UNSC Translation of non-Terran speech

Community Halo Universe
1

Since this will include the most recent Halo game, if you have not played the campaign, please stop reading now.

In the game timeline of events we have;

Halo Wars
Halo Reach
CE/CEA
Halo 2
Halo 3 ODST
Halo 3
Halo 4

I’m wondering about in-game, footsoldier voice recognition and translation. So we can leave out HW.

Reach: Not the first contact with the Covenant by any means, but the “beginning of the end” when it comes to the War. Spartan soldiers and the armor do not appear to be translating any Covenant speech.

CE/CEA: Either the Mjolnir armor and/or the presence of the AI Cortana inside, allows the MC to understand Grunt speech, but not Jackals, Hunters, or Elites.

Halo 2: The MC with a new armor revision and Cortana, can now understand Grunt, Elite, Brute and Prophet. But not Jackals, Drones or Hunters.

Halo 3 ODST: in New Mombassa, after Regret has slipspaced out, the ODST squad is dealing with Brutes, Grunts, Hunters mostly and (if memory serves, can not translate their speech). I would assume that it is due to OSDT armor not being as “smart” or that the characters do not have AI integration.

Halo 3: Since we’re allied with various factions, our understanding of their speech is (based on my recollection) clear and accurate, even the Flood is speaking to us.

Halo 4: After 4 years in cryo, all of a sudden we can’t understand Grunts or Elites? Did they have a language revolution and decide to adopt Boccee from Star Wars?

I may be off on some details, but the big question that I have is… what happened? I can understand that 343i might not have wanted or been capable of getting Staten to voice the new play-dough Grunts, but there was plenty of canon and other good voice actors who had already fleshed out the Elite and Grunt voices, personalities and phraseology over the previous installments. Is there an in-game, backstory, retcon or other in-cannon explanation that I missed?

And just so I am clear, I am not a canon-purist. I am not trying to be difficult or “stir a pot”. I am a big boy and can handle changes that occur “just because we said so”. But I do believe that the non-Human voice acting, characterizations, building of culture and persona, all of that benefited from the player hearing more and more from these various species as the series progressed.

I could have sworn that I occasionally hear the word “demon” when engaging various Covenant in H4, but I may be projecting or wanting to hear something that I recognize. If THEY recognize ME, I am curious why I can’t understand them.

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Maybe they know both languages. In CE, they speak a little english. In Reach I also heard one or two lines of english dialog. Maybe they speak the language they feel like at the time?

3

> Maybe they know both languages. In CE, they speak a little english. In Reach I also heard one or two lines of english dialog. Maybe they speak the language they feel like at the time?

The Covenant was capable of speaking English anytime after the attack on Harvest. But I don’t believe that they would choose to speak in the language of their enemy while in combat.

Which is why (I believe and suspect) that we can’t understand any Covenant in Reach (unless they choose to speak our language), we can understand Grunts in CE/CEA and as the story progresses (and we learn more about them) the MC/Cortana are able to understand more Covenant species as the story arc progresses.

For example, in Halo 2… when Regret is on Installation 05 and is broadcasting his sermon to holoterminals, the MC only hears the song/chant of the Prophet. Then, once Cortana says “Did he say what I think that he said?” snaps her fingers and translates Regret’s sermon, after that, anything said by Regret (or any Prophet) is audible and understandable to the MC.

To further emphasize that, when we are running through High Charity in the later parts of Halo 2, and Truth is attempting to maintain calm and reassure the Covenant that “all is well”, it would make no sense that he would speak to all of High Charity in English, he would be speaking to the faithful, and (I suspect) that Cortana is translating.

4

I suppose you could explain it through “Thursday War” - The elites Jul finds at the end are not from sanghelios, and I think Jul noted something about them having a weird dialect even he was having a difficult time immediately understanding (not sure, I’d have to go back and check).

I mean, realistically how many different languages do humans speak just here on Earth? Its possible that the covenant we’ve been used to fighting were the equivalent of -Yoink!- Germans, and now Jul went off to fight the vietnamese covenant equivalent, so they look and sound just a little bit different.

5

Well, for Grunts, they have the ability to learn languages quickly, so they don’t need translators. So, in Reach and 4, maybe the Grunts decided to speak their own language instead.

However, there’s really no explanation for any of the other species.

6

Grunts speak English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Afrikaans.

7

> Grunts speak English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Afrikaans.

Fair enough. So if they “wanted” us (MC/Cortana) to understand them, they (at least the Grunts, but also the Elites) would speak in a Terran language.

So, it is safe to assume that when we hear Grunts and Elites speaking, they are speaking in their native/shared tongue and we (MC/Cortana) are unable to understand them.

Which seems puzzling to me. After the previous installments, I can’t imagine that translation of Grunt/Elite speech should prove difficult or impossible.

Does anyone have any experience/awareness if the IWHBYD skull has any effect on non-Terran dialog or if it increases their… vocabulary/phrases?