Bungie Universe
This topic has moved here: Subject: How do the Covenant understand the English Language?
  • Subject: How do the Covenant understand the English Language?
Subject: How do the Covenant understand the English Language?

It's a question that has always bothered me.

  • 01.22.2012 5:18 AM PDT

Posted by: ElementalRunner

Posted by: Commander Stroll
Still using a pump-action shotgun over 500 years in the future I see.

omg not realistic stop game production plz

I believe it was stated that the Covenant had been studying Humans for a short time before the start of the war...so by a few years into the war, they could speak English.

  • 01.22.2012 5:20 AM PDT

Thanks for the response! I figured as such, as I recall someone stating that the Covenant did not immediately begin the war without a bit of intel on Humans first.

  • 01.22.2012 5:22 AM PDT

I always thought that the marines and SPARTANs had a built in translator or something.

  • 01.22.2012 5:23 AM PDT
  • gamertag: [none]
  • user homepage:

The UNSC and the Covenant use translators on the battlefield so that they can understand the enemy in their tongues. However, it is unneeded for the Grunts, as they can speak in an English pidgin.

  • 01.22.2012 6:16 AM PDT

Obviously they learned it, durp. Even if they can't necessarily speak it they can all at the very least understand it, seeing as they sent a message to the UNSC, fully in English, after they devastated Harvest.

  • 01.22.2012 10:28 AM PDT

Even after all these years, It looks like those English lessons for foreigners policy is still going strong.

  • 01.22.2012 1:48 PM PDT


Posted by: OrderedComa
Obviously they learned it, durp. Even if they can't necessarily speak it they can all at the very least understand it, seeing as they sent a message to the UNSC, fully in English, after they devastated Harvest.


To be fair, they could have only had a few specialists translate the message into english, and the normal soldiers would have no idea what it said.

Most Marines today don't Persian, dispute fighting and killing people in Afghanistan.

[Edited on 01.22.2012 5:47 PM PST]

  • 01.22.2012 5:43 PM PDT

In the fell clutch of circumstance, I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance, my head is bloody but unbowed. - From Invictus

I blame the government. That always works.

  • 01.22.2012 6:06 PM PDT

Well I heard in halo.wikia that the Grunts "learned english in the black market" or something like that.

  • 01.22.2012 6:47 PM PDT

-Dead Orbit..

wait. but then why in REACH all covies that spoke english never did: Elites,Grunts,Brutes?

  • 01.22.2012 6:49 PM PDT
  • gamertag: [none]
  • user homepage:

Posted by: chotato
smart, interesting, seems out of place.


Official fan of Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty, (Problem with that?) Halo, and Bungie, also a total gaming junkie.

Grunts like watching soap operas.

No seriously, they do.

  • 01.22.2012 7:14 PM PDT


Posted by: Ktan Dantaktee
Grunts like watching soap operas.

No seriously, they do.


I hope they won't be upset that All My Children has been cancelled for a cooking show.

  • 01.22.2012 7:24 PM PDT

wait. but then why in REACH all covies that spoke english never did: Elites,Grunts,Brutes?

Artistic choice.

[Edited on 01.22.2012 8:34 PM PST]

  • 01.22.2012 8:34 PM PDT

"This is the prototype NOVA Bomb, nine fusion warheads encased in lithium triteride armor. When detonated, it compresses its fusionable material to neutron-star density, boosting the thermonuclear yield a hundredfold. I am Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb, temporarily in command of the UNSC military base Reach. To the Covenant uglies that might be listening, you have a few seconds to pray to your damned heathen gods. You all have a nice day in hell..."

Bungie made an effort to make the Covenant feel more alien and threatening; for example, the Covenant speak in their own languages instead of English. This was to make sure they were seperated as a more animalistic and viceral species.

They do have the ability to speak english whether through translators or through their twisted mandibles (the elites) but they deem it an unworthy tongue for their superior race.

  • 01.23.2012 4:09 AM PDT

I'm LITERALLY better than Tim Tebow
Posted by: XxLordo4Xx
Better than Tebow.


San Francisco 49ers
XVI - XIX - XXIII - XXIV - XXIX

They bought Rosetta Stone.

  • 01.23.2012 5:48 AM PDT