[LDZ] [Meta] Translating Dwemeris

There are three Elder Scrolls that tell the story of Ra’zhiin and it is not clear that they are all from the same When; indeed, they often speak of similar occurrences but with wild variations. From these Scrolls have been derived a number of commentaries, reconciliations, and attempted chronologies. During my cataloguing of Ra’zhiin’s interactions with the Ghost Choir I consulted all three Scrolls and a number of scholarly works. The greatest problem very nearly halted the project permanently.

The principle interpretive c0dex is written almost entirely in Cyrodiilic; this is not uncommon as many of Ra’zhiin’s recountings are in this language. While the actions of the Dwemer in the story are described in Cyrodiilic, their speech is in Dwemeris. If you’ve never seen the written form it is not entirely unlike a mathematical equation, only in four dimensions. I’ve never made it a secret that mathematics is completely opaque to me and so I admit I sought out help.

Most of the translations of Dwemeris are rendered in Aldmeris, a language surprisingly reminiscent of Tolkien’s Quenya (I have no explanation for this). The “Thirty-Six Lessons of Vivec” offer a small number of Dwemeri phrases translated into Dunmeris and the original texts – housed in the Scriptorium of the Holy Amaranth on Masser – offered some clues; thus through the use of two languages I, and my linguistic aids, sought to unravel the language of the Dwarves.

Therein was revealed our mistake.

Language, you must understand, is not a simple business. It is, in its simplest sense, a simulacrum of sound, thought, and experience. As such it is a symbolic icon of cultural identification, with or without awareness of the same. To put it another way: language reflects the self-(and other)-understanding of a culture, including their subconscious ideological narratives. Aldmeris or Dunmeris translations of Dwemeris did not, in fact, make the thoughts of the Dwemer known to me, but only their own understanding. That is why translated Dwemeris (usually translated from Aldmeris to Cyrodiilic to English) is nearly impossible to understand: it is moving through too many cultures and picking up their biases.

Ra’zhiin had become quite the linguist over his ten-thousand years (and then mostly during his journeys in the Dark) but was unavailable to me due to the breadth of the Creatia Wars. So I did my best to work with the original language, translating it directly into English.

I will not go into the metaphysical necessities of my year-long work on the texts, nor how they nearly cost me my sanity. Sufficed to say I was able to complete the work and – at what seemed a suspiciously convenient moment – was visited by Ra’zhiin, who confirmed my translation…but that conversation is for another time.

What I discovered is that we have completely misread the Dwarves of Tamriel. Seeing them through the thot-logic of Aldmeris tainted them as eternal Rebels (against the unity of the Elves) and through Dunmeris as blasphemers and atheists. None of these are, I dare to say, an accurate assessment of this fascinating people.

Were the Dwemer different than the peoples that surrounded them? Of course, but only in ways understood through technical philosophy or theoretical physics – yet even these were metaphysical constructs that the Dwemer used to describe their experiences. For Dwemeris is primarily existential in nature, and so were the people who crafted that extraordinary language.

To the Aldmer, Dwemer poetry sounded like the clanging of steam-driven pipes, because they could conceive of nothing else. But in its most literal form Dwemer poetry rivals all human languages for its nuanced meanings, subtle implications, and communication of goodness, beauty, and truth. The Dwemer were a people of profound insight, joy, and paradoxical despair. The multi-verse is less for their loss…and for what Memory has done to them.