Talk:Covenant languages

Translated Sangheili dictionary?

Go here to dowload it: http://www.mediafire.com/?81wlb1bdx0w3mac

I found this on the interwebz. It's supposedly a dictionary with many Sangheili words and phrases translated into English. I'm not currently aware of it's source an it is most likely conjecture. But I still felt it might have some form of validity and be worth sharing. So what do you think of it?--Brute Honour Guard ("Talk") 00:43, 2 August 2011 (EDT)

I really don't know what to think about this right now. Most likely it is fake. I just don't know.--ハローファン (H1234-NET) 00:47, 2 August 2011 (EDT)

It appears to be fan made. No sources are cited, ie; Combat Evolved, Reach, Ghosts of Onyx which all have true Sanghelian spoken but without any translation - where for example do they come up with "Jinohag" meaning "to wear", or "Gro'gragort" meaning "enemy"? If indications are to be believed, Sanghelian is modelled on Forerunner, which was an entirely contextual language - one word may mean dozens of things depending on what precedes it or comes after, placement in the sentence, modifiers, etc. It looks like a cool glossary, and I'd definitely recommend it for fanon works, but it's definitely not canon.-- Specops306 ^{Autocrat Qur'a 'Morhek} 03:31, 2 August 2011 (EDT)

Sangheili language?

Came across this tidbit on a Reddit r/halo post: "Bungie said in one of their podcasts that they were working with some people at a language college to develop a language for them. Of course there's the occasional English, but for the most part they spoke their own language." It seems to be used in this Halo 4 terminal video. So perhaps the Sangheili will have a proper conlang, at least! Neme 'Zusatee 21:23, 9 October 2012 (EDT)

Attempts are being made to get some translations here:https://forums.halowaypoint.com/yaf_postst128404_Finding-out-the-Elite-Language.aspx

Also, I notice a lot of the words from glasslands are noted on the page. 22:31, 7 November 2012 (EST)

Heiro does not mean hand. Possession is formed in the following way: Possessor+small pause+possessed noun Requiem+small pause+qano=Requiem's treasures. Also the audio of Bungie's gibberish should be replaced by a Spartan Ops audio file of Sangheili language.

I can be more accurate if I use the International Phonetic Alphabet. There is no clue that Sangheili have imperative but I posted it for info to bemore aaccurate in case they have one. The change of pronunciation in some words can be justified by the fact that the Sangheili in Halo 4 are from different regions in different worlds. Like Jul and Get for instance. All non English characters are there todenote non eEnglish sounds. Also t has almost always a click before it. q and k denote different sounds. The English alphabet is inadequate to describe Sangheili phonology because most of their sounds do not exist in English/or can only be clearly expressed via the IPA.—This unsigned comment was made by The Master Builder (talk • contribs). Please sign your posts with ~~~~

Translations of Sangheili Language's Species Names

I'm not sure those really work. Yes, they call the worm-creatures "lekgolo" and in English we call them "Hunters," but "Hunters" is a descriptive nickname humans assigned to that species, probably before we ever heard the word "lekgolo." Even then it's only about a specific 'form' of lekgolo (and it's rather arbitrary IMO, since they don't seem to do much hunting). I very much doubt that if a sangheili was to talk about someone being a great hunter that to our ears it'd sound like "[something something] lekgolo." Do you get what I mean, that "Hunter" isn't translated from the meaning of the word "lekgolo?" For all we know the actual word "lekgolo" literally translates to something like "ground's worm-gems" but would more likely be translated as "valuable/costly earthworms."

That's not to say that that stuff shouldn't be included at all, because they are translations, but not in the same way as the others and that should be noted.

As a separate issue, do we even know that they're all sangheili words? I very much doubt that the san 'shyuum would go by/adopt the sangheili name for their species when they're theoretically partners (especially when they're actually superiors). Unggoy, huragok, lekgolo and sangheili all have specific references from Ghosts of Onyx on their individual pages, saying "the sangheili name for X." The other names just come from the manuals or whatever and, AFAIK, we have no way of knowing if it's their native names for themselves or if they're sangheili designations. To be honest, I can only really accept the Drones using a Sangheili Language-derived name, the rest being too independent in their own ways. --86.29.7.17 22:04, 26 May 2014 (EDT)