My husband started a character today, and twice while escaping Helgen there was a voice that said something... must have been dragon language. It sounded like it came from the sky. We were both like "Wtf was that?"

I've re-rolled probably 6 times and have never heard that.

What was it??

When I have subtitles on, and a dragon is about to breathe fire, it says "Foh", I think. But there's no translation for that word in Draconic. :S

I have auditory processing problems, so I always play with subtitles on, otherwise I have trouble understanding what people are saying... Alduin uses the correct shout for Fire Breath, which is Yol Toor Shul (or something like that; it's the same words you learn later, if you bother getting that shout). Haven't noticed any others, because in Helgen often subtitles will disappear too fast for me to read (pre-empted by scripted dialogue, usually).

Edit: I think his raining-meteors ability also has a shout that goes with it, but it's not one the player learns so I don't know what the words are.

yeah Muzzy's right. What you heard was a Dragon shouting a Draconic word of power.

That is so weird!! Maybe it's because he stood around watching the dragon attacking Helgen while I always stuck to Hadvar and kept my eyes closed.

Besides Yol Toor Shul, he actually says something else while in the air, i've also encountered, but...

If Bethesda did ANY testing of Skyrim, they'd do, besides thousand of other things, scrolling of subtitles, because any next speech from anyone in radius of hearing resets currently displayed subtitle string, so each of times Alduin said that mysterious stuff, i wasn't quick enought to catch subtitle string with eyes it as it was changed by some guards' words in a split second.

When Alduin is flying around he DOES speak in the dragon tongue - and I'm not talking the shouts, I mean when he's just flying about, it almsot sounds like he's mocking or taunting everyone

This was a deep creepy voice, not a shout.

In fact, Alduin says quite a lot of stuff, i'm not sure if i've managed to capture it all:

1. Daar Lein los dii.
http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/5457/alduin1.jpg

2. Hin sil fen nahkip bahloki.
http://img846.imageshack.us/img846/197/alduin2.jpg

3. Zu'u lost daal.
http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/9504/alduin3.jpg

4. Zu'u Alduin, zok sahrot do naan ko Lein.
http://img832.imageshack.us/img832/3108/alduin4.jpg

5. Nust wo ni qiilan fen kos duaan.
http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/4944/alduin5sx.jpg

6. Di kiirre fen alok.
http://img576.imageshack.us/img576/7749/alduin6.jpg

7. Fen du hin sille ko Sovngarde!
http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/6577/alduin7.jpg

8. Kel drey ni viik.
http://img832.imageshack.us/img832/9511/alduin8.jpg

9. Pahlok joorre! Hin kah fen kos bonaar.
http://img846.imageshack.us/img846/4812/alduin9.jpg

Its Alduin. The subtitles do catch the phrases of Dragon tongue he says. Some of them are conversational (taunts and yells of defiance) others I am pretty sure are actual shouts (meteor storm, his version of uber unrelenting force, and uber fire breath).

Wow, good job, digited.
-Loth

Mad props, I was really impressed.

Wow. digited, you deserve your own avatar for that! I could tell Alduin was "conversing" sometimes, but even with subtitles on, I couldn't get much of it!

[Hmm. Now that I see those phrases.... they remind me of Nederlands (Dutch).... Or maybe Icelandic?]

Iffy translation:

Intresting; foreshadows how he came to be banished - if you speak Draconic ;p

These undiscovered dragon words made me think, Bethesda may have a whole list of words in draconic that we don't even know about.

That's what I've been wondering since I first started playing. We know there's a whole dragon "tongue" (language) - the Greybeards know it.... but we (as Dragonborn) don't know it - yet....

We only know enough for 20 shouts. Cool. It would be awesome is they added more shouts in DLC.

Have you changed your Sound to 24 Bit, 44100 Hz?

It's likely that they created an entire language. Bethesda does that frequently. They obviously didn't invent a dicionary full of words, but when they introduce a new language they set up a grammatical structure and create words as needed. None of them are just "made up". Example: all of the names of the aylied ruins in oblivion meant something. Every time you see a daedric sigil, it means something. The conjuration symbol is "oht" which is basically the letter O in the daedric tongue. I love the work this company puts into the mythology and history of this world. It's why I love this series.

Edit: Oh and in every mages guild in Cyrodiil there's an emblem with an eye in the center in the lobby. The daedric sigils scatteree across it spell out the schools of magic. Also, in Morrowind, all fhe random scribbles on the magic scrolls translated to a magical chant. So yeah, they put hard work into this sort of thing.

Instead of replying here I made a new thread where I attempted (probably poorly) to translate what Alduin is saying: http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1321549-translating-the-dragon-language/

wow, u speak dragonspeak?

"di" may mean "mine":
"Daar Lein los dii" = "the world is mine" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTXO7KGHtjI
"Di kiirre fen alok" - "my children will arise"

"Zu" may be "I":
"Zu'u lost daal" - "I have returned"
"Zu'u Alduin, zok sahrot do naan ko Lein" - "I are Alduin, most mighty of any in world"

"Pahlok" may be something about "puny" or "foolish":
"Pahlok joorre! Hin kah fen kos bonaar" - Foolish mortal! Your pride will be humble.

"They who not [qiilan] will be [duaan]" - hm, may be something like "Those who don't obey, will be punished/killed"

Something like this. Thx for translation, Vermilion Sparrow, interesting comments.


upd generalnmx, why not discuss it here?

Pahlok is "all+sky", seems odd that would mean "foolish" or "puny". Bahlok means hunger and also "wrath+sky", which is probably named after Alduin, the Devourer of Worlds.

Your translations are close to mine in http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1321549-translating-the-dragon-language/

generalnmx, i was just guessing. Using translation sources is much more correct, of course, i just haven't encountered them before.