The Dragon Language

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SYED
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The Dragon Language

Post by SYED »

Some one made a Draconian translator on the web. Mostly I think it is for the forgotten realms dragons and related places, but a cool way to spice the story. It does have a limited vocabulary but should do the job. 7483 words at last count. That way we could see what humans see and hear of the dragon language.

http://draconic.twilightrealm.com/
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Re: The Dragon Language

Post by giddiani »

Si geou sone wux mrith ketchup moxt ir.
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heustess
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Re: The Dragon Language

Post by heustess »

ui coi authot sjerit?
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ANTIcarrot
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Re: The Dragon Language

Post by ANTIcarrot »

Given the Chinese (supposedly) have access to a sky dragon library - how much have they managed to translate? The technical stuff on magical theory, and regular prose may also be almost impossible, but at least one book almost certainly contains some mathematical notations or graphs, which should be substantially easier to decode. You can do a lot with maths. You can do even more with maps too, which some of the books may also contain. I wonder how much other nations might be willing to pay if they were offered the coordinates of other ancient dragon sites within their borders...

Given that Cuniform was decoded pre computers, and we managed to at least identify heiroglyph names before the rosetta stone, and the chinese actually have computers, how much dragonese can they read?

PS: And what race(s) of dragon skeleton was found in the ruins? Because I can think of little else that would have made them keep a find like this secret for decades.
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Re: The Dragon Language

Post by GBLW »

(Psst, didn't you know that "ground dragon bones" are an old Chinese remedy for almost everything from virility problems to flatulence?)
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hoppy
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Re: The Dragon Language

Post by hoppy »

If the dragons are right and fluency in Draconic is necessary to magic use. That, imply's that there are unhumanly intuitive mental gymnastics that are inherent in Draconic. Plus, the fact that the Chinese magicians were probably very secretive to the point they may have only used draconic in reference to magic. Remember they were a political group that relied on magic use for their power.
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Re: The Dragon Language

Post by Greymist »

hoppy wrote:If the dragons are right and fluency in Draconic is necessary to magic use. That, imply's that there are unhumanly intuitive mental gymnastics that are inherent in Draconic. Plus, the fact that the Chinese magicians were probably very secretive to the point they may have only used draconic in reference to magic. Remember they were a political group that relied on magic use for their power.
Unless the Draconic language is a godly language, and magic in that universe is like Priest magic in the Sennadar universe, then I don't see why Draconic is a requirement.

Perhaps a bit of Draconic arrogance, and also if it works in one language, why try to relearn and research all the spells in English.
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Fel
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Re: The Dragon Language

Post by Fel »

Knowing Draconic isn't absolutely REQUIRED to use magic.

It's the language of magic because of the dragons. They were the original teachers, and even after humans learned magic, they were still the best teachers. To fully understand what they had to teach, students learned their language. Over time, the magicians simply used draconic when dealing with anything magical to both express magical concepts more purely, and also keep that information out of the hands of those they didn't want to have it. They also used draconic among themselves when they didn't want the mundanes to know what they were talking about.

The Shao Kai used draconic exclusively in ALL their written correspondence, even non-magical matters. It was their private language of a sort which they used to maintain secrecy...and that secrecy was their downfall when the dynasty changed.

So yes, it's something of a matter of arrogance that draconic is exclusively used in magic.
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Mad Monk
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Re: The Dragon Language

Post by Mad Monk »

ANTIcarrot wrote:Given the Chinese (supposedly) have access to a sky dragon library - how much have they managed to translate? The technical stuff on magical theory, and regular prose may also be almost impossible, but at least one book almost certainly contains some mathematical notations or graphs, which should be substantially easier to decode. You can do a lot with maths. You can do even more with maps too, which some of the books may also contain. I wonder how much other nations might be willing to pay if they were offered the coordinates of other ancient dragon sites within their borders...

Given that Cuniform was decoded pre computers, and we managed to at least identify heiroglyph names before the rosetta stone, and the chinese actually have computers, how much dragonese can they read?

PS: And what race(s) of dragon skeleton was found in the ruins? Because I can think of little else that would have made them keep a find like this secret for decades.
The translation of lost languages relies on context and similarity to known languages. Cuneiform has a structure similar to some languages still spoken in the region. Even ancient Egyptian is similar to one of the languages spoken by the Copts in Egypt today. There are still a number of Human texts which are still untranslated, like Linear-A http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_A and the Indus Valley Script http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_script, even the Voynich manuscript from 15th C Italy which is either a Draconic book of magic or a fraud http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript. Fel will decide.

Given that the Draconic language is unrelated to any human tongue, plus has a totally alien viewpoint, it is not surprising that it has not yet been translated, even with computer help.
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Re: The Dragon Language

Post by GBLW »

And, concerning the fact that Chinese used Dragon bones in their medicines, what they were using were the bones of dinosaurs; http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19606626/ns ... 9XLacUmVkg
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ANTIcarrot
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Re: The Dragon Language

Post by ANTIcarrot »

Mad Monk wrote:The translation of lost languages relies on context and similarity to known languages. <snip> Given that the Draconic language is unrelated to any human tongue, plus has a totally alien viewpoint, it is not surprising that it has not yet been translated, even with computer help.
This is why I mentioned maths; the universal language. However the dragons wrote things, one plus one equals two. And Fel did say they used draconic for everything. Everything includes accounting, and ledgers, even draconic ones, presumably look different from spell books.

With computers some things become easier. Without any help a computer looking for paterns in English, would quickly recognise a regular combination of speachmarks, commas, and the word 'said' - and flag it as pretty damn important, even if it couldn't say why. Certain words will also be highlighted for various reasons. The egyptians did this with kings, which is why we learned those words first. And pictures usually don't need to be translated.

They have all sorts of clues. They should have made some progress.
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Mad Monk
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Re: The Dragon Language

Post by Mad Monk »

Even mathematics can be confusing. Most human mathematics follow either the Arabic system (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 10, 200) Or the Roman system (I, II, III, V, VIII, X, CC) Both these systems are relatively easy to interpret

However there are other systems, like the Georgian, which would be much more difficult to translate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_numerals

The Egyptians had the Horus eye fractions http://www.recoveredscience.com/const102horuseye.htm another quirky system.

Finally, we have the level of secrecy that they seem to have put around this. If you can't ask other people for insights, research is much more difficult.
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Re: The Dragon Language

Post by Wingsolution »

You know, considering the way English steals words from other languages, I wouldn't be at all surprised if it developed the words necessary to communicate/record details on magical topics. Add to this that many of the dragons know/are learning English, and the first set of human magi are English speakers, and it wouldn't surprise me if in a few decades it became possible to write in English on magical topics. It would likely look a lot like a technical manual of any language that stole tech words from English, though.
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SYED
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Re: The Dragon Language

Post by SYED »

I remember this Sci fi show, that someone invented this kind of energy field or signal that was very unique. It causes those in range to be completely unable to be understood by anyone but each other. Their written words as well as any thing spoken would seem complete gibberish to those not affected, the thing was between each other they understood completely, even though they knew that they were speaking nonsense.
I just thought this would be an awesome form of magical encryption. We know magic can affect the senses, could they cast a permanent spell to cause the needed effect, so the only those who are magic, or able to think, or at least speak Draconian are able to comprehend the language.
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Re: The Dragon Language

Post by Dreamer »

ANTIcarrot wrote:This is why I mentioned maths; the universal language. However the dragons wrote things, one plus one equals two. And Fel did say they used draconic for everything. Everything includes accounting, and ledgers, even draconic ones, presumably look different from spell books.With computers some things become easier. Without any help a computer looking for paterns in English, would quickly recognise a regular combination of speachmarks, commas, and the word 'said' - and flag it as pretty damn important, even if it couldn't say why. Certain words will also be highlighted for various reasons. The egyptians did this with kings, which is why we learned those words first. And pictures usually don't need to be translated.They have all sorts of clues. They should have made some progress.

Mad Monk wrote:The translation of lost languages relies on context and similarity to known languages. <snip> Given that the Draconic language is unrelated to any human tongue, plus has a totally alien viewpoint, it is not surprising that it has not yet been translated, even with computer help.
This is why I mentioned maths; the universal language. However the dragons wrote things, one plus one equals two. And Fel did say they used draconic for everything. Everything includes accounting, and ledgers, even draconic ones, presumably look different from spell books.With computers some things become easier. Without any help a computer looking for paterns in English, would quickly recognise a regular combination of speachmarks, commas, and the word 'said' - and flag it as pretty damn important, even if it couldn't say why. Certain words will also be highlighted for various reasons. The egyptians did this with kings, which is why we learned those words first. And pictures usually don't need to be translated.They have all sorts of clues. They should have made some progress.

It is a lot more complex than that. for instance 1+1+10 is also true if you are using base 2 (a numeral system with only two digits like computers use) or 8+3=A if using a base 16 numeric system. Humans use base 10 usually (philosophers say because we have 10 fingers). How many fingers/digits/claws do Dragons have. I think the ED have 17 spikes on their tails (could someone verify this?) so do they use a base 17 numeric system? Yes math is a universal constant of ratios and proportions and relationships, but that doesn't mean that the language of math is easy to decipher.
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