Talk:Elven language

Shue shah tauthau toetoi thuet: I don't want to kill you.
This sounds odd. Where does it come from? -- Marvin Arnold 12:15, April 28, 2010 (UTC)

It was never supposed to be part of the actual list. It is a made-up string of nonsense from a thread on Bioware, reminiscent of the Chinese phrases spoken by the people in the show Firefly. It has been removed because of inaccuracy. Bellaknoti (talk) 03:08, September 18, 2010 (UTC)

Since the release of Suledin and its translation, I have been able to parse a correct substitute: Ar'din nuvenin na'din. I have made a note of it at the bottom of the page, amongst the "threats". Bellaknoti (talk) 17:01, April 6, 2011 (UTC)

Ghostly Mother and Child
Does anyone have a translation of what the shade of the boy's mother (in the Lower Ruins) says? Rosenoire 07:21, April 30, 2010 (UTC)
 * If someone will post a transcript, I will give a shot at translating it, since I did most of the deconstruction on the main page.

Bellaknoti (talk) 03:08, September 18, 2010 (UTC)

Gleaned from the youtube video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nAU75Uhb-A The mother says: "Viran se lan'aan?  Ir annala for ros...  Ir emah'la shal! Ir emah'la shal!" Bellaknoti (talk) 23:34, September 18, 2010 (UTC)
 * At least on the console version, the mother has an additional line. After "Viran se lan'aan? Ir annala for ros..." and before the player has the chance to reply, she also says "Nae! Ga rahn s'dael! Ga rahn!" Eltha7 (talk) 03:00, December 27, 2010 (UTC)
 * 'Nae' is probably 'No', and 's'dael' is 'our little one'; I bet she's saying, "No! Get away from our little one!  Get away!", but that's just a guess.  Bellaknoti (talk) 16:44, January 25, 2011 (UTC)

should we also put what the boy says? I didn't see it in the article, and he says "Mamae? Mamae na mara san..." and then mamae three more times, though the latter isn't needed. 108.2.176.166 (talk) 06:06, September 19, 2010 (UTC)
 * I lacked that transcript. Correction noted, and thank you!

Bellaknoti (talk) 16:23, September 19, 2010 (UTC)

When the child first spots you he runs away and shouts: "Ma halani! Se vara lassa'val! Nae mal!". In case anyone wishes to try and translate it as well. - Kerethos (talk) 20:26, October 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * Wow, I wish I could, but it just doesn't have enough precedent. If we're lucky, they'll release something else with more Elvish in it, and give us a clue. Bellaknoti (talk) 19:21, October 19, 2010 (UTC)

If it helps, I have a theory on the context. My guess is, the Tevinters at some point decided to purge the temple, and the mother, who was a caretaker, ran into the uthenera chamber and sealed it. The poor child got lost and didn't see his mum seal herself inside the chamber, so he backtracked, at which point he encountered Tevinters and ran back towards the room with the altar. The Tevinters killed him and then tried to open up the chamber, but instead released shades, and the shades killed everyone in the temple (hence why the "life gem" found elsewhere in the temple shows visions of something killing "human and elf alike".) Of course, it's just a theory, based primarily on the fact that most of the ghosts seen in DA are folks who died in particularly violent circumstances, and on the assumption that the Tevinters are a bunch of sparkle-fingered idiots who can't keep their hands to themselves (I mean seriously, you'd think after accidentally creating the darkspawn that they would have learned to leave sacred-looking things alone...) -- Gnostic (talk) 17:27, November 10, 2010 (UTC)

These spirits are human. As per what killed them by account of what the elven mage in the life gem said is unclear. But it did kill both human and elf alike. --Tsavi (talk) 20:54, November 12, 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm going to agree with Bellaknoti here, I'm 100% certain the woman was an elf and 95% certain the boy was. The models for human and elven children are very similar, so unless we can get a screenshot showing that the boy doesn't have elven ears or someone can go into the toolset and screengrab his info to show that he is infact not an elf, it should probably be left as it was for the time being. EDIT: Also considering how much work Bellaknoti has put into the Elven Language article, understanding and deconstructing the language, even identifying the correct pronunciation, I'm pretty sure she knows that part of the game backwards and forwards. It's partly why I think it should be left how she had it until there is something concrete showing them not to be human (rather than putting a note on the article about the race of those two being in question for the time being). 21:50, November 12, 2010 (UTC)
 * Plus, why would a human boy be speaking Elvish? -- Gnostic (talk) 22:28, November 12, 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm going to bet the answer to that is "they were living with elves". I actually just looked at that video up there that shows the ghostly mother to see if I could find indicators of race. The womans hair was down so I couldn't see her ears, the ghost effect was making it hard to read her jaw line... but I can't help but feel it's wrong that I can tell her race by her bust size... elves are noticeably smaller in that area. 22:41, November 12, 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay, but even if a screenie shows the boy to have round ears, it's already been established that all half-elves are human. So, he is speaking Elvish and has an elven mother, even if he looks human.  Furthermore, there *is* precedent for *some* of what he says, because we know for a fact that "mamae" is the Elvish word for "mother", and "na" means "your", not to mention "ir" for "very" and "annala", a permutation of "annar", meaning "year"... Even if I can barely suss any of the rest of it, there is enough canon Elvish here to make it firmly *not* Tevinter, and it's obviously not Ferelden common.  The entire argument is spurious and moot.  They are speaking Elvish; whether or not they are, in fact, elves, is irrelevant.
 * They are clearly not speaking Tevinter, that would be a silly thing to suggest with earnestness. It is possible though that if Tevinter or Alamarri humans were living with elves in those ruins that they might be speaking some sort sort of creole. Even though BioWare invented Tevinter and Elven languages (among others) for Dragon Age, I seriously doubt they would make use of actual creoles, it just seems like far to much trouble (I'd be surprised to see minor regional variants, beyond pronunciation that is). 23:48, November 12, 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd like to point out, just as a big, shiny clue: you have to solve The Elven Ritual, which is actually located in The Elven Tombs to get the Juggernaut helm from the quest The Mage's Treasure, not to mention the fact that following the boy in the first place leads you to a sarcophagus where you receive the instructions for the Elven Ritual, which is Codex Entry: A Carved Elven Tablet. So... gee.  Seems pretty clear-cut.Bellaknoti (talk) 23:54, November 12, 2010 (UTC)
 * The mother is human by her ears. Also, how do we know for sure that the humans in the time frame of this ruin didn't also speak Elven if it were in fact elven. And the fact that the juggernaut armor is found there suggests that some Tevinter's knew about elven rituals. Whether or not the boy ran to the room with the tablet could have just been that the magister who put the armor piece in there left that so they could go back in time without having to worry about carrying something fragile about. --Tsavi (talk) 01:48, November 13, 2010 (UTC)

I'm not going to indent here because it's getting kind of ridiculous. @Tsavi, you can't even see the mother's ears, they are covered by her hair, you have to look for different markers. We also don't even know if the Tevinter were ever in those ruins to start with. The Juggernaut Armor is of Tevinter make yes, but it was placed there by a Revenant sent to hide it from the Clayne (another name for the Fereldan people). We have no date for when the structure was made, when it fell to ruin, or even when the armor was placed there. Magister Harach had no need to know where the ruin was, or how to get in, or how to access the inner-most chambers, that was all up to the Revenant that entered the place. Revenants themselves are made from Pride and Desire Demons which are quite intelligent on their own and watch people from across the Veil, it wouldn't be that weird for one to know about the ruins. 02:16, November 13, 2010 (UTC)

Lethallin/Lethallan
The article states that the word "lethallan" is used for males, while "lethallin" is used for females. However, during the Dalish Origin story, Tamlen refers to the PC as "lethallin" if male, and as "lethallan" if the PC is a female character. Tested the origin as both sexes on the PS3, May 06,2010 (6:24am) Glacé 07:16, May 21, 2010 (UTC).

The confusion comes from the opening. For some reason, during the intro sequence with the three humans, Tamlen refers to the female PC as lethallin, and the male pc as lethallan. However, all further dialogue switches them, so that male is lethallin and female is lethallan. It's most likely a glitch or mistake in the dialog script. Fiddlesoup 16:17, May 18, 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for that info, Fiddlesoup. It seems that only the PC version has this inconsistency when Tamlen first refers to you, it appears to have been corrected for the PS3 and 360 as far as the Dalish origin opening goes. Glacé 09:21, June 7, 2010 (UTC)

Suledin (Endure), from the Leliana's song DLC translation
Well, I was sifting through my computer and I came across a text file containing the translation of Suledin from the Leliana's Song DLC that I made a while back (to be clear, I made the text file not the translation). I don't quite recall where I got this but it's not mentioned in the Elven Language article and I haven't had much luck in tracking it down. I decided not to simply add it to the article since I can't figure out where I got it, maybe someone else will remember where it's from. Well, here it is:

Suledin (Endure)
An elven song about enduring and emerging from sorrow, tied to the loss of their ancient lands, but adapted to personal struggles as well. The first half is the “down side” the lament portion. The second is the “up side”, the finding strength portion.

Hopefully someone can place where this is from and it can add to the know vocabulary for the language. --Aedan Cousland (talk) 02:06, October 21, 2010 (UTC)
 * I did some more digging around and I found it myself, here's what I assume to be it's first posting by Lukas Kristjanson (one of the writers) over in the BioWare forums. I'm going to go ahead and place it in the main article. --Aedan Cousland (talk) 03:47, October 21, 2010 (UTC)

Wow, totally awesome; thank you so much! I am currently in the process of trying to figure out the actual vocabulary; like the other poem, "in unthenera", the translation is rough. I think once I've gotten the literal translation nailed down, we might have more insight to the ghosts' conversation as well. Bellaknoti (talk) 01:03, October 22, 2010 (UTC)

Breakdown complete! It's like playing telephone; Mr. Kristjanson states that there are rules, and vocabulary built up in-house, and so I am trying to translate Elvish that has been translated into English back into Elvish. Some things may have gotten lost. For instance, translating the first line back into Elvish, "Melava inan enansal", which is defined as "Time was once a blessing" actually reads, literally, "We once dwelt in the blessing of time". I sent him a private message via the BioWare Forums, but I have not yet received any response; anything that may come of it, I will post. Bellaknoti (talk) 16:16, October 25, 2010 (UTC)

Ma Vhenan?
When romancing Merrill in DA2, she uses "ma vhenan" quite a lot, often in a way one would expect to mean "my love". However, according to the page, "ma" means "you" and "emma" means "my".

For example, she says, "And you... with an elf? Ma vhenan, you are crazy." Assuming the page is right, she's saying "[you heart], you are crazy." which I might translate as "You lover, you are crazy."

or, she says, "Ir abelas, ma vhenan." which would dictionary translate as "[very sorrow], [you heart]." or "I'm very sorry, you lover"? It just seems odd.

I haven't played the Dalish origin in a while, so I'm curious as to the evidence for "ma" and "emma". Can someone help me out? —ErzengelLichtes (Contribs) 06:42, April 5, 2011 (UTC) Looking at some of the other phrases on the page, ma seranas and ma nuvenin would indicate ma as being "you".

ma seranas means "Thank You", or dictionary translation of "You Gratitude". This could just as easily be "My Gratitude."

ma nuvenin means "As you wish", or dictionary translation of "You want". This cannot be converted to my.

However, all of these phrases (ma seranas, ma nuvenin, and ma vhenan) would make sense if ma means "You have my". Then the dictionary translations would be:
 * ma seranas: You have my gratitude.
 * ma nuvenin: You have my want.
 * ma vhenan: You have my heart.

Is there any other in evidence that would need to be considered?—ErzengelLichtes (Contribs) 18:16, April 5, 2011 (UTC)

The basis for the definition of "emma" comes from the Elvish eulogy poem. The line "emma ir abelas" is translated as "now I am filled with sorrow". We know that "abelas" means "sorrow", and in Suledin, the line "ir su araval tu elvaral" is translated as "but long journeys are made longer", which, as it seems Elvish is a partially symbolic language (see notes at the bottom of Suledin), it would seem to confirm that "ir" means "very". This leaves "emma" as the possessive "I am" or "my".

As for "ma", my surmise was the same as yours, that because of "ma nuvenin" vs. "ma serranas", "ma" must mean "you". However, we know that Elvish doesn't always translate directly - in fact, few actual languages do - and some idioms of a language do not necessarily make any sense at all, in another language. For instance, an endearment in French ("mon petit chou") translates to "my little cabbage" in English, while another in Spanish ("gordo") translates to "fatso", neither of which are flattering in English, but which are accepted happily in their native lands. In Spanish, we see "que onda", which translates literally as "what wave", but is used the same as "what's up" in English. There are languages in Europe which use no prepositions or articles - I beta stories for people from these areas from time to time - and it's interesting to see how they drop little words like "and", "to", and "so".

I would say that "ma" as "you" is fine as it stands, but I will make a note that it can be used as a possessive; sometimes those things are simply implied. For instance, in Spanish, you can say "soy frio" for "I am cold", however, it is missing the "yo" at the beginning to make it actually have the "I" in it, because "soy" has an implied possessive. Another example is "tengo queso", "I have cheese". It's the same, whether you put the "yo" in it or not, because "tengo" contains an implied possessive based on its conjugation.

I hope this has been helpful! Thank you for posting about Merrill's speech habits; I look forward to anything else in Elvish we can get out of DA2! Cheers! Bellaknoti (talk) 16:58, April 6, 2011 (UTC)

Dragon Age II OST lyrics
I've been looking for it all over the internet, nothing so far. Anybody knows where to find (though I suspect they're not available anywhere yet), maybe someone who knows the elven language enough could make a transcription? Mage Pride, Destiny of Love and Rogue Heart are amazing songs, I wish I could sing along.

Escoralique (talk) 08:01, May 14, 2011 (UTC)


 * Truefax: I'm the girl who speaks Elvish in her sleep. *headdesk*  I took a crack at it a couple of weeks ago, but can't make heads nor tails of it without a direct transcript; I'd just be parsing phonetically, and then there's no guarantee that I could translate, since there's no 'meaning' to check it against.  :(  I, too, hope that there is a lyrics and meanings release, soon.  Bellaknoti (talk) 23:24, May 19, 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you Bellaknoti, I understand it's almost impossible a task, let's just keep waiting for Bioware to "fanserve" us. :) Escoralique (talk) 07:07, June 7, 2011 (UTC)

Found this on a youtube video of Rogue Heart, No idea if its correct. if not just ignore me. But if it is it might help in some way. Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jc_xqnTKWw Ahana'heth a lethalin', needa 'ven. sullana lanádna. Véda' malláná, Donasite'. Véda' malláná, Donasite'


 * Thank you, anon poster. :)  Unfortunately, since spelling is absolutely critical to translation, those words we don't already know can't be pulled from it.  For instance, is she saying "ven", to go, or "vhen", people?  Is 'donasite' how it's spelled, really?  What if it's "do'na sit'te" or "dona'site" or "do nasi'te"...?  There are so many possibilities that I couldn't even begin to translate it.  However, Mr. Gaider has offered me transcripts of the original poetry he wrote for the lyrics.  He says that the musicians seem to have rearranged it to suit themselves, so we may not be able to rely on the word order as they have it, anyway.  For now, it is simply a matter of patience while we await his word.  Bellaknoti (talk) 15:42, November 12, 2011 (UTC)


 * Is it possible it could come out as:

Aneth ara lethallin / Ir aravel / Sulahn melana / Vir ar melana / Dareth shiral


 * I'm actually fairly confident about everything but the "vir ar melana". The way it's sung, however, doesn't quite sound right for "melana" - she gives it a long A rather than the AHN that comes from canon, but otherwise, this seems to fit.  If the musicians have indeed rearranged it (possibly dropping some words?), this phrasing could be extrapolated, sort of, roughly, as:

''We sing of the time / of your very long journey / from my safe place, lethallin. / Safe journeys.''


 * I feel that some of the rearranging may have been from "Vir sulahn melana" where "vir" is used as "We" instead of "path", so the phrasing of "vir ar melana" could have been musician-made. But I'm not strongly confident of melana being in there anyway. --107.5.24.28 (talk) 05:55, August 27, 2012 (UTC)

I've listened to Rouge Heart several times now, and I like it. It's very beautiful, but there is a snag ; Written down the elvish words looks very nice, and it sounds nice in my head, but out loud with an english accent, like in the vid, it sounds a bit clumsy and gobbled, as if she is singing with her mouth full of porridge. I'm not trying to hack on english, it is beautiful in its own right, but in elvish it sounds wrong.

I know the dalish in DA2 speaks with irish or welsh accents, but is that something that came to them because of their isolation from other people, or is it a remnant of the ancient elvish? I don't know if elvish would sound different if it was spoken/singed with irish accent rather than english, but I don't think it would be such a big difference.

Could there have been a different "arlathan accent" the language was supposed to be spoken in, and it has just been lost to time (the words today could have been written words found on paper or tablets, instead of passed down from tongue to tongue)? If so, what would it be? Could it be a "real-world" accent like orlesian/french and antivan/spanish? What accent do you think elvish would sound best in? Russian? Greek? --SylvanLore (talk) 12:24, March 26, 2012 (UTC)

Someone states the language is "Arcanum" (from Tevinter) - but I do not know if this is true. It sounds Elvish to me: Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPrHBpUdhgA Parochy (talk) 11:37, April 21, 2012 (UTC)

Ooooooohh. That shot straight up to my top ten favorite songs. Thank you so much for posting this!

Have Bioware written an arcanum dictionary, or do they just make things up as they go in the game? Arcanum is a smaller language (less used in the games) than elvish, right? I hope this is elvish, and that we get the lyrics. Soon. <D

Pardon me while I faint to this song. --SylvanLore (talk) 11:37, April 23, 2012 (UTC)


 * Alas, this is not Elvish. Tevinter is a mix of Latin and old English, which this sounds like to me.  I'd like to translate it, but I'd need the actual lyrics.  Mr. Gaider offered us the original poetry for the songs written in Elvish for DAII, but has as of yet not had the time to complete the transcript.  Bellaknoti (talk) 16:03, April 23, 2012 (UTC)

Another phrase
"Ir abelas, ma vhenan" was mentioned in post 2 I believe but it isn't mentioned or translated on the page. As illustrated here, we have a canon translation that it means "I am filled with sorrow, for your loss." --Hyolia (talk) 18:54, May 20, 2011 (UTC)

She is not giving a direct translation. Above, it has already been discussed why Merrill uses "ma vhenan" as an address for Hawke. What she says is, "I am filled with sorrow, holder of my heart." When asked for clarification, she leaves out the 'my darling' part and substitutes an explanation in its place. Perhaps she is unwilling to explain the phrase at that point, or maybe she feels it is unnecessary to explain it, as Hawke should already have apprehended its meaning - I will leave that up to the DA2 players to decide, as I have not played it. At any rate, we must be careful when attempting to translate the things that people say, especially when they've been asked to repeat themselves, because people often summarize or revise their statements, the second time around. A translation of her second statement, into Elvish, would read: "Ir abelas, na ena'din." Bellaknoti (talk) 18:18, May 22, 2011 (UTC)

I'll add this here, hope no one minds. The starting dialogue from the Shepherding Wolves quest when Petrice brings out the Qunari Mage (Ketojan) Merrill says "She'va dhal". You can sort of figure out what she means but does any one have a translation for it? --Sca462069 (talk) 15:49, June 22, 2012 (UTC)

Interesting
I had no idea there was this much analysis of the elven language being done. Very nice! If you have any questions, I'd be happy to help fill in any blanks. David Gaider (talk) 02:01, August 31, 2011 (UTC)

Unknown Translations
Elven words we have no translation of, that could be split up into separate words, or what we guess are elven words. For example:


 * Glandivalis - Shartan's sword, given to him by Andraste. I assume it is elvish, as the meaning of the name is unknown, and a Tevinter word - even an archaic form - could be translatable by Thedas scholars. Same goes for many other old human languages, and it would make sense if an elven sword was given an elvish name. http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Codex_entry:_Glandivalis


 * Felandaris - Demon weed. http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Codex_entry:_Felandaris


 * Lethanavir - O Falon'Din Lethanavir. The beginning of a poem to Falon'Din. http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Codex_entry:_Falon'Din:_Friend_of_the_Dead,_the_Guide

I assume "felan" means "demon" and "daris" means weed. Splitting the word(s) up we have an "an" and a "da", meaning respectively "place" and "small". So "fel-place small-ris". "Felas" means slow. Felas + an = "felan"? - "slow place"? The Fade?

Lethanavir; We have "letha-" in "lethallan" and "lethallin" as well. We already know that "falon" means friend, but perhaps "letha" or "leth" could be a synonym or something. We also have an "an"; "leth-an-avir", and a "vir" that means "way" and possible also "we". Friend + place + way/we? --SylvanLore (talk) 12:55, July 25, 2012 (UTC)

Harellan?
Harellan from the inaccurate book World of Thedas was added for Trickster which is what the book says, but also according to the book Harel means 'to trick' yet previously we know Harel meant 'Dread', so should we trust the information of an inaccurate book, esp. in this case where we have previous contradictory information? At the very least I think a reference for all the words added from World of Thedas should be added so we can at least be wary.--Gowihasti (talk) 15:09, April 30, 2013 (UTC)

Maybe it's just that the words are similar? Like suffering and suffrage. Henio0 (talk) 15:28, April 30, 2013 (UTC)
 * I dunno, it seems to me whomever wrote this section (as well as some others) either forgot/half-remembered information from Origins or got confused with the information. Such as Uthenera meaning 'Immortal.' when we know for a FACT it means 'Eternal Waking Dream'. Uth however meaning 'long, forever, never ending, eternal' would perfectly mean Immortal. So, as I said, it seems like they just got some things off/confused/half-remembered. Fen'Harel might be a trickster but its the Dread Wolf not the Trick Wolf. So the accuracy of this 'tome' worries me and I feel there should at least be some reference/warning.--Gowihasti (talk) 15:42, April 30, 2013 (UTC)


 * I added the "harellan" notation, from WOT as you said, Gowihasti. The definition stemming as it does from "harel" struck me as well, but I assume as you touched on, Henio0, that the word may be simply be extrapolated a bit here.  Perhaps "dreadful" and "tricky" have a similar connotation in the Elven language, given their history with the Dread Wolf?  If you would prefer to remove the word from the vocab list until it has been vetted more, that would be fine :)  I apologize for the confusion here. --WardenWade (talk) 16:56, April 30, 2013 (UTC)
 * I suppose you could take it as an interpretation. I believe it would literally mean something like 'Dread-friend, dread-like" or so and mean "like the Dread Wolf, who is a trickster, and therefore interpreted as trickster. What do you think?--Gowihasti (talk) 02:02, May 1, 2013 (UTC)
 * Breaking it down like that makes good sense to me. I was wondering at the ending of the word, too, what it might be, and now that you mention it the "-lan" suffix fits well in that context.  A trickster would certainly be a "dread friend."  That may indeed be the connotation WOT is going for? :) Unless anyone else has any strong feelings, it sounds good to me.  Thanks!--WardenWade (talk) 14:42, May 1, 2013 (UTC)
 * You're welcome. I'm glad we talked it out like this to make some sense out of it :) Perhaps we should edit it to reflect this?--Gowihasti (talk) 14:59, May 1, 2013 (UTC)


 * That's a good idea, so we can show the thinking on this. I can edit the vocabulary notation for the word to add something like "possible translation is 'dread-friend' or 'dread-like?'"  Perhaps add the deconstruction you provided as well?  We can see how that would work...and, feel free to change it if you prefer?  Thanks again for giving this some needed thought, I'm not an expert on DA Elvish and this helped sort it out :)--WardenWade (talk) 16:04, May 1, 2013 (UTC)
 * You're quite welcome and I'm glad I could be of help. :)--Gowihasti (talk) 00:11, May 2, 2013 (UTC)

Since the World of Thedas book was mentioned, I wanted to ask: in the book it says that Arlathvhen means "for love of the people." This isn't included on the wiki page - should it be? I didn't want to add anything just in case. 72.196.14.33 (talk) 20:57, September 23, 2013 (UTC)


 * I say if it's in World of Thedas it should definitely be added with a citation. A lot of this article is based on interpretations by a couple of people who spent (a lot of) time working on breaking down the language, and as such there's a bit of guesswork and conjecture. It's still a helpful resource, but any elvhen words that have actually been canonically translated would help to improve it. Kelcat (talk) 21:37, September 23, 2013 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the quick reply. I added the info along with the reference - one quick question: I noticed that many of the citation links are not uniform. Would it be okay if I went through the page (since there are so many on the Elven Language page, alone) and just made sure they all matched? I would change none of the info, just clean it up so they are all uniform in appearance. Some links, for instance, are placed before the period (which looks sloppy), while some are after the end of the sentence (some with a space added, and some without). It's not a big deal, just hoping to clean the page up a bit. If this is no problem, is there a preferred way this should look? (i.e. link should be placed after the period, no spaces?) 72.196.14.33 (talk) 23:00, September 23, 2013 (UTC)


 * Hmm, I have no idea if there's one specific style for citations other than the WoT and BSN templates. You might want to hunt around some other articles with a lot of citations and see if they have any sort of uniformity? Kelcat (talk) 18:57, September 24, 2013 (UTC)


 * It's done. I looked to the Qunari page for reference, since it has a great deal of citations links (which were all uniform). Hope this looks better now. 72.196.14.33 (talk) 03:45, October 3, 2013 (UTC)

Broken Elvish?
Okay, so, in Dragon Age Inquisition, when completing Solas' romance, he says "ar lath ma, vhenan". Now, after careful consideration of the known elvish dictionary, this would directly translate to "I love you, heart". As you can tell, this kind of sounds odd unless Solas' nickname for the Inquisitor is 'Heart'. However, I found this odd because the phrase "I love you" is translated to "ma'arlath". Why wouldn't Solas use this known phrase instead? I guess this could be answered with it being a regional thing, or a mistake on BW's part. Moving onward though. If we want to say that "Heart" is not an actual nickname, 'vhenan' could be translated to "my heart" in this instance, however, that would be odd as well because the phrase "my heart" is translated to "emma vhenan". 'Vhenan' means only 'heart' and 'emma' usually translates to 'my' and seems to almost always be used when saying 'my'.

So, before I added this phrase onto the page, I wanted second opinions on the matter. If anyone could help me with this phrase's translation, or even decide if it should be added at all, that'd be wonderful. 03:35, November 30, 2014 (UTC)

Hi. Just jumping in (long time reader/just now adding to the wiki). I was thinking that the comma placement was very, very odd. If you listen to his intonation without the subtitles it sounds like he pauses between 'ar lath' and 'ma vhenan' which would be literally 'I love, [ma*] heart'. The scene is really fueled by passion, so it could be something like, 'love you,' with a breath, rather than directly stating, 'I love you'. Like you would say to someone after you kissed them (contextually accurate, considering). It's entirely possible he's using an older dialect of the elven language or as he stated to Sera in another conversation, going by the feeling/song of the language rather than the direct vocabulary.

As far as 'ma' in that context, the direct translation is I/me/you according to the dictionary, however, in the above conversations and from what I'm gleaning from phrases like 'ma serannas' it's possible you can interpret that as 'You have my thanks' so in this case, when Solas says 'ma' you can translate it to 'You have my heart.' Which I'd like to think I'm right just because that's beautiful.

Thoughts? Also, please tell me if I screwed up any formatting or should have added in a different way. I'm so very new to this. Thanks. TCRegan (talk) 09:54, December 2, 2014 (UTC)


 * That's definitely a great point, though, "you have my heart" would have to be similar in structure to "you have my thanks", at least, I would think so. A bigger leap than "I love you, my heart". Still, though, nothing definitive. I won't put it on the page until we have a more definitive explanation.

Thank you for the feedback! :) 02:14, December 4, 2014 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I've been puzzling over the translation of that scene, and it does kind of sound like broken elvish. Solus did just call my Inquisitor "My heart" in the common tongue, though, when I tried to chat with him at Skyhold, so I think "I love you, my heart" (which was also my first thought) might actually be correct. -- 02:52, December 7, 2014 (UTC)

Mamae
I realize that it's very likely that the boy was, in fact, saying "Mom" or "Mother", however, it might be good to list it as an assumption. The Warden can assume he means he's looking for his mother. A Dalish Warden can come to this assumption, but so can anyone else, even a Dwarven Warden, who would clearly have no knowledge of Elvish. Don't know if this is worth even mentioning here, but I've always noticed that we simply assumed this. StillAlive (talk) 02:46, December 4, 2014 (UTC)


 * This is one of the "very likely" assumptions that can be listed on an article. I am always against assumptions, but this can be an exception. 09:57, December 6, 2014 (UTC)

Dirth and Dirth'ena enasalin
Dirth'ena enasalin -> Arcane warrior techniques Dirth -> tell/speak

in the dictionary, "dirth" appears only as tell or speak, but if we look at the construction of "dirth'ena enasalin" we'd have

tell/speak ' appear/emerge triumph dwells

so perhaps "dirth" is the not only 'tell' but also 'the word' so when 'the word' is shown/appears - dirth'ena... it's knowledge.

knowledge which dwells in triumph (or as Solas translated it: knowledge that led to victory)

79.119.117.129 (talk) 10:20, December 11, 2014 (UTC)Neleo

Errors in the 'Phrases' section, and new words?
Arcane Warrior is listed as dirth'ena enansal; the actual phrase is dirth'ena enasalin. Likewise, the derogatory term is listed as ghilan'nain banal'vhen when it's actually ghilan'him banal'vhen. I would fix them, but I don't know how to fix the pronunciation guides.

Also, by cross-referencing between the codex entry on Skyhold (specifically the word nadasalin) and dirth'ena enasalin, salin would seem to mean victory or triumph. And by looking at the dialogue during All New, Faded For Her, halani seems to mean help; the phrase 'ma halani' shows up both in Origins (spoken by the ghostly mother) and when you encounter the first artifact in Inquisition (either Solas or a Dalish inquisitor can say 'ma halani' to Mihris) and would likely translate as 'help me'.

67.2.102.131 (talk) 20:06, December 22, 2014 (UTC) RavenSurana


 * Thank you! I was wondering whether or not to add "halani" as "help," because I wasn't too sure and couldn't remember if it was mentioned anywhere else besides All New, Faded For Her.

Also, "tel" seems to suggest a negative/opposite connotation. The Spirit of Wisdom tells Solas, "Tel'abelas" ("I'm not [sorry]"), the inscription at Solasan temple says, "Tel garas solasan," which translates to "Come not to a prideful place," and the On Skyhold translates "telrevas" and "telsethenera" into "inevitable/threatened victory" and "untorn veils." --KeladinStorm (talk) 22:22, December 22, 2014 (UTC)


 * Tel was the other one I was trying to remember! Thank you! 67.2.102.131 (talk) 05:11, December 23, 2014 (UTC) RavenSurana