English ↔ Al Bhed Translator
Impetus
Recently, I started playing Final Fantasy X, and thought it would be a fun little project to make a translator for Al Bhed.
Al Bhed
Al Bhed is the language of the Al Bhed people from the game, Final Fantasy X. However it’s not technically a constructed language, since it’s a cypher. This code will be dealing with the English version, although the code could easily be extended to handle the Japanese-version of Al Bhed since the mapping file easily be updated handle additional mapping schema.
Basic Usage
The simplest way to translate English to Al Bhed.
python translator.py --text="Now comes the age of machina!"
Huf lusac dra yka uv sylrehy!
To translate Al Bhed into English.
python translator.py --text="Oaaryy! Y vmekrd 1000 oaync uvantia!" --en_to_ab=False
Yeehaa! A flight 1000 years overdue!
Break Character
If there’s a word that you don’t want translated, surround it with asterisks. The word will be ignored and the asterisks will be removed.
python translator.py --text="Drao druikrd *oui* fana y veaht!!" --en_to_ab=False
They thought oui were a fiend!!
Diacritics
While English does not use diacritics, English does has various loanwords that may feature diacritics such as:
- tête-à-tête
- résumé
- jalapeño
The basic transliteration model would neglect these characters producing erroneous mixed-tokens— that is, words between English and Al Bhed. Engbhed? Here are the same words as above without considering diacritics.
- *dêda-à-dêda
- *nécisé
- *zymybañu
Since it’s unknown whether these diacritics have usage in Al Bhed, by default
these diacritics are removed to reflect a more standard English.
However, diacritics can be maintained by passing --allow_diacritics=True.
| English | AB with Diacritics | AB Without Diacritics |
|---|---|---|
| tête-à-tête | dâda-ỳ-dâda | dada-y-dada |
| résumé | nácisá | nacisa |
| jalapeño | zymybah̃u | zymybahu |
Potential problems or benefits is that other language might be transliterated and the unsuspecting reader may not realize that it’s not the Al Bhed they’re expecting. On the other hand, this could be a boon to those that would like to maintain diacritics.
Al Bhed Repository
Try the Al Bhed Translator for yourself.
