The Presumptive Tense - Soul of the Dwemer Language

by Aurealana Pertanus

Author's Preface: Without the prior scholarship of my colleague Relagius Porax, I could not have completed this work; his six-part Comparative Survey of Tamrielic Literature was instrumental to my own efforts in completing my study of Dwemeris.

I am also deeply grateful for the lively and helpful correspondence and friendship of scholars in several provinces who, for professional and personal reasons, have asked that I not reveal their identities. Although I must respect their wishes, I am immensely and deeply humbled by the selflessness of these individuals.

To the extent that my work stands, it stands on the firm foundations established by the prior work of many people. To the extent that my work falls, it falls solely as the result of errors or omissions on my part alone.

A Note Regarding The Source Corpus of Dwemeris Texts

While Dwemeris is undoubtedly an Aldmeris-descended language, it diverged quite early from the sister tongues of the other mer tribes, complicating any effort to produce a comprehensive comparative linguistic survey of the language. This problem of confusing and rapid divergence in pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary would be less vexing if we had a more extensive corpus of original Dwemeris literature.

Unfortunately, with the exception of a few rare bilingual texts that were produced during the conclaves of Resdayn (i.e., during that brief time that the Dwemer and Chimer were allies), the great bulk of surviving Dwemer writing consists of funerary inscriptions, brief dedicatory texts, and limited graffiti.

I was blessed by the good fortune of being granted access to two exceedingly valuable manuscripts.

The first source for my studies in Dwemeris grammar lay in the bilingual notes and unpublished translations that had been accumulated by the legal scholar Orsian in his personal correspondence over the half-century prior to his publication of “The Antecedents of Dwemer Law.” Orsian’s estate administrator allowed me to transcribe a Dwemeris military treaty, and later agreed to sell this document to the Imperial library for the benefit of future scholars.

The second source for my work is an unpublished unexpurgated bilingual fair-hand manuscript of “Hanging Gardens of Wasten Coridale” acquired by the Library of the Free Communes in a purchase from a private collector. I am happy to report that Relagius Porax has negotiated the donation of this item to a public institution so that it too may be studied in greater detail.

The Dun Treaty

Of the treaty (which I will refer to hence by its catalog accession title, “The Dun Treaty”), not much is known; the original document is handwritten in gall-ink on a poorly preserved scrap of guar-hide parchment. The document was doubtless valuable to Orsian in part because it contained parallel in-line references to various Dwemeris and Aldmeris legal terms that are not found elsewhere. The treaty was apparently the fruit of some sort of ad hoc negotiation of mutual military aid, and was presumably drafted by a Dwemer diplomatic agent or scribe who was fluently literate in both Dwemeris and Aldmeris, acting in service to some as-yet unidentified Dwemer colony in nominal alliance with a Chimeri tribal band.

Orsian noted (without citing any corroborating sources) that the historical context and background of the treaty's drafting was intentionally omitted from his book because it was “tedious, dull, and uninteresting to relate” and that the language of the treaty was “simply formulaic and illustrative of Dwemer international law, identical to many other similar such inter-tribal agreements.”

A Description of the Hanging Gardens of Wasten Coridale

Of the “Hanging Gardens” travel guide, much more is known, including the author’s nickname, and the subject matter of the book, which is a book-length personal journal about a Summerset Isles tourist draw, written for the benefit of a cosmopolitan, widely traveled, and literate Dwemer audience comfortable with the idea of what would seem in retrospect to be an arduous intercontinental journey across the face of Tamriel. The journal is theorized to be a subtle exercise in language education and bilingual expression, presumably for the benefit of a broader audience unable to read the Dwemeris portion of the text.

Tense Construction in Dwemeris

The Aldmeris family of languages share a number of common features that are distinctive and useful in identifying relationships between these languages. Among other things, the languages share a core collection of words that are descended from the original Aldmeris, including (generally) common terms for counting numbers, descriptive terms of natural features and livestock, names for family relationships, names for simple tools common to various early nomadic tribes of Tamriel, and names of various gods and natural phenomena.

There is no question that Dwemeris possesses all the identifying commonalities that place it in the same family of languages with Chimeris, Falmeris, Aldmeris, Altmeris, Ayleidoon, and so on. Nevertheless, Dwemeris had diverged so far from Aldmeris by around ME800 as to be an unintelligible separate language, with its own unique grammatical structure and vocabulary.

We can see this divergence reflected in the text of the Dun Treaty. For instance, the first sentence of the proclamation, (in a regional variant of a common Aldmeris dialect) reads as follows:

Ye sa sou meldua cal-na ay tarn va nou molagnaseliye trumbi nou bala.

The sentence is simple and unpoetic, and (despite linguistic drift and the passage of centuries) is close enough to modern Altmeris that any literate person could piece together a rough idea of what the author intended to convey. The only mildly troublesome bits of vocabulary are the archaic “cal-na” and “trumbi,” contextualized here as “petitioned for” and “submitted.”

A free translation of the sentence would be: "Thus it comes to pass, you refugees have requested safe passage in our steamworks and agree to submit to our authority." A more literal translation would be "And so you exiles yoke-take bow in [a metaphoric] doorway, come to our stone water-with-fires-place, and kneel to power."

At least according to Orsian, treaties were regularly drafted in duplicate copies in the native tongues of the signatory parties. Running below the Aldmeris is the corresponding Dwemeris version of the same sentence. Note how different the Dwemeris parallel text is in comparison to the Aldmeris, both in tone and vocabulary – there are no shared words, the parallel (and presumptively identical-in-meaning) sentence has no common linguistic ground with the Aldmeris:

Chun thuamer arkngd chend duathand, th ahvardn btham.

A literal translation of this short Dwemeris statement would be: "Underling landless people (“thuanmer” literally means “house-less mer”) belly-cry for beds (“chend duathand” meaning “home-hearth sleeping place”), self-sold [confirming our legal possession of title to their bodies]." A more fluid translation that preserves the sense of the text would be "You refugees asked for shelter. The contract of your servitude to us is irrevocably sealed because you bowed to us." 

The Aldmeris sentence sounds more-or-less factual. It's just a recitation of circumstances. Some unidentified tribe has been exiled, and the members of that tribe of mer have agreed to become subjects or vassals of the Dwemer in return for a place to live. But the Dwemer version is much more brutal, saying in effect, "You asked for help and therefore we own you."

In translating the Dwemeris, note specifically the verbs "belly-cry" ("arkngd") and "self-sold" ("ahvardn"). In general, Dwemeris verb constructions with the endings "ngd" (for present actions) or "rdn" (for completed actions) indicate presumption.

The presumptive tense is, one might say, the soul of the Dwemer language. In the very limited language fragments we have of Dwemeris, the use of presumptive constructions is frequent, rich, and subtle.

In the small circle of Dwemeris linguists, phrases in the presumptive tense are usually translated into the common tongue as simple declarative statements.

But such a literal translation does a disservice to the often quite subversive intentions of the original Dwemer author or speaker. "Ahvardn" means "self-sold," but more specifically and when coupled with the legalistic formula "btham," "ahvardn" more accurately should be understood to mean, "unequivocably bound in servitude, without recourse."

In Dwemeris, certain statements are presumptively inescapable, or uncontestable. One could say that the language has a "baked-in" element of certitude when the presumtive tense structure is used, and that this grammatical construction encodes an inherently arrogant linguistic position.

The Presumptive Tense in Non Legalistic Usage

One of my critics has suggested that the presumptive tense is really only ascendant in Dwemeris legalistic formula, such as in law codes, treaties, and legal contracts. But we have ample textual evidence that the presumptive tense, or what you might think of as this grammatical assertion of certitude in Dwemeris is often used in poetic literary statements outside of a legal context.

In the "Description of the Hanging Gardens of Wasten," a Dwemer native speaker and translator nicknamed "Nbthld" (i.e., "Double-worded") attempted to correctly render an Aldmeris translation of a passing Dwemeris reference to the romantic tradition common to many merethic peoples, who in that age frequently chose formal garden settings as locations to profess love to their intended consorts or lovers. Indeed, Aldmer, Chimer, and Dwemer men and women alike were wont to propose marriage to each other while enjoying the dramatic vistas and crashing waterfalls of the legendary foreign gardens of the sophisticated mer homeland.

But where the Aldmeris rendition of the traditional engagement pledge is largely unchanged, ("To you I am bound. To me you are bound,") the phrase when rendered in Dwemeris is in the presumptive tense, and states bluntly, "We cannot conceivably escape each other."

One can see how the appropriate use of the presumptive tense completely changes the tenor and impact of this supposedly romantic statement. One can also now clearly understand the sarcastic criticism leveled at the hapless "Nbthld" by a marginal Dwemer-literate commenter, who reviewed his or her underling's translation efforts and wrote "Put down your ardent cutting-globes, Nbthld. Your Aldmeris has the correct words, but they cannot be properly misinterpreted."