Language in the Suikoverse

[freshmetal]

I'm glad they use a universal language in the Suikoden world. It would really suck having to learn a new language to play each game. Plus there are so many foreigners speaking different languages in the headquarters, a handfull of SoD's would have to be devoted to translating.

[dragonmasterx]

In Suikoden 5...

[spoiler]I recall before uncovering the secret passage in the Stormfist jail to find Zegai, someone says "I can hear them! They have a New Armes accent!" Yes, I still remember the Japanese word used for accent in that scene-namari. I'm assuming this bit about the accent wasn't changed for the US version.
[/spoiler]

So do the New Armes character have a particular accent different from all the other Suikoden characters?? Can you tell from the voice overs?

[Jowy Atreides]

Muse has its own accent, but this is likely to not be implemented.

New Armes has an accent too, but it is not very different from the average person's.

[soonket]

but its not tat suck to need to learn a language every suikoden i think... u jus need a translator... so the 108 character wont be filled with useless character again..... like alot of the suikoden 4 have =.=''' lol hahaha its not tat bad YO

[Kobold]

Well, with voice over, everyone would just sound American...

Which is why i'd rather not have voiceovers sometimes... To keep Suikoden unique..

Of course, i'd very much appreciate it if Konami goes to the length of getting different people of different ethinicity to voice different characters from different regions...

[sunstar25]

I'm pretty sure every country in the Suikoverse has it's own native tongue. Harmonian; Falenan; Armesian; etc.

But it's all one language for the sake of gameplay.

[KFCrispy]

considering Harmonia at one point pretty much owned the entire lands of Toran, Dunan, and the Grasslands, i can see these areas all sharing the same language. It gets tricky when you start to head south, but apparently Georg and Viki had no problem ... and Jeane's been around long enough to know every language, if there are multiple languages in the world...

there are definitely dead languages, such as Sindarian. only a few people can interpret the symbols.

[Quing]

Sorry to resurrect a dead topic, but I was just looking at the map in the front of the Suikoden IV artbook and was realizing that all the writing was in another alphabet (not a Japanese alphabet). The only things that I could make out though, were the names of Middleport and the Kingdom of Obel. Then I looked in one of my nifty other books and I found a map of Falena that had the title "Queendom of Falena" in the same characters. Hence, I now have the symbols for a, b, d, e, f, g, i, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, t, and u. This seems to suggest that either Falena and the Island Nations have the same written alphabet or the mapmaker for both maps was from the same place. The map for the Dunan has a title written in different characters that I couldn't figure out and the map for Suikoden III has a title in different characters yet again. This seems to suggest to me that different languages are spoken in Dunan from the Grasslands from the Island Nations and Falena. There are no characters on the map for Suikoden. Does anyone know anything else about these alphabets? Or does someone else have better eyes than me with which to read the maps? I think we could get most of the characters for the first alphabet from the maps of the Island Nations and Falena.

[Vextor]

The Suikoden 1, 2, 4, and 5 "alphabets" correspond to the English alphabet. The alphabets used in the Suikoden 1 and 2 maps are Sindar alphabets, and correspond to roman alphabets used for English.
There's a "Sindar font" floating around somewhere actually...

Same is true with the "southlands script" used in the Island Nations Federation and the Queendom of Falena. I had all of them figured out at one point but forgot them all.

Suikoden 3's script has its own logic, but I never cracked it. Someone actually did, but the person went AWOL before telling anybody the actual logic.

[Quing]

Vextor, how do you know all this magic stuff? I'm totally amazed. Where does it say that the Suikoden 1 and 2 maps are in Sindarin? And do you know where I can find the font?

[Vextor]

It doesn't "say it" anywhere, but it is because it's the same alphabet.

Konami released the "known Sindar alphabets" within the "Suikoden encyclopedia" published back in 2000 or something. The alphabet has 26 symbols, and the symbols are the same as the ones seen on the Suikoden 1 & 2 map (maps in publications, that is).

When you substitute roman alphabets for each of the Sindar symbols, the Suikoden 1 & 2 map makes sense, because you can decipher locations such as Grassland and Magician's Island, etc (although the spelling isn't exactly correct due to phonetic differences between Hepburn-style romanaization of Japanese speech and the common "correct" English).

[SpecialNewb]

There might be a few different languages. Toran, Dunan, the Grasslands and even Zexen and Tinto (both to a lesser extent) probably all speak some version of the Harmonian language due to Harmonian influence or outright ownership of their lands for a considerable period of time. There's very little interaction between the INF/Falena and the Northern Continent regions in either 1-3 or 4-5 except for individuals who (like Cathari) probably learned the native language. As Kooluk has been destroyed for nearly 200 years by the time of S3, it's people probably speak a mix of the INF language and the Harmonian-based languages in the north.

So right now I'm postulating two main language groups, the Harmonian-base in the north, and the Ancient Armes language family in the south.

The writing in 3 is probably different because Zexen and the western-most Grasslands were never under actual Harmonian control, and were probably also influenced by trading parters to the west and Kamaro in the north (Kamaro itself was always free as far as I know).

EDIT: You know, it's really tough for some of us who have no access to the supplementary materials

[Chaco]

I simply think that if they do have thier own language it's turned to english so WE the player can understand.