Ultima V Lazarus…En Español
Late last week, I posted a message from Shyrion Dragon announcing his intention to produce a Spanish translation of Ultima V: Lazarus. It generated no small amount of discussion, and the project’s former director, Ian “Tiberius” Fraizer, even offered his support for it with a retweet.
Shyrion has since launched the website for his project (in Spanish, of course), and has adorned it with features including an embedded MP3 player (with the Lazarus soundtrack queued up) and a poll asking something about the Avatar (but as a non-speaker of Spanish, I have no idea what).
He has also set up a Google Group for the project, so anyone interested in helping him out should be sure to check that out. You might also want to register at his site, if you’re so inclined.
Espaol??? Don’t you mean Español 🙂
Zygon: Did I typo that somewhere? Not seeing it from here…
I’m proud to post here that the project has the first member registered! XD
I’ve post a few updates to the website, including the Lazarus dialogue editor as a link and a few more tunes to listen to while translating.
The poll is about the way to address to the Avatar. In old english is “Thee”, that is equeal to “you” in modern speaking, but in spanish we don’t have a proper form. Even in the “Cantar del Mío Cid” (well known spanish medieval “poem”) the form used is “Tú”, equal to “You”, and I wanted to know user’s opinion about it.
Well, we are on the way!
What about “vosotros” or “vos” ? Didn’t they use that in old Spanish?
Vos (plural of “tú”) was used as a form of respect, usually when addressing to a superior; the same as “Tú”, with capital letter.
And there’s the question. Translating with plurals could be confusing for the spanish player, for in “Meridional Spanish”, the spanish form that is spoken mostly in Latin America commonly uses “vos” when addressing to people, instead of “tú”. So using vos could be understood by players of spain as the old form, but not necessarily by latin american players, specially if they aren’t familiar with the history of our language.
The solution could be the use of “Tú” with capital letter, when is used “Thee”, and “tú” when “thee” is used.
Editing for clarity: The vast majority of latin american speakers uses the form of respect (Usted/Vos) second form mostly used in Argentina/Uruguay. Anyway, the question remains the same. I think the solution is using the form “tú” with capital letter. We’ll see…
From my understanding vos and vosotros were used in same way as in English, thou etc. Medieval dialect and not only for addressing a superior or the equivalent to ustedes.
I would go with vos as its closer to the original translation. Don’t worry about the latin americans as they should understand the roots of the language they speak. Its the same as the Americans. The English used in Ultima comes from old English, something that the americans did not use but they still understand it 🙂
No offense to anyone 😉
WTF: The heading of the post reads “Ultima V Lazarus….In Espaol. Its missing the ñ. Español 🙂
Zygon: Weird…I’ll have to correct that later.
Thanks for spotting!
Yep, you’re right, this pronouns were used in this way, but also “Tú”, with capital letter. In my opinion the use of “Vos” has problems. I copy from wikipedia for it’s a reference we all know:
“Originally a second-person plural, Vos came to be used as a more polite second-person singular pronoun to be used among one’s familiar friends. The following extract from a late 18th-century textbook is illustrative of usage at the time:
We seldom make use in Spanish of the second Person Singular or Plural, except through a great familiarity among friends, or speaking to God; also between a wife and husband to themselves, or when parents address their children, or to servants. Examples: O Dios, sois vos mi Padre verdadero, O God, thou art my true Father; Tu eres un buen amigo, Thou art a good friend.
The correct formal way to address a person you were not on familiar terms with was to address such a person as VUESTRA MERCED (“your grace” originally abbreviated as v.m.) in the singular and vuestras mercedes in the plural.”
That’s the point, if a character doesn’t know the Avatar, has to assume that he is “Vuestra Merced”? I think that the use of “Tú” as is seen in the “Cantar del Mío Cid” is more appropiate, and for this reason I’ve posted the poll. The discussion only has started…
You could be right there, as Spanish is not my native tongue I’ll ask my mates here in Valencia as they will have far great knowledge than me.
Just to add. There is already a Spanish translation for Ultima VII. Here is an example of their translation:
I call thee “traveller” no matter if thou hast never left thy home town, no matter if thou wilst never again leave thy room, because all of us are travellers.
Te llamo viajero sin importar si nunca has abandonado tu ciudad natal o si vas a volver a salir de la habitación alguna vez, porque todos nosotros somos viajeros.
Just like poetry so much is lost in the translation 🙁
The thing is, should you be going for a literal translation? Like it or not, you’re probably going to end up re-writing large chunks of Lazarus’ dialogue, beyond the need for translation.
I’m from Valencia too! XDD
My goal is to maintain “poetry” as much as possible because I don’t like literal translations. Each language has it’s poetry and this has to be translated too. Spanish is plenty of words and phrases that can be used for this goal.
That translation you posted lacks, in my opinion, of one or two commas, at least (no offense intended to anyone ;)) to maintain the original meaning.
Endreth Dragon and I will do our best (and anyone that joins us, I suppose XD).