As a starting point, I’m planning to create a detailed map of skyrim at a lore-accurate scale. (Scale as estimated here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ElderScrolls/s/1ac5Fk40Le)

See my previous posts on this project here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ElderScrolls/s/JE4sSejlZ5 And here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ElderScrolls/s/QLVJThPL8X

I’ve been thinking about the broad topography of in-game Skyrim as a basic starting point for my map. I’ve come to the conclusion that The Pale, as presented in-game, is mostly one large drainage basin, which would drain into a river mouth at or near Dawnstar. (Obviously the Easternmost portion of The Pale drains through lake Yorgrim to the white river instead.)

So I thought: This drainage basin (which I will for now refer to as the pale river basin) would presumably support plenty of settlement in that part of the province. Obviously the city of Dawnstar, as well as the (TES Arena) settlements of Dunstad Grove and Dunpar Wall, as well as many many more currently unnamed in lore.

I was thinking about the potential relative locations of these three settlements when I noticed something… DAWNstar, DUNstad, DUNpar… there’s clearly an etymological connection between the settlements in this region. Maybe this was an accident by Bethesda when developing Arena, but I plan to roll with it. Like maybe the river in this drainage basin is the Dun or Dawn river.

The similarity between the names Dawnstar and Dunstad is particularly striking, almost like they’re two different forms of the same place name. This is entirely my sievukatuin & headcanon, but maybe they’re two names for the same settlement, and maybe “Dunstad Grove” is the name of a village near the city of Dawnstar/Dunstad.

So… if this is the case, and Dunstad is just another name for Dawnstar, why the two different names? It feels to me like perhaps Dunstad is an old Nordic name for the city, which has since been bastardised or imperialised to become Dawnstar. This thought led me to the idea of the linguistic history of the Nords of Skyrim, and the various people of Tamriel as a whole.

Obviously, in-game, all races are portrayed as speaking the language of the player, and have apparently spoken largely the same language for all history (with a few notable exceptions like the dragon tongue.) Clearly, in a more “realistic” Tamriel this wouldn’t be the case. It’s arguable that maybe by the late 3rd and early 4th eras, most people in the civilised parts of the empire might be able to communicate in a standard imperial language. But other languages would certainly still exist and be written and spoken.

There would, in this “realisic” setting, be a complex linguistic history, with languages changing and influencing one another over time just like in the real world. This history would obviously be influenced by real-world languages (Nord names being mostly Germanic- and Nordic-inspired for example), but the differences from the real world and influences from fantasy elements like dragons could be interesting to explore.

I’m at the point now where I feel like drawing a historical language family tree for at least Skyrim, if not all Tamriel. I realise I’ve strayed a long way from the purposes of of my map at this point, but I think it’d be an interesting exercise nonetheless.

What are your thoughts?