Chozo is an English Relex (Metroid Dread)
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- Опубліковано 9 бер 2022
- A relexification or relexicalization ("Relex") is a form of constructed language where the structure of a language is entirely the same as an existing language, just with all the terms swapped out 1:1.
This video is to help show that the spoken Chozo language in Metroid Dread is structurally English, as well make more apparent some of the elements of the fictional language.
For example, the most common regular past tense verb conjugation ("-ed" in English), are made with an "i" ending. (e.g. "saral" (eradicate) and "sarali" (eradicated). There is no distinction between "was" and "were" (both "mugi"), but there is a distinction between "is", "are" and "am" ("sen", "mar", and "man", respectively). Possessive pronoun forms (his, my, your) are formed with by taking the pronoun and adding "mahar", which shows some additional creative thought in designing the language. The language also appears not to have a plural distinction, as both "plans" and "plan" are spoken the same ("ioris"). Additionally, English contractions like "Raven Beak's" and "Don't worry" seem to be only in the English subtitles, and are instead phrased as "[X] of Raven Beak" and "Do not worry".
This also shows some quirks in that the Chozo speech slightly differs from the English subtitles in some areas. For example, the Chozo do not refer to the planets by their Galactic Federation designation "ZDR" and "SR388", but instead something that could be interpreted as "the (blank) (world)". "Planet" is already translated in another line, as well as "homeworld", so whatever the repeated word could mean is actually fairly ambiguous (world? place? land?).
Reddit Sources which were major help in figuring out transcriptions:
/ dread_spoilers_an_anal...
/ i_deciphered_quiet_rob... - Фільми й анімація
This is one of the best cutscenes in Nintendo's history, even if it is more or less an exposition dump, it's done so tastefully, and ties into the Metroid lore so well.
I fuckin' love this game.
I shat my pants when Samus spoke in her native language
Give me an exposition dump under normal circonstances, it's a bit obnoxious. Give me an exposition dump from a Chozo however, it's the best damn cutscene ever created.
even if its a relex, what i appreciate about this is that certain proper nouns are nativized in the chozo language, like metroid, for example. makes it feel more authentic
Mathroid, Tamus Arlan... it's really neat. Sounds way less silly than Star Fox Adventure having a bunch of conlang words mixed in with 'General Scales' for example.
@@andyenglish4303 That always was weird listening to. It kind of made me cringe at times. I don't mind names standing out in English if it's an offworld name, but "General Scales" was ridiculous. Also regarding "Tamus Arlan," the Chozo literally cannot make a "S" noise with their beaks, so a close sounding sound would take it's place. For Samus it's "Th-amus" instead of "Sam-us." The Chozo language doesn't utilize the "S" sound, interestingly.
@@xCrimsonxTidex what about the s at the end of Samus
@@Hulavuta most of the 'S's in the video sounded lisped, like a th sound being substituted into a s
A bit of a cool lore detail here is that the Chozo called SR388 'Agar Nalima'. SR388 was just the Federation's designation for the world. Quiet Robe also called ZDR 'Tari Nalima' and once again, ZDR is probably just a Federation astronomical designation.
@@ShadowRaven1099 I think Zebes was a Chozo name, purely because it's actual name is Zebeth. Zebes was a mistranslation, but given how Chozo actually sounds, it makes sense that the Federation would call it "Zebes" instead.
Both translations for planets are preceded by "ili" which is "the" in Chozo, and you already made the "nalima" connection apparent. This suggests that the Chozo referred to planets as "the x planet" or "the x world". Finding out the translations for "Agar" and "Tari" could reveal some really interesting stuff about the lore.
Coolest thing to me with the Chozo language is that their word for I, the first-person singular pronoun, is Ana, identical to Arabic's. You, the second-person singular pronoun, is Ata, which is very similar to Arabic's Anta (you, male) and Anty (you, female). The Chozo word for the is Ili, similar again to Arabic's Al. I suspect they took a lot of influence on vocabulary from Semitic languages while keeping the structure overall in English.
There was a bit of it that reminded me of Turkish as well, with We being Ura and Our being Uramahar. It's common in Turkish to append endings to pronouns to augment meaning, e.g. Turkish We (Biz) becoming Our (Bizim) with the -im ending.
Really cool video!
Its kinda make sence knowing that the devs are from spain, and soanish its a lenguage with a lot of influence from arabic
It definitley has tides to semitic languages considering how it's also similar to hebrew with some words. Ana -> Ani, Ata -> same in hebrew. Then it sounds a bit similar to things I heard that supposed to sound like Sumerian, ancient Perisan and/or Babylonian
This is awesome... I just love quiet robe's voice. And to be able to see word for word what he's saying, really helpful
Now that I finished the video, THANK YOU for not showing his death. Absolutely senseless. He deserved better
Me to a parrot: you are just a bird
Parrot: *nodding*
Also Parrot: _Sabalba..._
Me: 👁👃👁
“However”
Oh hey, that's me in the Transcription Credit! :D
I'm currently looking at Super Metroid as well as the Chozo language with my English students, so I came back to see more videos on the subject. I love this aspect of Metroid Dread so much and I'm always glad to see people share this passion and my work on it being useful.
I honestly feel that the chozo language was based around not just Arabic but a bit of Ancient Egyptian ( since the chozo are technically a race bearing the anatomical look of the Egyptian god Horus.) Not to mention that the transcription on the wall before this dialogue sequence reminds me of the stone Slabs in Egyptian history.
I wonder if Samus used to be called Tamus as a child.
Same exact thing i was wondering
It's the accent. The chozo probably don't make sounds like "Sa" with those beaks, so that is the closest they can come to saying her name.
@@bdpickett Considering the Chozo word for "however" is "sabalba", I wholeheartedly doubt that.
@@elijahfoltz3755 2:00 there the proof lol
Maybe when Samus was three years old, SHE couldn't pronounce her S sounds properly. So when she first met Old Bird, it sounded to him like she introduced herself as "Tamas"
It's weird to see upfront another language (even fictional) that incorperates the word 'and' or 'the' in it's dialect.
it looks like [Nalima] probably refers to "planet." It's used in reference to ZDR (Tari Nalima) and SR388 (Agar Nalima). Maybe the Chozo name for SR388 is Agar, and ZDR is Tari? very cool
I noticed it too and I agree with this
My guess is that Agar and Tari meant to be like "our planet" and "this planet" referring to SR388 and ZDR respectively
planet is [oliris] as seen in 0:52 actually
he also uses the word "oliris" which means planet, though
@@markd.s.8625 Likely two words for similar concepts, like "planet" vs. "world"
Sounds like a mix of Tagalog, Egyptian, Hebrew, Spanish and a pinch of Japanese.
It does seem like there are some latin/spanish/french aspect to some of the words. It also looks like the chozo hate contractions of words
I am a native Spanish speaker. I don't see any resemblance here 🤷🏻♀️
@Carla Paola Gonzalez OK. It just kind'a sounds like to me.
@@carlapaolagonzalez498 Peope mainly get a Spanish vibe because Quiet Robe and Samus have spanish voice actors, which means they have spanish accents.
I really like how you put the translation of both languages together, it makes translating languages very fast and legible
NGL, Ashkar Behek sounds a lot more badass than "Raven Beak"
I guess I shouldn't have expected that Chozo would be a fully developed conlang, but I'm still kinda sad it wasn't.
Eerie. It's like a functional language made up for nothing more then entertaining purposes. Shows you how smart these people are.
It kind of reminds me of some of Tolkens languages in the LotR series. Its really neat when this kind of thing is done :3
I really hope we get to hear spoken chozo again in a newer game, it'd be a waste to only use an entire language for only one game
It's... it's a relex... that's the title of the video and it explains it in the description... It's cool and they put more effort into it then some other relexes have, but it's not... impressive. It doesn't take much linguistic knowledge at all to make a relex, you could do it easily in at most a month. It's not really a separate language, it's english with the words swapped out.
This video deserves more views! Very informative! Reminds me of Star Fox Dinosaur Planet and the language they speak, also sharing the same word order as the English language. Nicely done!
With one key difference: There's no instance of "Krazoa Palace" or "General Scales". They have their own names for the planets and speak the original Chozo words for their names, which I kinda wish weren't translated in the subtitles. Ashkar Behek sounds better than Raven Beak.
Even words we're familiar with that are the same are spoken with an accent. Tamus Arlan, Mathroid, Emmai. It helps sell this as a real language, even if it cheats by using English as its base.
We’ve never heard that language spoken out loud before by ANYONE.
THANK YOU for making this! Can’t imagine how long it took! I wanted to see something like this. It should have more views.
I wonder, given it's a suffix attached to planet names, and their avian physiology, if perhaps 'Nalima' means 'Nest'.
I love when conlangs use those velar fricative [h] sounds (the "hissing" sound in "loch" and "hue"). It almost always gives them an ancient, Middle-Eastern/Hebrew quality, which I adore.
The fact they created a new language
"Nalima" either means System or Station, right?
Agar and Tari being the actual names of the Planets, with Eris being the Chozo name for the X Parasite...
@Raven Link planet is oliris, as seen at 0:52
Imagine millions of years in the future the language was thought to be ancient
I love the creativity of using other languages to see a new story of a race in a game, movie or series.
This is really cool! It makes sense that it's in English from my viewpoint, because Metroid games have always sold better in America
I mean dread sold 300.000 copies in Japan. Only 300.000 it’s nothing.
In the EU and the NA region it sold 2.6 million units meaning out of all 2.9~3 million units sold, only 10% originate from Japan. Which is bonkers
This same phenomena can be seen with Zelda aswell
Or maybe because it helps with being international?
One tiny bit that irks me as a result of this is that the game still calls them Quiet Robe and Raven Beak instead of Henki Maradis and Ashkar Behek which are, you know, _their names._ If I met a nice Japanese woman named Midori Hana, I wouldn't call her Green Flower, I would call her Hana. I guess it's a grandfather clause, because of previous entries calling the Chozo by their translated names, instead of whatever Old Bird translates to.
0:18
Superior to who?
Some of the pronouns here are Hebrew/Aramaic.
I also like how Samus is pronounced Tamus, and how Metroid is Methroid.
So check this, in Hebrew there is a semi controversy on the sound of ת. Sometimes it is pronounced as a T. But the modified version is tricky. A Sepharadi Jew, literally Spanish Jew, doesn't make any distinctions in the version of the letter ת. It is always a T. But, historically, it would make a th sound when modified. However, there the Eastern Europeans pronounced the modified ת as an S.
It seems to me, Quiet Robe is one the Spanish Jews, and Samus is the Eastern European one. Lol I'm such a dork.
This dude speakin' Chozo! Lmao!
It seems to be an english grammar-semitic/ancient egyptian language mix to me
What I wonder if this is the exact words he is speaking. As I would love to know how you came across it.
There's an entire PDF written out that translates all of the chozo language, and explains how it's all pronounced and worded properly. Look up "Chozo Language Course." Really neat.
But what was Raven Beak saying?
It was cool that they bothered to come up with a new language, but it doesn't really sound like a bird. The Chozo all have beaks instead of lips, so I would expect they would have trouble with some of these sounds
they sound like corvids actually
sound almost coptic to me
Mathroid lol that must be a nerd Metroid with glasses XD
"Mathroid" feels really out of place given no other word ends with a D or uses the TH sound
There are a couple of oddities like that. The other glaring one is how "Samus" is pronounced as "Tamus". It _could have been_ a unique allophone, perhaps originating from the Chozo struggling to pronounce fricatives due to their beaks... if it weren't for "sabalba", the Chozo word for "because", which is pronounced as spelled.
i Like referring to him as "Ashkar Behek" allot better than "raven beak" it's like a 5 yo came up with the name "raven beak" and i cant take it seriously.
I feel like if you were a Chozo, Raven Beak would probably sound cool and Ashkar Behek would make you cringe.
Familiarity opens up a lot of avenues for cringe.
Ain't no way I'm gonna learn a language that doesn't exist bruh
Lots of positive comments, but isn't relex a sort of disparaging term? Sorta like saying "Yo, they were lazy making this language"...
Relex is an accurate term, but in the constructed language community, replacing word-for-word isn't seen as particularly creative or difficult, and more of a "beginner" thing.
Granted, I give a couple points in Metroid: Dread's favour:
1) The Chozo language is never explained in-universe, it's more of a puzzle for fans to decipher, and making it English makes it more accessible
2) There are small differences showing additional creative thought, like how the Chozo have different names for the planets, and some standardized patterns (-mahar being the suffix used to turn "I/me -> My", "You" -> "Your", "He/him" -> "His")
3) Mercury Steam is Spanish and Nintedo is Japanese, so they're making a constructed language based on a language that isn't their own.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relexification
I can’t have been the only person confused.