Revealed: What Did David Say To The Engineer In ‘Prometheus’?
By Adam Frazier
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Thursday, June 21st, 2012 at 1:00 pm
Warning: Obviously, this post contains spoilers.
Ridley Scott‘s science-fiction film Prometheus has polarized critics and audiences with its complexity, refusing to provide answers and explanations to the film’s numerous mysteries and burning questions.
One such question is what exactly did David (Michael Fassbender) say to the Engineer to get him so riled up? Did he misspeak? Did he have ulterior motives in translating for Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce) or did he communicate Weyland’s commands accurately? With no subtitles provided, it’s impossible to know what David said in that creepy ancient language – or it was impossible, until now.
Stu Holmes of The Bioscopist interviewed Dr. Anil Biltoo of the SOAS Language Centre in London, who served as the Linguist Teacher on Ridley Scott’s Prometheus.
In his interview with Holmes, Biltoo points out that David is seen studying Proto-Indo-European (PIE) Linguistics. You remember the scene, where David eats weird android food and watches a holographic professor, who takes him through the ABC’s and recites “Schleicher’s Fable.”
According to Biltoo (who plays the holographic professor in the film), the line David speaks to the engineer is as follows:
ida hmanÉ™m aɪ kja namá¹›tuh zdℇ:taha “¦ ghʷɪvah-pjorn-ɪttham sas da:tá¹› kredah
A basic translation into English is:
“This man is here because he does not want to die. He believes you can give him more life.”
Biltoo teases the upcoming DVD/Blu-Ray release with the promise of more dialogue between David and the Engineer. “We’re all going to have to wait for the Director’s cut to see if the conversation between the Engineer and David “” and there was indeed originally a conversation, not merely an utterance from David “” yields any fruit.”
SO…basically what Weyland told him to say. Â It’s nice that we know the wording I guess….but did some think it was like “Could you pick up my laundry?” or “Damn, you’re a funny lookin’ dude.” or something….?
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Yeah, no offense but this translation is no big surprise. I kind of already guessed that’s what he was saying…
Comment by Diandra M. Lazor — June 21, 2012 @ 5:24 pm
SO…basically what Weyland told him to say. Â It’s nice that we know the wording I guess….but did some think it was like “Could you pick up my laundry?” or “Damn, you’re a funny lookin’ dude.” or something….?
Comment by The Biff — June 23, 2012 @ 12:26 pm