Vadim Kozlov of (Inter)Slavic Federation
(this is a recently expanded version of a Reddit thread originally posted at 2023-12-19)
Introduction
Recently, I became interested in the Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth game, and it happened for a very weird reason.
This game, just like every other Civilization title, has various factions and their leaders who follow the player throughout the entire playthrough. The leaders are typically historical figures such as Mahatma Gandhi, Caesar, or Charlemagne, representing real-world civilizations. In most Civilization games, the leaders are voiced in either English or their native language (for example, in Civ VI Peter the Great is voiced in Russian).
The Civ:BE, however, takes place in a futuristic sci-fi setting and neither civilizations nor leaders do not have clear real-world counterparts (they are amalgamation of several countries and/or archetypes, like Pan-Asian Cooperative being a combination of China, Korea, and Vietnam). The leaders have English voice acting, save for Vadim Kozlov, the leader of Slavic Federation.
According to the fan-made Civilization Wikipedia, General Vadim Kozlov speaks in a “mix of Russian and Ukrainian with Polish accent”. As someone interested both in transhumanism and Interslavic constructed language (a language designed in a way to be understandable without learning, so you can use a single translation to adress to a multilingual Slavic audience), I had no choice but to investigate further. Let’s discuss some choice quotes!
Quotes
The game does not feature closed captions, so these transcriptions are approximate. I’ll use explicit ⟨ʲ⟩ symbol to denote palatalization (that is, the consonant written like ⟨sʲ⟩ represents “softer” sound).
Sputnik, Slovʲanska Federacija pozdravjaje(t) tʲebʲa. "Fellow traveler! The Slavic Federation greets you"
Two interesting things about this quote. First, the word “sputnik” is in the Nominative case here, but the Vocative case would be more appropriate. Unlike Polish and Ukrainian (spątniku and спутнику), Russian had lost the Vocative case, so we see clear Russian influence here.
Second, the verb “pozdravjaje” is peculiar: almost everyone in the Slavic countries understands it as “to greet”, except for Russians and Ukrainians (where it means “to congratulate”; however, note related verb “поздороваться”). It’s not quite clear if he is saying “pozdravjaje” or “pozdravjajet” (though he is certainly doesn’t pronounce epenthetic /l/ after /v/). Let’s note that and move forward.
Torgovlʲa opirass nʲe na potrʲebah, a na spravʲedlivosti. "trade relies not on necessity, but on fairness"
This phrase shows both Eastern and Western influence. The verb “opirati” is reflexive, meaning it requires a clitic sę (Polish “się”, Russian/Ukrainian “ся”) to also be present within the sentence. In the case of Eastern Slavic, that position must be right after the verb; in all other languages, the required place is the second position of the sentence (even if it is not near the verb), although there are some nuances.
On the other hand, the “opierać się na + (locative)” construction is very Polish (both Russian and Ukrainian require accusative case here, not locative).
Nʲeh budʲe. "let it be"
Ždʲet mʲenʲa obʲet (obʲed?). "a vow will be made"
The endings of verbs in 3rd person singular form differ between Slavic languages. Here we see both “-t” variant and “without -t” variant.
The first phrase is related to Polish “niech będzie” or to Ukrainian “нехай буде”. I’m not sure I understand the second phrase. Judging by the filename, it is used when Kozlov reluctantly agrees to your terms, so I’m going with something like “a promise is awaiting me” (compare to Russian “обет” and Polish “obietnica”).
Although if the last word is “obed”, then the alternative interpretation is hilarious: Kozlov says something like “screw you guys, I’m going home for lunch!” or “I’m too busy and hungry to consider your terms acceptable”. More likely possibility is Kozlov saying something like “I’ve already done it, the talk is over, I’m ending this unpleasant conversation”.
Mydlanʲje glaz!
The phrase is transparently related to Polish expression mydlić oczy (to decieve), but only Russian uses “глаз” as a term for “eye”.
My zgodny "We agree"
The relatives of “zgoda” are encountered in Polish, Ukrainian and Slovenian/Serbian/Croatian. Polish “zgoda/zgodny” and Ukrainian “згода/згодни” mean “agreement/in agreement”. Adjectives “zgodan” and “zgodnji” exist in Southern Slavic but they mean “handsome”, “opportunate”, or “early”.
Additionally, would require some form of “are” here, only Eastern Slavic languages admit such omission.
“My zgodny” lacks an auxilary verb “to be” that is required in the Southern or Western syntax; the omission of copula is a notable feature of Eastern Slavic languages. While Polish admits copula-less phrases in a special stylistic contexts, the phrase sounds much more natural in Ukrainian (indeed, “ми згодні” is a well-known expression).
Stučit sʲa niščij! "a beggar is knocking!"
It’s hard to interpret, but my guess is we need to choose a different meaning of “нищий” (exists in both Russian and Ukrainian, although the pronouncation here is certainly Ukrainian). Instead of “poor, destitute” use “beggar, panhandler”.
Hotʲ poznakomimsʲa.
I have trouble parsing the first word. It could be related to Russian “хоть”/Polish “choć” meaning “at least”, but it doesn’t really fit.
It could be a descendant of Proto-Slavic *xъtěti meaning “to want”, in a first person singular form (encountered as “хочу”, “ща”, “hoću”, “chcę” in various living Slavic languages), but the syntax is wrong: in this case, the phrase should be something like “hotʲ poznakomitʲsʲa” (Eastern syntax) or “hotʲ sʲę da poznakomim” (Southern syntax). The same problem arises if we to interpret it as an auxiliary verb denoting future tense.
Finally, I went with the following hunch: the phrase was supposed to mean “at last, we meet”, but someone had confused “last” and “least” and made the voice actor say the mistranslated line.
I think the recent proposal of Silmeth is pretty convincing: Polish “chodź, poznamy się” means “let’s go, get acquainted” (compare to Russian “пойдём познакомимся”), where “(ty) chodź!” is imperative of “chodzić”.
Ty sošel z rozuma!
Vperʲod, mastʲera vojny!
Ždʲet mʲenʲa obʲet.
The first phrase is unmistakably Ukrainian (“ти сошел з розуму” – compare this to Polish “straciłeś rozum” or to Russian “ты сошёл с ума”). Let’s note that and move forward.
Now, I want to note things related to /je/ -> /jɔ/ shift. Roughly speaking, this change occurred in both Polish and Russian (but under different conditions) and did not occur in Ukrainian. Polish additionally changed /ɔ/ to /u/ in some environments. Comparing the Kozlov dialect and natural languages we can easily see that no simple pattern is present:
| Kozlov | Russian | Ukrainian | Polish |
|---|---|---|---|
| sošel | сошёл | зійшов | zszedł |
| ždet | ждёт | жде | żdzie |
| vperʲod | вперёд | уперед | naprzód |
Ideology
Vadim has other quotes that serve as a flavor text accompanying description of various technologies. The flavor in the question is strongly reminiscent of strong coffee mixed with metal and concrete, as he gives a strong technophilic vibe. Sometimes it’s inspiring, sometimes it looks naive, sometimes it’s downright horrifying. Some examples are: “Instruct the children not to dream of toys or sweets. Instruct them to dream of infrastructure”, “Robots do not complain, question, or rest, which makes them good role models for the rest of you”.
The quote that probably is most liked by people accompanies “Climate Control” tech: “Stop talking about the weather and do something about it for once!”. A very provocative one is “Put a machine into motion by disengaging the brakes. Put humanity into motion by disengaging ideology that holds back its potential”.
These lines aren’t voiced by his original voice actor and aren’t translated into his peculiar dialect (they are, however, translated into Russian and Polish as a part of overall game localization).
The tech quotes reflect a very particular set of values. You see, the Civilization: Beyond Earth features an Affinity system, where your colony can follow one of three broad ideological tenets: Harmony is “let’s use genetic engineering so we can sustainably co-exist with the alien ecosystem”, Supremacy is “let’s use robotics and cybernetics to stop being so reliant on environment”, and Purity is “let’s reshape this planet closer to Old Earth while avoiding the hubris and past mistakes”. In this broader context, Vadim Kozlov is as Pro-Supremacy as it gets.
The language
What conclusions about Vadim’s dialect can we draw from all of this?
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Vadim’s language is indeed the mix of at least three Slavic languages: Russian, Ukrainian and Polish. This mix is a weird yet oddly charming; you can see that writers put quite a lot of thought into it, trying to bring phonetics, grammar, syntax, and lexicon of different languages together. Some claim that Vadim merely speaks in “broken Russian” because 2K Games hired Polish actor to voice Russian lines – I hope now you can see that’s just untrue.
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Still, it falls short of being a fully realized constructed language. This dialect appears to be closer to a chaotic mix of Russian, Polish and Ukrainian historical sound shifts and grammar, applied without any consistent underlying system. This is especially apparent in the treatment of verb endings.
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Compared to Russian/Ukrainian/Polish, the influence of Southern Slavic languages on Kozlov’s speech is tiny, if any. For example, the palatalization is quite common (including palatalized labials such as ⟨vʲ⟩ and ⟨bʲ⟩); the future tense is built using Eastern/Western grammar; the treatment of clitics and copula is obviously Eastern; the infinitive doesn’t use “da” construction.
So: the language of Slavic Federation is a unique element of Civilization: Beyond Earth, and Vadim Kozlov is indeed the only character of the entire Civ franchise having voice acting in a constructed language. On the other hand, this conlang is very vaguely specified and there’s clearly a room for improvement here.
Re-voicing Project
This gave me an idea to re-voice Kozlov in a legitimate Interslavic, a more cohesive and authentic constructed language. Not for some specific reason. It just… felt appropriate. Kozlov looked like a kindred soul to us Interslavic guys, not just because of Slavic Federation thing, but also because of his promotion of cooperation and progress (though we firmly believe cyborg conversion should be strictly voluntary).
Together with other members of Interslavic community we went ahead, deciphered Vadim’s lines, translated them into Interslavic and re-voiced him. I would like to thank Mašina Dobra, Flame and Ice, Silmeth; and, of course, special thanks go to Pan Nikolaj (aka mltwj) who actually recorded these lines!
For reference, here is the complete table of all voice lines:
| Filename | Probable transliteration | Interslavic translation |
|---|---|---|
| KozlovDefeated.mp3 |
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| KozlovHateHello.mp3 |
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| KozlovHateLetsHearIt01.mp3 |
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| KozlovHateLetsHearIt02.mp3 |
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| KozlovHateLetsHearIt03.mp3 |
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| KozlovHateNo01.mp3 |
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| KozlovHateNo02.mp3 |
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| KozlovHateNo03.mp3 |
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| KozlovHateYes01.mp3 |
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| KozlovHateYes02.mp3 |
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| KozlovHateYes03.mp3 |
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| KozlovIntro.mp3 |
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| KozlovNeutralHello.mp3 |
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| KozlovNeutralLetsHearIt01.mp3 |
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| KozlovNeutralLetsHearIt02.mp3 |
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| KozlovNeutralLetsHearIt03.mp3 |
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| KozlovNeutralNo01.mp3 |
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| KozlovNeutralNo02.mp3 |
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| KozlovNeutralNo03.mp3 |
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| KozlovNeutralYes01.mp3 |
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| KozlovNeutralYes02.mp3 |
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| KozlovNeutralYes03.mp3 |
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| KozlovPeaceful.mp3 |
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| KozlovRequest.mp3 |
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| KozlovAttacked.mp3 |
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| KozlovDeclareWar.mp3 |
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If you’re curious to hear the results, you can download new voice lines here and install them in your game. Just unpack everything into the <game folder>\assets\Sounds\Speech\Shared\Koslov directory (in some cases, you might also need to set LooseFilesOverridePAK = 1 in your config.ini).
Now, I’d love to hear your thoughts. What do you think of Kozlov’s original dialect? Does it feel authentic, or does it fall flat as a constructed language? Does it matter for game atmosphere? How do you feel about the Interslavic re-voicing? And would you like to see more games experiment with constructed languages in this way?