Elven language

The Elven language, or "Elvish", was largely lost when Elvhenan fell to the Tevinter Imperium and its people were enslaved around two millennia before the Dragon Age. When the elves settled their second homeland, the Dales, they aimed to restore their lost language and lore, but the Dales fell after an Exalted March declared by the Chantry in the early Glory Age. The Elvish of the Dragon Age is thus a fragmented remnant, a few words that are thrown into conversation rather than a working language used to conduct everyday life. The Dalish Elves, self-appointed custodians of the elven language and lore, use more Elvish than their City Elf brethren. Some clans, such as the ones encountered in Dragon Age: The Stolen Throne, speak it fluently and exclusively. Living among humans, the City Elves now retain only a few old Elvish words whose origin is almost forgotten, such as "shem" - derived from "shemlen", meaning "quickling" or "quick children," the old Elvish term for humans - and "hahren" - the leader of an Alienage, meaning "elder" in Elvish.

A differentiating factor between Elvish and other languages in Thedas--particularly as regards aspects like names--is the avoidance of hard consonants.

It has been observed that "Elven is often a game of intents, not direct mapping of phonetic meaning. That means it's a mess" and that it tends "to meander".

Written Elvish
Though a number of ancient sites, including the Temple of Mythal, have recently been found to contain examples of Elvish writing, these are few and far between, and jealously guarded by the Dalish. Some Circles have also come to possess old elven texts. In the Dragon Age, clan Keepers are generally the only ones who know the secret of writing Elvish.



Elvish phrases










Suledin (Endure)
Suledin is "an elven song about enduring and emerging from sorrow, tied to the loss of their ancient lands, but commonly adapted to express personal struggles as well."

Mir Da'len Somniar
A traditional Dalish Lullaby found in the children's book "The Seer's Yarn", collected by Seer Agata.

Where Willows Wail
An elven version of a lullaby local to Denerim and nearby villages to the south.

Deconstructing Elvish
Many words of Elvish are made up of contractions of smaller words. For instance, "Arlathan" means, "this place that I love". Deconstructing it, we arrive at Ar: I or me; Lath: love; and An: place. We know that this is correct, because: "lath" is used later in the eulogy poem to mean "love"; "an" is seen as a suffix in the word "Elvhenan", meaning "the place of our people", which is a direct extension of "Elvhen", meaning "our people". By elimination, "Ar" becomes the personal pronoun. In the same way, many other words can be deconstructed into their individual components.

While "ar" exists as a personal pronoun, oftentimes in a sentence, that pronoun is dropped. For example, "Ir abelas," can translate to "I am filled with sorrow for your loss," or, more colloquially, "I'm very sorry," with "ir" meaning "I" and "abelas" meaning "sorrow." So the predicate itself is enough to imply that "I" am the one who is expressing the sorrow.