The Presumptive Mood: Part 1

The Presumptive Mood: Part 1

Preface and Corpus

By Aurealana Pertanus

Without the prior scholarship of my colleague Relagius Porax, I could not have completed this work; his six-part Comparative Survey of Tamrielic Literature was instrumental to my own efforts in assisting in my study of Dwemeris.

I am also deeply grateful for the lively and helpful correspondence and friendship of scholars in several provinces and high Imperial administration who, for professional, personal, and legal reasons, have asked that I not reveal their identities. Although I must respect their wishes, I am immensely and deeply humbled by the selflessness of these individuals.

To the extent that my work stands, it stands on the firm foundations established by the prior work of many people. To the extent that my work falls, it falls solely as the result of errors or omissions on my part alone.

A Note Regarding The Source Corpus of Dwemeris Texts

While Dwemeris is undoubtedly an Aldmeris-descended language, due to the Elven culture that spoke it, it diverged quite early from the sister tongues of the other mer tribes, complicating any effort to produce a comprehensive comparative linguistic survey of the language.

This problem of confusing and rapid divergence in pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary would be less vexing if we had a more extensive corpus of original Dwemeris literature.

Unfortunately, with the exception of a few rare bilingual texts that were produced during the conclaves of Resdayn (i.e., during that brief time that the Dwemer and Chimer were allies), the great bulk of surviving Dwemer writing consists of funerary inscriptions, brief dedicatory texts, and limited graffiti.

I was blessed by the good fortune of being granted access to two exceedingly valuable manuscripts.

The first source for my studies in Dwemeris grammar lay in the bilingual notes and unpublished translations that had been accumulated by the legal scholar Orsian in his personal correspondence over the half-century prior to his publication of "The Antecedents of Dwemer Law." Orsian's estate administrator allowed me to transcribe a Dwemeris military treaty, and later agreed to sell this document to the Imperial library for the benefit of future scholars.

The second source for my work is a damaged, incomplete, bilingual, fair-hand copy of the manuscript "Hanging Gardens of Wasten Coridale" acquired by the Imperial Archaeological Society in a purchase from a private collector.

The Dun Treaty

Of the treaty (which I will refer to hence by its catalog accession title, "The Dun Treaty"), not much is known; the original document is handwritten in gall-ink on a poorly preserved scrap of guar-hide parchment.

The document was doubtless valuable to Orsian in part because it contained parallel in-line references to various Dwemeris and Aldmeris legal terms that are not found elsewhere.

The treaty was apparently the fruit of some sort of ad hoc negotiation of mutual military aid, and was presumably drafted by a Dwemer diplomatic agent or scribe who was fluently literate in both Dwemeris and Aldmeris, acting in service to some as-yet unidentified Dwemer colony in nominal alliance with a Chimeri tribal band.

Orsian noted (without citing any corroborating sources) that the historical context and background of the treaty's drafting was intentionally omitted from his book because it was "tedious, dull, and uninteresting to relate" and that the language of the treaty was "simply formulaic and illustrative of Dwemer international law, identical to many other similar such inter-tribal agreements."

A Description of the Hanging Gardens of Wasten Coridale

Of the "Hanging Gardens" travel guide, much more is known, including the author's nickname, and the subject matter of the book, which is a book-length personal journal about a Summerset Isles tourist draw, written for the benefit of a cosmopolitan, widely traveled, and literate Dwemer audience comfortable with the idea of what would seem in retrospect to be an arduous intercontinental journey across the face of Tamriel.

The journal is theorized to be a subtle exercise in language education and bilingual expression, presumably for the benefit of a broader audience unable to read the Dwemeris portion of the text. Oddly enough, only present in Dwemeris is the replicated translation notes by both the author and their superior, published for the benefit of a broader audience able to read Dwemeris.