A Lesson in Dragonspeak (part one)
Fernehalwes Wrote:Greetings all!
Since before 3.0, many of you have been asking for more information on the dragon language used in FINAL FANTASY XIV. I’ve been putting together something for the past few months, but found that I was getting nowhere close to completing it. The problem was that the more I added, the more I realized I’d forgotten to add. Well, I finally decided that if I kept on doing this, the post would never make its way to the forums, and that wasn’t acceptable, so I sat down at my keyboard and...here we are.
I warn you, the following post is long, somewhat disjointed, and rambling. It covers a lot, but not everything, and may leave you with more questions when (if) you finish. HAVE FUN!
The Birth of a Language
The dragon language was created by me about six years ago, back before the original XIV launch, when Ishgard was still slated to be a part of 1.0. At that time, all the beast tribes were going to have unique tongues (which would be voiced), the Echo simply “translating†those for you in the dialogue window. I threw together some ideas and pitched them to the lore master at that time (Kenichi Iwao, also the world creator on XI) who thought they were interesting enough and asked me to flesh them out. Unfortunately, by the time I had completed my work, it was apparent that Ishgard wasn’t going to make it in 1.0, and my efforts were tossed into a folder that sat on my desktop for almost four and a half years. Fast-forward to patch 2.X. When we were told that the dragons were going to make an appearance to pave the way for the game’s Ishgard-themed expansion, I went straight to the new (and current) lore master’s desk to ask him if it was okay to use the dragon language I had conceived back in the dark ages. He was surprisingly open to the idea...and the rest is history.
An Overview
If I were to describe dragonspeak in one word, it would be “economicalâ€. The dragons (more specifically, the First Brood) have had tens of thousands of years to trim the fat—whether it be from vocabulary, grammar, syntax, or even pronunciation. Multiple meanings have been consolidated into single terms and redundancies eliminated. Words have been shortened, simplified, or condensed to minimize oratory exertion. Instead of differences in meaning being represented by different words, inflection and breath patterns have become the norm. And then there is the simple fact that the beings who use this language have been doing so with the same partners for thousands of years. It is only expected that after communicating with someone for so long, that both parties are, in an sense, able to anticipate what the other will say, further contributing to the abbreviation or omission of obsolete terms, as well as imparting even deeper meaning to words NOT spoken─the ultimate form of reading between the lines.
Languages such as English change over time as millions of people use and refine it in their everyday lives. Those people eventually die after a few decades, and the next generation takes up the process of changing the language, moving it in directions the previous generation may not have even imagined. How many people living in the 19th century would have believed that the word sh*t would come to mean something “great†or “outstanding,†simply by adding the definite article? The path the dragon language takes, however, is largely dictated by the dragons of the First Brood. These select few don’t die after a few decades, and while the language is passed down to their progeny, it is ultimately used to speak with the parents─parents who change little themselves. The result is a paradox in the sense that you have a language that exists in a form that can only be mastered by someone who has been exposed to it for thousands of years...making it difficult for any younger dragons to pick it up themselves, coupled with the unfortunate fact that the lifespan of the latter broods, while still significant, pales in comparison to that of the First.
Dragons Naturally Sounding
Despite their high level of intelligence, the dragons do not have a written language. This means that all written forms of the language are transliterations based on Eorzean (English). While our alphabet can be used to represent most sounds of the dragon tongue, there are some tricky ones that range from quirky to down-right impossible for non-dragons to pronounce. Let’s first start off with two of the most important: [n] and [h].
One of the most basic and unique features of the language is the presence/absence of [life] in words. To the dragons, most words (with some exceptions, of course) represent either a concept that contains or is void of life. Words that are deemed to contain life, such as ‘dragon,’ ‘person,’ and ‘flesh’, will almost always contain a bass-heavy nasal N sound somewhere in them, whereas words without life, such as ‘escape,’ ‘sleep,’ and ‘see’, will always contain what can be best described as a wispy/breathy sound similar to lightly clearing ones throat, but without the...er, juiciness, for lack of a better term. The former is represented in transcribed dragonspeak with an [n], the latter with an [h], to distinguish them from normal ‘n’ and ‘h’ sounds.
Dragon - dra[n]
Person - arr[n]
Flesh - [n]esh
Escape - e[h]sk
Sleep - so[h]m
See - [h]ess
What dragons consider to be ‘life’ is not always as clear cut as ‘living being’ vs ‘inanimate object.’ For example, the word for death, mor[n], contains the life-representing [n]. While to us, death represents the absence of life, the dragons look at it as a part of life—something that would not exist without life—and therefore add that [n]. Another example is [n]oskh, or the word for ‘to ask.’ The dragons believe that life is a journey to search for the reason for existence, and that questions are what bring them closer to that goal. For the dragons, to question is to live. On the other hand, the word for sun, ‘soo[h],’ does not contain an [n] despite being something that is considered by many cultures necessary for the cultivation of life. This is because the dragons─those of the First Brood, at least─understand that the sun is, scientifically speaking, a ball of radioactive plasma floating in the void of space…and have known this fact for a long, long time.
Three additional examples of unique consonants are:
sj sja[h]s (vengeance)
As the transliteration implies, it is a cross between an “s†and a “jâ€, but in fact it is a bit more complex, containing s+sh+ch+d+j all combined into a rumbling, buzzing compound that, despite containing so many sounds, is spoken at the same speed as a simpler consonant.
ft fta[h]r (after/later)
Another seemingly simple compound sound that is actually quite complex—the “t†sound not being a full stop, but breathed through, placing it somewhere between “t†and “th.â€
y dy[h]r (differ/different)
One must be careful not to pronounce this as “ee,†as that may change the meaning of the word. “Y†is actually closer to a “ye†sound, but without the “y†sound being as prominent. The “Y†is effectively swallowed as it segues into the “e,†leaving the listener with something that is clouded at the beginning, but eventually resolves in a long vowel.
I mentioned earlier how inflection and intonation plays a role in the language. These intricacies are transliterated via dots (glottal stops), shapes (rumbling), curved lines (pitch changes), and other types of flourishes (fluttering) above and below the written words. This cannot be reproduced by any of Microsoft’s pre-installed fonts, so I’ve included a picture of some handwritten script.
There is one more very unique sound that plays a prominent role in the dragon tongue, but as it deals directly with tense, I’ve saved it for the next section, which has to do with basic vocab and grammar.
![[Image: 3NPNwZP.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/3NPNwZP.jpg)
