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The Musical Lizard: A Dracology report
by Sentharn Phoenix
From our earliest legends, Dragons have been portrayed as a rather brutish, nasty species, intent on savagery and lacking subtlety and tact.* However, this is simply not so! With the research of dracologists such as Eukara Vox, Piffy Diddly, and the late Irviran Berling--may he rest in peace, and with a suit that does not look like a giant hairball!--we have been granted an extremely limited view of the complicated and civilized society they have created.
Indeed, it is extremely difficult for a human to comprehend how such creatures--whom are viewed as animalistic, and as such beneath the interest of Humanity--function in such a society, and it is true that their civilization is quite unlike ours. Many do not see their 'primitive' culture as a 'civilization', but in truth it is far deeper and integrated with language than that of Humanity.
The key to their communication--and, as such, their culture--is music, although hardly in a sense we would recognize**. Although dragons appear to understand and comprehend common Human vocabulary, they in fact are paying attention only to the underlying tone, pitch, duration, intonation, and other musical nuances of the sound that makes up our speech.***
Draconic music and/or speech (I will henceforth refer to both as 'music') is highly dependent on very small intervals between notes, far smaller than the standard whole and half-steps that Humanity uses in music. As such, humans rarely are able speak the language fluently****. Vibrato and vowel brightness/darkness are integrated to add or remove expression at will.
In addition, rank and social status is denoted and decided by music. An alpha male invariably has an extremely deep and rumbly baritone, whereas the highest-ranking female generally wields a subtle voice that is controlled with the utmost precision.*****
Unfortunately, with the recent loss of voices in many Dracology experts******, incoming data on more recent studies is sparse. Our understanding of these grand beings is still quite incomplete.
A wealth of further information can be found Eukara Vox's "A Chorus of Dragons" in Issue 36 of the Zardian publication.
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Footnotes
* Rather like the never-seen close cousins of Dragons, the things-that-go-bump-in-the-night and the extremely rare pygmy pygmy T-Rex.
** Some recent alternative tracks, namely, "Vivid Vale the Very Vivacious Vampire Vivisection Visitor" approach the level of inharmonics the human ear perceives of draconic music.
*** Unfortunately, the dismissal of word meaning in Draconic society has lead to an inevitable decline of puns. In the department of puns, Humanity wins by a landslide, but they leaf much to be desired. Get it? Leaf? Landslide? Come on, it's not *that* bad...
****An exception is Sir Arthur Longneck, who had such a long neck his vocal cords allowed him to emulate the minute steps required for Draconic languages. Unfortunately, he hit his head on low-constructed doorframes quite often, and so is also known as "Sir Arthur Thickhead" or "Sir Arthur Numbskull".
***** In Draconic society, a female who speaks with little or no vibrato is generally giving one the cold shoulder. When she spoke with me, for example, her voice was rock-steady. I do not pretend to understand--after all, I was most polite, and I didn't really *mean* to knock that boulder on her tail.
****** As a note to those at home, one should *never* attempt to reproduce a Draconic roar without proper training.
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