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[Nihilich]

Insofar that languages are living entities and their use/meaning is defined by how they are actually used in the real world (yes i'm a descriptivist), I argue that the correct model of dwarven language already exists - it's that used by Simon Swerwer, who is basically the only person alive who produces any content in Dwarven.

Check the lyrics of his songs (link here to my favorite). Most of them are sung with meaningful dwarven lyrics. Pronunciation is clear, grammar is applied.

His song "KoganUsan" ("BoatMurdered") is even in the base game soundtrack. In short - a very strong argument his work is canon, and thus this is both the described and prescribed form of dwarven language. It's fully legitimate.

What do you think? Is this enough to go off of?

[eerr]

there are variations of dwarven in different worlds.
There is no 'one language to define'
There's a thread somewhere about this.

[Ziusudra]

there are variations of dwarven in different worlds.
There is no 'one language to define'
There's a thread somewhere about this.

If you could find that thread please share it, because from every thing I know that's just not true.

[A_Curious_Cat]

there are variations of dwarven in different worlds.
There is no 'one language to define'
There's a thread somewhere about this.

If you could find that thread please share it, because from every thing I know that's just not true.

I’d say it’s more of something that Toady One hasn’t decided on.  There’s been suggestions about procedurally generating languages for each world.  Currently, however, there’s just a single language* for each race.




*These really aren’t languages, either.  They’re actually just ciphers of English.

[Nopenope]

It's true the 'languages' of DF are underdeveloped and basically just giant gloses of English, but as the OP said Simon Swerwer used this crude base to form a fully-fledged language you can form sentences from - and indeed full song lyrics. With no inflexions, articles or prepositions to work with, it would be classified as an isolating language where relations between elements of a sentences are fully determined by a very rigid word order or can be inferred from context. Also, by necessity the differences between parts of speech (verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs and such) are very blurry and porous - an adjective can be used as an adverb, a noun as a verb, etc. and it all depends on context.

In that respect Swerwer-style dwarven has a very concise, implicit and terse quality that reminds one of Classical Chinese, which is an interesting development.

[sodafoutain]

Haven't you guys seen this thread? It's not a pronunciation guide, but I think the pronunciation is obvious enough with the diacritic markings present. The lyrics sung by Simon Swerer seem to be close to the inspirations for dwarven languages, like Hebrew and other Cyrillic derived languages.

[Nihilich]

I really feel like it bears repeating - the fact that Simon Swerwer's dwarven lyrics are included in the official soundtrack of the steam release (and especially the one about the most famous DF story - Kogan Usan - Boat Murdered!!) lends a huge amount of credence and legitimacy to his interpretation of the dwarven language. Short of the Word of God stepping in himself to make it clear, I think this is the most robust endorsement of any dwarven interpretation we've ever seen, and is as close to official as we have ever had.

It's true the 'languages' of DF are underdeveloped and basically just giant gloses of English, but as the OP said Simon Swerwer used this crude base to form a fully-fledged language you can form sentences from - and indeed full song lyrics. With no inflexions, articles or prepositions to work with, it would be classified as an isolating language where relations between elements of a sentences are fully determined by a very rigid word order or can be inferred from context. Also, by necessity the differences between parts of speech (verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs and such) are very blurry and porous - an adjective can be used as an adverb, a noun as a verb, etc. and it all depends on context.

In that respect Swerwer-style dwarven has a very concise, implicit and terse quality that reminds one of Classical Chinese, which is an interesting development.

I also thought it reminded me of Chinese, and thought about bringing it up, but couldn't decide how to word it. Perhaps dwarven is pictographic, and their engravings are more literal than we've ever thought. Perhaps "dwarven language" as we see it written in game is merely a pinyin, or a latinized pidgin.

Haven't you guys seen this thread? It's not a pronunciation guide, but I think the pronunciation is obvious enough with the diacritic markings present. The lyrics sung by Simon Swerer seem to be close to the inspirations for dwarven languages, like Hebrew and other Cyrillic derived languages.

I remember attempting to train an LLM on that specific thread a while back to generate dwarven content, but ultimately failing. Probably because that's not how LLMs actually work, I now realize. I wonder if it would be possible to use AI now to help generate and understand the dwarven language.

[Criperum]

As far as i remember Toady stated that in future in-game languages will have procgenerated differences in worlds. That will make current state of dwarven lang (including lyrics) mere a reference of old times. That was one of the reasons the project of creating actual dwarven here on forum halted and eventually died.