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Page name: Drowic Classroom [Logged in view] [RSS]
2008-05-15 18:53:38
Last author: Gabriel_Deciel
Owner: Linn Scarlett
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Drowic Classroom




Teacher: [Linn Scarlett]


Vendui d'anthe abbilen, ussta kaas zhah Linn Scarlett.
Hello my dear friends, my name is Linn Scarlett.

I'm going to teach Drowic to those who are interested. To do so, i would like to have a list of the students that are interested below.

I hope you all enjoy my lessons, for Drowic is a difficult yet beautifull language.

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Students:

[kichethered]
[windowframe]
[Kim_Lundin]
[Stoned Immaculate]
[Angel Dreamer]
[Sallywag]
[Donnie Darko]
[zeb]
[Tetiana]
[Davorah]
[lillithsatine]
[dragoncaptive]
[Sharkly17_Vamp]
[Nix]
[Lady Diamanta]
[polarnoid]
[Soul Dementia]
[Flight of the Butterfly]
[Oh__xDoctor Doctor!]
[Kurus_Dreaon]
[Dark Drow Lady]
[nightwulf]
[Aerin Weirynsra]
[Orey]
[Tormenta]
[Noexistantanymo] Xal usstan valm?
[DeadHead]
[Shainn]
[DarkWraith]
[Jir'tan'ol]
[Opened my veins for nothing]
[calamaethor]
[Valient Tragedies]
[ceridwen]
[xido]
[silverkey]
[Gabriel_Deciel]


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Lesson 01


Consonant/Vowel Pronunciation

How do you say this? How do you say that?
This lesson is about how you should say different consonants and vowels.
I made a list of them, so you can see.

Note to students: Try to actually 'say' these, not in your head, but out loud.
Who cares if your older brother/sister thinks you're nuts? *rofl*

B - Always unaspirated, often voiced. Example: bat
CH - Voiceless affricative. Example: church
D - Unaspirated voiced stop. Example: bed
F - Voiceless spirant. Example: fire
G - Unaspirated voiced stop. Example: egg
H - Voiceless vocoid. Example: hello
J - Voiced affricative. Example: judge
JH/ZH - Voiced spirant. Example: garage
K/Q - Aspirated voiceless stop. Example: stick
L - Voiced spirant. Example: late
M - Nasal resonant. Example: tame
N - Nasal resonant. Example: sin
P - Aspirated voiceless stop. Example: stop
PH - Aspirated voiceless affricative. Example: file
SS - Voiceless affricative. Example: say
SH - Voiceless spirant. Example: shame
T - Aspirated voiceless stop. Example: hit
TH - Voiceless spirant. Example: thank
V - Voiceless spirant. Example: live
W - (Inter-vocalic form of U)
X - Voiceless affricative. Example: banks
Y - (Inter-vocalic form of I)
Z - Voiced spirant. Example: hairs

Note: Voiceless consonants are more common than unvoiced,
giving the language a sinister, whispered tone.


Drow has 8 (in some dialects 9) distinct vowels, three of which appear in short/long forms, and two to three in diphthongs.

i e a o ii uu ui ue au

ii varies by dialect.
Sometimes it is pronounced like in the English word sit, and sometimes like in the English word we. (Short or long)

Example word: Ilythiiri (drow)

The back vowels are always rounded.
The vowel UU is in some dialects pronounced as a rounded II (like in the word we) or otherwise pronounced like in the word put.

The vowel E varies between the sounds as in way and met, depending on how the speaker wants to pronounce it.

When either A or E are written double, it indicates a long vowel.
The long forms are held for an extra beat of speech.
The vowels II and UU are not long versions, but are distinct sounds.

The Drowish diphthongs are au, ui, and ue.
ou is rare and usually only found in verbs (it is pronounced like "oh").
au is pronounced like in brown, ui is pronounced like in quick, and ue is said like in wet.


Are there any questions?
If not, I'd like the students, for practice of the language, to try to say these three words:
'Treemma (fear), Yorn (power) and Belaern (profit)'
Try to create that sinister tone!


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Lesson 02


Verb Conjugations

Drow verbs take different forms depending on a number of factors:

whether it is singular or plural;
in the first, second or third person;
in the active or passive voice;
in a past, present, or future tense;
and what the mood of the passage is.
It sounds harder than it is.

Number
Regular verbs are made singular with the suffix "-ar".
In the sentence "the warrior kills", the noun is singular, so therefore the verb is, and it would be "elggar".

If we pluralized "the warrior" to become "warriors", then the "-ar" suffix would be removed,
leaving the verb to be "elgg".
Needless to say, the Pluralizing portion of Drow grammar goes right along with this topic.

Person
In Drow, the first and second person
(I and You) usually have the same form.
Only the third person (he/she/it) is different, being completed with the suffix "-e".

Example: (I give, you give, he gives)
Usstan belbau, dos belbau, uk belbaue.

Mood
Usually there are three moods:
imperative, indicative, and subjunctive,
but Drow does not have different endings for the imperative or subjunctive moods.
The indicative mood
(usually indicated in English by the "-ing" suffix) is made "-in" in Drow.

Example: Udos phuul raldarin l'waess da'fol rivvin.

Tense
Regular verbs have "-us" to make the past form.


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Lesson 03


Basic Words

Good, now that we have conjugation and pronunction, we can start with small sentences such as how to greet some one or make silly remarks about one's appearnce or the weather. -not that we have weather down here...but hey, if you bump into a handsome drow on the surface, you gotta say something-

note to students: Try this by talking to your dog, it will actually listen and 'try to understand' AND it wont ask stupid questions.

Hello/Greetings: Vendui
You: Dos
Be: Tlu
How:Lu'oh
Have:Inbal

Lord:Senger
Lady:Jalil
Here:Ghil
There:Gaer
Your: Dosst

My:Ussta
Mine:Usst
Work:Xund
Home:Delmah

There, these are some common words, with the conjurgation you should be able to convert Are and Have into that which you need.
If you still wonder over words or are to lazy for conjugation ;) well, then i have a translator here.
Its quick, i use it sometimes too, though i normally try to go from head.
http://www.grey-company.org/Maerdyn/resources/translator/index.cgi?text=home&tiny=1&lang=Drow


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Lesson 04


Forming and Deforming names

I ran across the net and collected Suffixes and Prefixes for names for either male or female. I also made house Suffixes and Prefixes, just so that you guys can find a good last name too (and i had a lot of time on hands ;) )

Oh and I'm gonna put them on other wikis, cause they would kind of clog up this one, and we dont want that do we?

Anyway, as you might know, most drow names consist of a first name and a last name. Many Noble houses on the other hand have Last Names as well as House Names. This means, that the House Name can be the Last Name, but the Last Name can never be the House name.
Its like with a circle and an oval. An circle is always also an oval, but an oval is never a circle.
That is what seperates -amoung many others- commoners from nobles. Nobles have mostly House and Last names, if only to point out that they are noble most of the time.

Drow Male/Female Suf- and Prefixes
Drow House Suf- and Prefixes

Enjoy, and tell me what you've made from these names ;)


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2006-10-04 [Linn Scarlett]: *nod nods* I will see what i can trace

2006-10-08 [xido]: I found http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/vortexshadow/underdark.html (drow info - including language/fonts)
http://www.angelfire.com/pq/Urhixidur/Fonts/Fonts.html (fonts - including drow rounded and angular)
and some others...

2006-10-12 [Linn Scarlett]: those are derived from the pre tolkien script *shakes head* the ones i found were more like... like aztec glyphs now that i think of it, only with lots of spidery like symbols. it combined the same way, not an alphabet but syllable symbols. That is also mensioned in some of the books

2006-10-14 [xido]: Check out the section of the first site... http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/vortexshadow/drowrunes.html It has a picture of a bunch of runes that are kind of like that... House protector sigils and power runes, etc... Not like that?
I think these ones are pretty cool for starts.. ;) I just want to have something together without too much hassle. :/
-will

2006-10-18 [Linn Scarlett]: that angelfire site is part of the RPNexus, it's tha bomb :P

2006-10-27 [xido]: It is quite cool and very informative... What do you mean, RPNexus?

2006-10-29 [Linn Scarlett]: exactly the way i say it: RPNexus

2006-11-14 [xido]: haha :P
Okay, I guess I'll go a-surfing to find out. ;P

2006-12-30 [Linn Scarlett]: Oh xido I puffed it off and found the drowrunes given on angel to be hoaxes :/ I linked you the arguments and stuff in some other WFR page as I forgot we had this conversation here

2007-01-21 [xXx_ice_dawg_xXx]: Sorry to barge in like this, but the Drow runes featured on http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/vortexshadow/underdark.html, are they the runes from the pre-Tolkien script?

2007-01-21 [xXx_ice_dawg_xXx]: Oh by the way, I don't see any explanation on it here, but I've seen Vendui written as Vendui'. Does the apostrophe make much of a difference? I haven't been able to find that anywhere.

2007-01-22 [xido]: http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/vortexshadow/underdark.html
Corrected

I believe that these runes were Salvatore-inspired. I could be wrong... Linn? :S
-will

2007-01-26 [Linn Scarlett]: First of, the ' helps you pronounce it. Much like ë's in some languages, like in dutch.
Example: "how" = "lu'oh"
It's written lu'oh so that you know it's pronounced luh-ohh, and not luo-hh or luohh or any other uo-stuck-together-sound.
And about Vendui.
Example: "hello friend" = "Vendui'abbil"
"hello my dear friend" = "Vendui d'anthe abbil"
In drowic often vowel-ending and vowel-starting words are connected with an ' to indicate that drow pronounce them closer together than seperate words, but not as close as too make the uia sound as one sound. This is because of the whispered/slithered nature of drow language, and it keeps you from choking on your tongue -most of the time.
As with my examples, Vendui is one of those words that is almost always connected to a vowel-starting word, if there is a vowel-starting word next to it in the sentence. Like Abbil. But if it's a closed word, then the ' disappears. Because it's meaningless.
Seeing Vendui' on websites is one of my petpeevees. Most translators can't handle the ' or not ' situations and therefor put them in there no matter what. It annoys me that people are to lazy to check their sentences before taking it from internet as if google knows all -it doesnt.
Enfin, to cut it short:
"vendui' " without a vowel-starting word connected to it, is wrong and just tells you that the person that made the site copypasted it without as much as researching it. Since this is a pretty well known thing. Unlike the script -_-

2007-01-26 [Linn Scarlett]: Not in the slightest, I believe Will. They seem to me -not meaning to brag, but I know tolkiens script by head more or less, I love languages- more tolkien related than anything else. Especially the 3-shapes and 6-shapes, which are the basics of tolkien's elvenscript.
Enfin, the salvatore examples are only the ones on the two blades. They were drawn by the man himself I believe and are the only reliable sources I have found so far.
I believe the site you gave to be just a copy of something someone started at somepoint and which got plastered all over the net. Also, it doesn't have the "drow" feeling to it, in my opinion. Which the runes on the blades have.

Just because it's angular doesn't make it drow :/
The blade-scripts are curvy and elvish but cruel to the eye? Why? Because unfriendly curves have been used.

2007-01-28 [xido]: Dos ph ji zhaunl, ussta akana jalil Linn Scarlett.

Also, the translator link you have posted is not quite as fun as what all is included on:
http://www.grey-company.org/Maerdyn/resources/translator/index.cgi
-will

2007-01-28 [Linn Scarlett]: If you look at the link Xido, you see it's the same translator of the Greycompany House Maerdyn, only I took time to distilate it from it's page so that you can call it up in a small window instead of having to start a new browser :)

Oh and love, it's Dos ph'ji zhaunl, ussta akana Jalil, mind the hyphens inthere dear, mind the hyphens ;)

Unless of course you didn't mean to say "You are so knowing, my ruling female". Names are usually not included when talking to said person, instead female is put up with a capital. But that's just a matter of rules I suppose ;)

2007-02-05 [xido]: This is why I need you around for Undercommon and Drow. You are an expert. ;)

2007-02-05 [Linn Scarlett]: *blushes* not nearly, but i'll do my best

2009-07-28 [Dayzi]: Hi, I'm new here and just happened to stumble upon your page. Its really kools!! always wondered how to pronounce Drow words, but I've got one question... how is the ae in words like Belaern and Gaer pronounced?? would it be short vowel sounds or long a sound??

2010-02-03 [Linn Scarlett]: The same is mostly in normal languages, you pronounce aa-e if its ae like Baerne (Baah-èr-nè). The first is always slightly longer than the second. With ea it would be eeh-a rather than ahh-e :)

2010-11-18 [woody88]: what is the Student list and how do we put our name on it?

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