I hope the lore forums are even close to a right place for the following near-linguistic babble. Here goes...

For some time I've been wondering if it's "right" or not to include a grammatical article to an Argonian name translated to "English". I used http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Argonian_Names to collect the Argonian names that I intuitively think could contain grammatical articles, and the ones that actually have one (always 'the', by the way).

According to the Argonian Names lore text, the Argonian names translated to English language and, thus, Argonian names with English articles, can only be found in Morrowind and Oblivion so far. Here are the results. Not many names in here, and I only included the safe ones; it might be argued whether Sings-Like-Thunder, for example, should even require an article to be "grammatically correct".

The Argonians WITH the explicit grammatical article in their names:
Morrowind (Bloodmoon): Basks-In-The-Sun
Oblivion: Hears-Voices-In-The-Air, Tooth-in-the-Sea

The Argonians WITHOUT the explicit grammatical article in their names:
Morrowind: Morning-Star-Steals-Away-Clouds, Skink-in-Tree's-Shade, Swims-In-Swells
Oblivion: Hauls-Ropes-Faster, Runs-in-Circles

This material is way too small to really tell us anything for sure. (I thought it would be bigger before I actually started this topic...) But, don't you think the original idea was to keep the articles off the Argonian names? The first English-translated Argonian name with a 'the' wasn't seen before Bloodmoon.

There is also variation in whether some prepositions and the 'the' articles are capitalized or not (in or In, the or The). This has already started in Morrowind, though.

The Argonian names seem anological to Indian names. What I don't know is whether these often include the grammatical articles in their English translations or not, and whether everything is capitalized or not when the names are written down. This could explain why it seems the original idea was to leave the articles off.

What I think this all means is that it doesn't matter for the developers whether the names are in line or not. Clearly they don't follow any conformis policy on how the Argonian names should be written. At least, not anymore. It seems to me the original idea was not to include articles, though.

Some questions about these notifications...

- How is the article usage in Indian names, for example, in your every-day colloquial English? Does it vary as much as with the Argonian names in TES series, or do they have clearer tendencies towards using or not using articles in the middle? (I don't really know since my native language doesn't have grammatical articles).

- Should I name my Morrowind Argonian "Shade-In-Shadow", "Shade-In-The-Shadow" or possibly even "The-Shade-In-The-Shadow"? :angel: My original intention was to name him http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k8maMzq37o called The Shade in the Shadow. This song inspired me to start an Argonian assassin in the first place. That's also when I started thinking about this whole issue with Argonians and articles in their "English" names. I started my Argonian with the name Shade-In-Shadow. All the time I thought it looked and sounded stupid, somehow incomplete, so I wanted to use the console to change his name into Shade-In-The-Shadow. I didn't do this before I stumbled upon, like, the first NPC I saw in Solstheim, Basks-In-The-Sun.

- Just what is this "English" anyway in Tamriel? I found http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Ehlnofex_Languages, and it implies there's no such thing as English. Is this "English language" just a necessary "must" in storytelling, just to make the gaming possible? Is every race supposed to speak their own language all the time? If so, how do they understand each other? Or is "English" integrated into canon after all? Possibly a newer language evolved from racial languages to make the different races understand each other? At least it's canon in Star Wars; it's called Galactic Basic there.

- Just what are your thoughts about this inconsistency of Argonian names? If you have any thoughts about the subject, or related to it, just keep them coming.

*Settles for a wait of an Imperial Library link that explains it all about "English" Argonian names.* Couldn't find anything though.

1) There is a common tongue in Tamriel, usually called "Tamrielic" I believe. I think its the Imperial language, so it is an anologue to English (empire, and all). The language of the game is simply translating Tamrielic into English/German/French etc.
2) Names like Hides-his-Eyes are translations of the Jel variant (Haj-EI in this case). Jel is a confusing and multilayer language, and while we have no information either way, I would say that they don't have articles. As such, articles are added to make it sound more correct in Tamrielic/English.
3) I would ascribe the inconsistency to geographical difference. The Cyrodiil Argonians are better educated and therefore have more grammatically correct names. The Vvardenfell Argonians are slaves, some newly from Black Marsh, and therefore don't have as good a grasp on grammar.

Briefly:

-The 'Tamrielic' listed in the page you linked (descended from proto-Nedic) would be the lingua franca of the Empire. I don't recall encountering that term before, but it is the obvious contender- not just because of its name, but because it is related to the languages of the Nedes (Cyrodiilic humans) and Nords. (someone please correct me if I'm wrong)
[edit- Ninja beat me]

-If by 'Indian' you mean 'Native American', then I have no idea. Extrapolating from similarites with RL cultures is problematic when it comes to TES, so the point is moot, anyway. What we do know about Argonian culture (and presumably language) is that it is unrelated to the common 'Ehlnofex' roots of mannish and merish cultures. I'd say that all bets are off.

-Unfortunately, the inconsistency could be due to translation, or to the idiom of the Argonian language itself- I don't think there is any way to be sure. The conditions under which articles are used vary a great deal between languages, so it is entirely possible that Argonian has defninite articles (or even demonstratives or pronouns used similarly) but that they are translated indifferently.

-Given the above, I'd say its safe to go with whichever version you prefer.

So, is Tamrielic a translation to a real world language, like Lady Nerevar suggests, or is a real world language itself supposed to be Tamrielic? According to the language site I linked in the starting post, the only surely known Tamrielic word seems to be "magicka", and that word hasn't been translated into English, at least. It's very near our Indo-European languages anyway, like most TES words seem to be.

I felt like forgetting something when I posted this thread, and it was my hypothesis that the Argonian language* doesn't have articles. At least not in the way they're used in English. The most humble Argonians aren't mainly using them well. This is heard by Argonians' in-game dialogue with a lot of variation in article usage, and some parts of The Argonian Account books.

'Drawing-Flame nodded, "For five gold, show you way. Just east. Is plantation east of Gideon. Very nice."' - Book Three. Also suggests a verb-first word order.

Anyway, Lady Nerevar's great point on "Morrowind slaves" vs. "Cyrodilic higher educated" Argonians, in my opinion, only partly comes down to whether the Argonians CAN use the article. I think it's more about whether they WANT to use an outsider language's feature, article, or not. Of course the Argonians integrated into the Imperial culture might consider it, like Basks-In-The-Sun in Bloodmoon and a few more in Oblivion, whereas those slaves in Vvardenfell only have warm feelings towards Argonia and thus won't use these foreign features in their names. Why pick an English/Tamrielic name in the first place, though, is beyond me. Just to make the name sound more reasonable to outlanders? I guess. Anyway, the fact that the slaves tend not to have articles but more Imperial-minded tend to have, or at least there's more variation, is the best bet that the Argonian language doesn't contain articles. The names without articles can be a little silent rebel towards Imperialism. The slaves are trying to remain true to their roots here. That's all they have, basically.

Now that I think of it this way, attitudes and fluency in Tamrielic language, it IS making pretty much sense, after all, that some Argonians have the articles in their names and some don't. Only the use of capitalization in prepositions and articles seems inconsistent on the game developers' part.

Isu: Yeah, I meant Native Americans. I, too, thought it might be a bad idea to search anologies to the real world. Yet I was about to do that yet again when I noticed that Argonian seems to be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click_consonant#Languages_with_clicks. The Argonian Account Book Two tells us that 'There were voices, speaking a hissing, clicking language Scotti didn't understand, and he peeked out between someone's legs to see what was happening.' (Usually a common speaker like, supposedly, Scotti/"narrator" here, uses the word "click" exactly the same way the linguistics use it; what common speakers describe as "clicks" usually are click consonants.) I searched whether these real-life languages usually have articles or not. Couldn't find any information even though I know there's a huge linguistic site that lists features and their qualities in all possible studied languages. *sigh* Maybe it's better that I stop comparing certain TES's features to real life. Especially if they're this pointless and vague.

* The Argonian Account mentions many different tribes, so it's pretty safe to presume there are many dialects. Some might have different features than others. Maybe the more Imperialized Argonians have even developed something article-related into their languages/dialects, or something like that.

I wouldn't take the wiki too seriously on this. Magicka doesn't seem to be a Tamrielic only word, since its used elsewhere on Earth as well. TES hasn't seriously considered conglangs, so I wouldn't place too much emphasis on the relationships of Tamrielic languages to Earth ones in lore terms.