In the Dragon Age, clan Keepers are generally the only ones who know the secret of writing Elvish.Īndaran atish’an: Enter this place in peace. Some Circles have also come to possess old elven texts. Though a number of ancient sites, including the Temple of Mythal, have recently been found to contain examples of Elvish writing, these are few and far between, and jealously guarded by the Dalish. That means it's a mess' and that it tends 'to meander'.īattle map from the Fourth Blight, featuring a rare example of written Elvish It has been observed that 'Elven is often a game of intents, not direct mapping of phonetic meaning. Living among humans, the City Elves now retain only a few old Elvish words whose origin is almost forgotten, such as 'shem' - derived from 'shemlen', meaning 'quickling' or 'quick children,' the old Elvish term for humans - and 'hahren' - the leader of an Alienage, meaning 'elder' in Elvish.Ī differentiating factor between Elvish and other languages in Thedas-particularly as regards aspects like names-is the avoidance of hard consonants. Some clans, such as the ones encountered in Dragon Age: The Stolen Throne, speak it fluently and exclusively. The Dalish Elves, self-appointed custodians of the elven language and lore, use more Elvish than their City Elf brethren. The Elvish of the Dragon Age is thus a fragmented remnant, a few words that are thrown into conversation rather than a working language used to conduct everyday life. When the elves settled their second homeland, the Dales, they aimed to restore their lost language and lore, but the Dales fell after an Exalted March declared by the Chantry in the early Glory Age. The Elven language, or 'Elvish', was largely lost when Elvhenan fell to the Tevinter Imperium and its people were enslaved around two millennia before the Dragon Age.

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