#elven language

Remember those owl statues in Arlathan Forest? The symbols on them made me wonder if I could try decoding them. Turns out, there really was some encrypted text there.

Here it is (literal, with original spelling preserved):

owls are spooqy

eating the mice

time to find out

is this owl nice

For the past few days i have developed a small hyperfixation and I would like to share its results with the world. i have also posed it on ao3 if you'd like to read it there. This study is trying to approach elven as simultaneously dead and living language that has been used continuously throughout thousands of years. Specifically, in such a way in which a real-life scholar would try to understand and make sense of a real-life dead ancient language. What I would like to stress, however, is that I am no linguist, just a person who is learning ancient languages at his university, and also at times I can and will make up stuff as the language is fictional and wasn’t created as a true language (but a cipher). 

(also I am not a native english speaker, do whatever you want with this information.)

For when the word and/or the sentence seem not to work within the grammatical rules that are set further below, we ought to assume that:

The speaker could be making a mistake because speech often is imperfect and/or it was written down by someone who doesn’t have a grasp on elven language.

The phrase is idiomatic and/or an exception to the rules.

There are differences between the ancient elven spoken by the ancient elf characters and the modern elven spoken by the dalish or the city elves, and they stem from the fact that the language evolved and changed over time; modern elven might have a lot of borrowings from the languages spoken in the regions where the modern elves live — modern elven spoken in Antiva will be different than the modern elven spoken in the Denerim alienage.

The language seems to share certain traits with analytical and agglutinative languages; the order in which the words are used suggests the meaning, who’s the subject and who’s the object, and words add up together to create more complex meaning.

There seem to exist determinatives, mostly existing as suffixes, that support word formation. However, I would argue that in many cases it is the other way around; the last part of the word is the “core” while the words that come before it exist as modificators — in “bana(l)’vallaslin” it is the word “banal” that is kind of the grammatical agent, the one changing the grammatical patient “vallaslin”. 

There is usually no distinction between nouns and verbs; they can be used interchangeably. The grammatically correct sign that the word is used as a verb is the usage of the active pronoun. However, some words have a strong association with action that the passive pronoun is used for. 

The context of the language is that it was first developed by people who existed as spirits and probably had a very loose concept of time and space; if Love is a person, then loving as an action is acting like Love, the verb to love could originate more as to be as love. Furthermore, one could question how developed was the concept of physicality at the beginning in the language, what does “close” and “far” mean to a spirit?

It would make sense for the language to be heavily interpretative and contextual, more idea and concept based than precise and exact — a sentence can be interpreted multiple ways depending on the context within which it is spoken.

I would assume that during The Dales Period and effort would have been made to write down the language itself and its grammatical rules; most of these writing, however, would have been lost to the modern elves, as the flowy shape of the elven alphabet suggest that it was written on organic material like scrolls, leaves or parchment. It would not be far off to assume that the alphabet itself could develop as a magical one, as in possibly written in air, painted on, not carved into anything.

PRONOUNS

ir — singular first person active; the subject of the verb; “I am”: 

ar — singular first person passive; “I” ár — possessivus; it would seem to have later changed into mir perhaps as a mix between ir and mar.

ma — singular second person active; the subject of the verb; “You are”, you are [x] — “má vhenan”=”you are (my) heart”; má — possessivus; má’la — “you have”

mar — singular first second passive; “you”. már — possessivus; “your”

vir — plural first person active; the subject of the verb; we are; 

var — plural first person passive. vár — possessivus

na — both plural and singular third person active; is

DETERMINATIVES 

-an — suffix indicating a place

-ris — suffix indicating a group, all of it ? 

-al — gathering; a lot of something but not necessarily all?

-ra — suffix indicating person, or used to specify that it is a noun ?

-in — suffix indicating grammatical case locativus, “in”

-lan / lin / len — indicating kin, a child

(l)a- — prefix indicating grammatical case comitativus, “with”

GRAMMAR

GRAMMATICAL CASES

are expressed by tones. (accents on the last syllabe) 

Absolutus — ā (flat) — basis

Genetivus — á — denotes the “owner”, a place 

Accusativus — à — often denotes the object of the verb, often can be also used instead of preposition “to”/”towards”, to recognize the recipient etc.

Dativus — â — denotes the recipient and/or the purpose of the action. 

The subject of the sentence usually goes first and is followed by the verb; however, it can be skipped, and the first word can be a verb. Inversion happens, however.

There is nothing that indicates the existence of grammatical tenses — it would seem that one must glean them from the context of the sentence. Perhaps it stems from the communal nature of the Dalish society. Or, perhaps, this development dates back to the times of the elven empire when knowledge was freely shared and everyone would have known whether something had already happened or was happening. 

WORDS AND MUSINGS 

I spent some time trying to do some guessing and analysing on some of the words known and unknown; some of them were useful for the purpose of translations below, some were kept because I had more extensive reflections.

any/all — sal

where — iras; wherever — irassal

sa — full; to fill? join? one more? add?

viran — who?

la — and

bellana — eternity 

lasa — give

ena — form 

enasal — all form ?

lasa — give; lasá – give/given to me/us; lasà – give/given to you/them

las — bestow ?   

salin — come ?

din — end ?

din’an — place of death ? 

malasa — together, linked, bounded, ma.lasa=you are giving yourself to me. 

heem — a longer "him", not to alter but to shape from scratch, make

malas — ma.las; you grant (yourself)? to find something

sulevin — purpose/need ? 

hanin — glory

san — (guessing) inability; lack of ability 

atish’an — if “an” denotes a place, literally or metaphorically, then what does “atish” mean? if living by the “Vir Atish’an” is to avoid fighting, to heal, could “atish” mean something like restfulness and repose? could “atish” be a verb that translates to something like “bringing peace” or “to calm/tranquilise”? which would make peace mean “a tranquilised place” or as an action “to tranquilise the place”?

atish’all — if “Atish'all Vir Abelasan” is translated by Solas as "Enter the path of the Well of Sorrows” it could be a phrase that does not hold the meaning of necessarily entering a path, but rather preparing oneself for the Well of Sorrows; obviously, it can be idiomatic, but if “al” could denote “a lot/a gathering of something” and “atish” would be the grammatical agent, then “atish’all” could MAYBE mean something along the lines of spreading tranquility, like, “rest, soldier”.

emmā — within, inside; emmá – from within; emmà – into, literally “to inside” 

halam — sacrificing/losing but in a neutral/positive way? so halamshir would mean progress (with sacrifice to achieve?); halamshiral would then mean “the sacrifice of journey”?

CASE STUDIES

Below are translations I have done for the purpose of figuring out the language and how it could work within the rules I have set. Some of the phrases have been translated by the games, some don’t have official translations. 

Emmasalin var suledin evanura = emmá’salin vár suledin evanura = from within comes our endurance, leader

Mas enasalin lasa revàs evanura = shall* victory give you freedom, leader 

*i have no fucking clue what “mas” means and it’s my guess. Mas could alas be as well reconstructed as ma — “you be victorious and given freedom, leader” — or perhaps mas(al) so a plural second person pronoun akin to “yall” or “yous”, perhaps a borrowing from the common tongue.

emma salin — “I want you within me”=”Come to inside (me)” — emmà’salin

emmasalin — emmá’salin — from inside/within (it) comes

Masal din'an — youACTIVE all death — every of you (will) die

Sylaise enaste var aravel. Lama, ara las mir lath. Bellanaris. = Sylaise enaste vár aravèl. L(a)’a.ma, ar’(r)a las(à) mir làth. Bellanaris. = Sylaise blesses our aravel. And (when) with you, I* (shall) give to you my love. All eternity.

*with ra being used after the pronoun ar the whole phrase could mean something along the lines of “my whole being” or “The whole of me”.

TelVERB banalOBJECT ar a.ma. Vir shiral malasa, bellanaris. = Won’t be terrible (as it’s) me with you. We will journey together, all eternity. 

Ar lasa mala revas = ArSUBJECT lasàVERB má’la revàsOBJECT = I grant (it so) that you have freedom.

Var lath vir suledin! = Vár lath virVERB MODIFIER’suledinVERB! = our love will* persist!

*vir, as will be also mentioned later, can mean both “we” and “the way” (as in, the custom, the tradition); here, it perhaps functions as an expression of certainty in the future — just as we, as the people, are continuous and persisting, so will be our love.

Mala shivanas ar athim = Má’la shivanasSUBJECT àrOBJECT athimVERB = That you have such dedication to duty* humiliates me.

*If we assume that Má’la means “you have” and shivanas mean “dedication to duty”, the phrase seems to mean having dedication to duty by the person addressed (Davrin). Because it stands at the beginning of the sentence it is the subject and what is stressed by the speaker. 

Dirth ma, harel.lan. Ma banal’enasalin. Már solas ena már dìn = You are speaking*, kindred of lies, (but) you win/achieve nothing, your pride forms your end.

*Although the subject should be at the beginning of the sentence, positioning the verb ahead of the active pronoun can be emphasizing the continuous action of telling and speaking. 

OG world of thedas text Tel’enara bellana bana’vhenadahl, Sethen’a ir san’shiral, mala tel’halani Ir sa’vir te’suledin var bana’vallaslin, Vora’nadas san banal’him emma abel revas. OG world of thedas poetic inaccurate translation We/it lost eternity or the ruined tree of the People Time won’t help when the land of dreams is no longer our journey We try to lead despite the eventual failing of our markings. To the inevitable and troubling freedom we are committed. my analysis TelNEG.ena.ra bellanáGEN bana(l)’vhenadáhlGEN Sethen(er)á(n) ir san’shiral, m(e)la(na) telNEG’halani Ir sa(n)’vir te(l)NEG’suledin vár bana(l)’vallaslin, Vora’nadas san banalOBJECT’himVERB emma abel(às) revásGEN my translation No form of eternity*, nothing of the tree of the people. Land of waking dreams (that) I cannot journey, time will not help, I can’t persist**, our nothing of markings will not endure, 

the ceaseless*** inevitability cannot make nothing of the sorrow within that comes from freedom 

*ena.ra could mean a person, then tel’enara could mean no one, which in turn also could translate into “no one of eternity”=”no one is eternal”/”no one belongs to eternity”

**vir — can mean “we” or “the way” as in the custom, the tradition, so unless it’s idiomatic, it could mean something like “cannot be the way we are”? 

***vora — (i am guessing) continous, ceaseless, eager, something energetic etc. so the vora’shivan (“humming bird”) can mean along the lines of eagerly, energetic, dutiful, committed etc

LAST WORDS

I was looking something up in World of Thedas vol. 2 when I stumbled upon this ancient elven poem again.

I think an alternative translation is roughly this:

Without the eternal nothing/never heart tree (tree of the People), We cannot journey with spirits, without time's help. We have no purpose without our markings, We (?) inevitably become nothing within sad freedom. We do not believe, the way of war without glory. We do not grant/give the Wolf a home, the way of exile.

Åletysral

pronounced: ah – lee – tiss – rail

In the magic language Arvyndase, "Aletysral" means "an imperfect reality is better than a perfect fantasy"

**MAJOR VEILGUARD SPOILERS AND THOUGHTS**

So I have a really huge thought thing I'm gonna post eventually but this one dialogue between Davrin and (spoiler) at the end I LOVE and I am trying to figure out what is said exactly in elven.

Spoilers below cut:

Am I currently learning to read and write the elvish alphabet from Dragon's Dogma 2 instead? also yes.

(plz ignore my ugly ass handwriting)

Here's the picture I've been using as a reference:

The faint/empty letters I filled in from the Gransys Alphabet, specifically the "Ancient Lettering" version, bc it had big similarities:

(The red letters beneath are the individual letters in alphabetical order)

ma serannas = thank you

dirthara ma = may you learn

The origin of Visériel‘s name. 💜

Thanks to @fenxshiral for Project Elvhen & providing a very very very useful dictionary & explanations on the language! 🙌