#seledreamas

What kind of runes are those supposed to be? Because they look like no historical norse runes I know of. More like a mix-up of some runes, some letters, and some alchemical symbols.

“Hello, friend. I was wondering what "Skuggeslåtten" translates to, if...”

I think you are mostly right, but the division should probably be 'skugge' (shadow) - 'slåtten'. 'Slått' is apparently a term for a piece of instrumental norwegian folk music. It comes from the old norse usage of 'slå' (strike) instead of 'spela' (play) for some string instruments.

So, it would be something like “the shadow-music” then? But ‘music’ as in a very specific type of music, of course. With that in mind, this seems to be a word without a good English equivalent, then. At least none that I could rummage up with my meager knowledge of Norwegian.

Nonetheless, given the type of music that they perform, this seems far more likely than what I provided. None of my dictionaries have such a word! Where did you come across this, if I may ask? 

But I do thank you for sharing this, for I am sure that @mattiasinmidgard will find it insightful. And I am still quite curious to know what @hedendom may have to share about all of this!

you have questions and i have answers!

I’m going to be focusing on passerines, or songbirds, since they have the most well known and well developed calls and songs of Aves. also the most likely to be heard in the park!

>>>Do we know how they do that, anatomically?

yes, we do! i could go super in depth, but i’ll stick to being relatively simple for now: basically, birds have a bony structure called the syrinx at the bottom of their trachea. the syrinx interacts with membranes around it as the bird forces air through. birds can control the pitch and volume depending on the exhalation force/tension on the membranes. a cool thing about bird vocalization is some birds can control each side of the trachea independently, forming 2 different sounds at the same time. (X)

>>>And would it be possible to find fossil hints wether dinosaurs had a similar range of calls?

well, sort of. syrinxes don’t fossilize, but structures (like airsacs) around the syrinx do have some fossil evidence (like in Aerosteon and Buitreraptor), so they’re possible in extinct dinosaurs! syrinxes allow for pretty complex noises, but in general they’re more of a recent development for dinosaurs, found only in certain groups of birds. so the likelihood of non-avian dinosaurs having  syrinxes, and thus being able to make complex duo-tones and songs, is low.

however, birds also have a larynx, which other archosauromorphs, mammals, and other animals have, so you could say theyre “more primitive” than syrinxes - more animals share them, more evidence for common ancestry. animals with larynxes are all typically very loud, and since extinct dinosaurs most likely had them, it can be assumed they’d be pretty loud animals too. 

what kind of sounds they made, we can’t be super sure. (animals like hadrosaurs, including Parasaurolophus could have used their crests to make almost trumpetlike noises, like wind instruments, but they’re the less birdlike dinosaurs). and of course, some birds aren’t that advanced in their sounds, so they could’ve made sounds like non-avian dinosaurs did as well. turkey vultures don’t have syrinxes, and they make weird hiss-growl sounds, so non-avian dinosaurs could’ve sounded something like that.

here are a few good resources relating to this! 

if any paleoblogs/animal blogs want to add to this, feel free!