Talk:Dwarvish dictionary

Hi there, User:81.246.204.246.

Our policy on canon, at Forgotten Realms Wiki:Canon, is not to automatically include unpublished material, even if from Realms designers and authors, even from the great Ed Greenwood. It can be contradicted upon publication of other works, or by other Realms designers and authors. But it's certainly a good "B-Canon", and I recognise a few words from published works. Please give us a link to Ed's post, so we can make an appendix link to it instead.

BTW, please don't outright copy material. We're really fighting to cut down plagiarism/copyright infringement, as at Forgotten Realms Wiki:Plagiarism, even stuff copied from public sources.

Thanks for trying to help out. -- BadCatMan (talk) 14:09, October 23, 2012 (UTC)

Could someone add a citation for Out of the abyss? I've spotted about twenty dwarvish words not mentioned in the dictionary currently but can't add them because there is not out of the abyss citation. So please add one as soon as possible, as i do not know how to currently. I hope you will take this seriously, thank you. – Jacktoland


 * There is a citation template for Out of the Abyss. Use it like this:  &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 16:01, February 25, 2017 (UTC)

New word
User:Jacktoland writes: "Could someone add Ghohlbrorn meaning bulette do not know how to add new letter slot." tried to add citation, but something went wrong...

Answer: Sure. What is the reference where you found that word? &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 15:51, February 25, 2017 (UTC)


 * it's chapter 4 Gracklstugh, Out of the abyss, section the Ghohlbrorn's lair.

For the record, I've still got no idea how to reverse that citation i put down, so if someone could put the out of abyss citation at the bottom of the list, that would be appreciated. – Jacktoland


 * Okay, can you please give a page number where the words appear? I don't have the book.


 * If you'd like to do it yourself, just copy-past another entry and change it. Use the citation template Moviesign showed you. For example,  for page 67. — BadCatMan (talk) 09:10, February 26, 2017 (UTC)

It's page number 63 – Jacktoland


 * Okay, it's included. But it wasn't really necessary, since we still don't know what "ghohlbrorn" means. I've added this to the bulette article. By the way, please sign your comments with four tilde symbols, ~ . — BadCatMan (talk) 12:02, February 26, 2017 (UTC)

out of intrest, would anyone know how to to add one of the big letters that show the start of all the words beginning with that letter? for the record it's just that i don't know what the big letters are caled.


 * Most of us use the Source editor, but you must be using the Visual editor (this is set in your preferences). The big letters are called Headings. You can create a Heading in many ways. You can highlight some text and choose Heading from the drop-down menu, or type CTRL-2. You can temporarily use the Source editor while inside the Visual editor by choosing it from the option menu (the three horizontal bars in the upper right of the Visual editor). If you do this, you will see that Headings are surrounded by pairs of equal signs. Two equal signs on either side make the big Headings that you want. So in the source editor, you would type  to insert the "B" Heading into the file. Either editor works, you just need to pick the one that is right for you. And don't forget to sign your posts with four tildes   so we know who is talking. &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 22:44, February 26, 2017 (UTC)

Split words
Hi, I've been looking at the known dwarvish words, and I noticed that dunspierrin means underspires, while dunglorrin means overlake. From what I can tell, this is pretty good proof that dun means over/under, which made me think, a lot of the words presented in the dwarvish dictionary are two words pressed together, such as kuldjargh meaning axe idiot. What I was wondering is, it's fairly obvious where the words meshed together end and begin, in a his case kuld meaning axe, and jargh meaning idiot, so what I was wondering from that is, is this allowed? Are we entitled on this wiki to make fairly obvious assumptions like this, place them down, and therefore expand the dwarvish dictionary? – User:Jacktoland


 * Perhaps. The reader is certainly entitled to make the assumption or guess (I do it sometimes to derive terms for alien languages). As for the FRW, we'd have to be very confident on the translated breakdown (say, three pieces of evidence) and mark it with Speculation to indicate. For example, there might be grammar included in the terms, slight variations in spelling, and elisions (skipped sounds, like "I am" becomes "I'm"). And where does the word split: "dun glorrin" or "dung lorrin"? Even in your example, "dun" gives two very contradictory means, "over" and "under". The real dwarven "dun-" could mean "in this place" with a high inflection for "over" or "upwards" and a low inflection for "under" or "downwards".


 * If you're interested, books like Dwarves Deep and Races of Stone give lists of dwarven words broken down how you'd expect. For example, "dunglor" is an underground lake, "dunlur" is an underground stream, "glor" is a lake, "lur" is a river or stream. So I don't know how "dunglorrin" = "overlake" came to be. — BadCatMan (talk) 15:18, September 20, 2017 (UTC)


 * Yes and no.
 * I agree that we are allowed to make assumptions like this. In fact, I have in some of the words here. They would need to be cited with the multiple places the compound words were given that allowed the assumption to be made.
 * However, languages are never quite so perfect. I do not think it is fair to assume that kuld is axe and jargh is idiot. It could also be that kuld is idiot and jargh is axe. Or it could be that kuldj is axe and argh is idiot. Or it could be that, say, kuldjar is axe and it shortens when combined with another word.
 * To clarify, you can only make the assumption if there is a more established pattern. Many rivers and streams in Amn and Tethyr end in lur, so it is fair to argue that lur means "river" or "creek" or "stream".
 * I hope this clarifies things for you.
 * ~ Lhynard (talk) 15:19, September 20, 2017 (UTC)


 * FWIW, someday, the Language Project will expand all of our dictionaries. ~ Lhynard (talk) 15:20, September 20, 2017 (UTC)