The Argonian Native Language

[Deeza]

I was having a chat online with the Old Ye Bard today, and he came up with a very important point:

The Argonians living deep in the Marsh don't speak english.

We know from the new book that they have their own language called Saxhleel. Most of the Argonians living in the deep marsh have never even seen a human in living memory, let alone an elf or khajiit. We were discussing this and came up with an idea we thought was pretty awesome:

What if the native Argonians speak a different language that the player can't (at first) understand. We make up a partial new language (the stuff from lore would give us a good start as to the kind of sounds we could use). We can shut the subtitles off for these NPCs, and then have them stare blankly whenever the player tries to make a response.

The beauty of it is, we have an artefact in the game that translates the Argonians (it triggers a global script that switches the subtitles on, so that the player hears the alien language with subtitles beneath it).

Then TOYB realised that this could be our "Eye of Argonia". It metaphorically "opens up" the "city" of the argonian people to the player. With further quests, it could also let the PC communicate with the Paatru, Sarpa and Naga.

It would be a fair amount of work, and I think we should hold off on it until after the beta is out, but I'm more than happy to do my share. What do you think?

[Ibsen's Ghost]

With enough audio variations based on a selection of stock sounds (gurgling, croaking sort of stuff) then it shouldn't actually be that hard. I'm not inventing a whole new language though... :eek:

[Lady Nerevar]

the language is jel actually (the saxleel is the argonian's name for themselves). i very strongly recommend this article.

[Deeza]

Haha! Fear not, I'm not planning on a whole grammar system or anything lol. We'd only need to do a large enough library of basic sounds to give the talking enough variety that it wouldn't get repetitive.

[Ibsen's Ghost]

That's how I saw it too... :yes:

[Deeza]

Thankyou very much LadyN. I had heard of that site once before a long time ago, but never knew the name of it to track it down...

[Koniption]

I like this idea. I do think we should try to implement it into our mod at some point.

Koniption

[Catlemur]

Jel dictionaries can be used.You can not speak jel until reading one.

[Deeza]

That's an interesting idea, but I was thinking of something a bit more magical (after all, learning a whole language in one go isn't the kind of thing you can do naturally). Hence the Eye of Argonia.

Which we'll need a model for, by the way.

[Catlemur]

Magical dictionaries :elk: