D'ni language

Myst ( realMyst )
Riven

Novels

Myst: The Book of

Comic Books

D'ni

Ages The Art Culture Guilds History Items Kings Language Numerals People Wildlife

Organizations

Br%F8derbund Cyan Presto Ubisoft DRC

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Note: Fictional details from the Myst franchise follow, and will be treated as facts.

Warning: Plot details follow.

The D'ni language (pronounced duh-NEE) was the language spoken by the D'ni, as presented in various games and novels of the Myst franchise. At the beginning of the Riven game, for instance, a native known as Cho will try and talk to you in rather broken and simple D'ni.

The people of D'ni, who live in an underground city located in a cavern in New Mexico, have a rich and tragic history that is quite interesting to learn about.

Table of contents

1 D'ni alphabet
2 D'ni Grammatical Rules

2.1 Basic Rules
2.2 The Sentence Structure

3 Spoken D'ni language
4 The Rehevkor
5 External links

5.3 Dictionaries

6 See also

D'ni alphabet

The D'ni alphabet consists of 24 standard and 11 accented characters, combining to a total of 35 letters (11 vowels, 24 consonants).

The sounds of the alphabet are as follows:
'ah' as in "ball"
'a' as in "and"
'ai' as in "maid"
'b' as in "ball"
'ch' as in "cheat"
'd' as in "dog"
'dh' as in "then", "the" or "there"
'ee' as in "feet"
'eh' as in "red"
'f' as in "funny"
'g' as in "grab"
'h' as in "hat"
'i' as in "ice"
'ih' as in "lit"
'j' as in "joke"
'k' as in "cat"
'kh' as in german "ach" or "loch" from loch ness.
'l' as in "log"
'm' as in "mother"
'n' as in "no"
'o' as in "own"
'oo' as in "shoot"
'oy' as in "boy"
'p' as in "pun"
'r' as in "read"
's' as in "snake"
'sh' as in "shoot"
't' as in "take"
'th' as in "thin", "thorn" and "with"
'ts' as in "puts"
'uh' as in "but" or "good" (roughly.)
'v' as in "victory"
'w' as in "weed"
'y' as in "year"
'z' as in "zero"

D'ni Grammatical Rules

Basic Rules

Is similar to Hebrew in structure.
Punctuation is placed at the beginning of sentence.
Is written from left to right.
A dash(-) that is attached before or after a word means that this word is a Prefix or Suffix.

Example: "reh-" is attached to the beginning of a noun (prefix), and "-tee" is attached to the end of a noun (suffix).

Apostrophes (') are always attached to the beginning of the noun it is modifying.
Using the suffix "-ah" makes an Imperative.
The possessive word "of" is used three ways: with the word "oykh"; a Non-Personal "of" is shown with "t"; Non-Personal possession of characters is shown with "tso".
Converters change the function of a word.
Prepositional phrases always come after the noun that is being modified.
Adjectives always come after the noun.
Adverbs always come after the verb.
Pronouns are attached to the verb.
Articles are attached directly to the noun.
A D'ni sentence structure is:

noun/adjective/prefix-verb-suffix/adverb

The Sentence Structure

1. Nouns

All nouns must have an article attached to it. The Definite Article is the prefix "reh-". The Indefinite Article is the prefix "ehrth-".
Adjectives follow the nouns they define.
To make a noun plural, simply add the suffix "-tee".
The noun converter suffix "-ehts" makes a noun into an adjective.

2. Verbs

The 'Infinitive' is the basic form of every verb. It is also used for the 1st Person present tense.
Changing the Actor: the actor is changed by the suffix attached to the verb.
Changing the Tense: other tenses can be achieved by using certain prefixes to a verb.
Verb Converter Suffixes:

-tahv : changes a verb into a noun -tahn : changes a verb into a noun that is a person -ahl : forms a participle/adjective from the verb -ah : indicates the imperative

3. Adjectives

The adjective is placed after the noun.

Example: the great master = rehnahvah gahro [great = gahro. gahro is the adjective]

Converter Suffixes:

-th : changes an adjective into a noun -sh : changes an adjective into an adverb

Numbers Acting as Adjectives:

Numbers act as adjectives when they describe how much of something exists. Example: b'naigahsehn = to thirteen. These numbers are called Quantifiers. Quantifiers are indicated by using a number from 1-25. Numbers can be written in a cardinal fashion (one, two, three), or an ordinal fashion (first, second, third), or symbolically (1, 2, 3). 25 = Greatest Emphasis 1 = Lowest Emphasis

The number indicates, on a scale of 1-25, the degree of emphasis. b'fahsee = to the greatest extent. Literally, "to twenty-five".

b'fah = to the least extent. Literally, "to one".

To add an even greater emphasis, you would need to use a number higher than 25.

[to] + [number]

Spoken D'ni language

The D'ni language, when spoken, has many similarities to multiple surface languages including: Middle-Eastern dialects (e.g., Hebrew), Germanic dialects (e.g., German), Slavic dialects (e.g., Russian), and Latin dialects (e.g., French, Spanish, etc.), to name a few. Some have noted similarities to Native American dialects as well, not to mention possible cultural influences going back thousands of years.

This is somewhat unlikely however, since most of the D'ni never reached the surface. They "found solace in the dark," according to Yeesha, daughter of Atrus. She is one of the few remaining people with some trace of D'ni blood (1/8th) left.

The Rehevkor

The Rehevkor was the 'official' dictionary of the D'ni, and is featured in .