Hello! :D

I just joined the site after using it quite frequently over the past few days. As the description says, I would like to get a quote translated from English to Dovahzul. I'm currently looking for the transliteration, as I believe I can figure out the runes myself. (Although I will be back if I'm stuck! :P) Once I see the end result, then I can decide if I want to get it tattooed or not. :)

The quote is: "In this world there's real and make believe, and this seems real to me." It's not mine--it's from the song "Let Me Go" by 3 Doors Down, in case anybody is curious. :P

The best transliteration I've been able to come up with is: "Ko daar lein til vahzah ahrk drun sahvot arhk daar los vahzah wah zu'u". That technically means "In this world there true and make believe and this is true to me".

While that is not precisely accurate, it's the closest I've been able to figure out. There do not seem to be words for "seems" and "real" in Dovahzul. I used "til", which means "there". It's not "there's", but to have "there's" I think I would have to put "los" ("is") after "til", and it seems like "los" is usually left out of sentences. But "los" IS included to emphasize things, so I thought I could use "los" instead of "seems" and keep the point of the quote intact. As far as "real" goes, the best word I could find to replace it with is "vahzah", which means "true", and I thought that was also close enough to also keep the point of the quote intact.

While I'm somewhat satisfied with my translation, I would like to get some opinions from more experienced Dovahzul translators.  I don't know a lot about technicalities of the language and precise word definitions, and so there may be a better or more accurate way to translate this quote. I do know that Dovahzul is written in runes from left to right, and that there are no lowercase or uppercase letters, and that there are no puncuation marks. But as far as anything more technical, I'm basically stumped. And obviously, if I'm going to be getting a quote tattooed, I want to make sure that it's the best I can get it to be!

At this point, Dovahzul is my first choice of fictional language. Other fictional languages I was considering are Klingon or Vulcan from Star Trek, The Ancients alphabet from Stargate, Tengwar or Cirth from The Lord of the Rings, the Deadric alphabet from The Elder Scrolls, Kryptonian from Superman, or the Nyctographic Square alphabet (which is really not a language--just shorthand) by Lewis Carroll. But so far I think Dovahzul looks the coolest and has the coolest story. :)

Well, I think that's everything. I would really appreaciate any help that anyone could give me. Thank you! :D

~ siriuslyyellow :)

Thanks for your question! The dragon language is an interesting choice for this and presents some challenges, but we'll see how close we can get.

Your translation is okay, the only tricky part to be aware of is "make believe". Translating "make" and "believe" separately here won't give you the right translation, so think in terms of "imaginary" or "false".

Now a big part of translating into the dragon language is that a lot of the original wording is going to be lost, so what we want to do is really capture the essence and meaning of the quote as simply as possible. Here's my own try at it:

Ko daar lein los vahzah ahrk sah, ahrk daar vahzen naal dii miin.
In this world are (the) true and (the) phantom/illusory, and this (thing) is truth in/according to my eyes.

As for writing, it should be pretty straightforward. Right to left, no capital letters or puncutation, etc. Here's what the above would look like in runes:

[Ko daar lein los vahzah ahrk sah ahrk daar vahzen naal dii miin]

paarthurnax

Thanks for your question! The dragon language is an interesting choice for this and presents some challenges, but we'll see how close we can get.

Your translation is okay, the only tricky part to be aware of is "make believe". Translating "make" and "believe" separately here won't give you the right translation, so think in terms of "imaginary" or "false".

Now a big part of translating into the dragon language is that a lot of the original wording is going to be lost, so what we want to do is really capture the essence and meaning of the quote as simply as possible. Here's my own try at it:

Ko daar lein los vahzah ahrk sah, ahrk daar vahzen naal dii miin.
In this world are (the) true and (the) phantom/illusory, and this (thing) is truth in/according to my eyes.

As for writing, it should be pretty straightforward. Right to left, no capital letters or puncutation, etc. Here's what the above would look like in runes:

[Ko daar lein los vahzah ahrk sah ahrk daar vahzen naal dii miin]

Thanks for your answer! :D

I had already considered that "make believe" does not directly translate to "imaginary". However, due to the intended meaning in English essentially being "to create a belief", I figured that using "make" and "believe" should be okay. Plus, I kind-of preferred keeping it as a 14 word phrase if possible.

Regardless, I'll definitely consider using it the way you said, as that may very well be a better translation. And I didn't know phantom/illusory was a word in Dovahzul, so that's cool to know! :)

Thanks again paarthurnax, I really appreciate your assistance! :)

Would anyone else like to give it a go? :P

Oh, and I want it to be in just the canon language from The Elder Scrolls. Again, if possible! :)

Thanks! :)