Fernehalwes Wrote:Greetings!

I hope you are all enjoying Before the Fall. Wait... Why are you here reading this post and not enjoying Before the Fall!?

Okay, you’re forgiven. Now on to the post!

Soon after the release of 2.5 there were some players who noticed differences in the length of dragon lines between the EN and JP versions, so I wanted to use this opportunity to talk a little about Eorzea’s dragons, their language, and how the ancient race has been characterized by the EN Localization team.

*Extremely minor spoilers ahead*

As I mentioned in the past, far back before even the original release of 1.0, I was tasked with creating an original language for the dragons of Dravania. The background information I received at that time was that the dragons had lived for several millennia and were highly intelligent, so I set about putting together set of rules that would fit naturally those criteria.

Firstly, I felt that the language would be fairly economical. Thousands of years of refining would render long words short, would eliminate most of the more complex consonants and compound vowels, and would see the complete disappearance of words with little meaning, or meanings that could be represented by similar terms (goodbye thesauruses!).

Secondly, as these dragons had lived together for so long and only spoke this language amongst one another, they would have the uncanny ability to anticipate what a speaker was going to say based not only on context, but on a kind of linguistic premonition. Think of it as how after fifty years of marriage, a wife can complete her husband’s sentences for him. The five-decade stockpile of conversations to draw upon has given her a sixth sense, if you will. Now multiply this sense by fifty or a hundred or even more, and you have the dragons. This ability to understand what is going to be said before it is even said, I believed, would affect their language in a way that saw single words taking on multiple meanings. For example, a word like ‘flesh’ could end up being used for ‘blood,’ ‘body,’ ‘corporeal,’ ‘concrete,’ or ‘intercourse’ (the border between nouns, adjectives, verbs, etc being blurred by ages of use). The dragons would know which word was intended based on context, position within a sentence, minute variations in inflection or vowel length, as well as the aforementioned knowledge of past conversations with the speaker.

So, it is safe to say that while a non-dragon may endeavor to study the dragon language, it would be nearly impossible in their short (compared to a dragon) lifespan to even begin to fully grasp the intricacies of it. And, because of this, the only way a non-dragon would be able to understand a dragon is if the dragon chose to speak in the non-dragon’s language, or the non-dragon was blessed with the power of the Echo.

When the Echo “translates” for someone, it is a joint effort between the listener’s mind and Hydaelyn’s gift. The gift is providing the knowledge, while the listener’s mind is using its previously compiled linguistic background to compile the data into something more familiar.

On the other hand, when a dragon speaks in a non-dragon language, it is the dragon himself who is doing the translation, and therefore it is only natural to assume that the resulting target language (in our case Eorzean/English) may somewhat resemble the structure of the dragon’s native tongue—short and concise, but chock-full of meaty ambiguous content.

The dragon’s knowledge of the target language also comes into play here. A being that has lived several ages in Eorzea will most likely have picked up its Eorzean long ago. Couple that with the fact that the being may not have had much in the way of communication with Eorzeans since then, making it difficult for him to pick up on more modern speech patterns. We felt that to reflect this (and the fact that they are simply very, very old beings), it would be better to give the dragons a slightly more archaic speech pattern, hence the ‘thee’s and ‘thou’s.

So finally we get to 2.5. In this patch are scenes in which a certain dragon speaks directly with the player. Here, the dragon has chosen to use the tongue of the player rather than his own language. When the EN Localization team received the relatively wordy Japanese lines for this scene, we felt that it would fit the character and his native language better if we localized it in a manner that seemed a natural fit with the dragon language I had created—that being something that was far more compact, but still contained the main core that was in the Japanese. And thus emerged the difference in the length of lines—EN being somewhat shorter than the JP. So fear not, for the content (while slightly jumbled up to accommodate the differences in grammatical flow between Japanese and English) is, for the most part, similar between versions, and Japanese users are not somehow privy to secrets lost to the winds of translation.

That’s all for today, as I have to get back to Gold Saucer translation. Thank you for making it this far, though. The post ended up being quite longer than I first intended. A dragon could’ve said as much in far less, I suppose... And for those of you crazy lore-fiends who found the post lacking, as we get closer to 3.0 (or maybe right after the launch of 3.0, depending on whether or not I’m given the green light by Yoshi-P), I hope to reveal more info on the dragon language, but until then...

{s}{h}ess fta{h}r a{h}!

(Please look forward to it!)

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 “economical”. 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 “j”, 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.”

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.

Fernehalwes Wrote:Dragons Naturally Speaking

The basic structure of a sentence is Verb - Object - Subject (as opposed to English which is Subject - Verb - Object). In other words, where in English we would say

"The wombat ate the Lalafell"

the dragons would say

"Ate Lalafell Wombat."

This exhibits how important action is to the dragons as opposed to the initiator of that action. Who ate the Lalafell is (relatively) unimportant. Immediately recognizing that “eating” has occurred readies the dragon to decide on an appropriate action in response.

Speaking of sentence subjects, whereas English employs several types of pronouns, dragonspeak has only the following three:

1st person = a{n} (covers: we and I)
2nd & 3rd person = i{n} (covers you, he, she, they)
3rd person inanimate = a{h} (covers it, that, this, those)

Again, everything has been simplified down to focus on whether or not the action was initiated by the dragons or someone else (a distinction here being made between animate and inanimate things via the inclusion of {n} and {h}).

Adjectives and adverbs will almost always come after the word that they modify, again placing the importance on the action or the object of that action over the words that describe them. The sentence

[slowly ate] {the foolish Lalafell.}

would be constructed in dragonspeak as

[Ate slowly] {Lalafell foolish}

You may notice the lack of articles in the dragonspeak rendition. This is because dragons no longer employ the articles a, an, or the, having come to view them as superfluous and bringing little to a sentence in the way of relevant meaning.

The one slight deviation from modifier order is when a possessive is used. Instead of after the noun, it will come before (as it does in English, but without an apostrophe s).

Thordan’s vengeance - Thor{n} sja{h}s

Possessive pronouns are no different from the pronouns listed above:

My/Our vengeance - a{n} sja{h}s
Your/His/Her/Their vengeance - i{n} sja{h}s
Its vengeance - a{h} sja{h}s

There is next to no conjugation of verbs in dragonspeak─another sign of extreme efficiency. Where in English we have different forms to indicate past or present tense, as well as a compound structure to communicate future tense, dragons use the same word for all three─the only difference being the inhaling of breath while saying the verb to indicate future.

For example, the base word for ‘eat’ in dragonspeak is ee{h}s:

Eat - ee{h}s
Ate - ee{h}s
Will Eat - {s}ee{h}s

The first two are spoken while breathing out, and pronounced like “east” minus the “t,” with the middle of the word heavily aspirated (like the slight soughing of an autumn wind through slowly decaying leaves, or the raspy sigh of an octogenarian’s last breath). The latter is spoken while breathing in─an action that, when performed by a dragon, creates a slight hissing sound that attaches itself to the front of the word. This is represented by {s} when transliterating.

So why is there seemingly no linguistic difference between past and present tense? The reasoning behind this decision lies in how dragons view time and causality. The dragons believe that the present is a culmination of everything that has occurred in the past, essentially making the two one in the same. To put it simply, when one has lived tens of thousands of years, what is happening now is indistinguishable from something that has happened before.

Other verb forms such as present progressive and present perfect also fall under the past/present rules:

Is Eating - ee{h}s (a)
Have Eaten - ee{h}s (for{h})

The key here is the words that accompany ee{h}s. “A” (pronounced like a quick ‘ah’) is the dragonspeak equivalent for “now/in the present.” Using this in conjunction with a verb emphasizes the progressive nature of the verb. “For{h}” is the dragonspeak equivalent for “not now,” and when used with a verb not in the future tense, it can emphasize the fact that something happened at a time not now, but not in the future. Again, as dragons treat past and present as interchangeable, these“forms” are rarely used, and when they are, it is done more so for emphasis rather than the need to make it clear that the dragon is talking about the past or the present as opposed to something else.

Negative sentences are created in a fairly simple manner—by adding an “n” to the front of a verb. This n is different from the life-indicating {n} in that it does not contain the nasal droning. It is a simple, short, hard “n” sound.

nee{h}s fou{n} a{n} - We don’t eat chicken.

One thing that I mentioned in the opening was about how individual words took on more ‘meanings’ through a process of consolidation. A major example of this is how a single word can be used as a noun, adjective, verb, and so forth.

For example, in English, we have

Corrupt (verb) - Corruption (noun) - Corrupted (adjective)

In dragonspeak, however, all of these words are consolidated into “te{n},” dragons being able to understand which meaning the word takes by determining its position in the sentence in relation to other words. Here is an example of how that works:

te{n} le{h}s Thor{n} - Thordan corrupted the land.
{s}to{h}m te{n} Thor{n} - Thordan will bring corruption.
{n} err{n} te{n} Thor{n} - Thordan is a corrupted man.

There is still much more to the language, but short of writing a complete textbook on the subject, it’s looking like it will be impossible to relay all the intricacies without having to quit my day job, so I’m going to stop here.

OR AM I?

Before I wrap things up, I wanted to talk a little about how the language is used in the game and how it contributes to game lore, and to that end I’ve compiled a list of "funfacts" for your enjoyment:

Funfact 1:

Astute observers may have already picked up on the fact that some dragonspeak words appear similar to their Eorzean (English) counterparts. Perhaps these similarities to Eorzean suggest that Eorzean languages may have a root in dragonspeak...!? Some examples include:

come = ko{h}m
new = nuu{h}
anger/hate = ga{h}r

Funfact 2:

An interesting example can be found in the Dravanian hinterlands ((Forelands)). Unlike the Churning Mists, where place names are rendered in dragonspeak because only dragons (and the occasional moogle) reside there, there are quite a lot of Eorzean (English) names on the hinterlands ((Forelands)) map, despite being Dravanian lands occupied primarily by dragons for thousands of years. The truth of the matter is that most of these locations DO have dragonspeak names, but the early Eorzeans who settled there misheard the dragon names (which were too complex for them) and instead gave them similar-sounding en equivalents.

The easiest one is Mourn─a corruption of 'mor{n}', meaning 'death', which is the entrance to Sohm Al (promised slumber), where dragons go to end their overlong lives and get some deserved sleep.

Other examples include:

The Whilom River -> wa{h}r a{h}lm (calm water)
Mare’s Oath -> ma{h}r ro{h}s (summer woken)
Halo -> w{h}ei lo{h}s (the path to loneliness)

Funfact 3:

There also happens to be one place on the Azys Lla map that features a name in the dragon language. One may ask how this is possible, as it goes completely against the naming conventions used for other locations in the area. Well, the story behind this is that the name is, in fact, an Allagan creation, not something that the dragons themselves coined. At the height of their civilization, the Allagans felt that they had achieved intellectual supremacy over all other beings on Hydaelyn, the mighty dragons included. Even the dragon language, once believed impossible to crack, was fully deciphered by Allagan linguists─or so they claimed. Using the ‘impossible’ language became a fad, and dragonspeak was, for a time, incorporated everywhere from restaurant names to cereal brands. The claw-like formation in the Delta Quadrant—Esh Thom—is an attempt by an Allagan to make a play on the dragonspeak word for god “es{h}e{h}d,” which is, in fact, a compound meaning “highest spirit.” The Allagan who coined the term took the e{h}d portion (highest) and replaced it with “t{h}om” (bottom-most), possibly to express the late Allagan civilization’s departure from matters theological and their disdain for those who still adhered to their belief in an almighty being watching over them. It turns out that the joke was on the Allagans, as not only did a planet-wide calamity put an end to their reign over Hydaelyn, but the name Esh Thom does not translate into “the lowest of spirits,” but more closely to “an underdeveloped spirit,” a trait which can possibly be attributed to the fall of their people.

Funfact 4:

So, how is the translation of dragonspeak lines actually handled? The flow is a tad unorthodox, but basically...

1. The Japanese is submitted by the scenario team.
2. The English translation is done, prepping it for dragonspeak by cutting the fat and reducing it to its core meaning (using the economization techniques mentioned above). If that core meaning is not clear, we'll often work directly with the writer to determine the most important portions of the message to ensure we are not omitting anything that the writer wishes to remain.
3. I, personally, do the dragonspeak translation. If I am ever unable to perform my duties as dragonspeak translator...then I suppose the dragons would stop talking.
4. The dragonspeak is reviewed by the original English translator and the English is adjusted if necessary.
5. I do a simple recording of the lines for the voice actors (as some of the lines subtleties/pronounciation) cannot be relayed via written text.
6. Voice recording is done by the English voice actors (for use in all language versions)
7. Effects are added by the sound team

In Conclusion

If this whole thing feels...
...overly convoluted
...like it shouldn’t work
...like there are too many holes in the framework
...like there are too many things that would lead to confusion
then I’ve succeeded (somewhat, at least), as this is exactly the type of language I wanted to create—something that felt like it was ever-so-close, but always just out of reach. Something that, in our hubris, we humans have convinced ourselves (as did the Allagans) we could learn, conquer, and thus, make our own...but ultimately, at the end of the day, have failed at doing so. However, that doesn’t mean we can't have fun trying to succeed where the Allagans failed!

Cheers!


PS: A partial dragonspeak dictionary (about 200 terms) will be posted tomorrow as a sticky (right by the Roegadyn dictionary). It is nowhere near complete, but it covers most of the language found in game, whether it be on maps, in item names, or in spoken dialogue.

(10-07-2015, 10:18 AM)Gegenji Wrote: Well, []'s are used for forum code, so that's not too surprising. Perhaps use <>'s or even {}'s instead? {s} looks close enough to the same, at least.

Fernehalwes Wrote:1) To what extent do the spoken races understand dragonspeak?

The spoken races of Eorzea understand very little about dragonspeak. The fact that contact with most dragons has been sporadic (at best) over the past thousand years, has limited the amount of hands-on study. Because there is no written dragonspeak (other than what has been transliterated) there is really no practical reason to study the language (unless you are a linguist), as that aforementioned lack of contact with anyone who speaks the tongue limits where it can be used/practiced. Couple that with the lack of linguistic scholar-compiled documentation remaining in Eorzea (most all important tomes on dragonspeak contained in the Great Gubal library were taken back to the mainland when the Sharlayans abandoned their city-state) and the simple fact that dragonspeak is nigh on impossible to master without a few thousand years to spare...

The few lucky Eorzeans who have been granted a form of the Echo that allows their brains to decode languages...AND also have been lucky enough to also encounter a dragon in the past few years...are actually the closest anyone has been to the language in several centuries.

2) To what extent do the dragons themselves speak Eorzean?

It is safe to say most dragons can speak Eorzean. They've had a long history of dealing with many different cultures all unable to master dragonspeak, so matching the language of the other party ensures smoother communication. As for reasons why dragons will switch back and forth while speaking with you, well, that ultimately comes down to the mindset of the dragon your speaking with. Some dragons may not realize that you have the Echo, and therefore speak in Eorzean when you first meet (assuming you are like every other non-dragon being he/she has come in contact over the past several millenia). Some dragons may use Eorzea as a way of looking down on you--using your simplistic, underdeveloped language because they see you as equally simplistic and underdeveloped (thanks a lot, Middy). There are also times when a dragon may speak in Eorzean because you are accompanied by people who don't have the Echo. The opposite is also true--a dragon may use dragonspeak when he/she only wants you to know something, and not the people around you.

3) With reference to Q1, assuming that the average Eorzean doesn't understand dragonspeak, what are the chances that reference material can be found in repositories like the Great Gubal Library?

Like I mentioned earlier, the Sharlayans took all their best tomes when they packed up and headed back to their homeland. However, that's not to say there are not some left over. The Sharlayans felt it was best to leave quickly during the exodus, and left behind a lot of stuff (mostly tomes that they had duplicates of, or knew they already had other copies of back on the mainland). I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few books lying around that contained more juicy bits of information.

(10-08-2015, 01:18 AM)Kage Wrote: i may or may not take a gander at the library book >.>;

Demon Tome Wrote:Pentetolothys
Athealogicad

Ylk'eorz
Tetheth ctuleniacl

-Mesca molla nith kol atha
afah on mantha qul ta oka
millh azan thal azan ul.
-Gelli deuz tort'il am all'i
veuol gthal nk'denil ma
Thaeothelphae guil ac'til.
-Nevth'ent noctemas tel
paeth dyl xun tao zin djai
akh mael thisthe qarnic.
-Mor ann mor silvae mor.
-Morn ynn morn silvae morn.
-Tu'l qui jae tzu tao
ghollill demen atymos al
ill fhwil athac teryn.


-Dillix yn zolol nedzl sef
tolnysor devid. Molh
-Holnix xanla tildylt
usen yn vholl thaela
Li Noctologolae netheg
hyss diem alul morn
unna morn tulwal.
-Mesca molla atymos kol
mor unna mor gwyr
cthol aen dag il on al
Feryne Akyn.

Taehlo geomytoric

M'lin M'th qitha
Bellenoctol
Sempyr

-Benets quin jao azathi chail.
-Atymos'il fhil amdyri ox
Gothin dalam gyllo ud tempa