- Wolverfrog
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- Fabled Legendary Member
Posted by: the real Janaka
Posted by: Wolverfrog
It'd make sense for an isolated island nation like Japan to be most influenced by the language spoken by the Forerunners, since they had little to no exposure for tens of thousands of years to other human cultures. Over time the original Forerunner would warp until unrecognisable, but it'd contain the same phonemes and phonetics.
If the Sangheili were a servant race of the Forerunners (pretty clear they were, by all the Forerunner relics on Sanghelios,) it'd explain why one of the oldest languages their people speak is so similar to Japanese. It too is a bastardisation of Forerunner; that much is apparently said in Ghosts of Onyx.
That's why the Sangheili in Halo 4 sound Japanese. But how about if the connection between past en present through the Japanese language is from the ancient human beings, rather than Forerunners, because of their imprinted memories, Geas? I don't know if you've heard the audio book version of Primordium, but in it the Lord of Admirals speaks in a way that reminds me of Japanese. Idk...
I don't like audio-books, but I was just thinking myself that it's more likely to be Ancient Humanity who passed down the language.
The ruins of Babysitter are an obvious teller. I'll even say that Samurai masks (without the helm) are vaguely reminsicent of what the Lord of Admirals is described as wearing - they cover the lower half of the voice and leave the forehead and ears exposed, as well as the eyes because obviously you can't make iron visors.
Proto-Japanese culture, from aesthetics to language, seems like a degraded version of what we know Ancient Humanity's culture. The question is why the Sangheili would share the same phonetics of that language. We haven't seen them at all in the Forerunner saga, but we know the Forerunners had a presence there from Origins and all the Forerunner relics on Sanghelios.
Maybe Sanghelios was one of the worlds Ancient Humanity invaded after the Flood crippled us, and then the Forerunners 'liberated' them from us and made them a servant race, but the language remained from the time of human occupation.
That'd be a pretty cool twist, and it's honestly one I can see being pulled in Silentium and then surfacing in the third K5 book. It'd explain the artistic direction of The Duel, why their language sounds Japanese in Halo 4 and the ruins in Babysitter.