@LordMapoon said:

Let's take an example, the movie "Bones and All" by Luca Guadagnino, a movie shot exclusively in english, with a script wrote in english by an american sreenwriter, with american actors and with a mostly american crew has "italian" as his original language.

For your example, all the explanations are in this previous report.

As a viewer, if I'm looking for the "original language" of a movie it is to see the original version, the vision of the director, opposed by the dubbed version. Wikipedia (and I know it's not the best source but it's the only one I found) define the original language as "the language in which a film or a performance work was originally created" wich seems, for the case of our exemple, in english, not in italian.

To get this information, you need to look at the "Spoken languages" field.

The way I see it, the reason for the confusion is that the data field is named Original Movie/TV Show Language, but it has no real connection with the language of the movie/TV show itself. They may be the same, or may not be the same. This field only defines the "original language" parameter within the scope of TMDb rules. So whenever you read a rule in the Contribution bible and see a reference to "original language", this is a field you should refer to. Otherwise, it seems that this field is completely useless to the end user.

I could be wrong of course, but that's how I decrypt the rather vague and cryptic description from the bible https://www.themoviedb.org/bible/movie#59f3b1749251414f2000000b

To get this information, you need to look at the "Spoken languages" field.

As I said, many movies have more than one language marked under this field and it does not help very much. And I have seen the post about "Bones and All" but didn't find the answer very clear. One of the admin said it indicates where a film is from ? So it's redundant with the "Country" field ? The Bible (thx for the link @shotfirer , a very good read) talk about a "original version of a film" and of a ""default translation". In the information given in "Bones and All" the italian version is presented as the original one, even if when the movie was released in Italy it was after a prossess of translation and adptation of the original english movie. Do you see the paradox ? isn't the original version of the film in english ? I'm still confused.

@LordMapoon said:

To get this information, you need to look at the "Spoken languages" field.

As I said, many movies have more than one language marked under this field and it does not help very much.

When there are multiple languages in the field, that means that multiple languages were spoken in the original version of the film.

One of the admin said it indicates where a film is from ?

More exactly from where are the companies that produced the film.

So it's redundant with the "Country" field ?

No, the "country of origin" indicate in which of the production countries the movie was first released.

The Bible (thx for the link @shotfirer , a very good read) talk about a "original version of a film" and of a ""default translation". In the information given in "Bones and All" the italian version is presented as the original one, even if when the movie was released in Italy it was after a prossess of translation and adptation of the original english movie. Do you see the paradox ? isn't the original version of the film in english ? I'm still confused.

You are again mixing origin movie language and spoken languages. The spoken language of the original version is English, but the producing companies are Italian.

The original language should be the language(s) spoken in the film before any dubbing. The country (-ies) of origin should be the home-base nation(s) of the companies which made the film, regardless of either the spoken language in the film or the nation in which the film was shot. Where the film was first released should have nothing to do with either of these.

@Rich Wannen said:

The original language should be the language(s) spoken in the film before any dubbing. The country (-ies) of origin should be the home-base nation(s) of the companies which made the film, regardless of either the spoken language in the film or the nation in which the film was shot. Where the film was first released should have nothing to do with either of these.

No.

• the language(s) spoken in the movie before any dubbing should be in the spoken languages field.
• the home-base nation(s) of the companies which made the film should be set in the Production countries field.
• the original language field should contain the main language spoken by the production companies.
• the origin country should contain the production country where the movie is first released.

I invite you to read our rules.

@superboy97 said:

@Rich Wannen said:

The original language should be the language(s) spoken in the film before any dubbing. The country (-ies) of origin should be the home-base nation(s) of the companies which made the film, regardless of either the spoken language in the film or the nation in which the film was shot. Where the film was first released should have nothing to do with either of these.

No.

• the language(s) spoken in the movie before any dubbing should be in the spoken languages field.
• the home-base nation(s) of the companies which made the film should be set in the Production countries field.
• the original language field should contain the main language spoken by the production companies.
• the origin country should contain the production country where the movie is first released.

I invite you to read our rules.

May be "your" rules, but they make no sense. No database of anything would claim a country where a product first appears as a "country of origin" for the product itself; and no one gives a dam what language a filmmaker speaks. "Language" is always understood to mean the film's (actors') original dialogue. Someone needs to revisit these "rules"; if followed, they invite a mess...

I have the same complaints about the “Original language” field. I can’t imagine anyone using it to find information specifically about the language of the country of the film’s production companies, so what exists now is likely completely misleading for users of TMDB.

The examples given by the mods here describe cases that are not listed in the Contribution Bible, so I am not even sure if they are applying those guidelines correctly. It seems like the “correct use” of the Original Language field that is being enforced is based on a standard that isn’t really defined anywhere.

The purpose of Original Language as written in the Bible is: “The purpose of this field is to try and pair a language with the "original version of the film".” A few examples are given, but none of them mention anything about “the language spoken by the production company” or anything similar.

Additionally, other services that use TMDB data are almost certainly all using “Original Language” as the language of the film. One example of this is Letterboxd, which incorrectly has Bones and All listed as an Italian language film because of this. Maybe they should be using “Spoken Languages” instead, but you invite these problems when the field is named “Original Language” and any reasonable interpretation of this data would be that it is the original language of the film, not of the production companies who created the film.

Whatever the purpose of this field actually should be, the Contribution Bible needs to be updated to reflect that and fleshed out with more relevant examples. If it is really intended to be the language of the production companies it’s worth renaming the field to something like “Production Language” to reduce ambiguity as well, otherwise this is going to come up again and again for the films that are affected.

If “Original Language” isn’t meant for dialogue in the film it is also worth adding another field for “Primary Spoken language” because when using the existing “Spoken Languages” field it is not clear to what extent each language is spoken if there are multiple listed. The listed languages could be spoken for 1 line or for the whole film, it is impossible to know.

So it seems to really get an accurate picture of the main spoken language for a film it would require the introduction of a new field (Primary Spoken Language) and the renaming of an existing one (Original Language to Production Language). Or we could just use the existing “Original Language” field how everyone (besides a few mods) expects it to work, as the original main language spoken by the actors in the film.

@superboy97 said:

• the original language field should contain the main language spoken by the production companies.

this makes 0 sense. how do you even know what language a PRODUCCION COMPANY speaks, hm? ever worked in one? newsflash: they speak multiple languages. they usually have different departments all over the place. have you evern even READ the credit rolls for a movie?

exec producer: polish guy, music: germans, FX: chinese, editing: USA, marketing: french

tell me again how the above example would make you think the "main language spoken by the production companies" is russian.

if that's a written rule, that rule needs to be amended and all movies properly edited!

The original language should be the language(s) spoken in the film before any dubbing

^ exactly that. what's the original language the movie was first released before subbing? THAT is what counts, THAT is what users come here to find out. not what language the camera man used to ask the taco guy for a soda!

@zandadoum said:

^ exactly that. what's the original language the movie was first released before subbing? THAT is what counts, THAT is what users come here to find out.

As indicated above, this information is available in the spoken language field.

@superboy97 said:

As indicated above, this information is available in the spoken language field.

Simply pointing to “Spoken Languages” to provide this information isn’t sufficient, as in the case of multiple Spoken Language entries it gives no indication on how much of each language is spoken in the film.

If Original Language is indeed supposed to be used in the bizarre way that keeps causing this kind of report/thread to be made (“main language of the production companies of the film”) then the Contribution Bible needs to be updated with all of this information about Original Language, with relevant examples.

As it is exists right now nothing that has been provided by mods is supported by the Contribution Bible, it just seems like the opinion of some individuals (mods) as opposed to the official contribution policy of TMDB.

And as I mentioned before, other services that use TMDB data are likely not digging around in reports/threads to find the “true purpose” of Original Language, they are maybe checking the Contribution Bible and are coming to the same conclusion about using Original Language that everyone (outside of TMDB mods apparently) would expect: “Original Language” is the original main spoken language of dialog in the film.

@superboy97 said:

@zandadoum said:

^ exactly that. what's the original language the movie was first released before subbing? THAT is what counts, THAT is what users come here to find out.

As indicated above, this information is available in the spoken language field.

That field is utterly useless.

I want to buy a movie online. I watch all my movies in their original language. EVERY SINGLE OTHER WEBSITE ON THE INTERNET knows exactly what I mean by that. Why don’t you?

When I am on Amazon listing dvd or blue rays, they don’t care or mention what language “the production company” speaks. They understand that mean the language the MOVIE WAS FILMED IN.

So I come here, to find out what the original language is, to buy the proper version and now I have to deal with this BS?

You know I’ll and everyone is gonna do? Look up the info on a different web.

Be better. Admit your rules are bad and need fixing.

Spoken language field is useless, it lists multiple languages, I still don’t know which the original language is.

Original language field is useless, it lists some arbitrary and WRONG information.

Fix this please!

I would challenge the mods to describe any use case where “main language spoken by the production companies” would be useful information. I can’t think of a single reason why anyone would care about this when looking at the information for a film.

The way they are saying to use Original Language is useless at best and almost certain completely misleading for the vast majority of users.

I agree with the other users.

"Original Language" is a totally useless and redundant field as it:

1) doesn't convey information that isn't already covered by other fields

2) doesn't provide information that is at all useful to users

3) Is unclear, confusing, far too open to interpretation, and cannot be backed up by citations

As described in the Contribution Bible, Original Language is the language of the "original version of the film" which has been interpreted by mods to mean the "main language spoken by the production companies", as described by superboy97 in this thread. If it is the language of the production companies, how is this field not redundant if we already have fields for "Origin Countries" and "Production Countries" convey this information? If the Origin Country is Poland, I don't think its really useful to have a field to tell us the language of the producers is Polish (if we even know that to be true, as I'll get to). Not to mention, as others have stated above, why as a database would users even care what languages the producers speak, especially if the language actually spoken in the film is something else. The language of the producers is extraneous information.

Additionally, this Original Language field becomes confusing in the case of a co-production, like the example of Bones and All in this thread, wherein there are multiple production countries. Bones and All lists the United States and Italy as Production Countries. Presumably both English and Italian are languages spoken by the producers of the film, how do you know which language is the Original Language? The mods in the discussion thread for reporting issues related to the Original Language in Bones and All cites that 6 out of 7 of the production companies are Italian, however five of those Italian production companies are "in association with" producers, whereas the 2 main producers are an Italian (Frenesy Film) and American (Per Capita Productions) production company. Should more weight not be with those primary production companies? And if the field is to reflect the languages of the production companies, why is the field restricted to just one language (Italian)? Should it not allow for multiple entries in the field, like you can for Production Countries (Italy and the United States)?

This lead me to my final point, how are we to even know what the languages spoken by these producers are, other than pure speculation? You can easily qualify every other field in an entry. I can know what Spoken Language is because I can hear it in the film. I can know what the Production Companies and Production Countries are because I can see it in the credits or in the film's press material, likewise with the cast, crew , budget, runtime, titles and so on. I can back up all of these fields for a film with clear citations. But with Original Language, as described in the Contribution Bible and as interpreted by the mods, knowing what the language used throughout the production is impossible without speculation and inference.

For these reasons, I think the field should either be:

1) removed entirely (my preference because I don't see it as a meaningful)

or

2) have its name changed to something that better reflect what it means (eg. "Production Languages") and allow for more than one language to be added in the field.

I agree to the people complaining about that field. As of now it storages completely irrelevant data but it's name actually indicates to contain important data to the movie/show. This leads to wrong edits and confusion. I second the idea to rename it as "Production language" as suggested by @siiriainen and to move it to 'active_nav_item=production_information'. A permanent deletion would be fine too tbh since the information given by that field is far from important or even relevant. Then a new filed named "main language" or "primary language" could be created just where "original language" is placed now with the information about the main language of the movie/tv show, since I agree with @zandadoum this being an important and relevant information.