Skyrim Shows That French Is Canonically A Real Tamrielic Language
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrimoften exposes its players to the language of dragons through shouts and the events of the main quest, but the game includes a stranger canonical language — French. Tamriel is a world of seemingly boundless lore which often presents players with unexpected discoveries, subtle jokes disguised as normal encounters, or even dark Skyrim secrets hidden in seemingly useless towns. More interesting, perhaps, are moments where the game's story or worldbuilding collide with the real world.
Language in fantasy worlds is a curious topic that presents a handful of issues. When you sit down to play Skyrim, the characters seem to primarily speak English, or whatever language you've set the game's localization settings to. Of course, this is an unacknowledged inconsistency — England doesn't exist on Nirn, and the characters are meant to be speaking Tamrielic, also known as the Common Tongue, the language of the Cyrodilic empire. Of course, no player speaks Tamrielic, so this invisible accommodation is necessary for anyone to experience the game. The result is a sort of translation paradigm — the «common language» is assumed to be whatever the player speaks (or chooses), while languages of other countries or peoples have no need to be understood by the player. Matching the player's knowledge to their Dragonborn's ultimately makes Skyrim feel more real, even if this common trick in fiction is rarely interrogated and potentially unintentional.
Related: Skyrim's Dragonborn Might Have Destroyed The City Of Winterhold (Oops)
Non-English languages are plentiful in Skyrim — not only are the languages of Daedra and dragons present, but mundane languages like Orcish or Bretic can be found too. These are all sprinkled
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