally, best pic goes to Alex in the caravan, lovingly staring at Gregorius' portrait.
Why thank you! I am honoured to be considered such a nerd. Genuinely. And what subject could be more appropriate than Alex, Taskmaster, and Latin!
I have just learned that not only do all the nouns have one of seven (sometimes eight!) cases, but so too do their associated adjectives. Bah! (It's actually enormous fun - like a puzzle.)
That was a fun illustration. I know that there's the stained-glass portrait of Greg that was actually present in the caravan for series... I'm going to say sixteen? But it was a little too small and detailed for my purposes here, so I relocated the house entryway portrait instead. Alex's plaintive look is one of my faves too.
Thank you for your lovely comment - I'm so glad you enjoyed my nerdery! 💖💖💖
I know what you mean about a puzzle - I occasionally dabble in Japanese. And I do mean "dabble" - learn little bits and pieces that probably won't ever add up to speaking or reading fluency. But it does amount to a wonderful puzzle, and in my case leads me down some neat cultural rabbit holes.
Latin's noun cases makes me think about pronouns in Japanese. There's a ton of ways to say "I" and "you," each putting off a different self-image, or perception of the person you're talking to. And even then, that part of a sentence is often chopped off (subjects are often just assumed from context). Like you said, a neat puzzle.
Oooh! I know what you mean about Japanese. I took a look years ago when I was preparing to visit, and did quite poorly but I do remember being so entertained that the word "I" in English can, depending on context, be translated to the incredibly lengthy "watashi". So many variations of phrases depending on relative seniority - also a lot of fun! Definitely scratches the brain in a similar way.
I actually worked on a videogame that was being translated into many worldwide languages, had a character creation element, and we wanted to include a they/them pronoun option - which presented some interesting challenges for several languages and Japanese was one! However, turns out that the public had already created solutions - it was just that 'official translators' and dictionaries hadn't yet caught up. We managed to find some translators with their finger on the pulse, and got it all translated properly!
Living languages! Whee! Thank you for letting me ramble 💖💖💖
Nope, ramble on any/every time. Not a ton of folks with similar interests. It's part of what I'm loving so much about Alex's first two books, as I read them.
My someday-goal was to be able to read Final Fantasy VII in the original Japanese eventually - so much nuance was lost when that huge game was translated in like a week or some wild nonsense. I don't think I'll ever get there, but the amount of journey I've managed has been worth it anyway.
I'd be curious on what game or studio, if you're interested and allowed to say.
Ohmigosh, official dictionaries versus the living language on the streets, YES. And the nuances of how a word-for-word translation is WRONG, and how that and a perfect translation are IMPOSSIBLE.
It's a delightful rabbit hole.
Thank *you* for letting *me* have a vague, unfocused ramble.
Golly, I hadn't realised FFVII was translated in a week or thereabouts! That's ridiculous. Was my first Final Fantasy too - and as such, was the best one in my completely unbiased opinion. An enormous task to translate the whole thing, of course - you don't even have the 'easy mode' of using the same writing system, like Latin does! All those kana and kanji. Phew.
It was Riot Games, with the Forge published title "Bandle Tale". I'm no longer at the studio, but my goodness, was it a storied development! So much happening, it's a miracle (and testament to every single human involved) that it released at all.
Love a ramble. I was chatting to someone else about how it seems hardly anyone has a good old natter in the comment sections, so this is a delightful exception to the rule.
To drag it somewhere closer to our original topic, I was thinking of making a miniature 'marble plaque' in polymer clay with the phrase "MVNVS OMNES INDICIA HABET" engraved upon it. Maybe some ageing and little bits of fake moss in the cracks. What do you think? (For ease of translation, 'U's are carved as 'V's.) 😉
FFVII was my first as well, and I'm totally not biased towards it, ha!
Yeah, it's such a shame that a good translation wasn't a priority in those days. I feel for the original translator.
(FFX is my runner-up. Just gotta shout it out.)
Riot Games! DANG, my friend!
This isn't intended to diminish your experiences at all, but it's amazing how many game releases end up being minor (or major) miracles. Check out "Blood, Sweat, and Pixels" by Jason Schreier for those kinds of stories, if you'd find that interesting. I guess that's all to say: I find your tale more than believable, sorry you were on the rough side of it!
AGREED ON COMMENT RAMBLE. I keep hoping to learn of a Reddit or Discord for this specific community. Surely there is one??
Your marble plaque project sounds so epic I can't even handle it. And I'd forgotten why U was ever V, so I enjoyed the brush-up. While I have a Masters in Music Education, I have a lot of passion for language as a general interest area. At one point, it looked like I was NEVER going to get a job again in music, so I had a lovely year earning a certificate in teaching English as a Second Language. Getting to take the History of English, Spanish at a higher level than I'd had, and Linguistics was an incredible experience. That year, I filled out everyone's Christmas tags in IPA, earning an incredible number of eyerolls.
I think, specifically for the Japanese videogame market in those years, there was a belief that the rest of the world market really wasn't important. Translation and converting to other TV standards and hardware was actually kind of shunned - like a dirty job that publishers kind of pushed on developers who really didn't want to have anything to do with it. As such, translation was slapdash and very poorly supported. Very sad. The Japanese market was dragged, kicking and screaming, by the almighty dollar in the years following.
After 20+ years in the games industry, I'm well aware 😜
I took a module of Linguistics at Uni, and IPA boggled my mind. Maybe I could wrap my head around it now if I gave it a proper go, and it would be so helpful for understanding pronunciations of unfamiliar terms in many languages, but it was tricky! I commend (and roll my eyes) at your Christmas tag shenanigans!
(In case you missed it. There was some additional info in the first comment here before I edited it.)
Phonemes and orthography (writing systems) have a special place in my heart. Kanji destroyed me with so many possibilities for meaning and pronunciation, but I actually ADORED learning hiragana and katakana.
Meanwhile, hearing phonemes was my weird edge during the ESL certificate. Everyone around me had degrees in actual freaking English, and there I was with a passion for language but no real education in it. But my ears! My musician's ears were highly in tune with phonemes. I think I frustrated my fellow students with how quickly I understood phonemes, articulation, and other related things. And that's alright - they frustrated me with how straightforward diagramming sentences were for them, ha!
20 years in the gaming industry... wow. I follow stories in it as a hobby, I at least have a *sense* for how hard a mistress it can be. Bravo to you. I hope you have fair hours, fair pay, and that it gets to be professionally satisfying for you. Genuinely. I know enough to know that isn't a given.
If you didn't catch my comment before, pre-edit, then do you have another place I could chat to you about Discords, etc? Tumblr or Bluesky are my usual haunts.
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