Since the forum seems to calm down - which is natural but still a bit bothering, id like to discuss the future of dovahzul.

What projects are in progress right now? Which ones are planned for the future (like my Youtubechannel) 

What would be needed in your oppinion?

I think first of all we should try to work on the vocabulary like coming up with more exact definitions for words that right now have the same meaning like there are 2 words for sun and 2 words for beast which could be more precise like using shul for the light, brightness of the sun, refering to the star, the celestial body of the sun (as sul is day so sul and shul are related in meaning - bright) while krein could be used for the fiery might, the heat of the sun, a more abstract concept of a huge fireball. Yes i know the dragon shout uses shul not krein so in that respective the meanings could be switched to fit better for the dragon shout.

Yet i think its important to define these words more closely.

To give an example with german / english: The word "mind" can not be translated into german without loosing a hell lot of meaning and there are about 30 words in german that could be used instead of mind.

That means the german language is more specific here as it has more words for "mind" allowing for a more direct description of what you mean, while english relies more on context and has the advantage that the word mind simply encompasses more which is great for metaphysical concepts.

Now Dovahzul relies a lot on context and encompassing huge meanings in as little words as possible is a feature of the language - that means it would be more fitting if there is one word for sun that has a lot of meanings in english yet actually the opposite is the case, Dovahzul having 2 words for one english expression. And that is kina strange in my oppinion and that is why i think we should establish a distinction between krein and shul. Similiarly in most languages i know words that seem to mean the same thing either derive from 2 different lanuages or actually do have different meaning, though not even native speakers may be familiar with that as example magic, magick, sorcery - now magic derives from persian magi while sorcery is a germanic term and magick was introduced to make a distinction between an illusionist - an entertainer / magician and real magick in occult ways.

Another such word would be sivaas and sunvaar. beast...again strange that both words seemingly mean the same.

How about we make the distinction in the dictionary that sivaas (it just sounds nicer to me) refers to a wild animal, maybe rabid, while sunvaar refers to a monster, a supernatural or very horrific being gone wild a killing machine.

next point would be a more detailed look on pre and suffixes in dovahzul as seemingly there are quite a lot that arent covered in the lessons section like prefix vo or suffix maar.

Another thing bothering me is the compound word thing though there may not be a solution to this. As many dovahzul words are quite short with 2 or 3 letters only, its easy to see compound words all the way. A lot of words that dont have anything to do with hunting have the word "ah" in them or "hah" though there is no visible relation to spirit.

On youtube i found a lore video where people translated dovahkin as do vah kiin - of spring born taking this as herald that the dragonborn brings spring to mankind, a rebirth of Tamriel while others translated it as dov ah kiin - dragon hunter born - an indication that the dragonborn is born to kill dragons.

So seemingly this compund word thing is very confusing for people and i dont know iof we can help there. I personally wrote my own dictionary where i wrote actual compoundwords like

DovahKiin or BronJun or KronGrah the capital letter indicating "this is a new word" maybe we could use a similiar marking in the dictionary to make it easier to see which words are indeed compounds and which just happen to not be like english carpet is no compound of car & pet but its own word. Or english example ButterFly is actually a compound word in english.

Also spreading the message. I guess most ppl would like to have a bigger community and therefore Youtube videos and similiar may help. Like the klingon community sings modern pop songs in klingon, those things get a hell lot of clicks. I suck at singing though ^^

Yet i think translating songs - like in this one thread here - is a great way to get more people interested in the language yet translating alone wont do so if someone here is skilled with either singing or electric voice creation - that would be awesome.

What do you think? What are your ideas? =)

The dovahzul gaming community is btw also a nice idea but thats more for people who already speak dovahzul very well, i as example would not survive there (yet^^) 

A thing that would help me learning would be subtitles in dovahzul (not in the dragon runes) for some stuff. As example i learned icelandic mostly by listening to icelandic shows with english subtitles and listening to icelandic disney songs (where i already know the text)

From my experience the best way to learn a language is by exposing yourself to it. Not like in schools with vocabulary and grammar learning all day but by actual using the language as much as possible - and so far we could really improve a lot by offering more ways to do so.

I know i aim high but hey, maybe we are lucky and someone can do some of those things =)

Another idea of mine would be skyrim mods that concert the english subtitles into dragon rune subtitles, that would help (at least myself) 

First off, any advertisement goes for the good of the language and is beneficial. Thank you for the channel-to-be. For my part, I'm struggling with a dragon language voice synthesizer among other things. Unfortunately I don't think it will ever sing - we're better off with organic voices for that.

Frankly, this "exact definitions" thing of yours is unnatural, unnecessary and undraconic. If anything, I would like more fuzziness in the translations to shake off what remains of the dreaded "English with different words" mindset. I'm fine with attaching connotations such that shul ~ light, warmth; krein ~ celestial object; that's what we're already doing. But there's no need to introduce differences unsupported by canon. Dovahzul is retroactively timeless, so once a distinction has been forgotten, there will never have been one. (And synonyms are good for poetry.)

You are so damned right about exposure. How I've been daydreaming of a Dovahzul summer camp on <insert desolate island here>! But will there ever be so much as a meet-up?

I was working on a Dovahzul scholar mod. Unfortunately, I am not the best one for pronunciation (which is why she says she is not the best one for the job)
But still, I was working on adding the translations to the word-walls, which one could ask if one was near a word-wall.
I also added a bit about grammar, and some random words or sentences.
If there are voice-actors around, we could make a whole community of Dragon Scholars in one mod :)
(I have to wait untill I have time to finish it though...)

All I can really think of as an immediate means is creating a Facebook group. Lots of people use Facebook regularly and having a place were members of this website and non-members can just chat, work on the language, etc. could be very beneficial to those wanting to learn about the language and those who are just curious. 

​

We dont have a FB group? Hell we should really really start one. And Twitter and stuff. Personally i dont use these but my youtube channel tought me that just having an FB group dramaticly increases the number of people that are aware of your stuff.

Actually, there are two. But I think they are barely used. Just search for Dovahzul. (at least on facebook. I don't use twitter ;) )

Since the forum seems to calm down - which is natural but still a bit bothering, id like to discuss the future of dovahzul.

I haven't noticed the forums calming down at all. They always went at a slow but steady pace.

 

What projects are in progress right now? Which ones are planned for the future (like my Youtubechannel) 

What would be needed in your oppinion?

Don't really have an exact list of projects in the work at the moment. There's always people doing things though, but more is always good.

As for what should be needed, I think we need to have fun, aka we don't 'need' anything. We're all here because we like Dovahzul, so we'll study that, use it, etc.: nothing is needed

I think first of all we should try to work on the vocabulary like coming up with more exact definitions for words that right now have the same meaning like there are 2 words for sun and 2 words for beast which could be more precise like using shul for the light, brightness of the sun, refering to the star, the celestial body of the sun (as sul is day so sul and shul are related in meaning - bright) while krein could be used for the fiery might, the heat of the sun, a more abstract concept of a huge fireball. Yes i know the dragon shout uses shul not krein so in that respective the meanings could be switched to fit better for the dragon shout.

Yet i think its important to define these words more closely.

There's a difference between the words for beast, see here.

We can't alter the meaning of these words, they're canon, and the canon is always correct, even when it's wrong (looking at you rok).

It is not important to define these words more closely. Dovahzul is a language focussing on feeling rather then precision, and its vocabulary reflects that.

To give an example with german / english: The word "mind" can not be translated into german without loosing a hell lot of meaning and there are about 30 words in german that could be used instead of mind.

That means the german language is more specific here as it has more words for "mind" allowing for a more direct description of what you mean, while english relies more on context and has the advantage that the word mind simply encompasses more which is great for metaphysical concepts.

In Dovahzul you don't have 30 words with differences, you have context and knowledge of the speaker to notice that difference. I like that, and you can dislike it too, but that's Dovahzul. We can extend but not change the language, because it wouldn't be Dovahzul anymore.

Now Dovahzul relies a lot on context and encompassing huge meanings in as little words as possible is a feature of the language - that means it would be more fitting if there is one word for sun that has a lot of meanings in english yet actually the opposite is the case, Dovahzul having 2 words for one english expression. And that is kina strange in my oppinion and that is why i think we should establish a distinction between krein and shul. Similiarly in most languages i know words that seem to mean the same thing either derive from 2 different lanuages or actually do have different meaning, though not even native speakers may be familiar with that as example magic, magick, sorcery - now magic derives from persian magi while sorcery is a germanic term and magick was introduced to make a distinction between an illusionist - an entertainer / magician and real magick in occult ways.

Dovahzul doesn't have much synonyms, it's sorta atypical indeed.

Another such word would be sivaas and sunvaar. beast...again strange that both words seemingly mean the same.

How about we make the distinction in the dictionary that sivaas (it just sounds nicer to me) refers to a wild animal, maybe rabid, while sunvaar refers to a monster, a supernatural or very horrific being gone wild a killing machine.

See above.

next point would be a more detailed look on pre and suffixes in dovahzul as seemingly there are quite a lot that arent covered in the lessons section like prefix vo or suffix maar.

It's seems you are right on them missing from the lessons. Perhaps they should be added somewhere.

Another thing bothering me is the compound word thing though there may not be a solution to this. As many dovahzul words are quite short with 2 or 3 letters only, its easy to see compound words all the way. A lot of words that dont have anything to do with hunting have the word "ah" in them or "hah" though there is no visible relation to spirit.

Little we can do about it.

On youtube i found a lore video where people translated dovahkin as do vah kiin - of spring born taking this as herald that the dragonborn brings spring to mankind, a rebirth of Tamriel while others translated it as dov ah kiin - dragon hunter born - an indication that the dragonborn is born to kill dragons.

Isn't it beautiful?

So seemingly this compund word thing is very confusing for people and i dont know iof we can help there. I personally wrote my own dictionary where i wrote actual compoundwords like

DovahKiin or BronJun or KronGrah the capital letter indicating "this is a new word" maybe we could use a similiar marking in the dictionary to make it easier to see which words are indeed compounds and which just happen to not be like english carpet is no compound of car & pet but its own word. Or english example ButterFly is actually a compound word in english.

But how could we know whether Bethesda intended DovahKiin rather then DovAhKiin? It seems more logical, sure, but we don't know, and we'd be telling people false truths.

Also spreading the message. I guess most ppl would like to have a bigger community and therefore Youtube videos and similiar may help. Like the klingon community sings modern pop songs in klingon, those things get a hell lot of clicks. I suck at singing though ^^

Foduiiz covered some songs, and I did something small too. A big kind of sing-along project would be fun though. Spreading the message doesn't appear to be much of a problem, we have multiple new members most days. Not all stay, sure, but where are you planning on finding  a large amount of language and Skyrim interested people? Word of mouth is probably enough for now.

Yet i think translating songs - like in this one thread here - is a great way to get more people interested in the language yet translating alone wont do so if someone here is skilled with either singing or electric voice creation - that would be awesome.

Do it. Even if it's bad, it's fun, and that's what matters in life right?

The dovahzul gaming community is btw also a nice idea but thats more for people who already speak dovahzul very well, i as example would not survive there (yet^^) 

There's only a handful of people speaking what I would call fluent Dovahzul. The gaming community would turn English with occasional Dovahzul.

A thing that would help me learning would be subtitles in dovahzul (not in the dragon runes) for some stuff. As example i learned icelandic mostly by listening to icelandic shows with english subtitles and listening to icelandic disney songs (where i already know the text)

Subtitles don't appear out of thin air. Try making some yourself, see if it catches on.

From my experience the best way to learn a language is by exposing yourself to it. Not like in schools with vocabulary and grammar learning all day but by actual using the language as much as possible - and so far we could really improve a lot by offering more ways to do so.

This is very true.

I know i aim high but hey, maybe we are lucky and someone can do some of those things =)

There's some good ideas here, you might have inspired some people. Keep in mind that you can also do some of these things yourself, if you feel like it.

Another idea of mine would be skyrim mods that concert the english subtitles into dragon rune subtitles, that would help (at least myself) 

Big project. But fun.

Sorry for the large post, I just wanted to go through the whole thing.

Thanks for going through the whole thing =) i appreciate that.

But how could we know whether Bethesda intended DovahKiin rather then DovAhKiin? It seems more logical, sure, but we don't know, and we'd be telling people false truths.

Well dragon hunter born does not make sense if you look at the history of dovahkiin - Tiber Septim was ingame called a Dovahkiin therefore its fair to assume that all dragonborn were called Dovahkiin - yet almost none of them actually hunted dragons. They served them or didnt meet a single one in their entire life. DovAhKiin only would make sense for the Skyrim one so i think its very plausible to go with DovahKiin.

Not all stay, sure, but where are you planning on finding  a large amount of language and Skyrim interested people? 

Well you dont need to love Skyrim to love Dovahzul - i still havent played Skyrim past the intro till you meet the first village ^^

I guess a good pool of possible speakers rests in various conlang communities, language learning communities, gaming communities and spreading the message is easier on stuff like Youtube, Myvideo, Facebook, Twitter etc.

I have to learn dovahzul better first - then i can try to make subtitles since i love to have em, i should make them. However if someone else wnats to do subtitles - hey i love them ^^ 

Edit: After reading the linked document from june 25th 2015 im glad to see that some of my suggestions made it =) Yay ^^

However if someone else wnats to do subtitles - hey i love them ^^ 

Perhaps some people could cooperate on that? There are various types of dialogue. (player-involved-non-quest, player-involved-quest, combat, scenes,....)

ErianDragonborn

Actually, there are two. But I think they are barely used. Just search for Dovahzul. (at least on facebook. I don't use twitter ;) )

Didn't know there were groups. I've searched before and didn't find anything.

Friðr Loðbrók

Didn't know there were groups. I've searched before and didn't find anything.

You should be able to search 'Dovahzul' and find two. One with 116 and one with 440 subscribers. They are both communities. (altough not very active, as I said...)
If there are people interested, we could also make a group in stead of a page... Maybe that has some advantages, although they are not too different.

Guys, just had an amazing idea about the Facebook group.

It'd be great it we had a place to discuss Dovahzul and all related/nonrelated topics already. It'd be great. We should consider creating one.

[/sarcasm]

CallumBarclay

Guys, just had an amazing idea about the Facebook group.

It'd be great it we had a place to discuss Dovahzul and all related/nonrelated topics already. It'd be great. We should consider creating one.

 

 

/SARCASM

You shouldn't be using Facebook in the first place, but that's a different subject.

I will go and work on subtitles when I have some time to spare. 
I'll start with the combat taunts and other combat-related things. If anyone wants to translate some subtitles too, then it might be best to coordinate it a bit.