I'm working on a school house for the PE mod and I was thinking that I've never heard anyone referred to as Ms. or Mrs. or Mr. in TES lore or gameplay. Would it be proper and lore-correct to call the teacher Ms. Uvenim?
They use suffixes in LOTR but I've yet to see it used in TES.

I install Daggerfall and talk to a child. Otherwise, I have yet to see a Mr. Mrs. or Miss from what I remember.

The Dunmer have sera, serjo and the like, I imagine so do other races. I'm a big fan of honorifics and patronymics, myself.

Bleh, forgot about sera, muthsera, and serjo from MW :facepalm:

So I'm guessing sera is the equivalent of Mister and muthsera is the equivalent of Miss or Missis(missus) Ms. or Mrs? What is serjo the equivalent of?

No, they are gender neutral. Sera seems to be the least formal of them, then Muthsera then Serjo (but thats just a guess). The Redguards have Ansu and Ansei, again gender neutral. For Imperials, I'd go with Master/Mistress for simplicity's sake. For teachers, you could default to Professor.

You sure? Because they say http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Melisi_Daren that in Oblivion, Melisi Daren will call you sera if you're male and muthsera if you're female.

And in http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion_talk:Melisi_Daren conversation, they can't really, but one person says: "From what I know of the Elder Scrolls III and IV is that Sera is a title of respect, Muthsera a title of great respect, and Serjo basically means friend. Regardless of what gender you are."

What do you think?

And this schoolhouse is for the children of Pelagiad..... and for Seyda Neen and other nearby settlements. Saying "professor" sounds like you're in college or something. Kids just say Mrs or Ms or Mr. But in TES, since I'm making the teacher a dark elf and most of the kids are dark elves, they use those dunmerian suffixes.

I guess they could call her Muthsera by itself and/or Sera Uvenim (Uvenim being her last name). Richtig?

If it's in MW, use Sera (M) and Muthsera (F). It's the vernacular of the land

Do you put their last name after it? Would you say Muthsera Uvenim? Kinda lengthy. I guess being formal you could say the whole thing and informally, the kids could just call their teacher Muthsera.

NPCs will opt to just say "Sera" or "Muthsera" when you approach them, and you are in good terms with them or famous. When using the full name, Sera, Serjo, and Muthsera are first, then the name.

With Imperials I think it's just Sir and Mam, from what the beggars say when you donate them gold.

'Serjo' definitely does not mean 'friend'. It's a title of high respect used for high-ranking people like http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Athyn_Sarethi or http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Serjo_Avon_Oran. I'm not sure whether it's gender-neutral, but I've only ever heard men addressed that way in-game (though in http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:The_Four_Suitors_of_Benitah, a woman is referred to as 'serjo'). If you're not certain, stick with 'sera' or 'muthsera' which are definitely gender-neutral (at least in MW; I've no idea why they decided to change it for Oblivion).

All those terms seem to be specific to Morrowind, or Dunmer like Melisi Daren who are originally from Morrowind. As Zok said, most people in Cyrodiil will address you as 'sir' or 'ma'am'. It's not clear whether they use titles like 'Mister' and 'Mistress' (or the abbreviations Mr. and Mrs), but it would seem to make sense. Daggerfall may be your best source for this, but unfortunately I haven't played much of it.

'Muthsera' and 'Sera' could derive from the same word, just 'Sera' being the shortened version of 'Muthsera'. 'Serjo' seems to be a title of great respect, often used for powerful individuals, of Great House leadership and such, or an equivalent Imperial rank (as in The Horror of Castle Xyr, the woman refers to the Imperial officer as "serjo"). Not a noble title, but a powerful one.

Okay, so say you've installed Pelagiad Expanded.esp and go into the school house and you click on one of the child NPCs to initiate dialogue. The child says something like, "shh outlander. Quiet, I'll get in trouble by my teacher, Muthsera Dren"

Does that sound appropriate? I mean, is that the type of title or name you'd expect a child to say to refer to his/her teacher in Vvardenfell? I'm trying to make this be legitimate according to lore. I don't want people to play the mod and then be like "well, this mod is great and all but I don't think that's how the kids would address their teacher." or something

Sounds right. Muthsera, being a sign of respect/elder to what I'd say is the female form of sera, followed by the name to denote who the person is being referred to.

Also, the use of "outlander" seems to be used on foreigners without much respect or standing. With a disposition of +50 or decent fame, outlander should become sera (M) or muthsera (F). If the player has really high fame, or the top two positions in a respected place (houses, temple and guard I'd say), I'd say use serjo (M/F). I'm against the use of serjo for mages guild, fighters guild, and thieves guild (obvious), as they're just intuitions, while the houses are political places of power, and the imperial guards being military. I'd say no to the cult, as it's a foreign religion in MW, and no to Morag Tong as the executioners probably try not to be that well known. If the person is the nerevarine, use 'nerevarine.'

Also, nerevarine and serjo shouldn't be shushed, they're too powerful/famous to be told to be quite from a child.

But that's me. Anyone feel different?

Feh. Master/Mistress have too much implied connection to the church institute of marriage. They also have too many different definitions (mistress as in "mrs." or as in extra-marital girlfriend) (master as in "mr." or as in "slave master, master craftsman" etc). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_honorifics

Go for something Roman-ish sounding.Or break the mold and use prefix or suffixes.

I think some of the ancient ones listed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title are much more fun sounding.

I don't really see the connection to Christian marriage in master/mistress (or, er, I see it, but its not what typically comes to mind). The connection to slavery was purposeful, as Cyrodils have been enslaved, and in my mind much of the system for formal speech originates from these times.

Thanks for the title list btw, I'd been looking for something like that for a while.

Well I think Hellmouth is probably the most accurate as this is Vvardenfell and the people use muthsera and sera commonly. I wouldn't expect them to say that in High Rock or Summerset, though. But I'll go with "Muthsera LastName". Thanks everyone.

I just remember learning in grade school about when to use Mr., Miss, and Mrs - and similar nouns to address persons in other languages such as French and German. While the guy is called [X] regardless of his marital status, women get two noun/adjective/appellation/thingies, usually with the marital status/age heavily implied in their appropriate usage (Frauline, Frau; Madam, Mademoiselle). Miss is for unmarried women, Mrs. is for married women. Though, I guess now you can use Ms. instead (when I was taught that crap, "Ms." was for divorced women).

And "mistress" is such a dorky-sounding word.


If they resented slavery, wouldn't they try to avoid using terms that were linked to slavery (e.g. Master)? I mean, they were and are all against the whole slavery thing. So, why would they address each other as "Master Rufinius" or whatever if "master" is the term they had to call their oppressive Ayleid owners?

A couple hundred years of habit.

Just like their religion.

I know that this is resolved, but the Imperial Guards in Oblivion say "Ma'am" and "Sir"

Also:

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/morrowind-ghost-free-papers

In that note a Dunmer Woman calls herself: Muthsera Mistress

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/morrowind-hospitality-papers

This one uses: Muthsera Master Angaredhel Mage-Lord

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/morrowind-deed-indreles-house

This one uses: Muthsera Hlaalu Velando Omani

And on the UESP wiki, it's mentioned in http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:A_Brush_with_Death article that
"After completing the quest, Tivela will incorrectly refer to male characters as "muthsera", a term which is meant to refer to females."

So... I'm confused.

Ahah! I just discovered that they do say Mister in TES. I killed a innocent person for the first time and was visited by http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Lucien_Lachance.
While in dialogue, I was surprised to see http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/1958/screenshot2f.jpg as one of my response options. Seems as though the Imperials use Mister in their common tongue.
I'd assume from that that they'd also use Mrs. and Ms. as well.

But since I'm using this information for a Morrowind mod, Muthsera for a female grade school teacher sounds much better.