People like to generalise that the natives are based on Celtic people and the odd accents just reflect it.

Actually, it’s weirder than any of that.

Studying all matters Celtic is my life, this accent is strangely un-Celtic.

People have already commented on the lilting, the Latin touches and all that, which is related to Celtic (via the Italo-Celtic group connection), but what really stands out is the strange, funky, honestly kind of derpy sudden oscillations in pitch with the accent.

It’s a New-Zealand, South-African crossbreed accent imitating Italo-Celtic, sort of Greek. Even kinda Slavic.

I reckon they did it to make the natives take on Maori connotations (there is much of such imagery in the game), but my bigger theory is this;

This is the game developers trying to get an idea of what European accents would sound like if you made the people tribal/what other would call ‘savage’.

In other words, they wanted the illusion of familiar, foreign people related to us modern western people to seem AS natives.

There are lore implications if you consider the St Matheus parts of the island’s history, and it’s obvious they were going for this by choosing accents in English from parts of the world where old Europeans have settled and re-developer new, weirder accents separating them from the original continents (South Africa, New Zealand being settled by Westerners long ago now).

I theorise some of the tribes actually have different specific accents (Siora’s tribe is more Italian-y, the Native Merchant guy’s circle of bones tribe people sound more Maori), but I can’t be sure yet.

Need to play more, but we’ll see if the dodgy gameplay doesn’t prevent me from finishing this flawed, flawed masterpiece of a game.