Talking Corvids

A character has sort of a magical terrestrial mammal translator; all terrestrial mammals sound like they speak normal English. Intelligent creatures are easier to talk to, if they want to talk to him. So these Ravens or Crows want to talk to the character. They aren't terrestrial or mammals but they are warm-blooded and intelligent. I figure they have an accent.

What would it sound like?

I figure they have no lips and therefore can't produce labials (p,b,m,w) or the oo sound as in shoot. My idea is to eliminate /w/ or replace with /l/, replace /p/ & /b/ with /t/ & /d/ or /f/ & /v/, replace /m/ with /n/, and to replace /oo/ with /u/. I got the idea on an article about creating languages for aliens with non-human physiology.
Would this work? Is /t/ & /d/ better or is/f/ & /v/? Or am I way over thinking this?

Examples (normal, with t & d, with f &v)
"Monsgro’s army has taken the western shore."
"Nonsgro’s army has taken the estern shore."
"Nonsgro’s army has taken the estern shore."
“They poison and shoot at us because they dislike us and they are afraid we will give away their position.”
“They toison and shut at us decause they dislike us and they are afraid ee ill give allay their tosition.”
“They foison and shut at us vecause they dislike us and they are afraid ee ill give allay their fosition.”

Mimic birds don't use their tongue in 'talking', and of course as you've said, they have no lips. What they do have is called a syrinx which is like a Y shaped muscle with two valves that can produce very complex sounds including diphthongs and fricatives.

To be honest, I think it sounds a little childish*, and I think you may run the risk of it grating on your reader, and unless there's a strong reason for doing it, I'd just have them speak as normal mimic birds do in the world.

pH
*the way it's written, not your idea

Phyrebrat said:

Mimic birds don't use their tongue in 'talking', and of course as you've said, they have no lips. What they do have is called a syrinx which is like a Y shaped muscle with two valves that can produce very complex sounds including diphthongs and fricatives.

To be honest, I think it sounds a little childish*, and I think you may run the risk of it grating on your reader, and unless there's a strong reason for doing it, I'd just have them speak as normal mimic birds do in the world.

pH.
*the way it's written, not your idea

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Unfortunately, I'm not sure how mimic birds speak. Speaking to things and wanting to do something heroic (I am the best at doing something heroic. It'll be yuge!)* are the character's main uses. Otherwise, I could probably have them meet people. Perhaps I can use another way to convey difficulty without having Jar Jars. They would only have a few sentences.

* not actual dialog; I've spent too much time on the Trump thread.

If I was to pick one, replacing with t's looks more natural to me. Fosition sounds a bit like Michael Palin asking what's so wisible about his fwiend Biggus Diccus.

You might be overthinking this one though.

The Big Peat said:

You might be overthinking this one though.

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I agree. If the reader has to spend time translating they could soon become frustrated, they could also misinterpret. For example "estern" as Eastern. In the books I've read, authors often translate directly to the reader, i.e. foreign sentence followed by translated sentence or use an English answer to a foreign language question to translate the question. Either way, the reader should be left in no doubt as to what is being said. With regard to pronunciation you could offer the reader clues as to how the words are being spoken and leave the rest up to their imagination.

I found both versions a little difficult to read even knowing what was being said with the real version there, so for me they wouldn't work as I'd quickly get frustrated.

While I commend your scientific approach with talk of labials and what not, I can't help thinking that you've rather swallowed a camel and are straining at a gnat here -- you've magically made animals rationalise and able to converse but you can't accept they can make the letter "b"?!!

Moreover, you've described the device as a translator, which means the animals are talking in their own language and the device does the necessary. Therefore it's perfectly possibly that in corviddish they can't make "b" or "p" sounds, in the way that (I believe) some people in the far East have trouble with English "l" and "r" in certain words. So the crows' own language if transliterated might read as "arkrcckktrkk" with never a labial in sight, but the translation device would render it as "baby". In other words this should not be a Star Trek type universal translator which doesn't actually translate it just means the actors can speak English. The crows' beak movements should be irrelevant to what is heard.

By all means give the crows an accent -- for myself I think it should be something like Cockney (though not of the Dick van Dyke kind) -- but that's a different matter.

Also surely you'd replace w with v rather than nothing at all? I think that's the one that threw me most. Admittedly, it does make them sound like someone taking the piss out of ze Germans...

What this reminds me of most of all is the Redwall books. Now, the Redwall books are sufficiently popular that I can say this sort of heavy accent is not a bar to success. But I've seen sufficient complaint about them on the internet to know heavy accent use doesn't work in an author's favour.

I agree with the other comments above - some form of mannerism may work best.

Agree with the above - it would frustrate the reader to work out what is said, plus a translator translates the word, not irregularities or inflections like a lisp or even accents really

As a reader accents can be a nightmare to "read" when they are written authentically - partly because many people are not well versed in accents and thus you can very easily frustrate the reader as they are trying to imagine the accent whilst at the same time trying to decode it to what it means.

I think such works when the actual written form of the accent has importance in the story or in the language. A pun wrapped up (biggus dickus) or a mystery hidden within can create an interest and a "reason" for using more than just "spoken in a heavy cockney accent".

You might like to check out Gene Wolfe's use of the talking corvid Oreb in his Book Of The Long Sun.

The question of accent and dialect is a tricky one. On the one hand, you can go the whole Richard Adams and use thick, almost unreadable dialect, as in The Plague Dogs. Or you can lose all atmosphere and use nothing. The best route is to walk the fine line between. I had to consider this when pondering Yorkshire dialects for my upcoming trilogy. In the end I decided to use some dialect words, and use them "almost accurately" - but consistently. Above all, you mustn't sacrifice readability. If your readers are stumbling over dialogue, you'll lose them.

Since only one character gets the translation, I think that I will have him report to the others what was said. ("It's hard to make out, but there seems to be an army of baddies up ahead.") However, I might still want to read the Book of the Long Sun; I'm curious to see it done well.

I once spent twenty minutes teaching a parrot to say "good bye". The end result was a perfectly clear "good bye" but it had a vocal quality that was parrot. Not really an accent as such.
I just went and put "talking parrot" in You Tube and the top hit was very clear in what it said, just faster than most people would say it. Better than the one I taught and also sounds like the person who taught it.
Then tried "talking crow" and you can listen to crows and ravens say things like "hello" and "hi" and so on.

Wiglaf said:

A character has sort of a magical terrestrial mammal translator; all terrestrial mammals sound like they speak normal English. Intelligent creatures are easier to talk to, if they want to talk to him. So these Ravens or Crows want to talk to the character. They aren't terrestrial or mammals but they are warm-blooded and intelligent. I figure they have an accent.

What would it sound like?

I figure they have no lips and therefore can't produce labials (p,b,m,w) or the oo sound as in shoot. My idea is to eliminate /w/ or replace with /l/, replace /p/ & /b/ with /t/ & /d/ or /f/ & /v/, replace /m/ with /n/, and to replace /oo/ with /u/. I got the idea on an article about creating languages for aliens with non-human physiology.
Would this work? Is /t/ & /d/ better or is/f/ & /v/? Or am I way over thinking this?

Examples (normal, with t & d, with f &v)
"Monsgro’s army has taken the western shore."
"Nonsgro’s army has taken the estern shore."
"Nonsgro’s army has taken the estern shore."
“They poison and shoot at us because they dislike us and they are afraid we will give away their position.”
“They toison and shut at us decause they dislike us and they are afraid ee ill give allay their tosition.”
“They foison and shut at us vecause they dislike us and they are afraid ee ill give allay their fosition.”

Click to expand...

You are indeed over thinking this or more to the point it seems that you and some others contributing to the thread are unfamiliar with the full vocal range and ability of some corvids (ravens especially) to speak or mimic human sounds.

There is a membrane in the tongue of ravens that is thin. It sometimes splits naturally forming a "V" shaped protrusion in the tongue and when this takes place the somewhat harsh calls of the worlds largest songbird (and yes ravens are classified as songbirds) are not the only sounds that they produce.

In fact owners of raven orphans or rescues sometimes have veterinarians perform this simple procedure in the event it does not naturally occur (and it does not always happen in the wild) to allow the bird to vocalize very eloquently.

I can share from personal experience observing a domesticated raven owned by a friend of mine that when this takes place the vocalizations and mimicry is perfect and quite astonishing.

The bird was named Jacaron after an AD&D dragon that my friend Ron liked. Jacaron retained a limited vocabulary of 70 - 100+ words. He watched TV and repeated some of the most annoying commercial catch phrases to perfection.

He could not only imitate sounds like a knocking door, telephone ring, etc. He was able to perfectly mimic Ron's voice. The same for me and other males. His female impressions were very accurate as well.

It got Ron into a lot of hot water at times. Complaining under his breath about his wife trying to get him to mow the lawn while the bird was perched over his shoulder on the easy chair back was of course the moment when his private "Jesus! Why don't you shut the _ up Jayne!" was rather loudly repeated as the bird then flew away and a furious wife stormed into the living room in front of him and snapped "What did you say?"

And I assure you as we left them to their argument that the raven had induced there is no doubt that the voice which bellowed Ron's unfortunate complaint sounded precisely like him. Accent and everything.

Just a side footnote for your inclusion of natural (non scientifically or magically enhanced ultra intelligent birds), natural ravens are one of the most intelligent of all animals. They are sentient (self aware) and if you want to know about their speaking ability, while sound mimicry is quite extensive and precise, they do not retain a constant vocabulary.

The 70 - 100+ words that a raven speaks shifts. They are continuously learning new words and phrases and sounds, and dumping or forgetting older or previously favored noises and expressions.

They also do show an ability to associate certain base words with objects or desires if repeatedly exposed to that stimulus.

Best wishes with your writing. I hope this helps out. Cheers!