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Language Origins/Families

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Lady N's picture
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Joined: 06/26/2010

Migrating this over from the other thread. In reference to a language chart on a russian lore wiki. Top down:

 

The Aldmeris box is unncesary, have everything orginate from Proto-Aldmeris (which I would actually rename "Aldmeris"). 

Ayleid, Dwemeris and Falmeris are also part of the Aldmeris group. If you want to be real comprehensive, add Left-Hand Elven. The language spoken in Umbriel should also be branching off the Ehlnofex line. 

I would somehow show that modern Tamrielic is a mixture of the Nedic and Aldmeric groups (same with Kothri). 

"Bretik" should be "Bretonic". 

I'd eliminate the "Betmeric" category entirely, since the languages aren't related. 

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Joined: 11/02/2011

I think Tamrielic (as a decendent of Cyrodillic) would have to have a non-Nedic and non-Aldmeri sub-strata, since the words can't all traced back to those languages. Assuming they were developed naturally out of Old Nebenaen and Colovian langauges (whcih proboblly had Nedic influence).  I agree about the Betmer category just because I dont see how Old Orcish fits it it has anything to do with the Orismer, who are Aldmeric. I don't even know if there is enough information about the langauges to group them in this way. I also wonder how diverse Yakudan dialects had been before the arrival of the Redguard.  

Pilaf The Defiler's picture
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Joined: 11/27/2010

I would assume the Orcish language would be an evolved version of old Ehlnofey, probably a similar dialect to the one the citizens of Umbriel used, and possibly some Aldmeri Dominion ranking members. It probably has lots of loan words from cultures it's surrounded by. Since their culture was isolated in such an extreme central location for so long, the language probably changed pretty much beyond recognition of old Aldmeris speakers, but still with some familiar sounds. (I think a good example from another game published by Bethesda would be the pidgin tongues that the Zion tribalists from Fallout: NV's expansion Honest Hearts speak. It was roughly derived from a base of English, Spanish, German and some Native American words.)

 

I'd say the language called Tamrielic is roughly parallel to real world modern English in the sheer percentage of it that's  made up of loan words. If an ancient Ayleid listened to a modern Imperial speaking he'd recognize some of the words but wouldn't really be able to follow the rest. Just like English, I can imagine it absorbing useful phrases and phonetic sounds from surrounding cultural languages. Latin would be the obvious one, but I think that despite the superficial similarities between Rome and Cyrodill, the way their in-universe language evolved is probably more Anglo-Saxon.

 

Another similarity between Tamrielic and either Latin or English is that it's the de facto trade language of Tamriel, so even cultures that don't use it as a primary language are roughly familiar with some important phrases. So there's some linguistic admixture going on there. The old back and forth. It's something that's happened many times in our own history. I don't think there's a single major language group on Earth that hasn't given and taken from another at this point. Even Akaviri phrases and words have become part of the casual Tamrielic lexicon, just as some Asian concepts and words have crept into English lately.

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Joined: 11/02/2011

Have you checked out this chart? http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Ehlnofex_Languages

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Joined: 11/02/2011

You make some interesting points, however I'm not sure Tamrielic is the English we hear in the game, or if that would really be a translation of what the people really speak. The Cyrodilic (Tamrielic) names definetlly don't look very English in form. Much of English has Latin roots, and all Indo-European langauges will have words here and there that are related but I think Cyrodilic would proboblly be something like Latin, though I agree the relationship with real Romans may be superficial. Naturally the game has "Anglo" aspects to it, the game was created in the English speaking world In a way that complestes it since the modern world around us has been influenced by the English speaking American culture, though I think most of Europe and America seem to identify with their conceptualization of Rome.

Hints to the true Cyrodilic language are in names. I think this is mentioned in the other article about the languages of men in the Scholars Guild section (check it out if you haven't already), which also mentions the title of the Manifesto of Cyrodilic Vampires, which is in what appears to be Latin, though I noticed a switch in the placemeant of the adjective and noun from what would be seen in classical Latin or odern Romance languages. The word order would actually fit English better in that case, but the words are still basically Latin in style. It would be cool if they actually created one of he mini-books in the Cyrodilic, this way we would have conformation. Of coarse that would be hard to do since the games are in language of the countries they are sold in, so Cyrodilic becomes whatever language the game is in.