Polyglot is an user interface add-on for World of Warcraft. It provides an approximation of characters being able to learn the languages of other races. This document is organized from general to specific; when you feel you have enough information about Polyglot, stop reading.
C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Interface\AddOns\
C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Interface\AddOns\Polyglot
C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Interface\AddOns\Polyglot\LICENSE.txt C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Interface\AddOns\Polyglot\Polyglot.lua C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Interface\AddOns\Polyglot\Polyglot.toc C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Interface\AddOns\Polyglot\README.txt
Normal guild chat: [Guild] [JoeBob]: Hey guys, what's up?
Translated guild chat:
[Guild] {JoeBob}: Xuq guys, qpiz'l ab?
The translations appear in your chat window because they are provided by other players who speak the language in question. When running Polyglot you are not only receiving translations, but you are also providing them when your character understands the language being spoken.
The more people who are running the Polyglot add-on, the more common it will be to recieve translations for things spoken in other languages. So, encourage your friends to download and make use of Polyglot.
The translations provided by other players are actually 100% accurate, it is Polyglot itself that garbles the translation, according to how much of the language your character has had a chance to hear. This is a flavor feature, meant to make the other languages more interesting.
At the moment, "instant total fluency" is not available. If you want this feature, you are welcome to dig around in the Lua code for the add-on and add this for yourself. You may also e-mail the author to ask for it.
The following chat events are checked for language. If your character speaks the language being used in the message, then they will send a translation:
CHAT_MSG_BATTLEGROUND CHAT_MSG_BATTLEGROUND_LEADER CHAT_MSG_GUILD CHAT_MSG_PARTY CHAT_MSG_RAID CHAT_MSG_RAID_LEADER CHAT_MSG_RAID_WARNING
The translation is sent via the SendAddonMessage() function provided by Blizzard, and translations are recieved as CHAT_MSG_ADDON events.
This should shed some light on the limitations given earlier. You do not recieve cross-faction language translations, because cross-faction characters cannot communicate with you directly (this is intentional on Blizzard's part)
The SendAddonMessage() function is limited to sending a message to certain channels; Battleground, Guild, Party, and Raid. Thus Whisper, Say, or Yell messages are not translated, because it's not trivial to determine exactly who heard a say or yell command. Whispers and general chat channels never need translation.
The odd duck out is Guild Officer Chat. Although this could be translated, the author hadn't yet written the routines to determine who in the Guild was an officer and thus who should recieve the translations. Not limiting translations to officers would mean anybody in the guild using Polyglot would be able to see officer chat; quite a surprise for an unsuspecting guild leader and her officers. The author believes that users should not be exposed to surprises. Thus Guild Officer chat is not translated.
As mentioned before, the translation provided from other clients is a pure translation of the original message. Polyglot checks each word to see how many times the character has been exposed to the word (yes, it keeps a count for each and every word!).
It then "rolls the dice" to see if your character remembers the word well enough to provide a direct translation. If the roll came out badly, then the word is garbled. Each exposure (successful or not) adds 10% to the chance that your character will remember the word. Once a word reaches a 100% chance to remember, the word will always be translated directly without garbling it.
Each language has an independent count; so seeing the word "spiders" in Gnomish does not help for seeing the word "spiders" in Darnassian. Even more complicated, the garbling routines are not very intelligent. Thus "spider", "spiders", "Spiders", "SPIDERS", "SPIDERS!", "SPIDERS!!!", "spiders.", and "spiders," are all considered to be different words. There will probably be some enhancement along this line in the future.
The garbling process is pretty simple; a vowel is replaced by a vowel, a consonant is replaced by a consonant. So the word "apple" could be garbled into "ufhpo", "iccqa", or any number of other things. It is possible (although VERY RARE) that a garbling could actually produce a real word, "dog" for example could be garbled into "cat" and vice versa.
Note that slang words, curse words, or offensive words may also be generated by the garbling routines. Fortunately, the garbling is always local to your own computer, so nobody else will see offensive words accidentally created by the garbling routine.
An unmodified version of Polyglot will provide true translations. However, the translations are provided by other players who are also using add-ons. There is no security mechanism in place to prevent against creating false translations. If somebody does create such a translation spoofing add-on, then you are suggested to disable Polyglot until the fad of translation spoofing blows over. (Or, kick spoofers from your party, guild, or raid.)
