Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-85.74.137.231-20130605091958/@comment-10207438-20130725165437

Th3Antioch wrote: People keep saying that in order to use the dragon shout, a dragonborn must have absorbed a dragon soul first. That is just a game mechanic. The Greybeards, and Ulfric Stormcloak learned how to shout before the dragons returned. No, a dragonborn is able to absorb a dragons soul and learn their knowledge from a shout, It's not just a game mechanic, it's said by the greybeards themselves; and yes The Greybeards(which Ulfric was a part of before leaving to join the legion) did learn how to use dragon shouts, but it took them years of study and meditation just to learn a couple basic shouts; and seeing as we're talking about the Septim Emperors, who didn't go to High Hrothgar to learn about the shout from the Greybeards, the only way they could have learned a shout was to absorb a dragons soul, but because there were no dragons (except a certain few who were either in hiding or were protected for one reason or another) we have no reason to know that they were true dragonborns, or just dragonblooded.

in short: either kill a dragon or sutdy and meditate for years.