Thuum.org

A community for the dragon language of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Thuum.org

A community for the dragon language of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Question Board


Anonymous
September 27, 2018

i'm doing a book report

my question is how to say "Sometimes" in Dragon Tongue that would be very helpful.

Category: General


0


Ruvgein
September 27, 2018

Dovahzul, the Dragon language, is not a word for word translation with English.  You can't say "Okay, how do I translate each of these words?"  it simply doesn't work that way.  You have to say "Okay, how do I translate the meaning of these words?"

I wrote a line once I needed to translate. 

"A cave is a lonely place to rest."

I had to change it to fit not only the words found in Dovahzul, but also so the meaning carries over.

"This place is a fearful rest."

I could change lonely to fearful because it wasn't being used to mean someone who is alone.  No, saying the cave is lonely also means it's damp, dark and scary.  So fearful worked in this case.

 

Also, I should point out that "sometimes" is a word you won't need for a book report.  Sometimes is a vague, throw-away word that is best to be replaced with something more descriptive.

"They walk up the hill sometimes."

When do they walk there?  Why do they walk there?

"They walk up the hill in the evening so they can see the sunset."

There we go!  That adds alot to what you write.


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Muddic
September 28, 2018

That is a bad example of "Dovahzul is not word for word translation". Because what you did was rewrite a sentence that has no direct canon translation to a sentence that has a direct word-to-word canon translation.

The better meaning of "Dovahzul is not word for word translation" is that this is the language of dragons. A dragon lives a lonely life and is not scared of anything. Thus a dragon would never translate "lonely place" as "fearful". And I think dragons prefer sleeping on top of a mountain, rather than in some sort of cave. So "A cave it a lonely place to rest", but translate into "This is no place to rest".

The community is using Dovahzul in different ways.
One way is to remain close to the lore, as in what would a dragon say.
A second way is to use only the words found ingame. Thus making abstract sentences.
A third way is to accept words made by the community.

Personally I only use it for the "third way". Using it in 95% of the cases for word-to-word translations and completely ignoring that "what would a dragon say".

I greatly respect people that manage that use it as the "one way". But as someone who never really played Skyrim, this is not what I use it for.

As of the "second way", I understand why people choose this, but I am personally not a fan of it. Because the sentences become abstract or they only throw in some dovahzul words while mainly talking in english.

As of your question. A direct word-to-word translation would be 'Osostiidde'. 'Osos' is used ingame in 'some day' and 'some goblins'. So using it in some time is no problem. But using it in sometimes is a strech, you could translate it to 'not at all times', 'ni ahst pah tiidde'. An alternative would could be 'ont' meaning 'once'.