Thought Experiment – What would a dragonborn accent sound like?

Thought Experiment – What would a dragonborn accent sound like?

In August my D&D group are starting a new campaign and I’ll be playing a Dragonborn for the first time. For those unfamiliar, dragonborn is a D&D fantasy race that’s basically a reptiloid race with dragon blood.

When you watch rpg streams and stuff, there’s a tendency for people to give dragonborn chars this deep, big, broad-chested kind of voice. I don’t really wanna do that: partially I don’t think I’d be good at it and partially I don’t think it suits a rogue character. So I started thinking: what would a dragonborn accent (of English, since that happens to equivalent to the constantly occuring “common tongue”, lol) sound like? I’ve been playing w this thought.

 

One thing that’s common in art is to depict dragonborn, being repitilian, as not really having lips. Obviously that would effect their production of labials. So then how would things be pronounced? /m/ would probably go to /n/, and I guess /b/ and /p/ would be /d/ and /t/? But what about /f/ and /v/? I think all this phonemic replacement might make the accent sound “too silly” so I may not actually use it in game, but it’s still fun to think about.

 

So play with the thought with me! What else might be part of a dragonborn accent?

 

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2 thoughts on “Thought Experiment – What would a dragonborn accent sound like?

  1. I would think that the sounds would be more like Slytherin. Or maybe sound like a lisp since there would be more play with [s] allophones and the absence of all bilabials. This is what I think the consonant inventory could look like:

    Bilabial Labiodental Dental Alveolar Postalveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyngeal Glottal
    Plosive t d ʈ ɖ c ɟ k g q ɢ ʔ
    Nasal n ɳ ɲ ŋ ɴ
    Trill r ʀ
    Tap or Flap ɾ ɽ
    Fricative θ ð s z ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ ç ʝ x ɣ χ ʁ ħ ʕ h ɦ
    Lateral Fricative ɬ ɮ
    Approximant ɹ ɻ j ɰ
    Lateral Approximant l ɭ ʎ ʟ

    In essence, a very gutteral and internal-sounding language. That would be really interesting!

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    1. That would actually be really fun to make someday, like an actual parseltongue type thing. Though for Dragonborn I always imagined them less snakey and more… I dunno, something? I think that’s just because D&D differentiates betweeen lizardmen and dragonborn though, many fantasy franchises would sorta lump them in together.

       

      Actually, would be fun to do a whole set… serpent people, mermaids, minotaurs etc. Classic mythology, but w conlangs.

       

      For now though, mostly pondering what their accent in English would sound like. 

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