Calcelmo's Stone: Sentence II + Dwemeris Phonology notes

I corresponded with /u/RomanNumeralII for this one. We traded ideas and I think I’ve got a clearer understanding of how Dwemeris works as a language.

> Amz thuamer ahrkanch kemelmzulchond aka Mora, th thuangz ahrk, th duum melz thuabtharng, th kanthaln duabcharn mzin thuastur, btharumz thuamer zel.

>ilpen av sou meldi nagaiale as guntumnia spantelepelaelia arani morae ye sou liebali racuvane ye nu rautane sye ye nu hautalle nou buroi gume sou gravuloi sa metane sye garlis

> ILPEN of your exiles dead-LE by GUNTUMNIA SPANTELEPELAELIA kings of the forest and your LIEBALI were cast down and we RAUTANE SYE and we HAUTALLE our vassals GUME your GRAVULOI so METANE SYE caverns

Let’s take this one section at a time.

> Amz thuamer ahrkanch kemelmzulchond aka Mora

> ilpen av sou meldi nagaiale as guntumnia spantelepelaelia arani morae

There’s the occurence of our friend thuamer/sou meldi “your people/exiles.”

Next a(h)rk- & nagaia-, and -anch & -le. Since we have established that a(h)rk- has an approximate meaning of “exile, drive,” and nagaia means “dead,” we can assume a(h)rk- has a broader meaning in this context. I believe the endings are some form of passive or causative.

We have the obvious correspondance in aka Mora/arani morae, meaning “kings of the wood.” UESP suggests that it’s a shortening of “Atmora,” which may be plausible.

This leaves kemelmzulchond = spantelepelaelia. UESP’s partial translation of the Falmeris leaves SPANTEL-speak-throat. Span- appears in a zone in Oblivion, in the name abaspania. Kemel has been established as “cliff.” Mzul- might be related to Mzulft. /u/RomanNumeralII suggests that they are adjectives relating to aka Mora/arani morae, i.e. the Nords. The partial translation of speak-throat agrees with his assessment, as it probably refers to the Thu’um. The Dwemeris translation is cryptic, but it likely means the same thing. I ended with “shouting from their cliff towers.” (More work is needed on how kemelmzulchond is actually compounded, i.e. kemel-mzul-chond or kemelmzul-chond, etc.)

I’ve left out translating amz and ilpen (av) because I wanted to look at the rest of the sentence structure to see if there was any correlation. My conclusion here is that amz and ilpen (av) both mean “because,” because the final part of the sentence has no th/ye “and,” and the Falmeris uses sa “so.”

> th thuangz ahrk

>ye sou liebali racuvane

Very clearly “and your ??? fall.” Not sure where the -ne comes from, possibly a tense suffix? The lack of suffix on the Dwemeris verb suggests that Dwemeris doesn’t have any way of describing it. Maybe Dwemeris has a distinction between past/non-past only?

Liebali appears to be a compound of “tree-stone-PL,” which I’ve interpreted as “houses.” The Dwemeris equivalent is reconstructed as angz (not ngz, since I’ve yet to see a completely vowelless word except for th, which gets some lenience as a conjunction).

>th duum melz thuabtharng

>ye nu rautane sye

Duum = nu “we,” and is phonetically similar to “Dwemer.” Could be a compound of du and something else or is just directly from dwemer.

Melz = rautane, again with a -ne suffix. Melz could be a root all on its own, but it’s possibly mel-. Given later how it also appears in btharumz, I posit that -z is a first person verb ending, possibly even related to Ayleidoon -r as seen in racuvar (via rhotacism, likely an areal feature not shared with Dwemeris). Could be the copula “be” or maybe “become,” given the context. Rautane, then, is probably “ally.”

Sye is likely the accusative/objective form of “you.”

Btharng recalls bthar “allied.” Might be a derivation as “ally.”

> th kanthaln duabcharn mzin thuastur

> ye nu hautalle nou buroi gume sou gravuloi

The meanings for this part are essentially guessing, since there’s very little translation.

Nu = “we.”

Hautalle has the same -le suffix that is in nagaiale earlier. I still think it’s a causative of some sort. Here it’s probably something like “were made to run” or something like that.

Bcharn has been used in a few places before: the Karstangz-Bcharn in Tribunal, and an inscription in Dragonborn’s Nchardak which reads enkagr bcharn. I translate it as “machine,” though a simple semantic shift can be used to get to the Falmer buroi “slaves.”

Mzin = gume = “from,” given its position, referent, and length.

Stur = gravulo(i), probably an agentive noun (i.e. “-er”) given what we know about Ayleid derivation. The only place grav- gets us is “ugly.” I made this “enemies.”

> btharumz thuamer zel.

> sa metane sye garlis

Thuamer again backs up the claim that sye is accusative.

Garlis has been established as “caverns” (Ayleid Reference Text), and zel appears all the time in Dwemeris. /u/RomanNumeralII suggests that zel is related to Ayleid sel “hall” and Dunmeris tel “tower,” which I agree with. Given the Dwemer’s lifestyle, it would make sense for “cavern” and “city” to conflate into one word: zel.

Returning to btharumz, it is probably something like “give.” The -z ending appears again, serving for the subject.

Dwemeris: > Amz thuamer ahrkanch kemelmzulchond aka Mora, th thuangz ahrk, th duum melz thuabtharng, th kanthaln duabcharn mzin thuastur, btharumz thuamer zel.

> because 2P.GEN-people exile-PASS cliff-tower-shouting king forest / and 2P.GEN-house fall / and dwemer be-1P 2P.GEN-ally / and run-2P? 1P.GEN-machine from 2P.GEN-enemy / give-1P 2P.GEN-people cavern

Falmeris: >ilpen av sou meldi nagaiale as guntumnia spantelepelaelia arani morae ye sou liebali racuvane ye nu rautane sye ye nu hautalle nou buroi gume sou gravuloi sa metane sye garlis

> because of 2P.GEN exile-PL dead-PASS.CAUS by mountainous-towers shouting king-PL forest-GEN / and 2P.GEN house-PL fall-FUT? / and 1P ally-FUT? 2P.ACC / and 2P.NOM run-PASS.CAUS 1P.GEN slave-PL from 2P.GEN enemy-PL so give-FUT? 2P.ACC cavern

Translation: > “Because your people are being killed and exiled by the Kings of the Wood, shouting from their cliff towers; and your houses will fall, and we, the Dwemer, will be your allies, and you run to our machines from your enemies, we will give your people a cavern.”

Bonus: /u/RomanNumeralII noticed a correspondence between Dwemeris -ac/-ak and Dunmeris -ag (morag “forester”) as an agentive suffix. The spelling with ‹c› is likely archaic, as it seems ‹c› was dropped in favor of ‹k›. We also came to an interesting conclusion about kagr and its derivatives, but I’ll save that for the relevant section.

###Dwemeris phonology

This section is largely theory and technical mumbo-jumbo, though it’s obviously based on the text.

| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar -|:-:|:-:|:-:|:-:|:-:| Nasal | m | | n | [ɲ] | ‹ng› ŋ Plosive | b | | t d | ‹ch› c͡ç~t͡ɕ | k g Fricative | f v | ‹th› θ | s z | | Liquid | | | l r | |

I chose /c͡ç ~ t͡ɕ/ for ‹ch› partially on personal whim, partially on philology. Presumably it derives from Aldmeris ‹ch›, which I’ve reconstructed as [x]. All the Elder Scrolls games pronounce the ‹ch› in Dwemer names as [t͡ʃ], so I managed to pick a phoneme that’s 1. plausibly derived from [x] ([x] → [ç] → [c͡ç]), and 2. is close enough that an English speaker would likely pronounce it [t͡ʃ]. [ɲ] is an allophone of /n/ before /c͡ç/.

The long vowel /ɑː/ is a relic that appears in a few Aldmeri languages, largely shortened in colloquial speech. It is shortened before three or more consonants (ahrk- /ɑːrk/ + -ngd /ŋ̍d/ = arkngd /ɑrkŋ̍d/).