“Well done!” Lor’themar Theron called to the two braves. The leader of the blood elves with his long, pale hair, scarred and dead left eye, and painstakingly groomed beard raised a chalice. “Bravely done. A toast to these fine soldiers of the Horde. Lok-tar! ” -Shadows Rising, pg. 14
I wish we got more moments like this. Orcish is supposed to be the unifying language of the Horde but we only ever see Orcs using Orcish phrases.
I always understood the general idea for when a character’s words aren’t translated for the reader is because those words have no literal English equivalent ex. “Lok’tar” “Ishnu alah” “Taz’dingo” etc.
Like sure we know “Lok’tar Ogar” technically translates to “Victory or Death” but you don’t hear Orcs saying “We have achieved lok’tar in this battle.” which probably means they have more than one word for “victory” one of which is closer to our understanding of the word.
But if that’s the case we should hear other Horde races throwing out Orcish phrases a little more frequently.
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Technically speaking, aren’t they always speaking Orcish and saying “Lok-tar” in Orcish is just… not translating it to “Victory”?
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Yuck, I strongly disagree. Lor’themar saying it in this instance is acceptable, since he’s toasting in an official capacity also he’s actually politically apt. Saying it generally? Woeful and cringe.
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It’s like how Picard speaks Klingon, even though his words are being translated by the Universal Translator.
https://youtu.be/D9XZK35m6to
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Isn’t it also implied that basically everyone on Azeroth is fluent in Common? I think it’s hilarious how well-educated the average citizen is. You could be fighting a savage looking Troll in combat, and it’s within the realm of possibility that he might insult you in Orcish, Common, and Zandali while doing it.
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They don’t want to commit cultural appropriation.
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Well, I think it’s a move that demonstrates his growth as a leader, recognizing the value of tact in politics. When he’s in Quel’Thalas I have no doubt he speaks Thalassian all the time, but when he’s in Orgrimmar or dealing with other races of the Horde, speaking Orcish is the more polite and acceptable choice, even if others around him know Thalassian.
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next he should say zug zug
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Language in WoW is weird. As it was clearly an afterthought that seems to exist mainly to limit cross faction griefing.
Which is a shame because it is pretty interesting when you think about it. Gutterspeak or Forsaken interests me as I imagine it’s designed to be intelligible even when spoken by someone with no jaw.
And you’d think Orcish and Draenei would be particularly difficult to learn as it’s a completely alien language. On Earth just trying to pick up a language from another hemisphere can be hard. I imagine one from another planet, for another species, would be very difficult to get your head around.
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Yeah, and players found a way around that too.
I dunno if that counts as “speaking Orcish”.
Like, I don’t speak French, but I can go “Sacré bleu!”
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Personally I think the potion of tongues was a pretty elegant solution. It’s a buff so you opt in and out at your own discretion and it’s allowed for a lot of fun cross faction RP, and great mid combat banter for RPPVP.
It also makes about as much sense as anything else lore wise. Potions can already give you super speed, invisibility and somehow camouflage so one that just let’s you comprehend language tracks.
Although I did notice the Language skills look like the old weapon and profession exp bars. So I’ve always wondered if there was a learn a language mechanic at some point, where you’d progressively understand more. I still think that’d be neat. Like I wrote this town as living in Mulgore for awhile. Be cool if I could have him be mildly conversant in Taur’ahe as a result.
Not sure how you’d do that in game as language is an odd thing. Like I can’t speak a sentence of Polish but having worked construction in Chicago for a time I’m confident I know most of that language’s explotives at least.
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Remember when we showed up on Kalimdor in WC3 spoke with the purple elves that hadn’t ever met any orcs or humans ever before?
Warcraft language is just a huge handwave. Any race that needs to communicate will know Common for no particular reason. Ones that are meant to be particularly alien (i.e. Faceless Ones) or “other” (i.e. murlocs) will not.
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I think you are missing the point. There’s a large disconnect with ingame language that other posters have brought up - they’re always speaking Orcish, so it makes no sense to say ‘Lok’tar’. It’s a literary technique. Lor’themar doing this is tactful and politically intelligent in the structure of the narrative, but in actuality it makes zero sense, but rule of cool overrides it.
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Surely not a coincidence. Lor’themar is totally the de facto leader of the Council and Horde now. His ties with Thalyssra give him an unmatched bloc on the Council, and I think he’s making his move slowly.
Yep. Bloody weeb. But he’s also excused, since he’s been speaking the language far more than common.
I wouldn’t be surprised if for some magical reason they waved that away so that only the important leaders know languages from the other faction, but I’m pretty certain Common is the lingua franca for Azeroth as a whole. Orcish is along those lines for the Horde, but I’m pretty certain only for intra-faction affairs. The leaders still speak Common when interacting with the Alliance.
I mean, it’s not, since you yourself acknowledged it’s basically there to stop griefing and for some minor RP flavor. They came up with phrases that “sound” Orcish or Darnassian, but that’s the extent of it unless we get someone on the staff who REALLY cares about linguistics and isn’t hammered into coming up with more “cosmology”.
Which does suck, because there’s a lot of interesting ideas and questions that come around from it. How far apart are the elven languages? How does Gutterspeak sound like when it can be spoken without lips? Is Taur’ahe something all Tauren can speak, or do all tribes have different languages of their own? If humans count in base 10 because we have ten fingers, do trolls count in sixes? These aren’t big deals, sure, but they make these races feel very different and can do a lot to flesh them out.
Orcish is the “common” on the Horde s side soo…technically everyone is talking orcish all the time