Witcher 3 English Language Pack
Arridano Tillo
A language is both a method and a system of communication used by sentient races throughout the world. Some became extinct as time passed, and its native speakers replaced it with a different one.[1]
From the 8th into the 14th century, Common Speech was considered the most widespread language in the Continent,[2] from Kovir and Poviss in the north, all the way down to Ebbing. By the 16th century though, it is considered an endangered or even extinct language.[3]
The Witcher (Polish: Wiedźmin, .mw-parser-output .IPA-label-smallfont-size:85%.mw-parser-output .references .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .infobox .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .navbox .IPA-label-smallfont-size:100%pronounced [ˈvjɛd͡ʑmin]) is a series of six fantasy novels and 15 short stories by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski. The series revolves around the eponymous "witcher", Geralt of Rivia. "Witchers" are monster hunters given superhuman abilities for the purpose of killing dangerous creatures. The Witcher began with a titular 1986 short story that Sapkowski entered into a competition held by Fantastyka magazine, marking his debut as an author. Due to reader demand, Sapkowski wrote 14 more stories before starting a series of novels in 1994. Known as The Witcher Saga, he wrote one book a year until the fifth and final installment in 1999. A standalone prequel novel, Season of Storms, was published in 2013.
The books have been described as having a cult following in Poland and Central and Eastern European countries. They have been translated into 37 languages and sold over 15 million copies worldwide as of December 2019. They have also been adapted into a film (The Hexer), two television series (The Hexer and The Witcher), a video game series, and a series of comic books. The video games have been even more successful, with more than 50 million copies sold as of May 2020.[1]
In 1985, Andrzej Sapkowski was a 38-year-old traveling fur salesman with an economics degree and a love of fantasy literature. He decided to enter a short story competition, limited to 30-pages, held by Polish science fiction and fantasy magazine Fantastyka.[12] He did so at the urging of his son Krzysztof, who was an avid reader of the magazine.[13] Sapkowski submitted "The Witcher" (1986), which was conceived as a retelling of a Polish fairy tale where a princess turned into a monster as punishment for the incest of her parents.[14] He had to wait about a year for the results of the contest, and came in third place.[12] Sapkowski felt that his work was the best in the competition, but the jurors relegated it to third because fantasy was considered to be for children at the time in Poland.[12] However, reaction from readers was overwhelmingly positive and Sapkowski wrote more stories, about one or two a year, in response to their demand.[12]
After what he called a chance meeting, Sapkowski made a deal in 1990 with SuperNowa to publish the series.[14] They released the second short story collection, Sword of Destiny, in 1992. The Last Wish was published by SuperNowa in 1993 to replace The Witcher as the first book, and includes all of its stories except "The Road with No Return" (the only story without Geralt).[15] Although new short stories were also added to The Last Wish, they chronologically take place before those in Sword of Destiny.
"Something Ends, Something Begins" ("Coś się kończy, coś się zaczyna") is an alternate ending to The Witcher Saga about Geralt and Yennefer's wedding that was written in 1992 as a wedding gift for Sapkowski's friends. It and "The Road with No Return" are included in some Polish editions of The Last Wish or Sword of Destiny.
With the positive reader reception to his short stories, Sapkowski decided to write a fantasy saga.[12] He claimed that Polish publishers at the time believed only Anglo-Saxon fantasy authors were worth publishing and that Polish writers of the genre were too risky. SuperNowa were the only publisher willing to take the risk, and "Now everybody envies" them.[14] For the saga, the author expanded on the story he used for "A Question of Price" and "Sword of Destiny".[14] Blood of Elves, the first novel in The Witcher Saga, was published in 1994.[12] The story focuses on Geralt of Rivia and Ciri, who are linked by destiny. Ciri, princess of a recently conquered country and a pawn of international politics, becomes a witcher-in-training. Geralt is drawn into a whirlwind of events in his attempts to protect her.
After 14 years, Sapkowski released Season of Storms in 2013. Set between short stories included in The Last Wish, it is a standalone prequel to The Witcher Saga.[16] In 2020, Sapkowski stated that he had "some plans" for a new entry in The Witcher, but "My future plans are vague, nothing is fixed yet".[17]
Chosen by Fate: Zajdel Award Winner Anthology is a 2000 English anthology by SuperNowa, in cooperation with the Silesian Club of Fantasy Literature, that includes a translation by Agnieszka Fulińska of "The Witcher" short story entitled "The Hexer". 2010's A Polish Book of Monsters is an English anthology edited and translated by Michael Kandel that includes a translation of "The Witcher" entitled "Spellmaker". Maladie and Other Stories (not to be confused with the above Polish book of the same name) is a 2014 English e-book sampler with translations of "The Witcher", "The Edge of the World", and the first chapters of Blood of Elves and Baptism of Fire.
With Sapkowski's permission, the Polish publishing house Solaris published a collection of eight short stories entitled Opowieści ze świata Wiedźmina [pl] (Tales from the World of The Witcher). Written by Russian and Ukrainian fantasy writers (including Andrei Belyanin and Vladimir Vasilyev), they are set in the world of The Witcher and feature its characters;[18] Vasilyev story is part of his The Witcher of Grand Kiev universe.[19] Szpony i kły (Claws and Fangs), a similar collection of eleven short stories by authors chosen through a 2016 competition by the Polish magazine Nowa Fantastyka, was published in 2017 by SuperNowa.[20][21][22]
The stories are set on an unnamed Continent,[24] which was settled several thousand years earlier by elves from overseas. When they arrived, the elves encountered gnomes and dwarves. After a war between the elves and dwarves, the dwarves retreated into the mountains, and the elves settled in the plains and forests. Human colonists arrived about five hundred years before the events in the stories, igniting a series of wars. The humans were victorious and became dominant; the non-human races, now considered second-class citizens, often live in small ghettos within human settlements. Those not confined to the ghettos live in wilderness regions not yet claimed by humans. Other races on the Continent are halflings and dryads; werewolves and vampires appeared after a magical event known as the Conjunction of the Spheres.
During the centuries preceding the stories, most of the Continent's southern regions have been taken over by the Nilfgaard Empire; the north belongs to the fragmented Northern Kingdoms. The Witcher Saga takes place in the aftermath of the first major war between the Nilfgaard Empire and the Northern Kingdoms, with a second war beginning in the middle of the series.
Although no map of the universe created by Sapkowski has been released, fans have created several maps. According to Sapkowski, the existing maps are "mostly accurate", and he uses a version created by Czech translator Stanislav Komrek.[33]
The Continent can be divided into four regions. The Northern Kingdoms (where most of the saga occurs) consists of Aedirn, Cidaris, Cintra, Hengfors League, Kaedwen, Kerack, Kovir and Poviss, Lyria and Rivia, Redania, Temeria and Verden and several minor duchies and principalities such as Bremervoord or Ellander. The Nilfgaard Empire occupies most of the area south of the Northern Kingdoms. The eastern part of the Continent, such as the Korath desert, Zerrikania, Hakland and the Fiery Mountains, is mostly unknown. The book series mentions overseas countries with whom the Northern Kingdoms trade, including Zangvebar, Ofir, Hannu and Barsa.[citation needed]
Sapkowski created a language for the series known as Elder Speech,[34][35] based on Welsh, English, French, Irish, Latin and other languages. Dialects are spoken on the Skellige Islands and in Nilfgaard. In an interview, Sapkowski explained that he wanted the language to be reasonably legible to a reader, to avoid footnotes. As he said: "In my book, I do not want for an orc telling to another orc 'Burbatuluk grabataluk!' to be supplied with a footnote: 'Shut the door, don't let the flies in!'"[36][37]
Although wiedźmin is now usually translated into English as "witcher", an earlier translation of the title was "hexer" (the title of the 2001 film adaptation and the first official English translation in the 2000 short story collection Chosen by Fate: Zajdel Award Winner Anthology);[41] Hexe and Hexer are the German words for female and male 'witch' respectively.[39] CD Projekt used "witcher" for the title of its 2007 English release of the video game,[40] and Danusia Stok used it in her translation of Ostatnie życzenie that was published the same year.[42][43] Michael Kandel however used "spellmaker" in his 2010 translation of the "Wiedźmin" short story for A Book of Polish Monsters anthology.[44]
The Witcher series has been described as having a cult following in Poland and Central and Eastern European countries.[45][46] They have been translated into 37 languages and sold over 15 million copies worldwide as of December 2019.[38] Two weeks after the Netflix TV adaptation was released in 2020, revenue from the books was reportedly up 562% compared to the same period in 2018.[47] Entries in The Witcher series have earned Sapkowski the Janusz A. Zajdel Award three times; "The Lesser Evil" (1990), "Sword of Destiny" (1992), and Blood of Elves (1994).[48] The Last Wish won the 2003 Premio Ignotus for Best Anthology in Spain.[49] In the United Kingdom, Blood of Elves won Best Novel at the first David Gemmell Awards for Fantasy in 2009.[50] Sword of Destiny won the 2012 Thtifantasia Award in Finland.[51]