Hello! I'm a linguistics student writing my dissertation on the factors that contribute to the success of a constructed language. As well as looking at conlangs created to overcome language barriers (like Esperanto and Volapük), I'm researching conlangs made for movies, books and games: Quenya, Sindarin, Klingon and, obviously, Dovahzul. I figured this would be the best place to talk to people who are investing their time in learning the latter! (I hope this is the right section to post this thread, sorry if it's not!)

If any of you would be happy to answer a couple of questions, I'd really appreciate it. Your responses will be completely anonymous, but please indicate somewhere in your reply that you give permission for me to use what you say. If you could also include your age and gender, that would be very helpful, but not necessary. You don't have to answer all the questions if you don't want to.

• Do you know/speak any other conlangs apart from Dovahzul?
• How fluent in Dovahzul are you? (know a couple of words/speak at a basic level/speak quite well/fluent)
• Why did you choose to start learning Dovahzul, other than enjoying Skyrim?
• Where do you use Dovahzul, both online and offline?
• How do you feel about community additions to the language, such as non-canon vocabulary or grammatical structures?
• Is it important for you that the community's form of Dovahzul is as accurate to the canon as possible?
• Do you think Dovahzul is easy to learn?

If there's anything else you'd like to mention about your experiences with Dovahzul or conlangs in general please don't hesitate to do so! If you would be more comfortable messaging me privately please feel free to send me a PM. Thanks so much!

Welcome to the community evegwood! As a welcome present, here are some answers ;)

• I speak bits of Quenya and Sindarin, and I nurture a conlang of my own, called Nirsuo; I am near-fluent in Esperanto, and tried to learn Lojban but found it boring. My Toki Pona is rusty but okay, although I don't think getting fluent in it is entirely possible.
• On the ILR scale, I think I'd be about a level four.
• I started learning Dovahzul mainly because of my interest in languages. Having always loved TES (ruth, wasn't supposed to mention that bit), I decided to join when I found Thuum.org. I believe that learning languages somehow extends your ability to think freely: there's more ways to put things when you know more languages.
• I write poetry when bored, which I sometimes do also in Dovahzul. Apart from that, I barely ever use Dovahzul offline, except when trying to impress fellow nerds.
• Ouch, we could have discussions on this for days. Hell, I could have discussions about this with myself for days! I think that wether you want to use community-created parts of the language or not depends on wether you want to speak the language fluently or use it more as an art form: I personally avoid community words as often and possible, resorting to the -se--infix to create compound nouns when Dovahzul doesn't have the word for what I want to say.
• It sure is! We study Skyrim's Dovahzul, so it seems like a good idea to me to actually use language like that in the game.
• I think it is, yes. Sentence structure is almost the same as in English, there's no different forms for the different cases, etc. etc. etc.. Of course, there are differences with English, and Dovahzul isn't a mere cypher, but there's so much similarity that I consider learning the language rather easy.

Other things that might be interesting for your studies: I'm a Dutch male, with Dutch as only first language; I speak English and Dutch on ILR level five; I'm currently studying Japanese and Swedish; I've been speaking Dovahzul for about six or seven months now.

I hope I helped you, and you have my permission to use all the statistics and information here to any way you like (except figuring out where I live and stealing my guitar, that would just be plain mean).

Su'um ahrk morah.

Thanks, Kosenu! It's definitely very interesting to look at how some conlang communities try to stick to the canon as much as possible and others feel free to split off and do their own thing without worrying about how much they change. Do you personally also avoid the non-canon grammar (like some prefixes and suffixes, or some verb tenses) or is it mostly the vocabulary?

Ik woonde in Nederland voor een jaar, dus ik kan een beetje Nederlans spreken! I'm very rusty though.

Welcome, evegwood, and thanks for posting! This sounds like a really interesting project, and I've pinned this thread so more people will see.

I'll take a shot at the questions, though my perspective as administrator makes it difficult to answer some of them:

• Do you know/speak any other conlangs apart from Dovahzul? I've dabbled a little bit in Dothraki and Sindarin, but that's about it. My interest in conlangs began with private projects long before Skyrim, and I continue working on those today.

• How fluent in Dovahzul are you? I consider myself largely fluent. I can hold conversation, and read and write well enough (though a bit slowly), without the aid of references. I'm very familiar with the core canon vocabulary, but admittedly I'm not well-versed on much of the community-invented vocabulary.

• Why did you choose to start learning Dovahzul, other than enjoying Skyrim? I was already involved with conlanging as a hobby prior to Skyrim, so it was an aspect of the game that I immediately latched onto. It started off with learning some words, but I wanted to learn more about the grammar, etymology, and the finer details of the langauge. The problem was these details weren't really well-known or available even a year after Skyrim's release. This site kind of sprung from that, wanting to investigate and analyze the language as much as possible, and making sure that information was out there for whoever else wanted to know.

• Where do you use Dovahzul, both online and offline? Obviously here, there's a lot of daily work involved in reviewing new words and helping answering questions. When I find the time, I enjoy writing poetry and short fiction as well. Sort of the reverse, I enjoy studying German and Old English, and it's fun to compare them to Dovahzul.

• How do you feel about community additions to the language, such as non-canon vocabulary or grammatical structures? I'll answer this from a personal perspective first, since my answer from my administrating perspective would take up quite a lot of space. I try and stick to canon as much as possible, especially when I'm putting together teaching material. I understand that not everyone is familiar with the non-canon elements or is interested in using them.

• Is it important for you that the community's form of Dovahzul is as accurate to the canon as possible? I am personally responsible for both creating and axing a lot of words or grammatical features that, upon further reflection, don't match canon. The site's first year of existence was highly focused on inventing words or features that would make the language "more useful." The problem with this philosophy is that you're changing an established language to fit your own conventions of what language should be able to express, rather than modifying what you're trying to say to fit the conventions of that language. For example, the Dothraki have no word for "thank you." Rather than invent a word that means "thank you," it'd be better to use the alternative phrases that exist.

• Do you think Dovahzul is easy to learn? Yes, I think Dovahzul works great as a "My First Conlang" for those just getting into the hobby. It's something that I'd also say is easy to learn but difficult to master. What's really challenging to teach is the language's archaic style and the really quite complex and context-sensitive nature of its semantics. This is another reason why I think canon is very important, because using the original vocabulary helps enforce that style.

You have permission to use my responses as you wish. Please let me know if you have any specific questions, and I'd be happy to answer!

Thank you, paarthurnax! (perfect username!) I was hoping you would reply after seeing you were the site admin. I read through the Dovahzul grammar guide and lessons and was interested to see quite a lot of grammatical additions to make it easier to understand ambiguous phrasing, like the progressive suffix, and the entire non-canon numerical system. Do you feel that these kinds of additions, not being part of "real" Dovahzul, detract from the language in any way, or do they improve it?

Another interesting thing I noted was the list of phrases, some of which was canonical and some non-canonical; vir bo nii, for example, which I assume was proposed by someone on this forum and relates directly back to the language as one spoken by dragons. Would you say that the influence of Skyrim's culture and context limits the community's development of the language? After a certain point, which you discourage development that reaches too far from the source material, such as discussing modern technology, concepts, etc.?

(I hope these questions make sense, I'm very tired!)

@evegwood Oh my, forgot that bit. As opposed to non-canon words, which I use every now and then, non-canon grammar is something I absolutely avoid: people from outside this community don't know it, and since canon Dovahzul is speakable, even with its exceptions, it feels unnecessary to add to the grammar.

@Kosenu Cool, thanks!

evegwood

Thank you, paarthurnax! (perfect username!) I was hoping you would reply after seeing you were the site admin. I read through the Dovahzul grammar guide and lessons and was interested to see quite a lot of grammatical additions to make it easier to understand ambiguous phrasing, like the progressive suffix, and the entire non-canon numerical system. Do you feel that these kinds of additions, not being part of "real" Dovahzul, detract from the language in any way, or do they improve it?

Another interesting thing I noted was the list of phrases, some of which was canonical and some non-canonical; vir bo nii, for example, which I assume was proposed by someone on this forum and relates directly back to the language as one spoken by dragons. Would you say that the influence of Skyrim's culture and context limits the community's development of the language? After a certain point, which you discourage development that reaches too far from the source material, such as discussing modern technology, concepts, etc.?

(I hope these questions make sense, I'm very tired!)

These are good questions!

When inventing words or phrases, it important to make the disctinction between elements that don't exist because they aren't part of the language, or elements that don't exist simply because Bethesda didn't invent them yet. When it comes to things like numerical systems or greeting phrases, I'd say these fall into the latter category. There is nothing in canon that prohibits the idea of a numerical system, though there is certainly debate on what that would look like (base 10? base 6? what about the runes?)

I don't think these things detract from the language where it doesn't affect how someone would use canon. That is, if invented words or phrases become used where canon perfectly fits, then that's problematic. Numbers are an example of something that canon can't precisely account for.

Looking at the progressive suffix -taas, that's an example of something I would consider revising because progressive tense is really not something that does or should exist in Dovahzul. It does exist in canon, but is so rarely used that it should never be as prominent as it is used today.

Something I do much more now than I used to is to try and contextualize new words in the mindset of dragons. As a recent example, someone submitted a word that meant "to graduate." However, dragons obviously don't have universities, so this is a word that might be lost on them. Instead I proposed a similar word that would be used in reference to the Dragon Cult that means "to rise through the ranks" or "to achieve a high rank." Not exactly "graduate," but as close as one might get.

Modern words are another can of worms. For a long while, modern words were not accepted into the dictionary. I opened up to the idea, though, with some specific rules. The idea behind modern words is, if a dragon was transported into the modern day, how would they describe things? As a result, modern words are often compound words, such as gutzul "far-voice" for "telephone," or geltkey "metal-horse" for "car."

I don't use the non-canon or modern vocabulary much at all personally. My attitude towards it, though, is that it exists for those who want to use it, and so long as it doesn't get in the way of canon, I'm fine with servicing that aspect of the language.

evegwood

• Do you know/speak any other conlangs apart from Dovahzul?
• How fluent in Dovahzul are you? (know a couple of words/speak at a basic level/speak quite well/fluent)
• Why did you choose to start learning Dovahzul, other than enjoying Skyrim?
• Where do you use Dovahzul, both online and offline?
• How do you feel about community additions to the language, such as non-canon vocabulary or grammatical structures?
• Is it important for you that the community's form of Dovahzul is as accurate to the canon as possible?
• Do you think Dovahzul is easy to learn?

• I'm not fluent by any means, but I'm learning Furbish, the language of the Furbys. It's actually quite interesting, with its own grammer and some slight inconsistencies that actually seem to mimic natural languages (but that probably wasn't the creators' intent). I've even created a web-site for it, which seems to be the most in-depth documentation, despite being a few days old. (kah-noo-noo.tk)
• Not very fluent, actually. I can understand basic conversation and phrases, as well as mutter things that make people think I'm crazy, but I'm not very useful without the dictionary by my side (or in front of my face, as computers usually are).
• I was fascinated by constructed languages, and the Dragon Tongue was the only one that I was remotely familar with (the alternative was Klingon, but only because of its publicity).
• Mostly just doing translation projects here. I know no-one who understands it IRL, so I mostly just mutter phrases or exclaimations, especially to my dog, who can't understand me anyways.
• I think that they are necessary in order to make the language usable for anything other than understanding it in-game, or in what ever the language is from. However, I believe that this should be avoided unless the language is clearly abandoned by its creators.
• Yes. If you're expanding another's conlang, then you should try to keep it similar to itself, so that things are consistent and more comprehensible, and so that they can still make sense in its original context. However, this does prove to be an issue for concepts that do not exist or would not matter in the original context. For example, there is no canonical dragon word for "telemarketer". Why should there be? But if you want the language to be usable for modern use, you have to be able to express this some-how. While I believe that such deviations are a necessary evil, they should also be avoided as much as possible.
• Yes, actually, especially with the lack of conjugation (have you tried memorizing Spanish conjugations? It's crazy!). The Dragon Language is also very flexible in terms of grammatical structure, so errors are mostly made from poor vocabulary (or over-using online translation tools), which is much easier to correct.

I would also like to say that communities are a big part of conlang development and popularity. To illustrate, Klingon is commonly known of and associated with nerd culture, while Dragon-Tongue has this site which, while not as large, contributes to its popularity, even though it's not nearly as popular. Furbish community, on the other hand, is nonexistant, and as such, no-one cares! (with some exceptions, me being a big one).

I don't shy away from non-canonical usage. However, I tend to try to use canonical aspects before I resort to non-canon. This is largely due to the fact that non-canonical words are subject to much change here, though that isn't the only reason.

Would you say that the influence of Skyrim's culture and context limits the community's development of the language?

I know that this wasn't directed at me, but I still want to say that it doesn't limit development as much as it makes it difficult. This biggest issue with this is that it's understandably difficult to get the community to agree on how a particular concept would relate to the dragons of Skyrim.

I'm of sixteen years of age and male, and I've been studying the Dragon Language for over a year now.

Feel free to use any of this information as you will. Also, feel free to credit me or refer to me as "hiith"; not capitalized, mind you.

• Do you know/speak any other Conlangs apart from dovahzul?

          Yes, I do, I'm fluent in Klingon, and I'm learning Esperanto. I'm considering attempting quenya. Oh, and I'm helping with Nirsuo 

• How fluent in dovahzul are you?

Fairly fluent, not as good as I want to get, but I can hold conversations. 

• Why did you decide to Learn dovahzul

Because I was writing and wanted to attempt something in dovahzul, and it led to here. 

• Do you use dovahzul offline. 

Uh, yeah, I speak it quite a lot offline, and I also use it to curse people, but just mainly what I call 'lingofuck'. 

• How do you feel about community additions?

I personally avoid them, but I can't say I'm against them, I did after all post a hundred of them. 

• Do you feel that it's important that the community made implications stay as close to canon as possible?

Yes, I do, otherwise it isn't really the 'dragon language of skyrim'

• Would you say it's easy to learn?

Yes, I'd say it is easier than what I have already learned. But I was raised trilingual so, that may tilt it one way or another. 

Feel free to use it in any way. 

Thank you for all your responses so far! I really appreciate it.

Do you know/speak any other conlangs apart from Dovahzul? I speak basic Esperanto

How fluent in Dovahzul are you? I speak and understand Dovahzul better than most people here, but I'm not fluent.

Why did you choose to start learning Dovahzul, other than enjoying Skyrim? I actually started learning the language before I got Skyrim. I stumbled across the site one day, and thought "why not?"

Where do you use Dovahzul, both online and offline? Online, I use conversational Dovahzul quite often, like many people do. Offline, I'm usually working on translating Disney songs into Dovahzul.

How do you feel about community additions to the language, such as non-canon vocabulary or grammatical structures? I avoid using them in song translations, but I see no problem with using them in conversation. The only exception are non canon prefixes and suffixes, which I feel are necessary for interpreting the context of a sentence in many cases.

Is it important for you that the community's form of Dovahzul is as accurate to the canon as possible? Yes, I believe that the canon should be the highest authority in Dovahzul. Every conlang should have a solid set of rules that it follows without exception.

Do you think Dovahzul is easy to learn? Yes, very easy. I picked up basic conversational Dovahzul in a matter of weeks from exposure alone.

As for your other questions, I'm male, 15 years old, I speak English and French, and you are welcome to use these responses.

1. No conlangs.  Dovahzul is the first. I do know German, Spanish, Turkish, and ASL in that order of proficiency, though.

2. I'm over halfway through the Memrise canon course and have some basic conversation skills.

3. I like languages and dragons.  My first-year phd advisor was teaching a course on conlangs, and I suddenly had an epiphany one day that she probably didn't know about the dragon tongue from Skyrim (my hunch was confirmed since she's not familiar with gaming at all).  I looked up a few links to send to her in case she wanted to use it for her class, and that was the first time I came across thuum.org.  I came back to investigate later myself because I was intrigued.  I think language functions as power in the real world too, and I really liked the concept of the dragon language in Skyrim making that more explicit and connecting it to magic. 

4. I write to a "pel pal" offline, and sometimes I run something past some family members or friends for their feedback on how something sounds if I'm participating in one of the creative competitions on thuum.org like word walls and riddles.

5. I think part of the stated goal for the site is to develop the language "to fluency."  The members before me started by gathering and identifying evidence and practices of the language already in existence from the game, but as people recognize gaps in things they want to talk about, I think it's natural to find ways of doing that.  I appreciate that a lot of words have been built from existing words and that people use analogy to extend existing words for new concepts. 

6. My answer to this is complicated and going to get technical because I think the role of Dovahzul as a language is unique and complicated in some ways.  I don't think that languages in general have one set "pure" form that exists external to social interactions.  Since you're studying linguistics, I'll say that I think that's one drawback to the Western-based systems of conceptualizing language that emerged in Europe and have been influential in structuralism and beyond based on Saussure's "The Nature of the Linguistic Sign." I think that the Russian writers Voloshinov/Bakhtin have some pretty valid critiques of this (in Marxism and the Philosophy of Language for example) and tracing how these linguistic systems came from the tradition of philology in attempting to reconstruct dead languages like Latin that nobody actually spoke anymore at the time it was being reconstructed. Dovahzul, however, is still functioning within this framework (with a function very similar to Latin) because the words and language themselves are imbued with power as a set system, and particular words have the power to call those concepts into existence.  I'm personally ok with people being innovative with variations on canon because I think that's what happens when a language is living, but connecting back to the game for why certain features are significant is important to represent the power and the culture of the language that produced those features in the first place.  For the most part, people who participate in the site seem to have a lot of metacognitive reflection about why an innovation would be useful to adopt or adapt. (The shorter, less academic version of this answer would be "it depends.")

7. For an English speaker, yes.  There are a lot of parallels in structure.  I'm actually trying to create an image-based Memrise course that would allow it to be more accessible to speakers of other languages as well based more on context than translation with English.

You have my permission to use these responses for your research.

you know/speak any other conlangs apart from Dovahzul?

english trap ^^i KNOW of roughly 500 languages but SPEAKING is very limited. i do speak german, english, latin, old norse and proto german with a very little greek and japanese. and ofc icelandic. conlanguages...no dovahzul is my first to actually try to learn. i used a bit sindarin and klingon in the past but never tried to become fluent.

How fluent in Dovahzul are you? (know a couple of words/speak at a basic level/speak quite well/fluent)

since i just started a day ago i would say know a couple of words ^^

Why did you choose to start learning Dovahzul, other than enjoying Skyrim?

tatatataaaa i never played skyrim so far. i have the game but never started it i am waiting for better mods. i do however play the elder scrolls online.

I chose to learn dovazhul for roleplaying my nord dragon knight and for fun as the language sounds cool. and ofc you can have secret conversations in public or code your messages.

Where do you use Dovahzul, both online and offline?

so far i dont - but i plan on using it in roleplay, conversation and writing for privacy

How do you feel about community additions to the language, such as non-canon vocabulary or grammatical structures?

difficult. on the one hand the language needs a hell lot of additions, improvement and work out to actually be functional, but then again the more people add to it the less canon it becomes and therefore will sound less dovahzul and of course it could happen that different communities make different languages. 

Is it important for you that the community's form of Dovahzul is as accurate to the canon as possible?

Yes, very. the closer it is to cannon the more authentic the sound. however i question myself how many linguists have been in the development of the language in the first place and in this community as some words dont fit into patterns. like the word for hunt and hunter are completly different while in other languages i know verb and noun are closely related. bake-baker-bakery fish-fishing-fisher in dovahzul i dont see that applying and that is a problem for memorisation and logic of a language as words that are related in their meaning usually are related in sound as well.

language expresses ideas and tries to make them precise so another understands what you mean. in dovahzul there is a lot room for interpretation and that makes the language difficult, misunderstandings will likely happen quite often. the language buys simplicity at the cost of precision.

Do you think Dovahzul is easy to learn?

Yes i do. as said it is simple and therefore easy to learn just view the grammar rules. since the language drops a lot of grammar, even more so than english, its very easy to learn and has quite few exceptions to remember.

But as stated while being easy to learn it is hard to use as a language, meaning getting your ideas into the mind of another being is much more difficult than in other languages as it is harder to be precise

Perhaps I am a little late, but I will answer your questions anyway.

• Do you know/speak any other conlangs apart from Dovahzul?
  • I do not know any other conlangs, although Klingon interests me.
• How fluent in Dovahzul are you? (know a couple of words/speak at a basic level/speak quite well/fluent)
  • I am still only learning Dovahzul, and do not yet know enough to carry on much of a conversation.
• Why did you choose to start learning Dovahzul, other than enjoying Skyrim?
  • I really like the way that Dovahzul sounds. Enjoying Skyrim and wanting to be able to read the word walls was a big influence, however.
• Where do you use Dovahzul, both online and offline?
  • I use what I know of Dovahzul both online and offline. I have a few friends who are also attempting to learn the language, and I think it will be fun to communicate with them in Dovahzul.
• How do you feel about community additions to the language, such as non-canon vocabulary or grammatical structures?
  • I think that community additions are necessary. The canon language is not fit for much modern communication, and in order to make it useful, it is the duty of the community to expand the language.
• Is it important for you that the community's form of Dovahzul is as accurate to the canon as possible?
  • Yes. While the community additions are very important, it is very important to keep the additions as faithful to the original language as possible.
• Do you think Dovahzul is easy to learn?
  • I think that Dovahzul is rather easy to learn. The only difficult part is learning the runes. Other than that, with the structures being as similar to English as they are, it is not very difficult to learn.

I hope that this is of some help, and that I am not too late. Good luck on your dissertation!

You have permission to use my answers to these questions.