Talk:D'ni language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Famicom style controller This article is within the scope of WikiProject Video games. For more information, visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the assessment scale.
Low This article is on a subject of Low priority within gaming for inclusion in Wikipedia 1.0.
VG To-do:
Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on 23 October 2007. The result of the discussion was no consensus.

Maybe someone could make a reference to the rehevkor.

Contents

[edit] Names of numbers?

Does D'ni always use the base-5 D'ni numeral system when writing numbers, or is it possible to write the actual number words (like "one", "two" in English)? If number words exist in D'ni, what's "one" to "ten" in D'ni? Thanks for your help! 24.19.184.243 12:42, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

D'ni isn't on a base 5 system. In fact, it is on a 25 based system, so there are 24 numerals + 0. 68.223.46.120 02:18, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

In any case, of course number have names, or else how could they speak them, when they are not writing? See the links to find wordlists and lessons and you will find info on mumbers too Pictureuploader 09:41, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Major Additions

Hey, this is Veovis from the DLF (Avonis on UO). I've added quite a bit to the D'ni language section, expanding on stuff like the verb suffixes and such. I might add more soon and I'd like to add a few examples of D'ni characters.

[edit] dubious

  1. If D'ni were pronounced d'NEE, then it would be spelt D'nee; the guide would say that ni is said ni(ce).
  2. few != a few; to three books does not mean a small, fair amount or number of books.

lysdexia 15:12, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

  1. What? D'ni is pronounced "dunny", or "duh-NEE". The spelling "D'ni" is the English way of attempting to write the word. Surely there's something here I'm misunderstanding - the word "D'ni" is pronounced "dunny" in the games.
--Spug 23:40, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It's not exactly pronounced like either "dunny" or "duh-NEE", but it is closest to the last one. and it's certainly not "D'ny".

Nope, I agree with Spug. D'ni is unmistakenly pronounced "DUH-nee" by both Atrus and Catherine at several points in Myst/Riven/Exile. As an Aussie I found this pronounciation somewhat amusing :) --Jquarry 21:39, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Orthography and Numerals

Someone should add a section about how the orthography (letters) correspond to the 24 numerals. It's one of the more interesting bits of the language, really.

Basically, all the elements from the numerals (the horizontal bar, bow, etcetera) are italicised somewhat and formed into the letters, in the order of the alphabet (so the first letter corresponds to the number one, and so forth).

Fasinating, I never knew that. However, you suppose someone make an image with the numerals and the alphabet above each other, and perhaps some guidelines to point out the "lack" of difference. --Svippong 18:35, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] hevkor picture

What happened to the hevkor picture?

[edit] Tweaking

Domahreh from the DLF here, just tweaked a bit of the info here to bring it up to date with current knowledge... As for pronunciation of D'ni, RAWA confirmed in an email the The Lysts that the accent falls on the latter syllable, not the former (an unfortunate mistake from the early games)!


[edit] OTS

The paragraph in question:

"According to the fiction, this standard was maybe first implemented by either Ti'ana, Gehn, or more probably, Atrus himself, being the very first persons able to speak both English and D'ni. Cyan adopted this system from their journals. Since these people lacked linguistic training and spoke only these two languages, it is explained why OTS is raw and imperfect (transcribing D'ni words like if they were English)."

I would like to see the first two sentences justified (as it sounds like shaky inference to me). I can't think of any examples we have of Atrus' family using any transliteration system to read D'ni, except for the alphabet in Revelation, which could as easily be explained as artistic license. The last sentence is simply inaccurate, and annoys me greatly: the OTS is not "raw and imperfect" as a transliteration system, and certainly no more so than the NTS. Transcribing D'ni as if it were English is the whole point of transcription, and certainly no basis for a claim of imperfection.

I took it out. It was put back in. I would like to know why. Renoah 16:16, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

  • First of all, it's a nice comment that connects fiction with reality :) More seriously, the alphabet in Myst 4 is an evidence well enough. There is no reason to say it's artistic license. It could be, but not until we have a contradiction. As for the second part, I have lost some of my time with conlangs and languages other than english. Each language has an original Roman transliteration, which means, the Roman alphabet is adapted according to said language's phonology and etymology. Usually a 'neutral' value is given to a letter, borrowed from the old Roman pronounciation and spelling; almost always phonetic. For example the character i has always the phonetic value of /i/, and never 'eye'. On the contrary, OTS doesn't use a phonetic spelling, but English spelling (which as you know, is not phonetic). Using a non-phonetic system that has evolved with a certain language, with another, is raw and hasty. OTS is based on the Great Vowel Shift (i for /ai/, eh for /e/, ee for /ī/ etc). Pictureuploader 20:13, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
    • Apologies in advance for my rambling response: I am running a fever and not quite fully functioning at the moment. But I know what my point is, and it's all in there somewhere. :)
I still can't buy your argument- how exactly is a transliteration based on Latin pronunciation better than one based on English pronunciation? The books are written in English, and the readers don't necessarily have knowledge of Latin pronunciation.
In most cases, it's too simplistic to say that English spellings aren't phonetic, because they are in most cases. They just don't follow the phonology of Latin. The rules of English spelling are more complex than most languages, for good historical reasons, but there certainly are rules: see Mark Rosenfelder's piece. Basing the transliteration on the rules of English spelling make the pronunciation obvious to speakers of English, something at which the NTS fails miserably.
Conlangers typically pick Latinate transliterations for their languages, but this is not a hard and fast rule, and it is something that English speakers must learn. Since the target audience of the D'ni novels isn't conlangers, there's no reason to go Latinate when an English-based system would be immediately clear.
But none of this is the point: the last sentence of the paragraph violates NPOV. A version of the complaints you list could go in the common objections paragraph that I added, but an article that is NPOV has no business declaring a perfectly functional system "raw and imperfect". Especially when it's not.
I still want to see motivation for the beginning of the paragraph: nice as it might sound, we don't get to make up backstory. We don't have stories about Anna teaching Atrus D'ni using anything but the D'ni characters, and the book in Revelation isn't convincing to me. Still, to say that these people had no linguistic training and therefore came up with an imperfect system is both not neutral and, frankly, absurd. If the intended pronunciation is clear, then the system is perfectly functional. There are all kinds of real-world langauges that have more sounds that there are Roman letters, and they use digraphs. Are they imperfect, too? The NTS uses assignments that aren't related to the standard Latin ones- shall we rail against it in the article?
Main point: There's no such thing as a neutral value; there are only common value assignments. OTS values happen to be uncommon. But if there is internal consistency in the system, which there is, then you can't say the system is "not phonetic"; you can only say that it doesn't use the assignments you expected. As it happens, Cyan chose assignments that would be instantly recognizable to the books' audience, rather than to conlangers, boo hoo.
Unfounded speculation. Clear bias in the writing. It needs to be rewritten, better supported, or completely taken out. Renoah 02:26, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
We are both having our oppinions and we are not going to change it because of a dialogue. I only have to say that the original values of the Roman alphabet are more 'neutral' for the single reason that the alphabet was made for the Latin language. The original phonetic values of the Latin characters are the 'neutral' ones because each one corresponds to a sound. The OTS was made for facilitation, having in mind the linguistic experience of a certain portion of the gamers (the English speakers who speak only English), it was not made out having in mind D'ni morphology and phonology. I agree that raw and imperfect are maybe not the best words possible, however many fans agree (perhaps non-English, but could be English speakers also), and this stance should be mentioned.
It's very logical to think that the first persons in history that spoke both languages, felt the urge to reconcile them with an intermediate writing system to facilitate documentation, communication and teaching. I am not sure who invented that system. It could as well been invented only for the reason to teach Yeesha, not before. I know it's extrapolation, but the paragraph says 'maybe', it doesn't attempt to convince anyone that's a fact. If you prefer to ignore the book that appears factually and really in Revelation, it's you who doubts the sources, none other :) Pictureuploader 10:55, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
Please understand- as blustery as I get about assaults on the OTS, my primary concern is the suitability of this kind of extrapolation in Wikipedia. Wikipedia:Verifiability sums up my main concern: no outside support is listed for anything in that paragraph, and the charges are serious enough to deserve some backing. The paragraph as originally written also smacks NPOV halfway across the room.
I have rewritten the paragraph, rephrasing in ways I hope are more neutral, and also listing an opposing theory of origin. If we have to trample all over the verifiability policy, I hope we can at least do it somewhat neutrally. Renoah 23:26, 28 March 2006 (UTC)