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)

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. Bellaknoti (talk) 18:18, May 22, 2011 (UTC)