indiegames
December 28th, 2009, 14:40
http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/9/2009/12/500x_karachimap.jpg Pakistani reader Saad was thrilled when he heard that Infinity Ward (http://kotaku.com/tag/infinityward/)'s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (http://kotaku.com/tag/callofdutymodernwarfare2/) was getting a multiplayer map set in the city he calls home, Karachi. That is, until he played it.
"I, being a Pakistani, was so excited at seeing a Karachi map and then immediately so disappointed when I played the map," says the Karachi resident. The map has Arabic written all over, even though that isn't the country's language.
The country of Pakistan has two official lingos: English and Urdu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urdu_language). With somewhere between 60 and 80 million speakers of the standard language, Urdu has more speakers than, say, Italian, Korean or Polish.
"Infinity Ward probably thought, 'Oh hey its a Muslim country so Arabic is the language,'" says Saad.
While Arabic and Urdu use the same script, the words are completely different. For example, the noun "people" is "al-naas" in Arabic (?????), and "log" or "loug" (???) in Urdu.
"To someone who doesn't know urdu won't be able to tell the difference," Saad explains. "It's like Spanish and English, I guess. Some letters are same, some are different but the words are completely different."
There isn't a single Urdu word on the entire Karachi map and no one writes in Arabic in Pakistan.
http://ads.pheedo.com/img.phdo?p=1 (http://ads.pheedo.com/click.phdo?p=1) http://a.rfihub.com/eus.gif?eui=2226 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/kotaku/full?d=yIl2AUoC8zA</img> (http://feeds.gawker.com/~ff/kotaku/full?a=OItAKRNVaDw:I1tOtJnUFJc:yIl2AUoC8zA) http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/kotaku/full?d=H0mrP-F8Qgo</img> (http://feeds.gawker.com/~ff/kotaku/full?a=OItAKRNVaDw:I1tOtJnUFJc:H0mrP-F8Qgo) http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/kotaku/full?i=OItAKRNVaDw:I1tOtJnUFJc:D7DqB2pKExk</img> (http://feeds.gawker.com/~ff/kotaku/full?a=OItAKRNVaDw:I1tOtJnUFJc:D7DqB2pKExk) http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/kotaku/full?i=OItAKRNVaDw:I1tOtJnUFJc:V_sGLiPBpWU</img> (http://feeds.gawker.com/~ff/kotaku/full?a=OItAKRNVaDw:I1tOtJnUFJc:V_sGLiPBpWU)
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/kotaku/full/~4/OItAKRNVaDw
More... (http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/kotaku/full/~3/OItAKRNVaDw/something-modern-warfare-2-got-wrong-about-pakistan)
"I, being a Pakistani, was so excited at seeing a Karachi map and then immediately so disappointed when I played the map," says the Karachi resident. The map has Arabic written all over, even though that isn't the country's language.
The country of Pakistan has two official lingos: English and Urdu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urdu_language). With somewhere between 60 and 80 million speakers of the standard language, Urdu has more speakers than, say, Italian, Korean or Polish.
"Infinity Ward probably thought, 'Oh hey its a Muslim country so Arabic is the language,'" says Saad.
While Arabic and Urdu use the same script, the words are completely different. For example, the noun "people" is "al-naas" in Arabic (?????), and "log" or "loug" (???) in Urdu.
"To someone who doesn't know urdu won't be able to tell the difference," Saad explains. "It's like Spanish and English, I guess. Some letters are same, some are different but the words are completely different."
There isn't a single Urdu word on the entire Karachi map and no one writes in Arabic in Pakistan.
http://ads.pheedo.com/img.phdo?p=1 (http://ads.pheedo.com/click.phdo?p=1) http://a.rfihub.com/eus.gif?eui=2226 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/kotaku/full?d=yIl2AUoC8zA</img> (http://feeds.gawker.com/~ff/kotaku/full?a=OItAKRNVaDw:I1tOtJnUFJc:yIl2AUoC8zA) http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/kotaku/full?d=H0mrP-F8Qgo</img> (http://feeds.gawker.com/~ff/kotaku/full?a=OItAKRNVaDw:I1tOtJnUFJc:H0mrP-F8Qgo) http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/kotaku/full?i=OItAKRNVaDw:I1tOtJnUFJc:D7DqB2pKExk</img> (http://feeds.gawker.com/~ff/kotaku/full?a=OItAKRNVaDw:I1tOtJnUFJc:D7DqB2pKExk) http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/kotaku/full?i=OItAKRNVaDw:I1tOtJnUFJc:V_sGLiPBpWU</img> (http://feeds.gawker.com/~ff/kotaku/full?a=OItAKRNVaDw:I1tOtJnUFJc:V_sGLiPBpWU)
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/kotaku/full/~4/OItAKRNVaDw
More... (http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/kotaku/full/~3/OItAKRNVaDw/something-modern-warfare-2-got-wrong-about-pakistan)