The Dwarves of Discworld

[Pedant]

Just to be safe!
I’m a huge fan of Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, and one of the things that struck me growing up was the language Kad’k, spoken by the dwarves of that world. I think there’s enough material to create an actual conlang, but I wanted to be sure that nobody’s tried to do it before. Anyone know anything about a language called Kad’k?

[Vardelm]

This is actually the 1st I've heard of it. Quick Google search found https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarfs_(D ... )#Language, which indicates there's not much of it. I could see coming up with a phonology from those examples being .... challenging. Have fun!

[Moose-tache]

It's been a while since I read Thud, which I assume is where most of the Dwarvish vocabulary would be from, but I don't remember much Dwarvish being written in its native tongue. We're far more likely to hear calques, like "Head Scraper" or whatever he's called.
EDIT: OK if I had bothered to read the link, apparently they do give "Head Banger" as Kzad-Bhat. But you'll still be hard pressed to find more than what's in the wiki article.
EDIT EDIT: Apparently, it's canonical that the books, or at least the dialogue, are written in Morporkian, not English, which is coincidentally nearly identical. First I've heard of this. I always just assumed we were in a standard fiction situation where you're just not supposed to think too hard about how people on another planet can make puns that rely on English verb tenses.

[Pedant]

It's been a while since I read Thud, which I assume is where most of the Dwarvish vocabulary would be from, but I don't remember much Dwarvish being written in its native tongue. We're far more likely to hear calques, like "Head Scraper" or whatever he's called.

You’d be surprised...there’s a whole small paragraph’s worth of sentences in Guards! Guards! to choose from, albeit in a slightly earlier form the the language. The letter “e” shows up a lot, for example, more than it seems to in later versions. Might incorporate that as part of Ankh-Morporkian Dwarfish...
Also, it is an honour and a pleasure to meet a fellow Pratchetteer on this site! (Admittedly I wondered, you had the right sense of humour for it...)

[alynnidalar]

The Discworld wiki likely has a more complete list of vocabulary here: https://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Dwarfish_phrases

Let us never forget my personal favorite Dwarfish phrase, k'ez'rek d'b'duz 'go around the other side of the mountain', Granny Weatherwax's Dwarfish name.

[Pedant]

The Discworld wiki likely has a more complete list of vocabulary here: https://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Dwarfish_phrases

Let us never forget my personal favorite Dwarfish phrase, k'ez'rek d'b'duz 'go around the other side of the mountain', Granny Weatherwax's Dwarfish name.

Many thanks!
And another! My gods, it’s wonderful!

[Salmoneus]

I must admit, the only dwarfish I know is the B-word*. Not that I ever use it, obviously.


*for those not easily offended:

More: show

b'zugda hiara

.

[bradrn]

If you're still interested in making a conlang, I've just found a useful tidbit of information from The Fifth Elephant: it states that the word G'ardrgh is mispronounced by Vimes as Gaadrerghuh. This may be perhaps the only known piece of phonological information about Kad’k in the Discworld books, and so could be fairly important in developing a phonology.

My personal theory is that the word is pronounced [ɡa̰ʵ.dr̩ɣ], corresponding to the orthography as follows:

• <g> [ɡ]
• <'ar> [a̰ʵ] (with creaky voice (indicated by the apostrophe) and the end rhotaicised)
• <d> [d]
• <r> [r] (in this case syllabic)
• <gh> [ɣ]

Importantly, the first time I tried to pronounce the word with that specific phonological interpretation, I got almost the same mispronunciation as Vimes did, which seems to indicate this may be the correct pronunciation. If true, this would imply several unusual things about the Kad’k phonological inventory: it has rhotaicism and creaky voice at the phonetic level or above, and it has syllabic [r] at least.

I did try using the orthographical interpretation I gave above to find other pronunciations, but it appears that most other words are either straightforward (kruk, grag, shatta) or can't be interpreted using my rules (d'b'duz, g'rakha, b'zugda, aargk). The main problem seems to be apostrophes are almost never placed just before a vowel, whereas I only interpreted apostrophes before a vowel. There's also lots of weird consonant clusters like kg, dhw, ht, zs which I'm not sure how to explain.

[Moose-tache]

a fellow Pratchetteer

I prefer Pterrydactyls.

[Opalescent Yams]

Just going off the above data, it seems like apostrophes always follow a voiced stop? This, to me, screams implosives.

[Qwynegold]

Just going off the above data, it seems like apostrophes always follow a voiced stop? This, to me, screams implosives.

From what I saw on that site, it often follows consonants as if to mark glottalization, sometimes it's between vowels as if to mark a glottal stop, and sometimes it seems to mark contraction: B'Daan. But then it also appears word-initially before a consonant.

As for the "cluster" kg, it could be a digraph, but cf. Danish/Norwegian godt where god means good while the -t is a suffix. As far as I know the word is pronounced [ɡɔt], i.e. the d is elided but kept in spelling.

[Opalescent Yams]

I mean in theory, it seems like mixed-voicing homorganic stop clusters should be possible? Like of course it's not exactly typical, but I don't think it'd be impossible? Like if <gk> were [ɡk], I'd think it should be no less unreasonable than thinking of it like [ɡː] but with the voicing cutting out mid-way through?

[Opalescent Yams]

So browsing through the linked data, I came across... ⟨t'dr'duzk b'hazg t't⟩

Anyone have any ideas at all for ⟨t't⟩?

[bradrn]

Just going off the above data, it seems like apostrophes always follow a voiced stop? This, to me, screams implosives.

No, as far as I can see it can go just about anywhere, although that position seems to be most common. I do think it's glottalisation or phonation of some sort, although considering the linguistic incompetence of the average Standard Fantasy Languages it may well just an 'exotic' way of writing /ə/ between consonants.

I also think that in assigning any sort of value to the apostrophe we have to keep the Vimes mispronunciation I linked in mind, since (as I mentioned) it's the only real clue we have to any sort of phonetics/phonology:

the word G'ardrgh is mispronounced by Vimes as Gaadrerghuh.

Any interpretation of the apostrophe has to be at least compatible with this.

As for the "cluster" kg, it could be a digraph, but cf. Danish/Norwegian godt where god means good while the -t is a suffix. As far as I know the word is pronounced [ɡɔt], i.e. the d is elided but kept in spelling.

Interesting interpretation! I would also note that Tswana often has <kg> (e.g. Kgalagadi), but that's mainly because <g> is /x/ in Tswana.

So browsing through the linked data, I came across... ⟨t'dr'duzk b'hazg t't⟩

Anyone have any ideas at all for ⟨t't⟩?

Click, maybe? If so, it may have some pragmatic role, considering the emotive content of the sentence (translation: 'Today is a good day for someone else to die!').

[Moose-tache]

Guys, use the context. It's a parodic fantasy language; the apostrophes are clearly ornamental, the way they would be in a boilerplate Paolini-style fantasy dwarf tongue. If you can't lean into this you'll drive yourselves crazy.

Perhaps the apostrophe is a dash of textual aesthetics by the dwarves? Maybe Morporkian speakers deliberately add them simply because Dwarvish ought to look a little bit foreign. Either way, it's built as a send up of fantasy languages, so your analysis should reflect that.

[Pedant]

Guys, use the context. It's a parodic fantasy language; the apostrophes are clearly ornamental, the way they would be in a boilerplate Paolini-style fantasy dwarf tongue. If you can't lean into this you'll drive yourselves crazy.

Perhaps the apostrophe is a dash of textual aesthetics by the dwarves? Maybe Morporkian speakers deliberately add them simply because Dwarvish ought to look a little bit foreign. Either way, it's built as a send up of fantasy languages, so your analysis should reflect that.

That it will, once I do get around to it--I’ve been rather unwell the last little while, so it’s taking me far longer than I’d hoped to get started. That said, it’s amazing to see all of the interest in the project, and I might see about borrowing a few of the points (especially the one about the apostrophes; I kind of assumed they did triple duty as a glottal stop, schwa, and stress marker)...

[bradrn]

Guys, use the context. It's a parodic fantasy language; the apostrophes are clearly ornamental, the way they would be in a boilerplate Paolini-style fantasy dwarf tongue. If you can't lean into this you'll drive yourselves crazy.

I don't know about that... I think it takes a certain amount of craziness to begin with to even attempt conlanging

Anyway, I'm personally finding it quite fun to take these random apostrophes and stitch them together into something coherent. At the very least it's an interesting intellectual exercise.

[sangi39]

While I largely agree with Moose-tache in that the apostrophes, and the Dwarfish language of the Discworld in general, is designed to look intensely foreign to English speakers (in the same way that Pratchett's Trollish appears to aim at what might often be considered "stereotypical caveman speech", with lots of velars, back vowels, and low vowels, and a simple consonant structure), I wonder if it might be worth listening to the Discworld audiobooks.

While the pronunciations aren't necessarily considered "canon", most people I know have based their pronunciations of character names on the audiobooks, in some cases shifting a pronunciation they had held before (notably "Magrat" and "Angua", although, IIRC, there is some disagreement over the latter since Stephen Briggs pronounces it one way and Nigel Planer another). Anyway, a lot of the Dwarvish dialogue is handled by Stephen Briggs, I think, since he took over reading the books at around the time of The Fifth Elephant where stories take place more around Uberwald and the Dwarfs.

I'm actually surprised, though, that Carrot's interaction with the Ankh-Morpork Dwarfs in the Dwarf bar in Guards! Guards! doesn't appear nearly as much in the phrases sections linked about, but I suspect that wouldn't add much more information anyway.

Anyway, from what I can remember, if we take Planer and Briggs as guides to pronunciation, the apostrophe is variously either a schwa, a glottal stop, a schwa followed by a glottal stop (after a consonant and before a vowel), or completely ignored (which I suppose you could read as it being similar to the different ways of reading the "schva" in Modern Hebrew or the dropping of unstressed schwa in Hindi).

[Opalescent Yams]

Anyway, from what I can remember, if we take Planer and Briggs as guides to pronunciation, the apostrophe is variously either a schwa, a glottal stop, a schwa followed by a glottal stop (after a consonant and before a vowel), or completely ignored (which I suppose you could read as it being similar to the different ways of reading the "schva" in Modern Hebrew or the dropping of unstressed schwa in Hindi).

Hmmm... what if it were to be interpreted as marking some sort of 'generic epenthesis'? Schwa between consonants and a glottal stop between vowels?

[Pedant]

Well, I can take a gander at the audiobooks, perhaps...
In the meantime, what I hope to be a near-complete corpus of Kad'k (in the rough order the words appear in the books)! Please let me know if I've missed anything...

Wyrd Sisters

• B’zugda-hiara “lawn ornament”

Guards! Guards!

• Dezka-knik “mine supervisor”
• Gr-duzk! Gr-duzk! aaK’zt ezem ke bur’k tze tzim? “Good day! Good day! What is all of this that is going on here (in this place)?”
• J’uk, ydtruz-t’rud-eztuza, hudr’zd dezek drez’huk, huzu-kruk’t b’tduz g’ke’k me’ek b’tduz t’ be’tk kce’drutk ke’hkt’d. aaDb’thuk? “Listen sunshine [the stare of the great hot eye in the sky whose fiery gaze penetrates the mouth of the cave], I don’t want to have to give anyone a smacking, so if you play b’tduz with me I’ll play b’tduz with you. Okay [all correctly beamed and propped]?”
• B’tduz “a popular dwarfish game which consists of standing a few feet apart and throwing large rocks at one another’s head”
• G’hruk, t’uk. “Evening all [Felicitations to all present at the closing of the day].”

Maskerade

• D'zuk f't! (unknown exclamation)

Feet of Clay

• Bura’zak-ka “town hall”
• Bad’dhakz “yeast bowl”
• H’druk g’har dWatch, Sh’rt’azs! H’h Angua tConstable...Angua g’har, b’hk barg’ra Sh’rt’azs Kad’k… “Welcome to the Watch, Corporal Smallbottom! This is Constable Angua...Angua, show Smallbottom how well you’re learning Dwarfish…”
• Grr’dukk d’buz-h’drak… “small delightful mining tool of a feminine nature...”
• T’dr’duzk b’hazg t’t! “Today is a good day for someone else to die!”

The Fifth Elephant

• Kruk “dwarf mining law; laws of ownership, marriage laws, inheritance, rules for dealing with disputes of all kinds”
• K’zakra (noun--possibly some sort of education or lore-/craft-learning)
• H’ragna (noun)
• Ha’lk (verb)
• G’rakha (noun)
• Krazak (verb)
• G’ardrgh (noun--mispronounced “gaadrerghuh”)
• Y’grad (noun--possibly a ceremony)
• J’kargra (noun--possibly ongoing tradition)
• Drudak’ak “they do not get out in the fresh air enough (above.ground-3p-NEG)”
• Ta’grdzk? (sentence)
• Krz? Gr’dazak yad? (sentence)
• D’kraha? (sentence)
• B’dan? K’raa! D’kraga “ha’ak”! (sentence)
• Hr'grag "thirty"
• Ha’ak “not a real dwarf”
• Jar’ahk’haga “ideas-taster”
• D’hrarak “not dwarfs”
• Grz’dak? (sentence)
• H’gradz? (sentence)
• P’akga, a p’akaga-ad… “It is the thing, and the whole of the thing...”

The Truth

• G’daraka “free, unencumbered, new”

Thud!

• Tak “the primary deity in Dwarfish cosmology”
• ‘Gd Tak ‘Gar’ “The Things Tak Wrote”
• D’rkza “not really a dwarf”
• Grag “dwarfish religious leader”
• Kzad-bhat “head-banger”
• Zadkrdga “one who smelts”
• Hara’g, j’kargra. Grz dava’j? K’zakra’j? d’j h’ragna ra’d’j! “With emphatic certainty you know me, I observe the rites of the dwarf. What/who am I? I am the Brothers united!”
• J’ds hasfak ‘ds’. “I bargain with no axe in my hand.”
• Dhwe (verb) “to open a book”
• Aargk, peremptive aork! “to say” (NOTE: the latter may have been pronounced like a chicken squawk)
• Had'ra (verb) "stop"
• Ga strak ja’ada! (sentence)
• Tra’ka (some form of expletive)