Talk:Darnassian (speculation)

Started a project similar to this at

[1] our server wiki page.

--Talyfox (talk) 18:21, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

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Note on Darnassian translation

The Darnassian language was and continues to be created by several authors, which may or may not work closely together and/or under a set of established linguistic rules. This means that links, similarities and rules we discover here may be coincidental tidying up in something that was never much more than pure gibberish. Even so, the project continues to grow and to discover (or create) more and more logic and substance to the Darnassian language. Disputing interpretations are unavoidable, but never the less, continued efforts to decipher and understand the Darnassian language together seems to lead us to viable answers. Keep up the good work, join in, and the Darnassian Language Society shall continue to grow and prosper, for lore and role play. --Oponyxal / Arodeesa  talk  contr 11:17, April 7, 2010 (UTC)

Notes on Darnassian grammar rules

These are definitely a work in progress. The basic concept I have moving forward is that first, this grammar has to be consistent within itself. Imagine you are an archaeologist or anthropologist trying to translate a language spoken by a tribe that no one else has heard before and for which no native speakers exist - it has rules and patterns right there, you just have to track them, but also, you may be faced with very little information to go on at all. Some people might remember it wrong, and even some official translations might not actually be consistent either. It's just a matter of breaking down all the information available.

I also don't like word for word translations, largely because of my studying of Japanese. Take this very simple phrase in Japanese:

Anata wa ocha ga sukii desu ka?

Do you like green tea?

Doing a word by word on this would be a disaster - and is part of the reason some translations from Japanese to English get a little out of hand.

Anata (you) wa (subject article) ocha (green tea) ga (object article) sukii (like) desu (verb to be) ka (question article)?

This is just one example of how I look at some of these things - obviously, this is all speculation and until Blizzard hires a linguist to make up a working language, we might as well play around and have fun with it, right?

Mushan (talk) 00:22, March 30, 2010 (UTC)

I completely agree with you, word by word translation can be misleading. As Japanese, or even Swedish to take another example, there are many words and phrases which can not be translated word by word to English to make sense.Merala (Talk) 18:27, March 30, 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to throw my two cents into the fray by breaking up the title "shan'do" (Official trans. Honored teacher) into a more literal translation. We already presume "Do" to practically translate to "teacher" Personally, I speculate "do" to mean in a literal sense "the way s/he walked before (me/us)" (it's hard for me to phrase it better), following the Chinese "Dao" ("Way") into the Japanese "do" (also "way" as in bushido, way of the warrior). Given current Kaldorei architecture is similar to the castles built during the Sengoku period (1467-1603) (seriously, look at Himeji-jo next to most buildings in Darnassus), I don't see some intentional linguistic connections to Japanese as being far-fetched. This would pin a literal translation closer to "Honor the Way they (have) walked before (me/us)." which is awkward in everyday speech (and doesn't sound like a title anymore), but hints at the East Asian philosophies in which I feel the word has its inspirations in.

For the record, I'm no linguist nor am I fluent in a second language. as a musician though, I'm forced to understand a limited vocabulary in 7 European languages (EN/FR/German/Spanish/Italian/Czech/Latin), sometimes right next to each other), so I find myself making connections between them. I also played Final Fantasy XI for two years, and servers are not segregated by region, so I saw a ton of FR/German/JP and had to pick up a few phrases to survive, W. Lamhirh (talk) 05:27, March 31, 2010 (UTC)

That's actually a really interesting way of looking at it, Lamhirh.

I had a similar feeling on shan'do at least with regard to equivalents in our own world. The Japanese term sensei does not simply mean teacher, it is also used as an honorific title for professors, masters of some art or another, sages and scholars, and doctors. Japanese also uses the honorific san when referring to other people in the third person. Still, I try to keep myself from projecting too much from languages I know onto Darnassian; it's tempting, though, because it shares many structural similarities.

The do in Bushido is definitely derived from the Chinese for Way. Tao or dao in Chinese also means a number of things besides the literal Way; it can be turned into a verb like most Chinese nouns, it can also mean balance or nature or even refer to a metaphysical force which binds everything together. So the phrase, "The Way that can be walked is not the eternal Way," is actually more like "the Tao that can be Tao'd is not the eternal Tao," etc. There is much to the philosophy of Night Elf druids that sounds like it was taken directly from the Tao Te Ching or some Zen monastery! I think your definition gets a real sense of the title shan'do, though, as it eludes a direct translation and may not have an immediate equivalent in English.

Please let me know what else you think! Mushan, btw, is the name of a character of mine - he is a Night Elf hunter, and the name is composed of the root for hunt, or mu' and the honorific shan. There may be a gender distinction between the use of shan and sh'a, but I am not entirely certain of this and it may be flexible.

Mushan (talk) 11:03, March 31, 2010 (UTC)

The philosophical line of thought was exactly where I was thinking when I made the conection. I think of the method Cenairus used to teach Malfurion (Knaak, War of the Ancients) being very Zen in a lot of ways. Cenarius would give Malfurion the basic idea, but then Malfurion had to learn the full extent and subtleties of the knowledge for himself. This is something that I found very similar to the famous Marital Arts document "Book of the Five Rings" by Mushashi Miyamoto, where he repeatedly gives the general idea of a techninque but concludeds the passage saying what amounts to "learn it yourself." It also reflects a story I heard ("Three monks came to a bridge crossing a river. One looked at the others and asked, "How deep is River of Zen?" The others picked him up and threw him in the river, calling after him, "Tell us what you find!"")

In reagards to "shan" being an honorific along the lines of the Japanese -san/-sama/-sensei, if Darnassian follows a pattern, then the question "What is the pattern for honorifics, since the terms "Shan'do" and "Thero'shan" (official trans. "honored student") reverse the placement of "shan" in the word?" arises. It could have something to do with the speaker's position in relation to the recipient. Again, following the possible structural connection to Japanese, we see different honorifics used in different social situations (-san is more informal or used when talking down (socially) as I recall, -sama is formal and/or talking upward). Could this pattern get twisted into a format that when talking to someone of lower position (a student in a student/teacher relation, for this example) that the honorific comes after the noun ("Thero'shan") and reversed when talking up to someone of higher standing ("shan'do")?

This also raises the question of gender rules and distinctions in Darnassian, which if we were to follow a further connection to Japanese, this would not be true. Technically Japanese is a gender-neutral language, and if Darnassian were to follow a similar set of rules "shan" and "sh'a" would be two different words with different meanings.

Thalassian note: "shan" and "shando" (without the separator ') appear in the Area 52 Inn out in Nethertorm with the line "DOr shan'adore da shando..." ("I'm surrounded by idiots...). While considered both a separate language and a dialect of Darnassian, there was obviously a change in meaning at some point, but the root is still there.

I'm trying to avoid making really strong connections to languages in the real world as well, but it's very hard not to. Ultimately, any constructed fantasy language carries with it something from our own languages, which helps make them more believable. Baronh (from Morioka Hiroyuki's "Seikai no Senki" series) is based partly off Japanese and English. Tolkien's languages for Middle Earth undoubtedly share some connections to real world languages (I'm not very familiar with those though). I actually got into trying to trace the history of every language native to Azeroth to a single source (Titan is a likely candidate, as from the word parser in-game, it shares some structure with Gnomish, Dwarvish, Draconic, and perhaps even Draenei (and by extension, Eredun)), but it becomes a headache. The connection to reality would be, in the real world, many of our current languages evolved from a small handful of original sources.

Interesting note, the name "Lamhirh" is my Night Elf hunter, is taken from Seikai no senki's main character and is comprised of two words in Baronh--"Lam" (pronounced "laf", trans. "Gem") and "hirh" (pronounced "fiel, trans. "source of life" or "supernova"). Her race in the novel/anime calls themselves "kin of the stars" which, when I named the charatcer, I didn't know "Kaldorei" was defined as "Children of the Stars." Kinda creepy. It's wierd how stuff like that happens. Lamhirh (talk) 15:45, March 31, 2010 (UTC)

Looking to you two talking feels like reading music, and I don't feel like I am worthy of being here, at the same time I can't help myself trying to join the club. My main is a night elf hunter too, called Faeniel, meaning "Daughter of the White" in either/or both Sindarin and Quenya, Tolkien's Elven languages. I can't remember which of them I used... Although I was first referring to that my elf had white hair and pale skin like an actual child of Elune but find myself that it could also refer to the moonlight eyes of any night elf. Just a side note :> Please keep on with your discussion, it is really interesting. And if I can, I will try to add anything from the knowledge I have, although it feels like both of you are much older than me. In some way.Merala (Talk) 16:01, March 31, 2010 (UTC)

The French sentence under the Fandu-dath-belore heading is not conjugated properly. As-tu aller au cinéma? should be Es-tu allé au cinéma? I'll try to think up a better example of what you were trying to convey before editing the main page.--Shadda (talk) 03:05, April 1, 2010 (UTC)

Words and phrases

Discussions about words, phrases and how to translate and interpret them.

Capital, City, and Village

Just started working on things this morning. Some speculation on the naming conventions used for cities and towns, and why Darnassus doesn't fit.

Darnassian	English	Used in:	Which means:	Note:
-anaar	Village	Dolanaar Sylvanaar Astranaar Thalanaar	Village in Teldrassil Village in Blade's Edge Mountains Village in Ashenvale Village in Feralas	All four (Plus Satyrnaar, which is named in Satyr, not Darnassian, but is similar enough to be used for reference) are called villages in nearly all lore.
'Aran	City	Tehris'Aran Morlos'Aran Ordil'Aran Loreth'Aran Ameth'Aran Bashal'Aran	Ruined Night Elf city in Desolace Ruined Night Elf city in Felwood Ruined Night Elf (?) city in Ashenvale Ruined Night Elf city on Bloodmyst Isle Ruined High Elf city in Darkshore Ruined High Elf city in Darkshore	While it's possible that 'Aran could mean "Ruined City" or "Ruins", several of the locations are referred to as "Ruins of x'Aran", and places such as the Ruins of Ashenvale do not have the suffix attached.
'Assus	Capital	Darnassus	Capital City of the Night Elves	The use of 'Assus as the suffix denoting the Capital fits with the naming conventions used for other cities and villages (Descriptive word followed by a suffix starting with "A"). However, Darnassus is the only known example, as the only true Night Elf capital prior to the construction of Darnassus was Azshara, and Hyjal was never the Night Elf capital as such, only their primary location following the Sundering.
'Assil	Great-Tree	Aldrassil Nordrassil Vordrassil Teldrassil	Crown of the tree (?) Crown of the heavens (official translation) Crown of the world (?) Crown of the earth (official translation)	Again, though the only examples are all in -drassil format, -Assil fits with the naming pattern again, and could be referring to it being a "Great Tree"; a.k.a an important tree. This would explain why Aldrassil is named with the same format, despite not being a world tree; if "Drassil" means not just "Crown" but "Crown-tree", then it would make sense that Aldrassil is the "crown" of Teldrassil, being the location where all new druids are first trained.

I'm currently working on puzzling out what the translations of the cities' names would most likely be. --Oavatos (talk) Date: 12:27, Jan. 25, 2012

Except from "Assil" where I can't really see the logic of removing a part of "drassil" ("crown") and give it another explanation in the words where we know that "crown" is the proper translation, I follow the logic. In my opinion, "-anaar", "-aran" and even "-assus" should be moved to the speculation article page. --Oponyxal (talk) 19:00, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Alah, Dalah, Dal and other pronouns

"Kene'thil surfas" means "I love you". Most likely, Kene'thil then represent something "from me to you", perhaps literally "I you love", though it doesn't look completely in place, as most languages have rather short and simple words for the first and second singular pronouns in subject and object form. Then there's "dalah" - "my", "alah" - "to you" and "dal" to your", assuming these have been interpreted correctly. There are similarities between "dalah" and "dal" and between "dalah" and "alah", but with "alah" and "dalah" meaning "to you" and "my" the system is hard to find. The "-lah" endings might then point to sometingh like "of mine/yours". I'll leave an encouraging thought hanging here to Mushan and/or something that are better with desciphering this logic to further interpret this. Perhaps also "falah" and "fal" has something to do with this... It's also possible to look for an "al" somewhere in this system... --Oponyxal / Arodeesa  talk  contr 10:15, April 21, 2010 (UTC)

Adore and infinitive/present or subjunctive terms

"Elune-adore" means "Elune be with you", but I think that a more correct direct translation would be "May Elune be with you", making "Adore" not "to be" but "may (I wish) [Elune] be (with you)", or "May (something that comes before the verb, joined by a hyphon) be with you/follow/watch you". This, of course makes the logic a bit tougher when it comes to "belore" or "falore". The clue here might lay in the signs. Have a look at this speculation:

• <noun (or pronoun)>-<verb root>+ore. (I.e. "Elune-adore.")

= (may) <noun (or pronoun)> <verb> (with/for/over/to) you. (May Elune be with you.)

• <verb 2(in imperative)>-<noun (or pronoun)>-<verb root>+ore. (I.e. "Fandu-dath-belore.")

= <verb 2 (in imperative)> <noun (or pronoun)> <verb in present tense>. (Declare who goes/wanders (there).)

I'm still not quite sure what to do with "Ana'duna falore" here, and I might of course be far off with this, but regardless, I think that present (and perhaps subjunctive) tenses seem more correct than infinitive for the "-ore" ending. --Oponyxal / Arodeesa  talk  contr 10:12, April 23, 2010 (UTC)

Rhok'shalla: to assume a pattern?

If we may assume that the Rhok weapons (such as the Rhok'delar, and is followed by Longbow of the Ancient Keepers) all possess the similar pattern - [name],[translation] - can we not go the little bit further and assume that 'shalla' is something like 'Shadow Bane' or... 'Lightbringer' or something like that? I'm sure it wouldn't be too farfetched to suppose it as such? ♥ IcIngtwInkle | User talk:Code2004 | Date: 00:51, August 5, 2010 (UTC)

Rokh

I'm wondering if "Rokh" might simply mean weapon, as opposed to Longbow. That would make Zin'rokh something like Glorious Weapon. The weapon in question is a two handed sword that drops from Hakkar the Soulflayer in Zul'Gurub, but without a history for the sword, it could easily have belonged to an unfortunate Kaldorei adventurer. Alternately, the name could mean that there were similarities between Darnassian and Zandali at the time the weapon was forged(which is possible if the Elves are indeed descended from the Trolls). --Shadda (talk) 02:38, April 1, 2010 (UTC)

It's possible also that Zandali and Darnassian share a common linguistic root the same was I suspect that Dwarvish, gnomish, and Draconic are all related to Titan. Remember that while the theory that Night Elves were once Trolls that were then mutated by the Well, it's noted in lore that this tale could be a fabrication by butthurt trolls for getting pwnt by the kaldorei. Also, take a good look around Ulduar's instances--the holographic art depicts Night Elves as we know them now. I don't seem to recall any trolls shown. Whether this is intetional or just an "oops, we screwed up, sorry trolls" isn't known. Maybe Cataclysm will give us more clarification on the origins of Night Elves and Trolls the same way Wrath clearly states that dwarves and gnomes originate from the metal-and-stone creations of the Titans. We'll have to wait and see on that one though. Lamhirh (talk) 03:46, April 1, 2010 (UTC)

Another link between the two languages could be the possessive suffix -i. In Darnassian, Azshari means of Azshara. Zandali could very well mean "of Zandalar" as in "language of Zandalar." (Zandalar being the "birthplace of troll civilization" according to this Wiki). I suspect that I'm reading too much into this, but since this is a spot for speculation, I'd might as well add my two cents worth. Also, there's some speculation that Ulduar may have been a fairly recent Titan construction, since there are also pictures of Humans among the holographs, and Humans only evolved on Azeroth recently.--Shadda (talk) 04:33, April 1, 2010 (UTC)

Delar

It's translated here as "Ancient Keepers," but shouldn't **** of the Ancient Keepers be a title, as opposed to a translation? Quel'Delar, the sister to Quel'Serrar, is a prismatic blade that was forged before the War of the Ancients, and therefore before the Darnassian/Thalassian split could have occurred. One might expect it to be called Quel'Delar, Height of the Ancient Keepers" or something similar. Instead, it is known as "the Sister Blade" (Falore'Serrar?) though it may take on any number of other titles depending on the player's prefered statistics. It's also notable that Quel'Delar doesn't really follow into the pattern of the other "Delar" weapons. (No known link to the Ancient forest guardians).--Shadda (talk) 05:46, April 1, 2010 (UTC)

Falore

The officialness of the translation of "Ana'duna falore, iszera duna bantallas" into "Yes sister, the green(skins) are primitive" can be disputed by the fact that there's no source. I believe, though, that it's from some WC III manual or something. Someone finding this out would be appreciated.

Anyway, I see both Mushan and Merala's points in how you're interpreting "falore" through derivation. However, I still firmly believe that it means "sister". As in many other words in other languages, certain words may seemingly share roots, affixes and whatnot with other words, without sharing relations at all. Examples include the suffix "ant" in words such as "vigilant" or "dormant" (both adjectives) and "giant" - where "ant" isn't a suffix, but merely a part of the word, or the prefix "un" in "untidy" or "unvigilant" and "uncle" where "un" no longer becomes an antonymifying prefix.

My point being that "falore" might as well just be a word meaning sister, without connections to the "fal" root or the "ore" suffix.

--Oponyxal (talk) 13:19, April 5, 2010 (UTC)

That's true. We could be forced to try to translate this blindfoldedMerala (Talk) 00:59, April 6, 2010 (UTC)

Warcraft 3 - the Invasion of Kalimdor (Part 2)

The phrase is from the Invasion of Kalimdor (Part 2) in WC III, as seen here: [2], about 3 minutes and 43 seconds into the movie. The source of the translation remains a mystery. --Oponyxal (talk) 15:32, April 5, 2010 (UTC)

A better example might be the English word, "fling." Its use as a noun can refer either to a party, or to a casual romantic relationship. Its use as a verb refers to throwing something. (It also shares the -ing ending with participial verbs, yet "flinging" is the participial of "to fling.") Only context determines which and I see no reason why this can't also be the case for "falore," which might then very well both mean "sister" and "to balance" given the context. Good points! Mushan (talk) 11:32, April 7, 2010 (UTC)

Time might tell. If Blizzard don't provide us with answers, we'll come up with them through sheer logic, reasoning and cooperation. --Oponyxal / Arodeesa  talk  contr 11:36, April 7, 2010 (UTC)

Comparing with Thalassian

Stolen from the Thalassian/speculation page:

Singular and plural

Concerning nouns in plural and singular, there have been found a pattern which could be either a coincidence or actually intended by the creator of Thalassian.

The following words are all presumed nouns in singular (with its speculated meaning in parenthesis):

• belore (sun)
• malanore (traveler)
• anore (people)

When looking at another noun: dorei - used in kaldorei and sin'dorei - it is always referred to mean children. Never simply a child.

Therefore it could be so that nouns, atleast those that is presumed a noun and end with -ore, can simply be added an -i to become plural.

For example could:

• belorei mean the suns
• malanorei mean the travelers
• anorei mean the peoples

and

• sin'dore mean simply child of blood.

Note that this is not official, but a speculation.

by Merala.

Noting the similarities (though they're not identical) between Darnassian and Thalassian, the -ore ending might (in addition to be a present verb tense) also be a singular noun ending. It might of course also be the -re ending or even -lore, but nevertheless it's still possible for the word "falore" to be a singular noun that means "sister", plural form possibly being "falorei" or something similar (depending on how similar Darnassian and Thalassian actually are - my guess would be as alike as the Scandinavian languages). --Oponyxal / Arodeesa  talk  contr 13:28, April 18, 2010 (UTC)

That's an excellent point, and even if not native to Darnassian, can be a loan word. Mushan (talk) 15:23, April 18, 2010 (UTC)

Endu'di rifa!

I agree with your interpretation of "Endu", but the "'di" is added to "Endu" - "Endu'di" and not to "rifa". Therefore I think using "'di rifa" as "the defilers" might be a bit off. I'd rather look at a way to tie "'di" more properly to "Endu", as in "kill/finish off" or something. --Oponyxal (talk) 18:52, April 5, 2010 (UTC)

Zin-al Elune!

This phrase is spoken in Balancing the Scales (comic) after the heroes prevent a druidic storm from being unleashed on Ashenvale. Glory to Elune seems a likely translation, especially since "Alah" seems to mean "to you". Perhaps al doubles as a prefix? Shadda (talk) 07:03, April 11, 2010 (UTC)

An'da

Though officially translated as Papa, it seems to contain two words: an and da. I wonder if it might be something like my papa, da meaning papa and an being a shortening of ana. Shadda (talk) 07:03, April 11, 2010 (UTC)

Darnassian verb tenses

I've come up with an alternative verb table at User:Oponyxal/Darnassian#Darnassian_Verbs: User:Oponyxal/Darnassian --Oponyxal / Arodeesa  talk  contr 14:37, April 22, 2010 (UTC)

Endings

-as

Darnassian	English	Used in:	Which means:	Note:
Bantallas	Primitive	*Ana'duna falore, iszera duna bantallas	*Yes sister, the green(skins) are primitive	Seems to be an adjective.
Surfas	Love	Kene'thil surfas Surfas'alah denai	I love you Love to you (?)	Seems to be a verb in present tense
Thalas	Kingdom or homeland	Eldre'thalas Quel'thalas	(?) kingdom/homeland High kingdom/homeland	Seems to be a noun, singular
Thoras	Your troubles	Ande'thoras'ethil	May your troubles be diminished	Seems to be a noun, plural, possessive - second person
Thoribas	(to) Fight/(for) trouble	Bandu Thoribas	Prepare to fight	Most likely a noun, singular
Xaxas	Elemental fury/Chaos/Catastrophe/Deathwing	Xaxas	Deathwing	Noun, singular

I haven't quite caught the logic here yet, but it'll come, once I have a closer look. For now it's merely a list, and we need to look at each word by itself and then all of them together (assuming they're all the same tense; -ibas might have another meaning than just -as). --Oponyxal / Arodeesa  talk  contr 13:00, May 30, 2010 (UTC)

New phrases / translations

Just throwing stuff in here you might be interested in, if somebody is still working on this article

Tal'doren - the Wild Home [3] (Worgen questline) -watchouT 01:13, 9 April 2012 (UTC)