#elvhen

The full alphabet was found and has been made into a font.

Some notes:

Elvish uses a symbol for spaces between words. They do not use punctuation. K and Q are the same Elvish letter.

The elvish writing in DA4 is a 1:1 mask of English and can be decoded! The pic below is out of date, as the whole alphabet was found. In addition, Tevene, Anderfels, Antivan, and Nevarran alphabets can be linked to each other!

My halla statue is done! If BioWare won’t give me halla merchandise I’ll make it myself! (I only made the antlers, to be clear)

More pics under the cut.

Arlathvhen is a meeting of the Dalish clans that occurs every ten years. Literally means “for love of the people“.

And for love of my creative DA moots, here’s the Arlathvhen Art Challenge! Have fun! 🫶🏽

Just finished updating my fanmade elvhen dictionary. (I added some words and changed a few translations.)

I really gotta sit down sometime and put together some new names, too...

Anyway, enjoy!

With the new information coming out about Solas's plan in in DAV and the much-memed back and forth between Solas and Varric, I think we may have gotten the wrong end of the stick regarding what is at stake, or why Solas is doing what he's doing. There has been increasing back and forth about whether the Veil should come down in the decade since DAI, but a lot of conversation has focused on a) the collateral damage necessary to do so and b) elven immortality. The assumption being that Solas has decided that any collateral damage (with opinions varying from 'some' to 'apocalyptic' in what they expect that to look like) is worth it to bring back ancient elves, aka 'his people'.

However, repeated dialogues throughout DAI and Trespasser paint a different association - Solas refers to the elves as 'our people' when convenient (eg when trying to get the Inquisitor on side following their first confrontation with Corypheus). When you or other characters ask him about what he considers to be 'his people' he either dodges the question, or to Abelas:

Solas: There are other places, friend. Other duties. Your people yet linger. Abelas: Elvhen such as you? Solas: Yes. Such as I.

While this seems pretty straight forward, it begs the question what the ancient elves, what the Elvhen actually are. Think about the origin of Elvhen as a deliberate identifier, rather than just using 'elves' which Solas repeatedly rejects. Breaking down the word the answer may have been staring us in the face this whole time: vhen is translated to 'people', and El is the root for spirit. I think there is a very good chance Elvhen literally translates to 'spirit people', and that has been the key distinction all this time.

What that functionally meant before the Veil (spirits that chose to manifest personality/bodies, spirits that were bound to bodies, perhaps 'possession' or symbiosis was the norm) is yet to be determined. But the connection to spirits is what Solas considers his people, which is why appeals to save 'this world' will ultimately fail for him, even in a state where he acknowledges mortal beings are 'people':

Inquisitor: We aren't even people to you? Solas: Not at first. You showed me that I was wrong, again. That does not make what must come next any easier. Inquisitor: You'd murder countless people? Solas: Wouldn't you, to save your own?