Hi folks.
Sorry if this has been asked before. I've had a quick search on these forums and Google but haven't really found what I'm looking for. Hope this is the right section, if not please feel free to move it (Mods).
I'm looking for information regarding the Elven/Dark Elven/Wood Elven languages used in Warhammer. In particular some sort of list of runes/alphabet would be incredibly useful. Does anybody have any links?
Thanks.
Well, the 6th Edition High Elf book had an entire page dedicated to the runes, but it's no longer available. I can't seem to find any pictures of it on the web, and if give you a download link the mods will not be pleased to put it mildly. However this could be a starting point for further research. As for DE/WE, I don't really know. However let me tell you from my experiences with Skaven that GW like to shuffle around the runes on a whim so nothing is set in stone anyway.
Edit:
http://karmaboo.deviantart.com/art/H...Runes-76165636
This is not the page I was talking about, to be honest I have no idea where it is from but it seems to have the same runes in a more cursive style.
Last edited by Ultimate Life Form; 18-06-2012 at 11:20.
The elves like any advanced civilastion in fiction use a langague where each rune represents a concept. Unlike in reality where the cultures that have adopted a pheonetic langauge have quickly risen to becomming the most advanced in the world.
Quickly? Yeah, took them only about 6000 years...Originally Posted by TheDungen
Actually the phoenecians were the first to adopt a phonetic language maybe at most 3000 years ago. Consider the advancements that have been made in the last three thousand years compared to the almost seven thousand years thy we used pictograms and letters that represented concepts.
The indroduction of the phenetic writing in roman Greek and Arabic letters was a nesseccity for the development of modern civilization.
It's also strange that the elves used such an archaic system when the cultures they're generally based upon the Greek and Romans both used phoenetic writing.
The advancements of the last 3000 years were only possible because those people could build upon the efforts of their predecessors. Considering up until 100 years ago 99,9% of world population couldn't write or read a single word regardless of style I think it's safe to claim that there's no connection. Charlemagne is reported to have been a complete illiterate yet he's seen as the founder of modern europe these days. The significant social and technological advances have always been propagated by a small elite of intellectuals, and these guys were definitely educated enough that language barriers didn't hamper their efforts in any way.
As for the High Elves (and the topic), they're no more Greek or Roman than Beastmen. They're Elves first and foremost, and Elves use runes, period. If you go to school for the better part of 200 years you have plenty of time to study even the obscurest symbols to your heart's content.
Last edited by Ultimate Life Form; 19-06-2012 at 11:38.
Looks like it is from the 4th or 5th ed book
Sheena Easton Is Fabulous!
The current HE book has exactly the same type of thing at the back of the model display section if you want to pick it up. Unfortunately current AB's seem to have gone away from a nice language piece- Dwarfs/Elves/Lizardmen all had a little section at one point at the least. Particularly enjoyed the Dwarf Khazalid section in the 5th edition book.
Awake O Dead, for there can be no rest for ye beneath the earth. Let the splintered bones burrow from the grave pall. Let cold fingers grip time-worn blades, and unseeing eyes survey the fields of slaughter. For your time has come once more. And the dead shall walk.
The majority of the worlds population doesnt contribute to progress though, charlemange scertainly did not. All in all kingd and generals have contributed very little of essence to the progress of mankind.
As you said we've progressed since we could build on what came before us, that required writing. And down to earth simple writing with no room for interpretation, the roman greek and arabic alphabets provided this.
Chinese script, for example, is still ideographic to some degree; Arabic uses an abjad rather than an alphabet; Sanskrit was written in an abugida; so keep the teleological pseudoscience to yourself.
Some western cultures just so happened to advance while using an alphabet as opposed to a syllabary; it doesn't mean that one leads to the other, and no respected historian will ever say that it does.
Runes like Elven runes are open to interpretation unless you've spoken and written the language your whole life, in which case it's very obvious which nuanced interpretation is correct. Just like English has various words spelled in the same way, such as "set", "post", or "fit".
Elf Runes of WFB1 Forces of Fantasy https://skydrive.live.com/embed?cid=...LW_cTrj7pjdsJY
thanks for the replies so far.
And thats posing as a major problem for the chineese as we move into a more digitalised age. Both Abjad and Abugida are still phonetic forms for writing. Chineese is practiclaly the only higher civilazation to have kept an pictograpic ideograpic form of writing. So no its not only western civilazation. and i'm not talking to an aplhabet as oppsed to a syllabary i'm talking about Phonetic writing as opposed to Pictograpic/ideograpic writing.
And then again western civilisation doesn't even use a fully phonetic writing system. Our numbers are ideographic and so are symbols like . , ? ! " and so on.
But the idea of a phonetic system is a milestone for the progress of a civilisation just as having negative numbers and counting with zeros.
It just bugs me that any advanced civilisation in faction uses runes instead of phonetic writing. I get why they do it they want the language of such and advanced civilisation to be to complex for lesser minds to understand but the truth is constructing a complex system inst hard, creating a simple system is much harder.
A civilisation that has been around as long as the elves of Ulthuan would need (and have had the time to create) a much better writing system then a 28 rune ideographic system.
First, Elves aren't humans, their brains work differently so that may affect the nature of their language.
Second, we don't actually know much about the Elven language and how it works to make any kind of judgements about how it compares to our own script. We know it has runes, we know those runes communicate concepts, that is all. I for one don't recall reading anywhere that it is limited to just 28 runes, merely that we only have known examples of 28 runes.
Third, not everything cultures do is compelled by some ideal of efficiency.
Fourth, who cares, it is a fantasy setting. Magic belching giant frogs are fine but god forbid we have Elves with an ideographic language?
Last edited by eldargal; 20-06-2012 at 14:54.
In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only British.
Actual (alleged) girl. Alpha Female.
I more straigthforeward and simpler phonetic system does wonders for overall litteracy.
"WE ARE THE ONLY SOURCE OF GOODNESS, SEVERE AND DRASTIC. THERE IS NO OTHER SOURCE OF HOPE THAN US. WE ARE AGONISINGLY ALONE."
beer and axes
It is?
Actually, since a computer is the only thing in the world that can possibly know all 40.000 possible characters, writing is easier than ever.
The reason why China hasn't abolished its writing system yet is because they have 1 milliard people who speak a myriad of dialects. The pronunciation varies to a degree that it's nigh impossible for people from different areas of the country to understand each other. There is one Chinese dialect that is spoken in about 4 villages or so and completely incomprehensible to the rest of the world. However they all know a common pool of characters and the associated meanings. Though they may speak different languages they have a common form of writing which all understand. This is what actually keeps the country together and has made possible a great empire whose history stretches over 4000 years of history, a feat no european nation has pulled off thus far. For otherwise it would be impossible to run a centralised state. So simply claiming it is inferior without seeing the advantages is shortsighted to put it mildly.
Don't know much about Elven language, but they may be in a similar predicament.
No room for interpretation? I'm not going to pull the bible example again for people seem to resent this; all you need to do is take a look at the rules forum. It is amazing how many different interpretations of a rather unambiguous book like the BRB exist. Quot capita, tot sensus. No writing system in the world can change this.
Last edited by Ultimate Life Form; 20-06-2012 at 19:48.
I thought that a gigantic army had a hand in it. And saying it has a 4000 years of history is, well, odd. Empires and dynastys existed there and were put down/changed and its territorial integrity isn't a constant either.
There was 'civilization' in greece around 3000 B.C. which would mean greece had 5000 years of history as it exists still.
That's not the advantage of a script itself, mearly the effect of its spreading over lands. Koreans for example also thought that phonetic script was more practical so they switched to it (that is they claimed that chinesee latters weren't adopted to korean language) in 15th century.
"WE ARE THE ONLY SOURCE OF GOODNESS, SEVERE AND DRASTIC. THERE IS NO OTHER SOURCE OF HOPE THAN US. WE ARE AGONISINGLY ALONE."
beer and axes
Looking at its sorry state I wouldn't call it 'existence'.
Greece vacated the world scene the day they submitted themselves to the Romans (and then the turks and pretty much anyone else who came along). While it is true the country persists, it hasn't contributed anything noteworthy to world history in the past 2000 years. I don't think that's a particularly good example of phonetic script leading to an inherently superior and advanced nation.
I think the point was in regards to the claim of Chinas unbroken civilisation, not in relation to language. Also Greece does exist, just because it is messed up doesn't mean it has ceased to exist. It is still a civilised state and has been for 3-4 thousand years by any anthropological definition I'm aware of.
In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only British.
Actual (alleged) girl. Alpha Female.
Wait, so a country has to activly get its grubby fingers into other's people's business to 'contribute to history'? I don't think I like that definition.
Also Byzantium was more greek than roman so that's not entirely correct.
And I don't really argue that phonetic script leads to superior nation (superiority in the case of nations is just a question of how successful a nation is at being a**holes to others, that is: destroying and subjegating others, and then getting away with it). It's just more practical, it's easier to learn 20-40 signs than a few thousands. When the phonetic system replaced the chinesee system in middle-ages Korea overall literacy rose.
"WE ARE THE ONLY SOURCE OF GOODNESS, SEVERE AND DRASTIC. THERE IS NO OTHER SOURCE OF HOPE THAN US. WE ARE AGONISINGLY ALONE."
beer and axes
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