You should try to do my username in Dragon :3

You and me both. The issue I think is that no one seems to know what colour the statue will be. I asked Gstaff and he has yet to confirm. There are two colourations: 1) http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_lpqlvtZsmQ1qkf4s8o1_1280.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJ6IHWSU3BX3X7X3Q&Expires=1313566193&Signature=2Fi1kqKUmzzNYuI5Q8xUSZcmIrY%3D, and 2) http://news.softpedia.com/newsImage/Skyrim-Collector-s-Edition-Has-Alduin-Statue-2.jpg/. As to what colour our respective CE figurines will be... well, your guess is as good as mine.

And it raises the question of whether Alduin is grey-black or golden (or some other colour) in the actual game....

hi,
great topic!!!
until now i haven't given this much thought. i think i will learn off the alphabet and take mental notes on the script itself.
from what i've seen the signs used to write the "dragon language" are not cursive or joined.. it appears like hebrew, cuineform and
egyptian hieroglyphs.

one question and it's a important one, those this language have a grammar???????
knowing the alphabet and having a good vocaulary is great but we need to know were all these words fit into sentences to make
translation as accurate as possible.

does this language have the definite article????? {english 'the', arabic el,al, ancient egyptian ta,pa, hebrew el}
does it have gender differences and nouns and agjective and verbs that have to comply with and grammatical rules?????

i'm studying arabic{msa},egyptian dielect, egyptian hieroglyphic script and grammar{middle egyptian, 2100bc}, hieratic script {cursive form of hieroglyphic} and soon a little akkadian{cuineform}..
i do Egyptological research on most periods but the languages are a deeply moving way to get to know a culture..
that is why i'm now for the first time gonna learn a "fantasy" language..

?any of the questions? above that any of you guys might know would be great.
thanks. ely

Beast. :bowdown:

Well it has no punctuation as far as I can tell... I'm not sure if that is a blessing in disguise or not. Keep in mind that although the dragon language is not an actual language it is designed to appear like one - what this means is that rules that may aid you in your studies of languages may or may not apply. I would consider the dragon language to be more of a code system. The cipher to unlock the code is the dragon alphabet. But there is a second aspect to the code, deciphering what has been translated from the runes into understandable English. We have a list of growing words but so far it appears that a fully functional language is expecting a bit much from Bethesda. It is my belief that only the words needed to compose the needed text for the game (be it poetry or entire histories) will be decipherable. If you can cross reference the deciphered words with their meanings in English and pinpoint what the code structure is that would be fantastic. If the dragon language is randomized then we haven't a hope in hell of predicting unknown words out of the provisional context they appear in.
My theory is that it is not randomised and follows a bi-embedded code structure - but I haven't been able to prove that just yet. I am paying very close attention to the vowels in the draconic translation and the aligned English translation of each word - I believe they are the key to the puzzle. If you need any further information that cannot be found on the links in the OP then let me know and I will try and help you as best I can. Good luck!

Yes, I agree with Thadeus, unfortunately, the Draconic language is not an actual artificially constructed language (like Klingon, Na'vi or the languages from Dune, Tolkien, Princess of Mars, etc.)

Rather it is a sort of code that directly translates words into English, with English grammar, prepositions, particles, etc.

It would be quite awesome if Bethesda had hired a linguist to make this into an actual, constructed language, but from the Game Informer puzzle it seems quite clear this is not the case.

read this and it hit me. Eragon.

Lets just hope Terrorists don't use the Draconic language to mask their intentions.

Have you had a look at these pics, Thadeus?

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8613775/Draconic/Skyrim%20E3%20draconic%20writing_.jpg

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8613775/Draconic/Skyrim%20E3%20draconic%20writing_2.jpg

Thats the same poem: Dovahkiin Dovahkiin naal ok zin los... The only word I know from sight is Dovahkiin (in dragon runes). But It sounds like I am close to the level of Thadeus in the language but not quite.


Do you think anyone could post an image of all the words we know so far?

Id do it but I don't know all the words or where to find them.

Here you go: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Dragon_Language

It's a wiki, so you can update it if you find anything new.

I added a couple of words after Quakecon.

Well, on a bright note, if the histories are written like the Shouts, they should be either very easy, or very difficult to decipher. It seems most of it is broken and doesn't flow very well. From "Time Sand Eternity" you can conclude that the spells effect is to slow time. However, if we didn't know what it did beforehand, there might be some more difficulties. Only time will tell.

Unfortunately, it's not a true constructed language, rather it is English written in a coded script, with English grammar, particles, etc.

So learning the language and translating the texts we find in-game won't be quite as fun as it could be, but of course it will still be fun.

Thanks. I see a word "Nus" that means statue. Is this from a shout?

wow, you found one of about three words that I added.

It's from "iiz slen nus" (ice flesh statue)

the 3rd level is the Ice Form shout (encases enemies in a block of ice)

the 2nd level (iiz slen) spews forth ice crystals

That sounds great! Where did you find these shouts?

they were noted by someone who attended the Quakecon demo (well, the "nus" part - the second level, IIZ SLEN was reported in the july Playstation magazine)

I have now. Thanks for sharing. I like the Elder Scroll its rather pretty. But the text is nothing new at a glance. It is the clearest cleanest piece of dragon writing Ive ever seen though - I had to squint at the Alduin Figurine photo and the writing on the disc itself... impossible to read.

Two poems have been released so far relating to Skyrim lore - the one from the GI February issue, and the one on the word wall at E3 2011. So far, the latter one has not been translated. I've decided to try my hand at it.

For reference, here's the poem in English characters:

AHRK OND DREY
SAHROT
HEIMVERLUND
MEYZ NOLHE VNO
BROM MED STRUN?
O UZNAH GAAR?
NAHKRIIN NOL
?SOVNGARDE
?NIMAAR

I translated the poem's words with Google Translate and got a few, uh, oddities. For example, I had the choice between "whole wheat" and "forest demon."

Here is a rough translation:

And amongst the dark twists
Lay the forest demon
Who lives in the grove
Come near the
Blackberries with fear
Ye considered done
Departed to
Sovngarde
Never more

Any thoughts?

Wow I'd love to fight a forest demon, nice work on the translation.

wait, google translates draconic? D:

Goddangit i just got done reading 2 hours of Shakespearian satire
I DONT NEED MORE RIDDLES TONIGHT!!!!!
Lol jkjk
But yeah i have no idea
But i do think it would be a good idea to translate the wall
I always thought it was wierd that no one had translate it yet...

say WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT? :celebration:

Can I get a shot of the wall? Also, what's your methodology? Just plugging things into the translator and seeing what comes up? If so, there's an actual language made up for the game, and I doubt that it matches what google gives you.

Um I don't think you can translate a made up language with google translate.