The Nilfgaardian Language?

[Mad Max]

I'm thinking the Nilfs are based on either Italian or Spanish Conquistadors but are they speaking Italian?

Or are they speaking some made up language like The Sims?

[odomi2]

Its based on the elf language of the books, which seems to be based in English Spanish German and more.

[Snorri Nosebiter]

Originally posted by odomi2:

Its based on the elf language of the books, which seems to be based in English Spanish German and more.

The Elven language is based almost entirely on Irish and Welsh, with terrible pronunciation.

[Geri Halliwell]

Originally posted by Dave Hedgehog:

Originally posted by odomi2:

Its based on the elf language of the books, which seems to be based in English Spanish German and more.

The Elven language is based almost entirely on Irish and Welsh, with terrible pronunciation.

+1
gwynbleidd sounds like Welsh

[Snorri Nosebiter]

Originally posted by Geri Halliwell:

Originally posted by Dave Hedgehog:

The Elven language is based almost entirely on Irish and Welsh, with terrible pronunciation.

+1
gwynbleidd sounds like Welsh

Gwynbleidd = 'white wolf' in elder speech.

Blaidd gwyn = 'white wolf' in Welsh.

FYI, 'dd' in Welsh is pronounced like 'th' in English 'that' and not the hard 'd' which the game's voice actors insist on.

[odomi2]

Originally posted by Dave Hedgehog:

Originally posted by odomi2:

Its based on the elf language of the books, which seems to be based in English Spanish German and more.

The Elven language is based almost entirely on Irish and Welsh, with terrible pronunciation.

"(...)In addition to these, a small number of words suggest lesser influence from languages such as Latin, French, English, and possibly Spanish (rhena, "queen") and Old Norse (fen, "fen"). Besides these influences, the Elder Speech's vocabulary seems to have been invented from scratch.'

Dearme =sleep (dormir in Spanish)
And a lot more examples, with the context and the Spanish Latin and English based words I quite understood what elves said. Which I find very interesting because kind of relates to our world.

[Geri Halliwell]

Lol, how Nilfgaardians can be Spanish ? Nothing common. Dormir also to sleep in French. They closer to French than to Spanish I think.

[SoULLeSs]

Dormir is sleep in Port...Spanish sleep version is similar but I can't neither confirm or deny it while Que is the word "what" in both Port and Spanish...

[odomi2]

Originally posted by Black Jack:

Dormir is sleep in Port...Spanish sleep version is similar but I can't neither confirm or deny it while Que is the word "what" in both Port and Spanish...

Dormir is Spanish too

[odomi2]

Originally posted by Geri Halliwell:

Lol, how Nilfgaardians can be Spanish ? Nothing common. Dormir also to sleep in French. They closer to French than to Spanish I think.

So because it's also French it isn't Spanish? What?
There are also words that correspond with Spanish and not French

[SoULLeSs]

I'm not 100% sure but isn't british considered a germanic language? like spanish and french too but with their own variation and style...spanish and port are both also based on their former celtic ocupation, I'm not sure but that's what I think from what I've read

[Snorri Nosebiter]

Originally posted by Black Jack:

I'm not 100% sure but isn't british considered a germanic language? like spanish and french too but with their own variation and style...spanish and port are both also based on their former celtic ocupation, I'm not sure but that's what I think from what I've read

English is indeed a Germanic language, although it's lost a great deal of the features common to other Germanic languages.

French, Spanish and Portugese are all Romance languages- that is, they're all descendants of Vulgar Latin (the Latin of the common people, not the Latin you read in books or on monuments).

[Trym]

I just came across this discussion (and others like it) and, though it's old, I thought I'd lend my two--or ten--cents since this thread was particularly interesting to read. This is long but if anyone's interested, feel free to read!

I majored in linguistics in college so my interest was piqued immediately when hearing the Nilfgaardian language. I have a strange affinity for analyzing manufactured languages.

So, I definitely realize the following is all educated speculation by one person & the creator's approach was probably fairly less in-depth than what I'm suggesting, but this is what I noticed:

I first passed it off as a hybridized bastardization of Dutch & Low Rhenish, which is a language used on the borders of Germany & Central-Eastern Netherlands.

However as the game progressed I continued to analyze it along with the accents of the featured Nilfgaardian characters & it actually seemed to have a decently sophisticated characteristic. From what I could discern, it seems to be a fabricated hybrid of mainly West Frisian & East Frisian Low Saxon (both are regional dialects of the Frisian language--the two I'm referring to being located between North-Western Germany & most of the Netherlands to the south & east of Amsterdam) with a small amount of Breton thrown in to apparently make it more unintelligible.

Frisian inherently sounds like a combination of German, Dutch, & Flemish; it's much closer to non-Shakespearean English than essentially anything else. Hence why, though English is considered Germanic in reference to its grandmother tongue, its mother tongue is referred to as Anglo-Frisian. I digress.

Nilfgaardian phonology/pronunciation is moreso reminiscent of Danish than Frisian or other Southern Germanic languages, especially in regard to prosody--what would be considered the "lilt" or "bouncy" character. Though I'm mainly referring to simple Danish sentences...which generally possess mainly trochaic prosody--AKA stressing the first syllable in the word. Which definitely explains why some would claim it sounds Scandinavian-esque. (&I really do mean simple Danish, btw. More complex Danish contains very unique prosody which makes it an extremely confusing language to become fluent in. It breaks its own rules all the bloody time.)

The whole thing becomes muddled by the less important Nilfgaardian voice actors not seeming to do a good job of transferring the actual accent of what I've approximated to their lines in either language, making them sound way too German...which explains why many think they're most likely referenced to be German or Dutch/German hybrids (in speech, that is. Not talking about symbolism to Nazis, Prussia or anything like that.)

So there you go! My thoughts on the Nilfgaardian language presented in a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ NOVEL. If even one person finds this somewhat interesting that's good enough for me!

-Trym

[Geri Halliwell]

Very interesting, thank you. It's very good to read thoughts of professionals.

[-=Charza=-]

Thanks Trym, quite an interesting read.
Being of Dutch origin with partial Frysian ancestry, I did recognize lots of the Nilfgaardian phrases although some of the vocabulary is indeed influenced by the more Breton Celtic dialects.

The similarity to Danish is also easily explained, since Danish and Frysian are related languages that came from the same Nordic roots, and culturally Frysians were in fact a Nordic tribe, like many others in the region .

[Janthis]

Originally posted by Dave Hedgehog:

Originally posted by Geri Halliwell:

+1
gwynbleidd sounds like Welsh

Gwynbleidd = 'white wolf' in elder speech.

Blaidd gwyn = 'white wolf' in Welsh.

FYI, 'dd' in Welsh is pronounced like 'th' in English 'that' and not the hard 'd' which the game's voice actors insist on.

Good to see I'm not the only one bothered by these things. There was also a dwarf named Ferenc, which is a Hungarian name and is pronounced the same as Franz, which it's a variation of. But everyone in the game pronounces it like "Ferenk". I guess the voice actors didn't know and weren't told these subtleties.

That and the really heavy, forced Cockney accent that half the people on the continent seem to have are what bothers me. It's physically hard to listen to, like they are straining to get the words out.