(Apologies in advance for the poll, seeing as many people are sick of them by now, but I think this is an interesting issue that has so far been unaddressed and I'd like to see what the community's general thoughts are on this subject.)

First of all, hello! Long time guest-status lurker here (pretty much half a decade now), this being my first post; I've only bothered registering an account and becoming active since the wondrous announcement of Skyrim :ahhh:

Anyway, as mentioned in the trailer "Dovahkiin" is translate into "Dragonborn" from 'their' tongue (presumably some sort of Nordic?). Obviously it's simply a bastardisation of the English Dragon (Dovah) Born (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/kin) - even though it's a simple change of a few letters, this could form the basis for an entire language (e.g. some form of pseudo-Norse/Old English fantasy hybrid).

Bethesda's already created http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Ayleid_Language http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Ehlnofex_Languages http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Dwemer_Alphabet http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Daedric_Alphabet for Tamriel, and even though they've never actually been extremely relevant gameplay-wise, I find them an excellent addition to the gameworld - it helps immerse me in Tamriel, and lore-wise they're pretty cool :read: They can lead to http://www.imperial-library.info/content/translating-mysterium-xarxes of both the developers and gamers making an effort to create and understand these more subtle additions to the Elder Scrolls series

I know that most people (educated guess: 70%+ of us) might notice things like ingame alphabets or languages once and then go back to slaughtering annoying guards, but I'm glad these features made it in - they really add to the depth of the world, showing that Bethesda really cares for its baby creation, the world of the Elder Scrolls :laugh: I sure hope Bethesda adds more of these little gems in to Skyrim.

Now, I'm aware not many people love these aspects of the game, and some make a valid point in saying that implementing such indirect features will inevitably take resources (time, money, focus, etc) away from other, more important aspects (combat, magic, skills, minigames, etc) that should have as much of these resources at hand as possible. I recognise and appreciate this concern but I say that it's fairly important to remember the smaller details which have become staples of Bethesda's amazing style and make the Elder Scrolls so unique and great. Language and alphabets are one of these smaller details that I personally hope will still be found in Skyrim

TL;DR: Should new languages and alphabets be created for Skyrim? Are they awesome? :thumbsup: Lame? :down: Fun and interesting? :shrug: Pointless and unnecessary? :shakehead:
/Discuss.

(Vote in favour and the Daedric lava whiskey's on me :foodndrink: )

Alphabet seems like a pretty obvious thing to add to me, (possibly even two alphabets, a native one and a falmer one) however a spoken language seems unnecessary.

Yeah, I was thinking about that too. In my opinion, the best approach would be to add a couple of runic alphabets (like you said Nordic and Falmer are most appropriate) and instead of an entire language (which would really be too much) maybe come up with a few localised words (ala Dovahkiin) that they could pepper through NPC dialogue?(Eg. occasionally a drunk Nord NPC might throw a verbal racist slur at you that you wouldn't understand because it'd be in the local Nordic ^_^ )

They should definitely include the Old Norse language in the game, that way they wouldn't have to invent a language. It would be appropriate for the setting as well.

it sounds like a good idea but creating a language from scratch can take a very long time our took around 100 years plus if everyone speaks english its just easier i want to know wat ppl are saying, i think its stupid,

Or Anglo-Saxon. The latter has a fairly large extent corpus, and could easily be written in futhark or Roman script, whichever was more convenient for the setting.

As a big conlang enthusiast, my answer will be obvious. Simple rules of grammar and bits of vocabulary aren't too hard to make, which seems to be what they did with the Aylied language. I'd like to see some Nordic, maybe even a spoken Daedric, or an actual Ta'agra, or, if the rumors are true, some Akaviri.

Only if done well. I found Ayleid to be too simplistic and too reminiscent of Quenya.

I voted Absolutely.
I recall that many played Riven again and again, just to decipher the graffiti and signs on the walls ~there was even a schoolhouse with educational toys that would teach a child the basics; Players could use these for themselves.

If it was well done, you'd likely find fan-fiction including it (and even correspondence between fans). They did it for http://www.amazon.com/Klingon-Dictionary-Star-Trek/dp/067174559X/ref=pd_sim_b_3 :shrug:
~Just Imagine if Bethesda were to publish a (contracted) DLC "Learn Aedra script in 21 days" (or Nordic, or RedGuard, or Argonian)

Better still, imagine if the wall art on an old dungeon actually said something pertinent (and not something like "Blame Ricardo and Emil").
It could be neat.

I think maybe they should only say some things in their native tounge like swear words and such.

Maybe, but as a conlanger myself I find a bad conlang to be worse than no language at all. Klingon, for example. :facepalm: If they don't have anyone on hand with a working knowledge of linguistics...I'll pass on the language, thank you.