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Hello everyone! This is one of my first posts on the forums, so I'll introduce myself.

I'm a conlanger (one who creates languages) and an Elder Scrolls addict. I've played all Elder Scrolls games from Arena to Skyrim and the thing I love most about them is the lore; I love delving in all the information Bethesda left around in the games in the form of books and details and conversation options with various NPCs. As you can probably imagine, the announcement of the creation of the dragon language for TESV brought me great excitement as a conlanger, and I couldn't wait to see the dimension of language being added to the already tremendously deep lore of the series. Unfortunately that excitement vanished soon to be replaced by a little disappointment when I learned that the dragon language was basically a relex of English (for those of you not familiar with conlang jargon, a relex is a constructed language whose grammar is identical to that of a natural language but whose words are not. Basically, it's an elaborate cypher). Of course, you can't expect the developers to actually take the (long) time needed and do the (massive) amount of work required to create a language while creating the game, so the disappointment was fast overcome, and the game is so gorgeous you can't be disappointed by anything in it anyway, but every time I hear someone speaking in the dragon language in the game, I can't help but think of what could have been. So I've decided to step in where the incredible guys at Bethesda failed and create languages for Tamriel.

Before venturing in the treacherous bog of Mer and Human languages, however, I've decided to start with Jel, the language of the Argonians.

Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to attach things to posts or post links, so I'm at a bit of a loss as of how to let you see the actual work I'm doing. If you're interested, drop me a PM and I will send you the file. For now I've only reconstructed the phonetics of Jel, but grammar is soon to come. If you have ideas, suggestions, feedback or scathing insults for me ... post away!

You cant post those in till you have either 10 post, been here for so many days, or have a mod added you to register members. Its used to stop spam bots.

Thanks for the info, Wolfie.
I'd imagined it was for some such reason.

As for your idea, we have had a few threads with language and one of our greatest mods also dose languages , and will probely injoy this a lot.

I'll be watching this thread

That's the term I was looking for earlier today that I couldn't come up with! Fantastic. I like you already.

That's an ambitious project you have there, friend, and kudoz! Had time allowed I might have done something similar. If you ever need any help I will gladly offer my services; I've a fancy degree in linguistics and a great deal of knowledge about grammars and how they work. I'd love to put it to a fun use!

We have had some brief discussions on language in our lore subforum, so I would look there to see what we've discussed to help out or give you some ideas. There is a plethora of knowledge available, of course, and the lore is an excellent place for resources!

Also, I've added you to the "Confirmed Users" group, so you may now post links, an avatar, and send PMs. Enjoy!

Yep, she is the mod I was talking about.

I wonder how your going to do this, I'm not aware of many times of seeing their langauge.

Thank you so much, Avron!
I'm just a language enthusiast and have no degrees whatsoever, so your help would be much appreciated.
Here's the link where you can find my reconstruction of Jel phonetics.
http://www.mediafire.com/?74vr5hk6hqtl1ev

As for how I can do it, I followed a simple set of steps:
1) I looked up all the words we know in the Jel language.
2) I scanned them for patterns (repeated letters/suffix-like or inflection-like parts etc.)
3) I extrapolated some basic facts about the language.
4) I completed and adapted the phonology of the language so that it conformed to what I think Jel should sound like (e.g. I didn't put any labials in it, as the Argonians don't appear to have lips, and I have interpreted the digraphs (letter combinations) xh and c' as clicks)

And besides, I've decided to start with Jel precisely because so little is known of it: that way I can improvise more and I don't have to work in too claustrophobic an environment.

Interesting!

Certainly difficult to reconstruct it given that we have so few ideas to base our knowledge off of, so this is a good start. After looking at this briefly, here's a few brief thoughts I have (not sure how in depth your linguistic knowledge is so excuse me if I sound patronizing, as it's not my intention!):


Do you look for minimal pairs? That's an easy way to look for patterns with morphemes and phonetics, although I admit it's difficult here since our sample pool is rather small. Actually, curiously small, all things considered, which is always a bother keeping me from projects like this. But it's a good way to test your assumptions as well.


That's a good observation. I wonder if there are any clues about basic Argonian phonetics and physics in the voice actors? They do follow the ideal for how Bethesda imagined things, of course.

I do like the idea of clicks. I would have thought clicks to be more of a Khajiit feature, for some reason, but they do make sense with Argonians after looking at this data here.


Do you think perhaps Jel could have components of an agglutinative language? (Those are my favorites so that would be interesting!)

Yes I do. Unfortunately, our corpus is far too small and I wasn't able to find any. The only word I found which repeated itself (or so I think) is the word "leel", which I've interpreted as "people" (which would make sense in "An-Xileel", it being the governmental body of Black Marsh).


That's curious. When I think of the Khajiit language, I tend to imagine a Farsi-like language.
As for the clicks, it was the one thing I was 100% sure I would've put in from the beginning. I don't know why, but there's something in the Argonians that makes me think their language has a lot of clicks.


Certainly! I think it's in fact very probably so. It could also potentially be polysynthetic, depending on whether I get carried away with this and lose all control of my lang-geekiness.
I had half an idea to put tones in it, but I restrained myself.


I have a whole section of my library dedicated to linguistics and I'm known among my friends for holding impromptu lectures on the argument, much to their annoyance.
Don't worry about sounding "patronizing", I'm sure that having a degree you know much more than myself, and I'm actually pretty happy of having met someone who can correct any errors I make.

Thanks for the feedback and the precisation on Theilul!

I most certainly will. In fact, I think it will be the next language I'll tackle when I finish Jel.
I thought of doing the "isolated" languages first: Jel, Ta'agra and Yoku, and then take a look at the meretic/nedic languages, which have the problem of being related, and that means I may have to sketch a proto-language in order to make sense of them.
Anyway, for now that's just wishful thinking, I'd better concentrate on Jel for the moment being.

I couldn't have put it better. In the end, I'd have to create one ur-language and two proto-languages if I want a bit of realism.
Such is the lot of the conlanger.
Anyway... today I'm going to start with the grammatical aspect of Jel, so expect developments.

Ok, here's some news:

I've given our lovable lizards two set of pronouns: the “connected” set, used to refer to all individuals connected through the Hist, i.e. all Argonians, and a “disconnected” set, used for everything else.
The Argonians make no distinction in number, so understanding whether a given pronoun refers to a single individual or to a group of people is entirely a matter of context.

Connected Set:

1st person: sep
2nd person: xho
3rd person: suu
4th person: c'a

The 4th person is a special pronoun which we could call a “hyper-inclusive we”, which is used to refer to every being connected through the Hist at the same time, and is therefore the only pronoun which carries some sense of plurality, although this is misleading, since the Argonians perceive themselves as one when they're connected. Depending on context, it can be translated as “the whole world” or “the Argonian people” or other such expressions.

Disconnected Set:

1st person: see
2nd person: to
3rd person: thuu

The “disconnected” set is a later derivation of the “connected” set, created when the Argonians were forcibly taken out of their millennia-long isolation by the Alessian Empire in the First Era, is used to refer to all non-Argonians, which Argonians perceive as being “disconnected” in some way. This is a very discomforting feeling to Argonians, which need to get used to it before interacting with other peoples on a long-term basis.
There is no “collective” 4th person.

Use of the pronouns:

All Argonians refer to themselves and their peers with the “connected” set of pronouns, although in special circumstances, such as when speaking with a tribe-leader or a very important individual, an Argonian may refer to himself with the “disconnected” 1st person pronoun, to suggest humility, implying that he's not worthy of being connected through the same Hist as whatever person he's talking to. To address an Argonian with the “disconnected” 2nd person pronoun is in an of itself a powerful insult, and it's not that rare to hear enemy tribes refer to each other as thuu rather than suu. Conversely, every non-Argonian must refer to himself and to his peers with the “disconnected” set of pronouns. To do differently would be seen as unbelievably arrogant and insulting. Argonians may refer to non-Argonians with the “connected” set of pronouns when these strangers have done them a great favour or when they consider them close friends (eg. Mere-Glim probably addressed Annaïg with xho).

Sorry for the long post.

P.S.: I'm working on a new classification scheme for the languages of Nirn, as the current one seems improbable to me.

Also, here's your two very first words in Jel (apart from all the pronouns, of course):
Thtal, which means breathe through your gills, and sem, which means breathe through your lungs.

Here's the link to the updated .odt file:
http://www.mediafire.com/?gz9buv5999ux08r

This is so awesome. It's so Ixtaxh. Great work! Have a meht!

Have you thought about coming over to the Imperial Library and proposing your ideas? There are lots of people with similar interests to yours over there.

Thanks a lot! I'm doing my best to make it as awesome as possible.



Yes, I've thought about that. Maybe I'll open a thread there in the future.

This is beyond cool.

Mini-update on syntax:

Unmarked word order is OSV, when the subject of the verb is a pronoun, however, it becomes OVS.

And here are your two very first sentences in Jel!

Suur Haj-Ei golt.
Haj-Ei drinks Hist-sap.
Suur golt-suu.
He/she drinks Hist-sap.

Sorry if the updates are slow, but the work is much and my personal life doesn't always allow me to dedicate as much time as I wanted to the project, but I'm happy to say I'm making good progress and I'll notify you of every major update.

Wow! This is one of the greatest work that i've ever seen!
I was just surprised when i've seen some traduction of the daedric alphabet on the Wiki... But that... That! That is awesome!
I really like the argonian lore and i would love to help... I am not an expert about language, but if there is anything with i can help just tell me!

It's weird, confusing, and I absolutely love it!

It's not that weird! Universal grammar is a beautiful thing.

Hey, I have highest grade on Swedish, German and English. Don't patronize me with your superior linguistic knowledge and whatnot.

I wonder what an Argonian tongue twister would look like..

You might discover it sooner than you'd like..... MUAHAHAHA!

Actually, I think it would involve a lot of clicks. As soon as I have enough grammar I'll let you know.

I'm loving this, truly great. Can't wait to see more.