There is no detriment. You know how schadenfreude is pleasure from another’s misfortune? Well this is displeasure from another’s fortune. Both are a poison to society.
The problem with starting a new region is that the collection doesn’t transfer. I don’t have any of my mount and mogs on US realms. Can you see why people would rather no be forced into a choice of either start in a new region or be stuck in EU without the language option?
So the question is, why do you want them in another region so much?
By this logic, they should remove English, French, German, etc. May be have the game without any text or voice?
Your logic is that if they do Arabic, they have to do all 7000 other languages. NO. They don’t. They added Spanish, Italian, Russian, and Portuguese before, and they didn’t need to do all other 7000 language.
if you spoke good MSA, then they understood you perfectly.
They probably looked at you weird because we are not used to hearing MSA in daily speech and your accent was probably weird. Arabic has sounds not present in European languages, and it’s hard for foreigners to get right.
Arabic is like English (and most languages for that matter). Native speakers may have strong accents, sometimes hard to understand. But they all understand the standard.
For example, I have trouble understanding someone from Newcastle when they speak their dialect. But a person from Newcastle understands the standard perfectly. The game doesn’t need to be translated to a “Newcastle English” , “Liverpool English”, “New Zealand English”, etc. One standard is enough. Same with MSA.
As I told you, I am not comfortable speaking MSA. I speak Egyptian Arabic with other Arabs. They speak to me in their own dialects and the conversation goes normally. We may resort to using MSA when there is a specific word not understand by the other party.
Morocco and Algeria (and Tunisia to some extent) have very strong accents that are hard for other Arabs to understand. But they also understand MSA perfectly.
I think because you know MSA and you didn’t understand the local Arabic dialects, you assumed they don’t understand you. All Arabs do understand MSA perfectly even if they don’t speak it.
I met with many people from all Arab countries and I can communicate with them easily in Egyptian Arabic and can understand their dialects (except people from Morocco and Algeria they understand us be we don’t understand them).
You are confusing Muslim with Arab. Afghanistan is a Muslim majority country, they are not an Arabic speaking country.
If someone didn’t go to school, then they are not a target customer for an MMORPG games. So yeah, may be translating the game to Pashto may be a bad idea until Afghanistan solves their literacy problems.
No true. Shias in Iraq, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait don’t speak Persian. They speak Arabic and understand MSA perfectly. It’s impossible to tell a Shia and a Sunni apart based on the dialect only.
There are a Kurds in North Iraq. They are mostly Sunni. The speak Kurdish which is part of the Iranian language family. May be you confused their language with Persian and you confused them with Shia.
Im not taking pleasure in anything. Why are you saying things I havent implied.
Leys say you are in an office with 100 people doing the same job. And the boss decides to give only ONE of you a raise. Would that feel good to you? Sure… 1 guy got the raise. And it dosent hurt anyone. But is it fair?
Because the alternative is translation. And I am against that because of the “nobody or everybody” policy.
And yes. You are right with the mogs and mounts. EVERYTHING has a cost. Including a new region. Nothing is free.
So whatever you do you hurt someone. Question is, what option hurts less people. IMO: Leaving things as they are hurts less people.
I will repeat again. All those languages have their own realms. Arab does not.
So to be fair to everyone else that also dosent have the game translated in their language (not only Arabs), either Arabs get their realm (like the Brazilians did) or they are stuck with the languages of the realms we have.
I learned MSA to have small talk with people and to sort of “get” the technical conversations that were going on.
That is why I also had a translator. And they looked at him weird as well when he spoke perfect MSA. Because we had a local translator in Egypt and wanted to keep him for operations in other countries in the Middle East. Hoping that he would get by with MSA. He could not, and we had to re-hire more local translators.
Unlike what happened in South America. We brought a Spanish (ES) translator with us because he had a valid pasport for all of South America. And he alone did a perfect job in 9 countries. No issues. Even though as with Arab, there are different variations and accents of Spanish. Reason being that my translator did not have to talk in Latin to start conversations.
And its the same thing with English. You dont need a separate language like Latin to understand TV. Every country with EN as official language can understand CNN, BBC, and ANY hollywood movie. We dont need Latin for that.
Not my experience. And I said, I was speaking to a different “class” of people if that is what you could call them. The “class” majority of people fits into.
Im sure you and your friends are an educated bunch. And your English is already good enough to prove it.
I repeat. This comes from statements of my local translator. Not mine.
Afganistan is a really extreme example of literacy problem. But it is still a problem in most of the Mulsim World. Which is not only what my translator said, but it is also confirmed by external sources I cited (including Wikipedia).
I said get close to Iran. Not close to Saudi Arabia. And Iran is one of the few (or the only) Shia majority country. Every other Sunni country with Shia minorities have drama going on between them. And I dont want to get into that subject.
In the USSR everyone suffered equally and it was very fair. You can never have any improvements if you just insist that everyone or no one. Everyone is not a feasible goal.
We are not talking about basic ammenities here. We are talking about a Videogame.
HERE, I already said it:
But now that you mention the USSR, I find it a fun topic of conversation.
What the USSR was in reality was a bunch of people suffering to the benefit of some powerful oligarcs that formed part of the Soviet Party. Specifically of Russian descent (the suffering wasent as “equal” as you suggest).
Its kind of like what you are sugesting. Benefiting a small group of people to the detriment of the majority. Sucking resourcess from something we could all benefit (2nd raid tier) in favour of some “ideology” that only benefits a small group.
There is nothing that all will benefit from, you can say what you’d like them to invest in instead, but you can’t speak for other people in that regard.
I already said what I had to say about ALWAYS a cost.
And opportunity costs exists. Its a law of nature. If you walk to the left, then by defenition you are not walking to the right.
If you invest money in an Arab translation, then by defenition you are not investing it on something else.
And that could not only be another raid tier. But it could also be dividends to our lords and masters the Microsoft Shareholders. Or Blizzard could invest in share buybacks. Or a new pool table for its employees… Or give it all to charity…
Dosent matter. It has a cost.
All I need to know is that if you invest in an Arab Translation by defenition you are not investing in a… say… Polish Translation, or Swahili Translation. To name just 2 languages.
And that is enough justification for me to say no to an Arab Translation, or a translation in ANY language. Its not fair.
You are not understanding the concept of asymmetrical intelligibility. This is when two people are speaking, one of them understand the other but the other doesn’t understand the first party.
If you speak with an uneducated person in Egypt in standard Arabic. He will understand you. It’s the language they hear in the mosques, in news, and use in prayers. He cannot speak it even though he understands it, so if you don’t understand his dialect you will have problems. This is what you experienced.
Even as an educated person, I am not comfortable speaking MSA. I can speak it if the need arises, but I never had to.
In the case of a game translated to MSA, first you need the person to understand the game. You don’t need the game to understand his dialect. He may speak a completely unintelligible dialect, but who cares as long as he understands it’s fine.
Second, an Arabic speaking person using a computer and playing an MMORPG game probably has enough education to understand MSA (it’s not the illiterate person you meet in the streets in Egypt ).
And yes, most of my friends are educated, but I don’t live in a bubble. Egypt has 25% illiteracy rate. I meet illiterate people all the time.
Shia Iraqis close to Iran don’t speak with a Persian dialect. By the way the other Shia Majority country is Azerbaijan. Both don’t speak Arabic.
And that is why the value of MSA decreases. Because you cant “patch up” words you might not understand in their local language with MSA dialect. You are better off speaking Turkish if you go to Azergaijan.
My coments about MSA were directed to “it is a language that 400M people speak”. As if it was in the same category as Spanish or English.
If you cannot have a conversation with someone in that language, and you have to deal with “asymetrical intelligibility” then its not a functional Language in my eyes.
The purpose of a language is to communicate. And if you cant do that, or you have to jump through hoops of local dialects to do so, then it is not.
It’s simply an experiment like Esperanto tried to be. With the main difference being that the Bible is not written in Esperanto. Just think about what happened to Latin. It used to have 2 versions, a common version (with dialects and stuff) and a universal version.
All modern European languages descended from the common version. And the Universal Version was the official language of the Church (ALL its sects) for Millenia. And if we had TV in the middle ages, it would also be in Latin.
I gave 10 years of Latin at school. So did my SO. And yet… Latin died. Because it wasent a functional language. Nobody actually spoke it in their day to day lives. And those that tried had to go through “asymetrical intelligibility” hoops to do so.
And as Wikipedia, other sources, my translator, and my own experience showed me (including THIS conversation I am having with you right now), the people with the education to fully understand and communicate in MSA ALSO speak fluent English or French.
Which by the way is not something unique to the Arab world. It happens a lot where I am from (BE). In my region (Benelux) English has become the “default” language. And the more educated you are, the more fluent in it you are and the better you are at using it as the “bridge language”.
In my office right now we got FR and NL native people (BE has 2 official languages). Having to have conversations twice, or decide on dumb rules about on which language we do a meeting… well… we all speak English. DONE.
So in that case…
I dont see a need for MSA in WOW. Especially for the Middle East regions, given the demographic breakdown you gave me. However, we might need a FR version in France because (sadly) there are still FR people with purchasing power that do not speak or understand English.
And totally unrelated to the subject at hand, if I had a magic wand I would make WoW English ONLY. In a world where everyone has good education and can speak the modern 21st century “defacto international language” which is English in this case. But alas, that is not possible.
And you are better off speaking German when you go to Austria. But what does this have to do with MSA or Arabic?
Azerbaijan is not an Arab country. Again you are confusing Muslim with Arab. They are two different things. I mentioned Azerbaijan just because to brought up the topic of Shia majority countries.
To clarify:
Islam is a religion. A Muslim may or may not be an Arabic speaker. Most Muslims are not Arabic speakers (Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Turkey etc. have millions of non Arabic speaking Muslims)
Arabic is a language. An Arabic speaker may or may not be a Muslim. Egypt has around 10-15 million Arabic speaking Christians. Lebanon has 45%-55% of their population being Arabic speaking Christians. The majority of Arabic speakers are Muslims.
I can have a conversation in MSA if I want to. I just find it easier in my dialect and choose not to.
You have to realize that most Arabs don’t understand the concept of “asymmetric intelligibility”. They assume that if they can understand you, then you must be able to understand them, so they don’t bother switching to MSA even when they can.
There are thousands of mobile apps, games, desktop apps, websites, books, magazines newspapers, TV programs, movies and TV shows (mostly historical), documentaries, poems, songs all in MSA. They are all functional. It works.
Let me put it this way: The number of people who are fluent in MSA is more than those Fluent in German, Italian or Korean. All are languages having translations in WOW. MSA is one of 6 official languages of the UN. It’s the only official language or one of the official languages of more than 20 countries.
The situation is nowhere close to the situation of Latin.
The speakers of Latin based languages (French, Spanish, Italian, etc) had no motive to keep Latin alive as the languages diverged over the centuries.
Arabic on the other hand is the Language of the Quran, so it’s sacred to all Muslims. It’s the unifying language of Arab countries that were divided by European colonization. Yes, there are some populists in Arab world who prefer not to have anything to do with MSA or other Arab nations, but most find it represents their identity.
And where does MSA come from? Where was it originally written in? Also you said it yourself:
And the translations of the Quran (literal word of God) are considered interpretations. Not the real deal. The real Quran is in Arabic.
Here is the thing. Its is VERY difficult to separate Muslim religion from all other civil matters (like language). Because it’s the way the “Muslim World” is built. Like it or not. As you said so yourself:
And minority populations in Muslim Countries have done the right thing. They learned the local language because they somehow have to get along with their neighbors. So I don’t find it surprising that Copts in Egypt decide to speak Arabic, MSA, or Egyptian Dialect.
Those are not translations. They have their own regions in WoW. Which is something I differentiate.
Well we all dwarf in comparison to Mandarin Chinese. I am a bit skeptical to using statistics like the ones you mention to give importance to languages.
The amount of people that speak it is not a factor to me. Simply because I have no idea how many Arabs (that are living in the Middle East, not EU migrants) are actually playing WoW. Because maybe, just maybe there are more Italians playing WoW than Middle Easterns.
And off topic of WoW… if every car on the planet is made in Japan, Korea, and Germany (just to name 1 product) I have to say that those languages (while having less speakers) are more impactful. If all MSA can provide to the world is the “word of god”… then… sure… many people speak it. SO?
From Old Arabic which was spoken by Arabs before Islam. It was a spoken and a written language before Islam. We study at school Arabic poems from pre-Islamic period and we can understand most of it (even if they sound archaic like Shakespeare’s English for example).
Yes, Islam has a great influence on the Arabic language, on politics, on daily lives, etc. I am not denying that.
However, you were saying things that doesn’t make sense relating to religion and language. Like Sunnis, Shias and Sufis speak a different dialects. This is not true. Then you said some Shia near Iran speak with Persian dialect. Also not true. Then you mentioned Iran and Afghanistan because they are Muslim countries, even though people there don’t speak Arabic.
I didn’t mention that to give importance to Arabic. I mentioned that because you said it’s not a functional language and even compared it to a dead language like Latin. This is not true.
All I wanted to say is that the farther you get from Mecca in Saudi Arabia the more the local dialects diverge from Arabic and the less you can use MSA to bridge between them, as you do in Egypt. And by the time you get to Iran, who speak a Persian dialect (not an Arabic one) you loose the potential of using MSA as a bridge language.
However.
Since the Quran is written in Classical Arabic (that hold some similarities to MSA), and religion in those countries holds such importance, you can still use some form of Arabic to hold small talk conversations. Even in countries that are not Arabic. Which is what happened to me in Afganistan. I still needed a local translator though.
And this here is what I mean. Because Arabic was “locked in time” for religious reasons in the Quran, you can understand the old language.
If I were to choose another language as old as Old Arabic, it would be impossible to understand what is being said. Old English (Shakespeare) is 500 years old. Old Arabic is 2000 years old, and MSA was developed in the 10th century, making the word “modern” a bit of an understatement to say the least.
All thanks to the Quran cementing the “language of God” as the only valid language. Just because religion in that are of the world holds such importance.
So I appreciate your comments about separating language and religion from the equation, but as I said before. There is way too much history going on with the Quran in the Muslim World, and unlike the rest of the planet those countries have not yet managed to separate religion and “mortal affairs”. So there is a link between language and religion. That is for sure.
And it might not seem like it to you. But to me, where I grew up in a culture that dosent hold religion to such a high esteem… I can assure you that the contrast is stark. The differences really pop out.
I can give you the most shocking example of what I mean: When I travel to the Muslim World (Arab countries and more), the use of the word “Inshallah” is practically universal. For example, in Malay its written “InsyaAllah” and sounds practically the same.
And people use that at the end of every phrase basically. And you know what it means. It means “If God wills it”. And it is universally used as a “slang” word in every one of those countries.
So this shows that (A) the Quran has a great impact on the language of that country and (B) the Quran has a great impact on the use of that language. And its shocking if you are from a different culture.
Because in no universe would I answer the question “Bob, will we have that budget meeting today, or is Susan too busy?” with “If God will it”.
I compared it to Latin because it is used the same way Latin was used in the Roman times. Which is true. MSA is also derived from Classical Arabic, which in turn is the main language of the Quran. So was Latin for 2000 years in continental Europe. Which is also true.
And compared to other languages (Spanish and English) it has very obvious flaws. Its a language in which native speakers of it (you) admit to feeling “weird” about using it in a conversation and you automatically favor your local dialect. Also, MSA is a language which (according to your own words) people understand but don’t speak.
That dosent happen with Spanish and English (or ANY other language to be honest). Many people understand, speak, and write in many languages. As a first, second or third language. So maybe saying its not a “functional language” is a bit insulting OK. I should have used other words to describe those “extra details” that other more streamlined languages do not have. And that is also true.
So forgive me for being skeptical by not wanting to put it in the same category as Spanish and English (to mention just the 2 biggest ones). But your own description of MSA (among others) sort of pushes me in that direction to be honest.
It happens with other languages including English and Spanish. There are dialects of English that even native English speakers would find hard to understand. Same with Spanish, German, etc.
I consider myself fluent in English. I can perfectly understand most English movies and TV shows without subtitles. Yet there are English dialects in England itself that I find hard to understand, not to mention their previous colonies.
