Dialogue & Linguistic Guidelines
Malacca’s harbour is a wall of sound: Malay commands shouted across the docks, Hokkien numbers rattled between porcelain crates, Tamil prayers drifting from Kampung Keling, the muezzin’s call cutting across all of it. A franchise that flattens this into generic English has already failed.
This section establishes the rules for how characters speak across all franchise expressions — games, screenplays, novels, comics, and audio. It is the single biggest consistency risk in transmedia production: every adaptation will invent its own solution unless the rules are set here. These guidelines balance authenticity, accessibility, and emotional truth. They are binding on all creators and localisation teams.
The Core Principle: Texture Over Translation
The franchise does not attempt to simulate 15th-century Malay speech in English. It does not use faux-archaic prose (“thou,” “henceforth,” “I beseech thee”). It does not adopt a Hollywood “foreign accent” convention. Instead, it creates a distinctive voice through three techniques: selective Malay integration, speech rhythm differentiation, and multilingual presence without subtitle dependency.
The goal is a reader or player who, after thirty minutes with the franchise, can identify which community a character belongs to by how they speak — without needing to be told.
The Default Register: Modern English with Malay Bones
All franchise dialogue is written in modern, literate English — the kind spoken by an educated person today. No period archaisms. No “forsooth.” The historical weight comes from what is discussed (trade law, honour codes, spiritual consequence) rather than how the English itself is inflected.
However, the English has structure borrowed from Malay:
Malay syntax echoes. Malay places the noun before the modifier (unlike English). Occasional constructions that echo this pattern lend texture without breaking comprehension. A character might say “the blade, curved and old” rather than “the old, curved blade.” This is a seasoning, not a rule — used sparingly and only where it feels natural.
Particles and filler words. Malay conversational speech uses particles (lah, kan, mah) for emphasis, confirmation-seeking, and softening. In the franchise, these are used in informal Malay-to-Malay dialogue only, and only when the emotional register calls for it. They are never translated or glossed — context makes their function clear.
- “It’s done, lah.” — finality, impatience
- “You know this already, kan?” — seeking agreement
- “Cannot help it, mah.” — resignation, what-can-you-do
These particles signal intimacy and cultural belonging. Characters who use them are speaking from within the Malay world. Characters who do not — foreign traders, Portuguese agents — are marked as outsiders by their absence.
Honorifics and address. Characters address each other according to Malay social conventions. The franchise never anglicises these into “sir” or “my lord.” The correct forms are used directly:
- Tuanku — to the Sultan
- Tun — to the Bendahara (Tun Perak) and other senior nobles
- Dato’ — to an Orang Kaya or respected elder
- Abang / Kakak — “elder brother” / “elder sister” (informal, among peers)
- Encik — a respectful “Mr.” for merchants and commoners
- Cik — a young woman, or a woman whose status is uncertain
Honorifics are never italicised. They function as naturalized address terms, like “Monsieur” in a French-set English novel. The audience learns them through repetition, not glossary.
Speech Differentiation by Community
Each major community in Malacca speaks with a distinctive rhythm, vocabulary set, and rhetorical pattern in the English text. This is not about accent — it is about what a character reaches for when they argue, negotiate, or express emotion.
Malay Court Characters
Rhetorical style: Indirect, layered, deliberate. Court Malay is a language of implication. Characters rarely say exactly what they mean. Insults are delivered as compliments. Threats are delivered as observations about the weather. A court character who speaks plainly is either desperate or dangerous.
Sentence structure: Longer, more subordinate clauses. Thought arrives at its conclusion through qualification and context. This reflects the Malay rhetorical tradition of budi bahasa — the art of speaking beautifully, which is also the art of concealing intent.
Vocabulary signature: Legal and spiritual terminology (adat, daulat, pantang, derhaka) woven naturally into speech. Court characters treat these concepts as operational vocabulary, not abstract philosophy.
Malay Common Characters
Rhetorical style: Direct, concrete, practical. Fishermen, dockworkers, and market vendors speak in short declarative sentences. Humour is blunt. Metaphors come from the sea, the jungle, and the marketplace.
Sentence structure: Shorter. Subject-verb-object. Economy of expression.
Vocabulary signature: Trade terms, weather, food, family. Malay particles (lah, kan) are more frequent. Proverbs and folk sayings appear naturally — never as self-conscious “local colour” but as the way people actually make arguments.
Chinese (Hokkien) Merchant Characters
Rhetorical style: Numerical, transactional, precise. Chinese merchants in the franchise speak with a focus on quantities, margins, and obligations. This is not a stereotype — it reflects the historical reality that Hokkien traders dominated the commercial mathematics of the port.
Sentence structure: Efficient. Compound sentences joined by “and” and “but” rather than elaborate subordination. Questions are often rhetorical.
Vocabulary signature: Numbers, weights, trade goods, family obligation. Occasional Hokkien terms for concepts that have no English equivalent — primarily kinship terms and business idioms. A Hokkien merchant might refer to a trusted business partner as taukeh (boss/patron) or use kiasu (fear of losing out) as a self-deprecating explanation for caution.
Peranakan distinction. Peranakan characters — including the protagonist — code-switch between registers. In the Chinese quarter, they lean toward Hokkien patterns. In the Malay court, they shift toward court Malay indirection. This fluidity is the protagonist’s superpower and their identity crisis.
Gujarati and Arab Trader Characters
Rhetorical style: Ornate, proverbial, theological. Gujarati and Arab characters draw on a rich tradition of mercantile wisdom and Islamic scholarship. They argue by analogy, cite precedent, and frame commercial disputes in moral terms.
Sentence structure: Balanced and antithetical. Gujarati merchants favour parallel constructions: “Where there is profit, there is also obligation. Where there is obligation, there is also leverage.”
Vocabulary signature: Islamic commercial terms (halal, riba — usury), trading vocabulary, and occasional Arabic phrases — particularly in moments of piety, oath-swearing, or emphasis. Insha’Allah and wallahi function as conversational markers, never as exoticisms.
Tamil Merchant Characters
Rhetorical style: Passionate, honour-driven, formally courteous. Tamil merchants speak with a warmth and emotional directness that contrasts with Malay indirection. Disputes escalate quickly in volume and de-escalate just as quickly through ritual courtesy.
Sentence structure: Exclamatory patterns. Questions often carry emotional weight beyond their literal content. A Tamil merchant asking “Is this what fairness looks like?” is not seeking information — he is making an accusation.
Vocabulary signature: Kinship terms, temple vocabulary, textile terminology (the Tamil community dominates the cloth trade). Tamil characters may invoke Hindu deities in moments of stress or oath — not as religious exposition but as natural speech.
Portuguese Characters
Rhetorical style: Missionary, categorical, strategic. Portuguese characters speak with the certainty of people who believe their civilisation is the measure of all others. Their English in the franchise is clean, declarative, and slightly formal — the speech of educated men who are always, on some level, writing a report for their superiors.
Sentence structure: Clear subject-verb-object. Military precision. When a Portuguese character uses complex syntax, he is being deliberately diplomatic — and probably lying.
Vocabulary signature: Military and naval terminology, Catholic religious language, occasional Portuguese words — Capitão, fidalgo, Estado da Índia — that signal institutional identity. Portuguese characters never use Malay terms unless they are quoting a local source, and even then with visible unfamiliarity. This linguistic distance is itself a characterisation choice: they are in Malacca but not of it.
Code-Switching Rules
Malacca is a multilingual city. Characters who operate across communities — the protagonist, Tun Perak, the Shahbandars, experienced merchants — switch between linguistic registers depending on audience and intent. The franchise represents this through register shifts in the English text, not through untranslated foreign-language passages.
Rule 1: Malay is the lingua franca. All inter-community dialogue defaults to the Malay-inflected English register. When a Gujarati merchant speaks to a Chinese trader, the English text carries a Malay structural imprint — because they are speaking Malay.
Rule 2: Community-internal dialogue shifts register. When two Hokkien merchants speak to each other, the English text shifts toward the Chinese register. The reader understands they are speaking Hokkien without being told, because the texture of the English has changed.
Rule 3: Register shifts signal power dynamics. A character who switches from their community register to court Malay formality is performing deference — or performing innocence. A court character who drops into market-vendor directness is either losing control or asserting dominance through informality. These shifts are dramatic tools.
Rule 4: The protagonist is a polyglot. The protagonist’s ability to switch registers is mechanically and narratively significant. In gameplay, it enables social infiltration. In narrative, it reflects their fractured identity: they belong everywhere and nowhere.
Rule 5: Untranslated words require contextual clarity. Every Malay, Hokkien, Tamil, Arabic, or Portuguese term used in dialogue must be comprehensible from context within two sentences. No character stops to explain a word they would naturally know. The audience learns by immersion, not exposition.
Terms That Are Never Translated
The following terms are franchise-native and should appear in their original form across all media and all languages — including in localised versions. They are part of the franchise’s identity, not obstacles to comprehension.
| Term | Reason |
|---|---|
| Kerambit | Franchise signature weapon. No English equivalent. |
| Keris | Cultural and spiritual weight has no translation. |
| Silat | The martial art. “Fighting” is reductive. |
| Daulat | Divine sovereignty. “Royal power” strips the metaphysics. |
| Semangat | Spirit-essence. “Soul” or “spirit” loses the material dimension. |
| Adat | Customary law. “Custom” or “tradition” is too thin. |
| Pantang | Taboo with spiritual consequence. “Taboo” loses the supernatural stakes. |
| Derhaka | Treason against divine sovereignty. “Treason” strips the theological dimension. |
| Bomoh | Shaman-healer. Neither “shaman” nor “healer” captures the role. |
| Kampung | Village/quarter. “Village” loses the urban application. |
| Shahbandar | Harbourmaster-regulator. No single English term covers the role. |
| Bendahara | Chief minister. “Prime minister” is anachronistic. |
| Laksamana | Admiral. The Malay term carries more cultural weight. |
Introduction convention: Each term is introduced once with enough contextual framing that the audience grasps its meaning. Thereafter, it is used without gloss. The franchise trusts its audience.
Localisation Guidance
For non-English localisations: The register-differentiation system should be adapted to the target language’s own resources for marking social class, formality, regional origin, and outsider status. A Japanese localisation, for example, has its own rich system of speech-level markers that can replicate the franchise’s social texture without imitating Malay directly.
Malay-language versions face a unique challenge: the franchise’s “Malay-inflected English” must become actual historical Malay — or a stylised modern equivalent. The IP holder should be consulted on the specific register choices for any Malay localisation to avoid anachronism and to navigate the political sensitivities of historical Malay language use.
Preserved terms. The terms listed in the “Never Translated” table above retain their Malay form in all localisations. A German, Mandarin, or Korean player encounters kerambit, not a translated equivalent.
Voice Direction Notes
For any voiced media (games, film, series, audio drama):
Malay characters speak with a Malaysian English accent — not a British or American accent “doing” Southeast Asian. Voice casting should prioritise Southeast Asian actors. The accent is not comic relief or local colour; it is the sound of the world.
Chinese merchant characters may carry traces of Hokkien-inflected English — harder consonants, different vowel emphasis — but this should never approach caricature. The line is between “sounds like a person who thinks in Hokkien” and “sounds like a stereotype.”
Portuguese characters speak with a European Portuguese accent, not Brazilian Portuguese. This is a period-appropriate choice: the Portuguese who arrived in Malacca were from Lisbon and the Algarve.
Pace and silence. Malay court dialogue is slower than Western dramatic convention expects. Pauses carry meaning. A character who responds immediately to an accusation is either guilty or reckless. A character who takes a breath, considers, and then speaks with measured calm is the most dangerous person in the room. Voice directors should resist the impulse to tighten pauses for “pacing” — the silence is the pacing.
The franchise does not ask its audience to learn Malay. It asks them to forget, for a few hours, that English is the default language of the world — and to accept that the words Malacca uses for its own concepts are the right ones.