131 replies to this topic

[Spartan184]

-Gto
GothmogtheOrc so i was wondering whats your next mod for B4ME gonna be about or whats gonna be the idea

He retired from modding and please post in the right forum.

[BPK]

Oh God I wish I had the rights to beta test this. =[

[Glorfindel]

Could anyone please give me a link to the page where the dwarf unit names and their translations are shown? I searched but couldn't find it.

[yams in a can]

Many of the names, or parts of them, are made up. The only term in the Dwarven tongue that has been said and translates was "Baruk Khazâd! Khazâd ai-mênu! (Meaning: "Axes of the Dwarves! The Dwarves are upon you!")" and "BALIN FUNDINUL UZBAD KHAZAD-DÛMU (Meaning: Balin son of Fundin Lord of Moria)."

[Ring o' Fate]

I DARE you to say that to Nert's and Namo's faces.

[yams in a can]

Why?

[mike_]

Because they've found sources to use to make 'real' names

[Glorfindel]

A link please?

[Arthadan]

Closest thing I can think of is the 'Neo Khuzdul' David Salo (the linguistic who wrote all the dialoges in Tolkien invented tongues for the movies) has developed. But as far as I know is not available, excepting the fragments in the lyrics of some songs in OST of the films.

The Abyss (Gandald vs. the Balrog) (Khuzdûl)

Irkat-lukhud ma / No ray of light
katabrikihu / can cross it
Ulfat-atam ma / no air blast
tanakhi uduhu / comes from there
bin-nât aznân tarsisi / only an eternal darkness grows

Bazar udu agânî-furkhîn / Deep since the begining of the world
Gurd! / Be afraid!
Ma nîd sakhu! / Don't look down!
Ma satf unkhai! / Don't stop so close!
Atkât zatagrafizu / Silence will take you
Zatablugi sulluzu / it will shallow you whole


Other than that, there is a nice list of Dwarven names in Other Minds magazine (issue 3 or 4) and that's all I know.

[yams in a can]

I did not know that, great. That's amazing they are using names from the Dwarven language.

[Nertea]

Really, even without going into all of the stuff that Namo has dug up, I can list a couple more sources beyond Gimli's warcry... the inscription on Balin's tomb, the names of the various peaks in the Misty Mountains around Moria.

[Námo]

... they've found sources ...

... the most important of those being:

Mellonath Daeron (The Language Guild of the Forodrim): An analysis of Dwarvish
Ardalambion (The Tongues of Arda): Khuzdul - the secret tongue of the Dwarves
LotR: The Return of the King, Appendices E (especially 'The Cirth') & F.
plus various other references on Khuzdul in 'The History of Middle-earth'.

... and only to a limited degree from the movie-lore:

Gwaith-i-phethdain (Fellowship of the Word-smiths): Language in 'The Lord of the Rings' movie
articles:
Sword Inscriptions: a linguistic survey (entry 8: Dwarven Spear or Cave Troll's Weapon Inscription (by Weta Workshops))
Other Inscriptions: a linguistic survey (entry 3: 'Gabil gund Mazarbul' or Collection of Mazarbul Wall Inscriptions (by David Salo))

... plus some of the Lyrics (only one word used)
Gwaith-i-phethdain [above link]: various entries (translations into Khuzdul by David Salo)
Elendili - Przyjaciele Elfów: New lyrics from FotR, TTT and RotK!

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The main objective for giving Khuzdul names to the units have been twofold:

• to make names that are 'authentic' in relation to what Tolkien have revealed concerning the secret tongue of the Dwarves.
• to make both the structure of the names and the individual names as simple as possible, in order to not affect gameplay in a negative way.

... on authenticity:

Although the authentic Khuzdul vocabulary is rather limited, is has been surprisingly versatile for making names for units, and yielding an almost complete Azagh-aglâb Khuzdul 'Military Vocabulary of the Dwarves', including like seven(!) different military ranks from King (High Commander) down to just an ordinary Dwarf (drafted unit), and like 7-9 different expressions for Dwarves wielding axes (their favorite weapon!) plus a variety of variations for some of the other units. Obvious all these names can't show up in the mod, still there exist some kind of 'stat variation' concerning these unit-names ('behind the curtain' so to speak, or maybe the the expression 'under the mountain' would be more fitting) - in accordance with other aspects of this mod, and reflecting the well-organized and versatile military capabilities of the Dwarves, who are known as the toughest warriors of Middle-earth.

The unit-names are based primarily on the vocabularies given by Mellonath Daeron and Ardalambion, and only in a few cases on Neo-Khuzdul; these last ones have only been used if verification from other sources exists.

In only one instance has it has been nessecary to assign a new meaning to a word, in the case of the inscription on the dwarven spear used by the Cave Troll of Moria. The etymology given by Weta Workshops are clearly wrong, as Tarâg 'Beards' is well attested (and beards being very important for the Dwarves!) and 'Bane' should be Abzag (Neo-Khuzdul by David Salo, but the root are well known both in Khuzdul and Adûnaic [the latter having many loan-words from Khuzdul according to Tolkien]). So, in order to determine a proper interpretation of the word Udrig it has been necessary to go through some torturous logical procedures of decoding, even though this seems to be comparatively straightforward stuff - the iterations of this interpretation goes as deep as analyzing the Cirth (single runic letter) of the wovels, to dertermine whether the inscription are in Angerthas Moria or Angerthas Erebor (two different Dwarven alphabets, see RotK: Appendix E). This interpretation alone amounts to about five printed pages, so it has not been a matter of just coining some names looking like Khuzdul ...

... and, as above interpretation clearly shows that the inscription can only be in Angerthas Erebor, we can now attach some history to that weapon: it is not anymore just *some* spear used by the Cave-troll, but must have been brought to Moria by Balin and company, and used to defend their lives in the last desperate stand against all the evil creatures of Moria ... so in this way the mod reflects some lore back to the movie, giving us a deeper understanding of the weapon used in the scene from the Chamber of Mazarbul.


... on gameplay:

Because of the ambiguities of the known Khuzdul vocabulary (the scholars even disagree on the interpretation of the inscription on Balin's tomb!), and because we don't know very much about Khuzdul grammar, it has been possible to make the syntax of the unit-names similar to that of the English language. Hopefully, this will make it easier for players to get used to the names of the Dwarven faction.

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As this is still WIP, sort of (still needs a little polishing), no links for those Khuzdul names ... sorry, you will have to wait for the mod to be released.

Edited by Námo, 18 December 2009 - 11:58 AM.