The Dwarves of Discworld

[bradrn]

As to a translation, that’s a little tricky. All the others (apart from Trollish and English) just mean “Oh God” or “My God,” so that should be fine. But we don’t really know much about Dwarvish spirituality beyond a journey through the underworld, Tak, and Agi Hammerthief. Perhaps a bit of worldbuilding might be necessary...

I don't remember anything about a journey through the underworld.

And as for worldbuilding, I think the Discworld canon is expansive enough to find something that fits. Considering the English, maybe he was saying ‘Oh dear’ in all the other languages, and he wasn’t translating exactly.

I believe there’s a quote in Men at Arms that says something to that effect:

“Oh no,” said Carrot, “[that war-axe] is a burial weapon.”
“I should think it is!”
“I mean, it’s made to be buried with a dwarf. Every dwarf is buried with a weapon. You know? To take with him to...wherever he’s going.”
“But it’s fine workmanship! And it’s got an edge like--aargh,” Vimes sucked his finger, “like a razor.”
Carrot looked shocked. “Of course. It’d be no use facing them with an inferior weapon.
“What are you talking about?”
“Anything bad he encounters on his journey after death...it’s an ancient tradition.”
“I thought dwarfs didn’t believe in devils and demons and stuff like that.”
“That’s true, but...we’re not sure if they know.”

Ah... of course. Given the state of theology on the Disc, that explanation makes sense. Also, recall the fate on the Discworld of any atheists foolish enough to say so... (I suppose it's just lucky that you don't get lightning underground, but there's plenty of big rocks to push!)

On the other hand, isn't the Kad’k word for god Tak?

Ooh, as an added bit: remember this sentence?

My reckoning is that d’kraga fulfills two of our previous constructions. The -ga agentive is easy enough, but then if d’- can be considered the same as d- and t- (in dWatch and tConstable (maybe from the Überwald dialect as opposed to Carrot’s Copperhead speak), then extrapolating a meaning of “come, arrive” for kra- we get a gloss like “This foreigner isn’t a real dwarf!” (Of course, kra- might have a more...colourful meaning, just a matter of checking for similar-sounding roots...)

I'm not quite sure how you get that meaning? Could you maybe go through each word and explain? But I do think you're right about the composition of d’kraga.

Okay, so the first two words (B’dan? K’raa!) I have no real translation for. But the second two...well, we already have a decent definition for ha’ak, but d’kraga I parsed out above as “it is this [X-er] who is” or something to that effect. The -ga suffix we all seem to be in agreement on as some sort of agentive suffix, so that just leaves the main root, *kra. I took it to mean something like “come, arrive,” which in the agentive might mean “one who arrives, one who is defined by their arrival”--in other words, “foreigner.” This makes the whole sentence “It is the one who is defined by their arrival who is not a real dwarf!” But again, I could be wrong. I don’t have a proper definition for the root, after all...

That makes sense.

[Pedant]

I don't remember anything about a journey through the underworld.

And as for worldbuilding, I think the Discworld canon is expansive enough to find something that fits. Considering the English, maybe he was saying ‘Oh dear’ in all the other languages, and he wasn’t translating exactly.

I believe there’s a quote in Men at Arms that says something to that effect:

“Oh no,” said Carrot, “[that war-axe] is a burial weapon.”
“I should think it is!”
“I mean, it’s made to be buried with a dwarf. Every dwarf is buried with a weapon. You know? To take with him to...wherever he’s going.”
“But it’s fine workmanship! And it’s got an edge like--aargh,” Vimes sucked his finger, “like a razor.”
Carrot looked shocked. “Of course. It’d be no use facing them with an inferior weapon.
“What are you talking about?”
“Anything bad he encounters on his journey after death...it’s an ancient tradition.”
“I thought dwarfs didn’t believe in devils and demons and stuff like that.”
“That’s true, but...we’re not sure if they know.”

Ah... of course. Given the state of theology on the Disc, that explanation makes sense. Also, recall the fate on the Discworld of any atheists foolish enough to say so... (I suppose it's just lucky that you don't get lightning underground, but there's plenty of big rocks to push!)

On the other hand, isn't the Kad’k word for god Tak?

Not just rocks. Mining’s a dangerous business no matter how you go about it, and when you’re all cooped up for ages at a time in the same space the biggest trouble’s likely to come from other dwarves. That’s why they draw mine-sign, as sort of a psychological miner’s canary (if you’ll pardon the comparison) to let the others know that there’s something potentially dangerous down there. The dark kills. Sometimes it swallows you up in broad daylight.
Eh, sort of...Tak’s just the Creator. Heck, he may even be the Creator, the one Rincewind meets in Faust Eric. According to Thud!, he’s not really an approachable figure, and doesn’t even require the dwarves to think about him--only that they think. (Nice guy.) Dwarves apparently have a few spirits lying around, though, because it’s easier to curse a demon than quantum-fluctuations-in-the-space/time-continuum, so maybe the phrase refers to one of those.

[bradrn]

More Kad’k from The Fifth Elephant:

There was a torrent of whispers. Vimes couldn’t understand, but he caught the word ‘Wilinus’. And, shortly afterwards, the word ‘hr’grag’, dwarfish for ‘thirty’.

So we know at least one Kad’k number. I suppose that thirty isn’t the most useful number to know, but it’s a start.

Another dwarf, cone-shaped in his robes ... ‘Arnak-Morporak?’

Personally, I think this is reanalysis: if -ak is a noun class marker, then ‘Ankh-Morpok’ is being reanalysed as belonging to this noun class. (cf. Swahili kitabu, originally from Arabic kitāb, where ki- has been reanalysed as a noun class prefix. The plural in this case is vitabu, staying within the noun class.) I would say this gives further evidence to Salmoneus’s theory, as this is the only really plausible theory I can come up with.