Dwemer: their brilliance, technology, language, & tonal engineering

While the Dwemer have been gone for ages, their achievements & legacy remain noticeable thousands of years later.

While some of their inspirations in design are more obvious (i.e. Ancient Babylonian influences), others may be less so. The Dwemer could also have numerous other Classical influences including Greek, Hittite, Persian, and Chinese among many others.

A while back in a previous post of mine, I had begun a discussion about Dwemer culture, especially language.


While the Dwemer are inspired by historical cultures, their mysterious writing is thought by some to be analogous or at least quite similar to Ancient Celtic scripts. In my experience, I noticed that Dwemeri script does also resemble other scripts, including Chinese Phonetic Symbols known as Zhuyin (注音）, aka BoPoMoFo (ㄅㄆㄇㄈ）. Zhuyin is among the closest things to a "Chinese Alphabet" in existence, and in fact is derived from Chinese [Radicle] shorthand. This essentially means that Zhuyin can be used for both phonetic & logo-semantic purposes (similarly to simplified characters).

Zhuyin also can be used for transcription, abbreviation, allows for tones to be conveniently applied at the end of a string of letters, and provides a character of corresponding tonal and ideographic values (most often, although some dialects and variant pronunciation readings may also be co-present like with Japanese).

Even symbolic Characters, clever nuances, and formalism would also likely have been popular with the Dwemer. The Dwemer may have had more Ideo-Logographic symbols and writing than we see in their ruins, as such would have faded into obscurity, secrecy, and decay much earlier on (perhaps 1st-2nd Era). This could also be argued so, since a number of Ancient Classical languages including Greek and Sumerian both had symbolic/hieroglyphic writing (Linear A and B among others for Greek; Cuneiform for Babylonian, Sumerian and others), tonal qualities, logical syntax, and perhaps a relationship between tonality and shape distribution (almost like a code within the relative script shape itself).

Classic languages of Antiquity such as Latin, Greek, and Egyptian also had formalities with regards to grammar, which for Latin meant very specific conjugation and sentence structure rules.

My reason for mentioning Chinese is that it has to a large extent preserved these qualities. From my experience with Chinese, the area of greater/greatest stroke density and originating direction appears to correspond to a higher tonal register on that side. Simply put, a denser left side from the true-center will produce a falling tone, a denser right enabling a rising tone, an even distribution giving an even tone, and an uneven distribution giving an uneven tone.

•While there is certainly much more to say about deriving meaning from graphical distribution and relativity to other graphical sets, it can become lengthy in explanation beyond positing graphical representations (The X, Y, and Z axes on a graph). Simply put, questions spanning 'Who' to 'What' can be explanations via the X axis, while 'Where/When' to 'Why' can be responses amidst the Y axis.

While this may at first appear confusing, it is not unlike abstract math alongside firm reasoning and pattern recognition.

These kinds of a systems could very well be something the Dwemer would come up in their advanced culture to utilize much like their legendary tools.

From what we do know, the Dwemer were cognizant tonal manipulators, abstract thinkers, detailed analyzers, philosophizers, and attained great contextual aptitudes that did even vary by city/stronghold.

•Would the Dwemeri language have been tonal? Why or why not? •Which cultures do you think influenced the Dwemer and why? •Could they have mastered tonal engineering in part by the aide of their very language and speech, not unlike using the Thu'um? •How much could a socio-cultural element such as language have influenced the Dwemer mindset?