I find myself wondering how many people are well versed enough in Dovahzul to be truly fluent. Assuming that's currently possible, I also wonder what kind of effect it may have on one's perception and thought as related to linguistic relativity.

I may be able to help answer this! I consider myself pretty well-versed in the language, and will occassionally find myself thinking in it. I think one of the breakthroughs in learning that I hope everyone gets to experience is when you stop thinking about what you're trying to say in English (or whichever language) and really let the Dovahzul take shape on its own. At some point "Pruzah" stops being "good", and "Pruzah" just becomes "Pruzah".

Perhaps a reassuring thought to new learners is that, even with some 3,000+ words in the dictionary, I think basic fluency is achievable knowing a core 300-500 words, maybe less than that. Dovahzul is a blunt and straightforward language. You can say a lot with a little. You use fewer words, but those words carry more weight than they would in English. The word tinvaak is my favorite example. In English you might say, "Nice talking with you!" In Dovahzul that would be rendered as a simple "Pruzah tinvaak!" Translated literally you begin to sound like a caveman, but in the context of the language itself it's filled with its own meaning and sense.

How this affects linguistic relativity is something I can't shed too much light on, but I'll try. Word choice becomes more important, but hopefully not more difficult. The right word should come to mind intuitively. Thinking in Dovahzul for me doesn't look like an elaborate conversation; it's usually just a word or two that happen to resonate with whatever's on my mind: rinik pruzah, lot, tol los pruzah, tinvaak, krosis. There's no complex vocab coming into play here, just thoughts conveyed through a few simple words.

paarthurnax

 

I'm not sure how familiar you are with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, but I've been interested in it for some time now. It brings up the notion that one's language can in part determine or effect the way in which someone not only thinks but physically percieves reality. An example I can think of is there was a bridge built a few years ago in Europe and two newspapers each did an article on it. One paper was French the other was German. Interestingly, the word for bridge in French has masculine overtones to it while the German one has a feminine one and it was clearly reflected in the writing. The French talked about how large, powerful, and imposing the bridge looked while the Germans focused on the elegance, artistry, etc. So I wonder, with learning a constructed language like Dovahzul, have you noticed a difference in the way you think, feel, or react to the world around you?

There is definitely something to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis; after all when you think, you think in your language. Gendered nouns are a great example.

A few months of Dovahzul aren't going to undo years and years of English thinking. That said, at least for me, Dovahzul creates a new sense of patience. You really stop to think about things. If there ever were a "native" speaker, perhaps fittingly to the Dovah, I think their perception of time would be vastly different. Since present and past tense are grammatically the same, I'm not sure they would think about tense or the passage of time like we would.

Just want to say these are great questions, and the language really develops more in the asking!

The language has only 3834 words so far. That's much less than English, but I think full communication depends largely on the era in which it's used. I seems to work well in skyrim, but probably not in modern society. We have dovahzul words for a lot of things that would be relevant in the fictional world of skyrim, but have no words for stuff like television, cellphone, or xbox. Basically, I think dovahzul could be used for conversation, but not very effectively in modern times.

Toxikyle

The language has only 3834 words so far. That's much less than English, but I think full communication depends largely on the era in which it's used. I seems to work well in skyrim, but probably not in modern society. We have dovahzul words for a lot of things that would be relevant in the fictional world of skyrim, but have no words for stuff like television, cellphone, or xbox. Basically, I think dovahzul could be used for conversation, but not very effectively in modern times.

That's  a good point, but remember, not everything needs a literal translation.  We can work with what we have.  For instance, television could be 'hez pok', meaning "bright box", or 'kred pok' for xbox, meaining "game box".  I think this is where language begins to evlove and build on itself over time.  

Uhh, by the way, I know little to nothing about linguistics, this is just my 2 cents  ;)

Imagine how interesting it would be to teach a toddler Dovahzul . . .

I read not too long ago about a man fluent in Klingon attempting to raise his son as a "native" Klingon speaker. The problem was that the mother didn't speak it and the language itself didn't have words for common objects like tables and chairs. It didn't take long for the child to refuse to speak it at all. Still, I wonder what kind of an accent a native Dovahzul speaker migh have when speaking English and again what Sapir-Whorf related implications it migh have. Would probably require both parents to be totally fluent for it to actually work and potentially hide the origins of the language from the child. Like with Klingon, if a child sees their parents as nerdy for doing it they may reject the premis entirely. 

Also keep in mind that a lot of the words that we use in English are taken from other languages.  There was no attempt to even convert it into a new word, just carried over straight from the other language yet they are still in the English dictionary (pistol from Czech, karaoke from Japanese, mammoth from Russian, horde from German/French, the list is ENORMOUS).  You see it in many other languages as well.  Computer in Japanese is just konpyuta.

So to say something like COMPUTER in Dovahzul, do you really need to find a new word for it, or can you just say COMPUTER?

That's a very good point, Annwvyn. I think Klingon does something similar.

paarthurnax, I think it would especially stand to reason for things that just didn't exist in that time in that realm...  technological terms, advanced medical terms, hard scince terms (quazar, catheterization, de sitter space, idioventricular, juxtaglomerular...  yadda yadda).

Yeah, I think it's fair to not worry about science, medical and technical jargon. Most of each of those fields use words from other languages as you mentioned (Science is usually in Latin, medicine in Greek, etc.) I also remember reading somewhere that the first 3000-5000 words make of something like 90% of all speech in most languages. I wonder how well our lexicon matches up with the 3000 most common English words. It would at least let us know what common words we still need to account for.

AxeTheBarbarian

Yeah, I think it's fair to not worry about science, medical and technical jargon. Most of each of those fields use words from other languages as you mentioned (Science is usually in Latin, medicine in Greek, etc.) I also remember reading somewhere that the first 3000-5000 words make of something like 90% of all speech in most languages. I wonder how well our lexicon matches up with the 3000 most common English words. It would at least let us know what common words we still need to account for.

AxeTheBarbarian

I read not too long ago about a man fluent in Klingon attempting to raise his son as a "native" Klingon speaker. The problem was that the mother didn't speak it and the language itself didn't have words for common objects like tables and chairs. It didn't take long for the child to refuse to speak it at all. Still, I wonder what kind of an accent a native Dovahzul speaker migh have when speaking English and again what Sapir-Whorf related implications it migh have. Would probably require both parents to be totally fluent for it to actually work and potentially hide the origins of the language from the child. Like with Klingon, if a child sees their parents as nerdy for doing it they may reject the premis entirely. 

Toxikyle
Unfortunately, I don't think that a native dovahzul speaker would have any different accent when speaking English. Dovahzul was created by people who speak English, and I bet that when most of us speak it, we do so with our accents. Since dovahzul was created by North Americans and is (for the most part) only spoken by North Americans, I think they would speak English just like a North American.

That's a fair point, most people I know who've grown up speaking something besides english at home but still grew up here don't have an accent either. Perhaps it would require a small community speaking nothing but Dovahzul for an accent to develop.