Source | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | Unknown |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Dwemer | * | * | * | ‡ |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
Wormgod | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Ayleid | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Skyrim | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | |
Falmer † |
* Speculative
† The Falmer alphabet bears many similarities with Dwemer script. See Falmer Alphabet for more information.
‡ It is speculated that the unknown symbol is really the letter P, however this is not confirmed.
Known Examples
Very little is known about the Dwemer language, otherwise referred to as Dwemeris. The above chart lists all characters with known transliterations. More characters exist in the books Divine Metaphysics and The Egg of Time, but these have yet to be translated. (There is strong reason to believe that these books contain just random characters, and do not actually have any meaningful text.)
There are four examples of Dwemer inscriptions for which we have known, confirmed translations at this time. The example on the left is from a ruin in Oblivion. Apparently, the Ayleids used the same script, or a closely related one, as the Dwemer. It reads:
,
or "Av latta magicka, av molag anyammis", which translates to: "From light, magic; from fire, life". This is a reversal (perhaps unintentional) of the phrase translated in the book: Ayleid Reference Text: "From fire, life; from light, magic." The double 'm' in "anyammis" has been truncated to a single 'm', and the 's' is too obscured to see on this inscription, but otherwise, it is clearly the same text.
Another confirmed example of Dwemer text is to the right. This inscription appears on all of the pipes inside Dwemer ruins in Morrowind. It reads simply
or "Wormgod", which was the nickname of Gary Noonan, one of the developers at Bethesda. Interesting to note is that unlike the Daedric language, this one features (minimal) punctuation. The dot underneath the last letter is probably not part of the letter, but rather an indicator of the end of the word. (Since it is repeated over and over again on the pipes.)
A third known example is a tribute by Gary Noonan to his father placed on a door in Morrowind, shown right. The text reads:
,
Which translates to: "In loving memory, Gary Noonan, Sr."
The banner on the left can be found in Redguard. If you look closely, you'll see text written in blue color over the image. It's hard to read in places, but you can make out the following characters:
A B |
And lower down, you'll see:
The significance of these remains unknown at this time. Since each group of characters is in consecutive alphabetical order, it seems likely that it's simply an alphabet.
Another example can be found in the official Knights of the Nine Official Plug-in. At the beginning of the quest Pilgrimage the player finds an Ayleid text written on the floor of the Anvil chapel. This text reads which translates to As oiobala Umarile, Ehlnada racuvar. According to the prophet this means: By the eternal power of Umaril, the mortal gods shall be cast down.
This text can also be found on the side of the Knights of the Nine box.
In Skyrim, a stone which supposedly translates both Dwemeris as well as the Falmer language can be found in Calcelmo's Tower. The Dwemeris inscription transliterates into:
Chun thuamer arkngd chend duathand, th ahvardn btham. Amz thuamer ahrkanch kemelmzulchond aka Mora, th thuangz ahrk, th duum melz thuabtharng, th kanthaln duabcharn mzin thuastur, btharumz thua mer zel. Abakch duumarkng tuathumz amakai, th abakch avatheled kagr tuamkingth mzan. Du chal fahl ngark, che du fahl bthun ur. Du chal fahl ngalft, che du bthun ur. Du abak chal thu abazun nchur duabthar, nchul duanchard. Th ur thuanchuth irknd, ur irkngth eftardn, thunch fahlz. Bthun abak dua mzual th nchuan duarkng, chun fahlbthar thuanchardch anum ralz, th eftar thuachendraldch kagren thua vanchningth. |
This is the longest Dwemeris transcription yet found, although no translation is provided. It does share some words with other languages, such as "Mer", suggesting a commonality of some sort.
An inscription is found on several altars in Honor's Rest. If mirrored it is clear that it reads: , or "DIVINE STARS".
Books
Analysis of the books is inconclusive at this time. Part of the reason is that they are random characters - certain passages are repeated verbatim, but in a different order, from one book to the next, or even on both pages of the same book.[1] This smacks of copy/pasting by the artist who created the graphics for the pages. Also, substituting the known letters for their English counterparts does not reveal even a hint of readable text. If it's a cypher, it's not a simple one, because several different characters can be seen as single-letter words, whereas in a typical English-language cypher, you would only see two - 'A' and 'I'. A more complex cypher is still a possibility, but without knowing the key, or even the meanings of half of the letters, it would be quite a difficult task to decode it, assuming there is anything to decode.
Divine Metaphysics
The Egg of Time
References
- ^ According to Douglas Goodall:
- "Egg of Time and Divine Metaphysics are, as far as I know, random Dwemer letters. The letters don't have any real pattern or meaning. Dwemer books probably appear meaningless to anyone but a Dwemer anyway. I have some ideas on how Dwemer books might be misinterpreted by modern scholars, but it has little to do with the actual contents of the book."
External links
- Academy for Dwemer Studies - includes a font containing all Dwemer glyphs