I'm new to Thuum.org, so krosis if I ask something obvious. Has there been any studies or discussions on the etymologies, developments and roots of the Dragon language, on this site or elsewhere?
~Zul
Discussion on etymology?
 Zulfahdon October 10, 2015 |
I'm new to Thuum.org, so krosis if I ask something obvious. Has there been any studies or discussions on the etymologies, developments and roots of the Dragon language, on this site or elsewhere? ~Zul |
by Zulfahdon
October 10, 2015
 Frinmulaar October 10, 2015 |
Drem yol lok, Zulfahdon! According to Elder Scrolls lore, dragons were intelligently created by Akatosh, and their language with them, so the question of etymology is quite hard to answer. (Out of universe, of course, the words are a fictional mix of Germanic and Scandinavian influence.) If the language was created whole before humanoid races existed, why does Bethesda's canon include words like "farm" and "husband"? We think of these as borrowings from the Nords, who were once ruled by dragon cults. There is also a hypothesis, partially supported by lore, that all linguistic aspects of dragons are "retroactively eternal". In practise, every change that occurs in the language (or the name of a dragon) will propagate backwards through the vensetiid, thus making the language ever unchanging in its final state, whatever that may be. In this case, dragontongue could have both influenced the Nordic language and adopted crucial building blocks from it - without ever actually changing. Our version of Dovahzul is not perfect, much less eternal. We have a whole lexicon of outdated words, and some suffixes were long used in a way that has now fallen out of favour. I think of us as seekers of what Bethesda left: the feel and properties worthy of a draconic language. I also think we are getting closer. Finally, sometimes people do think of roots. When researching canon for a final hidden word, or creating new ones through derivation, etymology is a welcome and powerful tool. ~ Frey |
by Frinmulaar
October 10, 2015
Drem yol lok, Zulfahdon!
According to Elder Scrolls lore, dragons were intelligently created by Akatosh, and their language with them, so the question of etymology is quite hard to answer. (Out of universe, of course, the words are a fictional mix of Germanic and Scandinavian influence.)
If the language was created whole before humanoid races existed, why does Bethesda's canon include words like "farm" and "husband"? We think of these as borrowings from the Nords, who were once ruled by dragon cults.
There is also a hypothesis, partially supported by lore, that all linguistic aspects of dragons are "retroactively eternal". In practise, every change that occurs in the language (or the name of a dragon) will propagate backwards through the vensetiid, thus making the language ever unchanging in its final state, whatever that may be. In this case, dragontongue could have both influenced the Nordic language and adopted crucial building blocks from it - without ever actually changing.
Our version of Dovahzul is not perfect, much less eternal. We have a whole lexicon of outdated words, and some suffixes were long used in a way that has now fallen out of favour. I think of us as seekers of what Bethesda left: the feel and properties worthy of a draconic language. I also think we are getting closer.
Finally, sometimes people do think of roots. When researching canon for a final hidden word, or creating new ones through derivation, etymology is a welcome and powerful tool.
~ Frey
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Zulfahdon October 10, 2015 |
Freymulaar, nox (yes, I'm still looking these things up) for a thorough and interesting reply. I'm glad I'm not the only one to spend far too much time pondering these things. The idea of the language changing retroactively is certainly interesting -- it would then in a way work similarly to the Elder Scrolls themselves, no? This does not necessarily contradict the idea of etymological development, however. Whether the "retroactively eternal" theory is accurate or not, the end result is still the same: the language would appear to have evolved. Whatever the cause may be, it seems clear to me that many words imply what we would describe as an etymological relationship. Examples include the words brom 'north' and bron 'nord', su'um and thu'um, aam 'serve' and aar 'servant'. Could -m and -r be verbal and agentive suffixes from a preceding stage of development? Such knowledge might be useful when we want to expand the language. One might even be tempted to see a connection between such different words as do 'devour', dov 'dragonkind' and diiv 'wyrm'. But far-reaching theories such as this would of course need to be backed by further evidence to gain credibility. (And yes, I am quite aware that the language is inspired by various Germanic languages from an external point of view. That is also an interesting topic of study, though a separate one.) Lok, thu'um! ~Zul |
by Zulfahdon
October 10, 2015
Freymulaar, nox (yes, I'm still looking these things up) for a thorough and interesting reply. I'm glad I'm not the only one to spend far too much time pondering these things. The idea of the language changing retroactively is certainly interesting -- it would then in a way work similarly to the Elder Scrolls themselves, no? This does not necessarily contradict the idea of etymological development, however. Whether the "retroactively eternal" theory is accurate or not, the end result is still the same: the language would appear to have evolved.
Whatever the cause may be, it seems clear to me that many words imply what we would describe as an etymological relationship. Examples include the words brom 'north' and bron 'nord', su'um and thu'um, aam 'serve' and aar 'servant'. Could -m and -r be verbal and agentive suffixes from a preceding stage of development? Such knowledge might be useful when we want to expand the language. One might even be tempted to see a connection between such different words as do 'devour', dov 'dragonkind' and diiv 'wyrm'. But far-reaching theories such as this would of course need to be backed by further evidence to gain credibility.
(And yes, I am quite aware that the language is inspired by various Germanic languages from an external point of view. That is also an interesting topic of study, though a separate one.)
Lok, thu'um!
~Zul
 Orkar Isber October 10, 2015 |
I am no real lore expert on TES but from the things i know id say the following:
Dovahzul is likely the language of the divines - reason 1 is that dragons are in fact lesser Aedra, no demigods but to some extend real gods - just like the aedra in theory mortal yet eternal. Reason 2 would be that all dragons stem from Akatosh the highest divine and leader of the pantheon who himself is a dragon and created the dovah in his image - thus its likely he did not create dovahzul for the dragons but already used it to communicate before and thus likely communicating with other Aedra in the same language.
Reason 3 is that dovahzul is a magical language and at least Kyne and Akatosh know how to use Thuum so 2 divines speak it with evidence. Thuum are a power of creation likely the most powerfull concept in existance, arguably more powerfull than CHIM - while CHIM can THEORETICALLY achieve literally anything you want, in practise you can not use CHIM for everything cause that would wake Anu and thus end his dream, thus end all of the TES verse which means that CHIM can actually achieve very little. Just like a nuclear bomb is more powerfull than a pistol but for almost all scenarios you would prefer the pistol. its just not practical to nuke an entire city yourself included cause someone tries to rob you. Anyway Thuum are very potent and powerfull and have in theory no limits shown by Miraak creating 4 word shouts - and new shouts can be created which basicly makes Thuum as unlimited as magic. Since they also dont use up Mana they are more practical.
Having said that i speculate that Thuum actually had a big impact in creating the universe as its said the Aedra gave their life force to create and Thuum according to Kyne base on your own life force which makes it different from magic that relies on the star energy that you can draw from aetherius (Mana) In any way it would mean that Dovahzul has its origins with the Aedra and looking at its powers it seems to be a powerfull and eternal language which is fitting for gods. But it would also mean that every new word created in dovahzul will indeed be as it has ever existed as it is a language of creation. bad comparisson if you change an item file in a TES game to say give it more magical attributes you change the item but when you load the game it will be as if had always been that way. Ah time is fcked up ^^
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by Orkar Isber
October 10, 2015
I am no real lore expert on TES but from the things i know id say the following:
Dovahzul is likely the language of the divines - reason 1 is that dragons are in fact lesser Aedra, no demigods but to some extend real gods - just like the aedra in theory mortal yet eternal.
Reason 2 would be that all dragons stem from Akatosh the highest divine and leader of the pantheon who himself is a dragon and created the dovah in his image - thus its likely he did not create dovahzul for the dragons but already used it to communicate before and thus likely communicating with other Aedra in the same language.
Reason 3 is that dovahzul is a magical language and at least Kyne and Akatosh know how to use Thuum so 2 divines speak it with evidence. Thuum are a power of creation likely the most powerfull concept in existance, arguably more powerfull than CHIM - while CHIM can THEORETICALLY achieve literally anything you want, in practise you can not use CHIM for everything cause that would wake Anu and thus end his dream, thus end all of the TES verse which means that CHIM can actually achieve very little. Just like a nuclear bomb is more powerfull than a pistol but for almost all scenarios you would prefer the pistol. its just not practical to nuke an entire city yourself included cause someone tries to rob you.
Anyway Thuum are very potent and powerfull and have in theory no limits shown by Miraak creating 4 word shouts - and new shouts can be created which basicly makes Thuum as unlimited as magic. Since they also dont use up Mana they are more practical.
Having said that i speculate that Thuum actually had a big impact in creating the universe as its said the Aedra gave their life force to create and Thuum according to Kyne base on your own life force which makes it different from magic that relies on the star energy that you can draw from aetherius (Mana)
In any way it would mean that Dovahzul has its origins with the Aedra and looking at its powers it seems to be a powerfull and eternal language which is fitting for gods.
But it would also mean that every new word created in dovahzul will indeed be as it has ever existed as it is a language of creation. bad comparisson if you change an item file in a TES game to say give it more magical attributes you change the item but when you load the game it will be as if had always been that way. Ah time is fcked up ^^
 paarthurnax Administrator October 10, 2015 |
@Zulfahdon, if you check the dictionary entries, you'll see many note regarding etymology. Some words we know are definitely related and we know the morphemes that form them. Other cases are loose to interpretation and more hypothetical. |
by paarthurnax
October 10, 2015
@Zulfahdon, if you check the dictionary entries, you'll see many note regarding etymology. Some words we know are definitely related and we know the morphemes that form them. Other cases are loose to interpretation and more hypothetical.
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Zulfahdon October 11, 2015 |
paarthurnax @paarthurnax, yes, I've noticed these notes in some cases. It would be interesting to see a more in-depth study of the derivational rules suggested by these notes. For fun I took a stab at a brief etymological investigation and came up with this: NI root ’not’. Derivatives:
What do you think? Again, krosis if I repeat things already discussed. ~Zul |
by Zulfahdon
October 11, 2015
paarthurnax
@Zulfahdon, if you check the dictionary entries, you'll see many note regarding etymology. Some words we know are definitely related and we know the morphemes that form them. Other cases are loose to interpretation and more hypothetical.
@paarthurnax, yes, I've noticed these notes in some cases. It would be interesting to see a more in-depth study of the derivational rules suggested by these notes.
For fun I took a stab at a brief etymological investigation and came up with this:
NI root ’not’.
Derivatives:
Ni (adverb) Not; Nid / Niid (adverb) No / None / Nothing; Nil (noun) Void; Nis (verb) Cannot; Neh (adverb) Never;
Nikriin (noun) Coward (*'not-slay'); Nivahriin (adjective) Cowardly (?'not-va-kill')
- neh suggests the occurrence of vowel-shifts in some derivations. Are there other examples of i > e? Another likely vowel shift occurs in diiv 'wyrm', apparently related to dovah 'dragon'.
- *ni-va-kriin > *nivahriin suggests a phonological rule akr > ahr. This might imply a further relationship between words containing hr and kr, e.g. kras 'sick' and ahraan 'injury'.
What do you think? Again, krosis if I repeat things already discussed.
~Zul
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paarthurnax Administrator October 11, 2015 |
"Nivahriin" most likely comes from "Vahriin," literally meaning something close to "unsworn," describing someone who has abandoned an oath or duty. |
by paarthurnax
October 11, 2015
"Nivahriin" most likely comes from "Vahriin," literally meaning something close to "unsworn," describing someone who has abandoned an oath or duty.
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Zulfahdon October 11, 2015 |
paarthurnax Yes, that was my original thought as well. However, the more I thought about it, the less likely it seemed – and my doubt was strenghtened when looking in the dictionary, where nivahriin is followed by the note "See root word Nikriin". If nivahriin is indeed from ni-vahriin, then nikriin is not its root word and the two are in fact unrelated. Unless ... vahriin is in turn a compound va-kriin. The prefix va- might be related to vaat 'swear', and might then also occur in vahlok 'guardian' and vahzah 'true'. Giving this some more consideration, does it not seem likely that nikriin 'coward' is rather derived from krin 'courageous'? Also, nivahriin 'cowardly' might be related to ahkrin 'courage' with a prefix niv- (perhaps with the same meaning 'not' but used before vowels?). |
by Zulfahdon
October 11, 2015
paarthurnax
"Nivahriin" most likely comes from "Vahriin," literally meaning something close to "unsworn," describing someone who has abandoned an oath or duty.
Yes, that was my original thought as well. However, the more I thought about it, the less likely it seemed – and my doubt was strenghtened when looking in the dictionary, where nivahriin is followed by the note "See root word Nikriin". If nivahriin is indeed from ni-vahriin, then nikriin is not its root word and the two are in fact unrelated.
Unless ... vahriin is in turn a compound va-kriin. The prefix va- might be related to vaat 'swear', and might then also occur in vahlok 'guardian' and vahzah 'true'.
Giving this some more consideration, does it not seem likely that nikriin 'coward' is rather derived from krin 'courageous'? Also, nivahriin 'cowardly' might be related to ahkrin 'courage' with a prefix niv- (perhaps with the same meaning 'not' but used before vowels?).
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Zulfahdon October 11, 2015 |
Having considered vahriin 'sworn', I would like to postulate another root: KRI, roughly 'stand firm/unyielding' Derivatives: |
by Zulfahdon
October 11, 2015
Having considered vahriin 'sworn', I would like to postulate another root:
KRI, roughly 'stand firm/unyielding'
Derivatives:
Kriist (verb) Stand;
Kril (adjective) Brave, Bravely; Krilot (adjective) Valiant;
Krif (verb) Fight;
Vahriin (adjective) Sworn;
Krin (adjective) Courageous; Ahkrin (noun) Courage;
>> Nikriin (noun) Coward {*'not-courageous'}; Nivahriin (adjective) Cowardly {*'not-courage'} (with ni-v-ahriin to avoid vowel sequence ia which does not occur in the language);
derived root KRII ’kill’;
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paarthurnax Administrator October 11, 2015 |
@Zulfahdon, they are paired together for ease of finding ("coward" and "cowardly"). "Root word" is inaccurate. Sorry for the misconception there. Occam's razor, vahriin is the most likely root of nivahriin. You are right that krin is most likely the root of nikrin, meaning "not-courageous." |
by paarthurnax
October 11, 2015
@Zulfahdon, they are paired together for ease of finding ("coward" and "cowardly"). "Root word" is inaccurate. Sorry for the misconception there.
Occam's razor, vahriin is the most likely root of nivahriin.
You are right that krin is most likely the root of nikrin, meaning "not-courageous."
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Frinmulaar October 11, 2015 |
Zul, please continue looking for patterns. I'm eager to see what you turn up with! My stance on root-based derivation has so far been "take a word and kick some letters askew - boom, new word". If there are generalizable principles in there, I've been seriously selling Bethesda short. Although I suspect their method was haphazard to say the least. |
by Frinmulaar
October 11, 2015
Zul, please continue looking for patterns. I'm eager to see what you turn up with!
My stance on root-based derivation has so far been "take a word and kick some letters askew - boom, new word". If there are generalizable principles in there, I've been seriously selling Bethesda short. Although I suspect their method was haphazard to say the least.
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Zulfahdon October 12, 2015 |
@paarthurnax, I agree that judging by phonology alone, Occam's razor strongly suggests that nivahriin is derived from vahriin 'sworn' by addition of a prefix and a semantic shift. However, one could also argue that according to Occam's razor nivahriin must derive from ahkrin 'courage' by addition of a prefix and a sound change. In either case the number of assumptions stay the same. @Freymulaar, I'm glad you enjoy it! I do have a few more ideas in stock, and more occur to me as I go along. I really don't think Bethesda put this much thought into constructing the language, but one never knows -- and we might discover patterns that they never even considered consciously! ~Zul |
by Zulfahdon
October 12, 2015
@paarthurnax, I agree that judging by phonology alone, Occam's razor strongly suggests that nivahriin is derived from vahriin 'sworn' by addition of a prefix and a semantic shift. However, one could also argue that according to Occam's razor nivahriin must derive from ahkrin 'courage' by addition of a prefix and a sound change. In either case the number of assumptions stay the same.
@Freymulaar, I'm glad you enjoy it! I do have a few more ideas in stock, and more occur to me as I go along. I really don't think Bethesda put this much thought into constructing the language, but one never knows -- and we might discover patterns that they never even considered consciously!
~Zul
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Zulfahdon October 12, 2015 |
Based on the above speculations, we may note a number of derivational patterns: Verbs:
Adjective:
Noun:
Adverbs:
Now the interesting question becomes: do these derivational patterns occur in other words as well? The verbal ending -s might also occur in los 'is', and vowel doubling + -st is seen in loost 'hath'. In this case we cannot say whether the root is LO or if it actually is LOS, however. If LOS, the -s would not be part of the derivation. The adjective ending -l apparently occurs in vul 'dawn', from the root VU 'dark', and diil 'undead', which also exhibits vowel doubling, from DI 'dead'. The vowel doubling might imply that diil can also mean 'undead one'; cf nikriin. It might also occur in a few other words such as fel 'feral', frul 'ephemeral'. The ending -lot only occurs as an adjective ending in krilot 'valiant', but might actually be the word lot 'great'. The noun ending -l might occur in jul 'mankind' if we assume a root JU 'human, mortal' (yielding words such as joor 'mortal', jud 'queen', jun 'king'. To the dragons the kings and queens are no doubt among the most noteworthy mortals. Shifts between O and U seem to occur in other roots). The prefix ah- seen in ahkrin 'courage' could possibly also be attested in ahmul 'husband' < mul 'strong'. This is rather speculative, though. Vowel doubling for noun formation, as in nikriin 'coward', seems to occur in brii 'beauty' which, judging by the adjective brit 'beautiful', derives from a root BRI. If brii means 'beauty' in the sense "beautiful person", the formation is similar to that of nikriin 'coward', "not-brave person". Adverbs are in many languages a disparate and elusive group of words. I have not been able to find any more adverbs exhibiting the derivational patterns described above. |
by Zulfahdon
October 12, 2015
Based on the above speculations, we may note a number of derivational patterns:
Verbs:
- -s – nis 'cannot'
- vowel doubling + -st – kriist 'stand'
Adjective:
- -l – kril 'brave'
- -lot – krilot 'valiant'
- (vowel doubling + ) -n – krin 'courageous' / vahriin 'sworn'
Noun:
- -l – nil 'void'
- ah- – noun from adjective – ahkrin 'courage' (from krin 'brave')
- vowel doubling – (agentive?) noun from adjective – nikriin 'coward' (from either *nikrin 'not brave' or *kriin 'brave one')
Adverbs:
- (vowel doubling + ) -d – nid/niid 'none'
- vowel shift + -h – neh 'never'
Now the interesting question becomes: do these derivational patterns occur in other words as well?
The verbal ending -s might also occur in los 'is', and vowel doubling + -st is seen in loost 'hath'. In this case we cannot say whether the root is LO or if it actually is LOS, however. If LOS, the -s would not be part of the derivation.
The adjective ending -l apparently occurs in vul 'dawn', from the root VU 'dark', and diil 'undead', which also exhibits vowel doubling, from DI 'dead'. The vowel doubling might imply that diil can also mean 'undead one'; cf nikriin. It might also occur in a few other words such as fel 'feral', frul 'ephemeral'. The ending -lot only occurs as an adjective ending in krilot 'valiant', but might actually be the word lot 'great'.
The noun ending -l might occur in jul 'mankind' if we assume a root JU 'human, mortal' (yielding words such as joor 'mortal', jud 'queen', jun 'king'. To the dragons the kings and queens are no doubt among the most noteworthy mortals. Shifts between O and U seem to occur in other roots).
The prefix ah- seen in ahkrin 'courage' could possibly also be attested in ahmul 'husband' < mul 'strong'. This is rather speculative, though.
Vowel doubling for noun formation, as in nikriin 'coward', seems to occur in brii 'beauty' which, judging by the adjective brit 'beautiful', derives from a root BRI. If brii means 'beauty' in the sense "beautiful person", the formation is similar to that of nikriin 'coward', "not-brave person".
Adverbs are in many languages a disparate and elusive group of words. I have not been able to find any more adverbs exhibiting the derivational patterns described above.
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paarthurnax Administrator October 12, 2015 |
You may be interested in reading a piece I wrote on stress and pronunciation. Double vowels occur most often in stressed syllables except where suffixes are involved. http://thuum.org/viewnews.php?thread=154 Re: "Nivahriin", a root of "Vahriin" requires only one assumption, that it is "Vahriin" with the prefix "Ni-". A root of "Ahkriin" requires really three assumptions - that it is "Ahkriin" with the prefix "Ni-", that some mutation occurs adding both a "v" sound and removing the "k" sound (something very atypical for the language, where word formation is usually direct), and that all of this is because "Nikriin" and "Nivahriin" must be somehow related. I think it's clear they both make use of the prefix "Ni-" but with different root words. |
by paarthurnax
October 12, 2015
You may be interested in reading a piece I wrote on stress and pronunciation. Double vowels occur most often in stressed syllables except where suffixes are involved.
http://thuum.org/viewnews.php?thread=154
Re: "Nivahriin", a root of "Vahriin" requires only one assumption, that it is "Vahriin" with the prefix "Ni-". A root of "Ahkriin" requires really three assumptions - that it is "Ahkriin" with the prefix "Ni-", that some mutation occurs adding both a "v" sound and removing the "k" sound (something very atypical for the language, where word formation is usually direct), and that all of this is because "Nikriin" and "Nivahriin" must be somehow related. I think it's clear they both make use of the prefix "Ni-" but with different root words.
http://thuum.org/viewnews.php?thread=154
Re: "Nivahriin", a root of "Vahriin" requires only one assumption, that it is "Vahriin" with the prefix "Ni-". A root of "Ahkriin" requires really three assumptions - that it is "Ahkriin" with the prefix "Ni-", that some mutation occurs adding both a "v" sound and removing the "k" sound (something very atypical for the language, where word formation is usually direct), and that all of this is because "Nikriin" and "Nivahriin" must be somehow related. I think it's clear they both make use of the prefix "Ni-" but with different root words.
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Zulfahdon October 12, 2015 |
Thanks, paarthurnax, I'll be sure to read that piece on stress! I do not think that nikriin and nivahriin must be related. At this time I'm just tossing about ideas and theories. To elaborate my point about ni-vahriin and niv-ahkriin being equally likely:
Both theories have their strengths and weaknesses, of course. My main objection to the first theory is this: do we have any reason to expect the sense 'not-sworn' to shift to 'cowardly'? This seems rather arbitrary. The major objection to the second theory is the sound shift involved. paarthurnax notes that "word formation is usually direct" in Dovahzul. Do we know that, though? Isn't it rather that the direct derivations are the obvious ones, and the ones we are able to detect without much investigation? Anyway, I will not endeavour to defend this theory on the origin of nivahriin further. Given the scant evidence in support of either theory I don't feel committed to any of them. ~Zul |
by Zulfahdon
October 12, 2015
Thanks, paarthurnax, I'll be sure to read that piece on stress!
I do not think that nikriin and nivahriin must be related. At this time I'm just tossing about ideas and theories. To elaborate my point about ni-vahriin and niv-ahkriin being equally likely:
- ni-vahriin 'not-sworn' > semantic shift > nivahriin 'cowardly'
- niv-ahkrin 'not-courage' > phonemic shift > nivahriin 'cowardly'
Both theories have their strengths and weaknesses, of course. My main objection to the first theory is this: do we have any reason to expect the sense 'not-sworn' to shift to 'cowardly'? This seems rather arbitrary.
The major objection to the second theory is the sound shift involved. paarthurnax notes that "word formation is usually direct" in Dovahzul. Do we know that, though? Isn't it rather that the direct derivations are the obvious ones, and the ones we are able to detect without much investigation?
Anyway, I will not endeavour to defend this theory on the origin of nivahriin further. Given the scant evidence in support of either theory I don't feel committed to any of them.
~Zul
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