Topic

Rookish Script = Arabic?

In another thread about the lack of subtitles in the Rook Museum, transcripts of the audio were posted.

The transcript for the painting of the "Secret Rook Plans" includes "the only such artifact ever to fall into Glitchian hands — and the only example of Rookish script ever seen".

The inclusion of Arabic/Persian looking writing at the bottom made me think of the Roc from the One Thousand and One Nights, which for some reason hadn't occurred to me before. I think the writing says something like "renounce imagination", which makes sense, but I would be interested to hear from native speakers for a more trustworthy translation. Like a dope I didn't think to take a screen shot but maybe someone did and can post it?

Maybe more artifacts like this will be discovered as the game progresses, shedding more light on the mysterious Rook? Maybe there are other examples out there that I haven't noticed?

Posted 16 months ago by The Cat Face Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • +1 Dr
    Posted 16 months ago by Piece of Serenity Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Well, I haven't looked at the staff that closely, but consider how they were able to accurately depict the lettering. And they may have simply liked the script without considering the political and social ramifications using it in that context. 
    Posted 16 months ago by Fokian Fool Subscriber! | Permalink
  • If they need a language for the Rook why not have it a series of peck marks akin to morse code? That way it would not resemble any particular language and would be in keeping with what a bird could achieve using its beak.
    Posted 16 months ago by Faereluth Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Wow this is very alarming. Good catch cat face. No matter what the message says or what the language is intended to be, this is crossing the line in my book. I'm not one for censoring content, but I am also not one to offend an entire group of people, and this can be very very offensive.
    Posted 16 months ago by Laurali Subscriber! | Permalink
  • i'd like a dev response on this eventually but i dunno about 'right now'.

    i think its fine if they take their time to sort out their intentions, explanations, whatever.
    Posted 16 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • (imagined [ha!] conversation)
    stoot: "Hey, by any chance did you use Arabic on that painting?"
    dev: "Yes."
    stoot: "Why did you do that?!"
    dev: "Because you were yelling at me to get the Rook Museum quest out there! I had slept like 2 hours and you kept yelling at me. And you guys had already recorded the darn voice track so I had to put SOMETHING on there."
    stoot: [grumble grumble] "Fine. Whatever."
    dev: "Can I go back to sleep under my desk?"
    stoot: "Yes. But no ice cream for you."
    Posted 16 months ago by Lord Bacon-o Subscriber! | Permalink
  • also, and this is a larger issue but is everyone so sure the rook is evil?

    we do go on missions to kill rook eggs and maybe all this street building is invading their territory and destroying their habitat. "manifest destiny" anyone?
    Posted 16 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @LBO ha!

    I have to add that when starting this thread I focused on the "only example of Rookish script ever seen" text and and missed/ignored the "Though its true provenance has never been proven to the satisfaction of all skeptics, most now believe it to be a genuine artifact" hint that opens up many possible interpretations beside my own instant equation of Rookish with Arabic. Still iffy but probably meant to be way more ambiguous than my knee-jerk Rookish=Arabic declaration.
    Posted 16 months ago by The Cat Face Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Amazing work, people!

    This certainly needs to be corrected before launch.

    ETA: It doesn't matter if the Rook turn out to be the good ones. Right now, they are "the enemy". That's more than enough to not make them Arabs.
    Posted 16 months ago by Ximenez Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @striatic YES. (ETA: Yes I agree - not "Yes I'm sure the Rook is evil")

    The victorious get to write the history we learn. Hopefully other/more fragments from the Rook POV will emerge as the game evolves.
    Posted 16 months ago by The Cat Face Subscriber! | Permalink
  • sure, but on the other hand the rook might just be nasty little gits, afterall.
    Posted 16 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I like the idea of a fake language anyways. I know the rook are anti imagination, but that doesn't mean they can't still have a made up language!
    Posted 16 months ago by Laurali Subscriber! | Permalink
  • You know, I did feel a bit weird doing the egg crushing quest. "I have to kill its baby? The Rook really hasn't done anything to me? Well, okay, magic rock. If you tell me to do it, I will."
    Reminds me a bit of the "turn" in the original Bioshock which brings up questions in video games of blinding following what we are told... which then then toss aside and railroad you anyway.
    Posted 16 months ago by Lord Bacon-o Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I honestly didn't read any of the quests for a long time, because I was in a huge hurry to get a house.  That's why I'm so excited for reset.

    But yes, I agree that killing a Rook baby is pretty sad!
    Posted 16 months ago by Laurali Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Trying to do it now. 
    Posted 16 months ago by Fokian Fool Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Fantasy language I mean, not killing eggs. 
    Posted 16 months ago by Fokian Fool Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Good find here; Look  at the example :)
    http://www.zompist.com/kit.html
    Posted 16 months ago by Fokian Fool Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Yes, Mark Rosenfelder's zompist site is brilliant!
    Posted 16 months ago by Clumdalglitch Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Wow. All these comments about "alarming", this "needs to be corrected before launch", this is "crossing the line" type stuff are way over the top. Perhaps your perspective is what needs corrected before launch? Are you assuming the Rook is evil by way of the fact that it attacks us in game and therefore that the devs using Arabic script implies that Arabs are evil??? No where does it say or imply that except in your mind as far as I can see. All I see is the devs re-creating scenes from Ur's ancient civilization featuring the tribes of Groddle Forest, etc. and I think they did a really great job.  Read some World History first before continuing on your current line of thought if you need to. Ancient civilization grew out of the Middle East. The Rook Museum is talking about ancient civiliations. Many ancient religions and societies worshipped/feared (your point of view) winged gods, serpents, large bird creatures in the sky, ie. the Pheonix, Quetzalcoatl, Isis, etc as ways of explaining the happenings in their world and created a verbal history (mythology) to pass these lessons down.  How on earth does that very true history of our ancestors existence 10000-2000 years ago have ANYTHING to do with what some are calling political incorrectness in a game? Are you referring to the happenings of 911? Does the fact that 1 Arab religious extremist and his followers exist in the world mean that we suddenly "correct" ancient history? Guess what? The white European Christian Crusaders were the religious extremists of their times and they killed many many more Muslims than were killed during any attacks of the past decade. History isn't politically correct. It's just a version of what happened long ago. And a lot of it isn't pretty.   

    This meanwhile is a game in the year 2011 with hopefully at least some people that are educated enough to know better. 
    ETA: Its cool to know that someone translated it as actual Arabic, but to be honest, when I first saw it, I thought it looked like "Chicken Scratch" since they are birds and all.  :)
    Posted 16 months ago by Dagnabbit Rabbit Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Dagnabbit: I don't need to read World History, thanks.

    Making "the enemy" have an Arab script plays too well to the prejudiced perception of current Arabs/Muslims as "the enemy". I don't care if the script is supposed to be thousands of years old: the game is being created right now. Why don't you make it Hebrew then? Maybe because then it would be "really" incorrect?

    ETA: This is fantasy, for giants' sake! Why on Ur does it have to recreate in any sense Earth history, other than as allegory? Why does it have to include a precise script which echoes a precise prejudice from our own real life?
    Posted 16 months ago by Ximenez Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I agree Ximenez that they should have gone for total fantasy if that was their aim. Not disagreeing at all. Then as others have pointed out, we wouldn't have Ur or Humbaba or many of the other references. I am agreeing 100% with you that if they wanted to, they could have just made up everything and this wouldn't be a discussion at all. But since they didn't.....and they are unlikely to change ALL the items named after real things.... It seems weird to pick out one thing that some may be offended by. We've already had the gay references, the geological references, etc. It's a game meant for adults, and as such, I just think we are going to run into this type of stuff. And yes, it would be nice to know what the dev's aim was exactly. I'm disagreeing with people saying its crossing the line and such. That's their perspective from their frame of reference, of course. Being as this game is open to the entire world, there are an awful lot of other things in game that could be seen as offensive from someone else's perspective. Realisitically, I doubt we could really think of them all. The game would be a blank screen if we censored it all, imo.
    Posted 16 months ago by Dagnabbit Rabbit Subscriber! | Permalink
  • An update on the text fragment: I had someone who emdot works with take a look at the screenshot and got this back:

    "It's hard to say without the whole context but it could be تبئ و تخيل which might mean "to position and imagine". There's an extra letter at the beginning, too (the m sound in Arabic). It might be part of a word that starts under the frame or a reference to something in the picture. The resolution makes it hard to read the marks."
    Posted 16 months ago by The Cat Face Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "We can't think of every possible offense" doesn't strike me as an excuse not to try, or not to fix something problematic once it's been pointed out. Mistakes happen, sure; I've made many myself. Is compounding them by clinging to them wise?

    I like Echo Bazaar's take on this: borderhouseblog.com/?p=3113 Glitch could do far, far worse than take a piece of paper from their, er, tree.
    Posted 16 months ago by Clumdalglitch Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Dagnabbit, I absolutely agree with you on all your points. Again, most of us (if not all) have said that we don't believe any offense was meant. And I'm not offended. Just want to make sure TS made a CHOICE and are aware of the implications of that choice. (The same statement can be made about the name "Deadman Dike"... a thread I stayed out of because I was neither offended, nor did I care.)

    But let's say it was absolutely intentional with all of the context you provided. That is a WHOLE lot of subtext to add to game that is pretty light hearted. I'm all for subtlety and sly messages... but this seems a touch too subtle. I have a hard time believing TS's meta-story is going to be a grand message about imperialism in the middle east. It may very well be about imperialism in general, but it would strike me as odd that want to make it that specific.

    And obviously we can't think of all of the possible ways that things might offend people. But isn't part of being a beta tester is seeing things that MIGHT cause problems in the future? Heck, we are (mostly) a light hearted a jovial bunch. Once the game goes live, making the supposed villain (even if long term they are not) write in Arabic (or seemingly write in Arabic) is something OTHERS might jump on.

    Does anyone here remember the gravestone cross thing? There is a reason the decided to change it. Again, they obviously meant no offense before. And they found an elegant solution that made the graves about the game world and not the outside world. (Actually, a player came up with that solution... I forget who.)

    Yes, it is for adults. And I hate to pull out the damn NYC card, but here it is. Each week I hear generalized hate a demonization directed at Muslims. It sickens and, at times, scares me. So far Glitch is not built to support a complex and balanced discussion of world events.

    Heck, if the devs pop in here at some point and say "Yes. It was intentional. It will be explained," I will raise and eyebrow but accept it and wait to see where they are going. 

    And, as you say, a made-up language solves the "problem."
    Posted 16 months ago by Lord Bacon-o Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Why don't you make it Hebrew then?

    That's IT!!  IMO, the script is too choppy to be Arabic, and I couldn't think of the language that the vertical strokes remind me of...but it does remind me of Hebrew strokes (although upside down)...mixed with Arabic like letters...seriously...to me, it doesn't look like standard Arabic (or any of the similarly lettered languages of Farsi, Dari, Urdu, Pashtu, Kurdish, Baluchi, Kashmiri, etc), it's a bit 'off' because it's too horizontal on the bottom and the letter strokes don't connect properly...  To me, it really captures the essence of a middle eastern language, without necessarily being one...which is why I think so many people are trying to make it into something it isn't.

    Since Ur IS a middle eastern location, it makes sense that the language would have middle eastern roots...doesn't mean it is what we currently know as any modern day middle eastern languages...I personally think people are reading WAY too much into it...
    Posted 16 months ago by b3achy Subscriber! | Permalink
  • wiki.answers.com/Q/What_lan...
    Posted 16 months ago by celticlady Subscriber! | Permalink
  • But isn't part of being a beta tester is seeing things that MIGHT cause problems in the future?

    THIS. Exactly this. This is exactly why it's so absurd for people to complain every time someone starts a thread calling out these potential problems. The point of being beta testers—the entire reason why we're allowed into the game early—is so that we can do exactly that. 
    Posted 16 months ago by Kittynoises Subscriber! | Permalink
  • <sarcasm>
    Jesus is teh Evil!
    </sarcasm>
    Posted 16 months ago by Milolin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • A beta tester is someone who tests a product before it is released. Product testers help companies identify weak points in their products which could cause consumer frustration, and they also identify specific issues which need to be corrected before a product can be released. Typically, beta testers test several incarnations of a product, until it is deemed ready for release. Most commonly, beta testers work with electronics and software.
    Posted 16 months ago by celticlady Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "Read some World History first before continuing on your current line of thought if you need to. Ancient civilization grew out of the Middle East."

    hay. i've actually read some "world history" and the Sumerian people of Ur most certainly did not write in Arabic script. they wrote in Cuneiform.

    so ha.

    "Does the fact that 1 Arab religious extremist and his followers exist in the world mean that we suddenly "correct" ancient history?"

    Arabic script doesn't even exist in what is traditionally referred to as "ancient" history. while related to Hebrew it is actually a relatively new language, 5th or 6th century in origin.
    Posted 16 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • LB-o: the cross in the graves is an excellent example.

    All in all, I agree with your point of view.
    Posted 16 months ago by Ximenez Subscriber! | Permalink
  • WOW!

    It's actually based off Urdu, not Arabic (though Urdu script is derivative from the Arabic alphabet, so they do look very similar).

    The phrase we used as the base was "We destroy imagination". It was supposed to get mixed around more, but I'd say it didn't. So, it has already been changed around (after feedback from the last test).

    HOWEVER, I heard some offers in this thread for creating some Rookish Script. Make one up and we'll use that instead :)
    Posted 16 months ago by stoot barfield Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Thanks, Stoot!

    You're always there when needed. :) Much appreciated.
    Posted 16 months ago by Ximenez Subscriber! | Permalink
  • stoot, classy as always:)
    Posted 16 months ago by RM Subscriber! | Permalink
  • WOOHOO....Stoot, you rule...TYTYTYTY.....x's and o's
    Posted 16 months ago by celticlady Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Based off Ur-du...nice one...(even if Urdu is a Pakistani/Indian language vice the language from the Ur region of Iraq)...
    Posted 16 months ago by b3achy Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Ah interesting - thanks for the clarification stoot. The text is similar enough (or exact enough for the one word) to get "imagine" in Arabic instead of the Urdu "imagination".

    (I'll just be over here putting all these worms back in the can now)
    Posted 16 months ago by The Cat Face Subscriber! | Permalink
  • i would highly recommend cuneiform as a script for a rookish language.

    it looks unlike almost any other language, fits a land called UR and totally looks like it could be written by crow's feet.
    Posted 16 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Cuneiform is a good suggestion for sure.

    Fact: Google auto-suggestion thing when you type "Cuneiform trans..." has "cuneiform translation pokemon" as the third result. I believe that to be a sign. Of something.
    Posted 16 months ago by stoot barfield Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Thank you, stoot!
    Posted 16 months ago by Melody Pond Subscriber! | Permalink
  • And, ALSO: all the Arabic/Muslim-demonization stuff to one side (and Hindi-vs-Urdu, which is what we were talking about late one night while making that poster) we agree that it's best to stay away from real world stuff as much as possible, not just to avoid real-world controversy, but to make the game its own thing, separate from real-world references. ("Ur" is deliberate, but "Humbaba" was actually accidental: someone suggested it while brainstorm giant names early on, but had forgotten where they'd gotten it from. So, the "real" Humbaba does not map well to the Giant :)
    Posted 16 months ago by stoot barfield Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Ok. I'll try my hand at a script. :)
    Posted 16 months ago by Fokian Fool Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Ok. I'll try my hand at a script. :)
    Posted 16 months ago by Fokian Fool Subscriber! | Permalink
  • lol striatic. Your ha! made me laugh. 

    Proper paragraphs rather than run on sentences wouldn't have put those two sentences together, as that wasn't the intention. :)  ...but gosh, I'm so good/bad at them!!...

    I still say it looks like Chicken Scratch.  :P
    Posted 16 months ago by Dagnabbit Rabbit Subscriber! | Permalink
  • So the chickens are actually spies?
    Posted 16 months ago by The Cat Face Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Spies, chickens hadn't realized that one, still tripped out by creepy gnomes.
    Posted 16 months ago by xoxJulie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Buh-kah!
    Posted 16 months ago by emdot Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Oh I love the idea of the chickens as spies for the Rook. Or maybe the chickens are feeding the museum these "supposedly" ancient authentic Rook documents because they have a master plan of their own?
    Posted 16 months ago by Dagnabbit Rabbit Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Thank you, stoot. For responding.

    Before I read this, I was in a very boring two hour meeting that required much of my attention. So I of course spent the entire meeting doodling Rookish script ideas (based on the idea that the writing would most likely develop as being written with talons and beaks and at ones feet).

    But, me being me, I have made it quite complicated and probably ill-suited for use in Glitch.
    Posted 16 months ago by Lord Bacon-o Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I picture talon/beak writing to be very abrupt and harsh looking.
    Posted 16 months ago by Laurali Subscriber! | Permalink