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Messages - Verak

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31
Introductions / Re: M’ath
« on: April 26, 2011, 09:49:26 am »
I have emailed the admin of the forum about the issue with the modify option so hopefully it will get resolved.

Anha chomak. (fingers crossed: both for "Modify" appearing and for that verb being a verb and being properly conjugated.)


32
Dothraki Language Updates / Re: Phrases
« on: April 26, 2011, 09:40:46 am »
For inanimate nouns that end in a consonant the accusative is the same as the nominative. For inanimate nouns that end in a vowel the last vowel is dropped when forming the accusative. So the accusative of serja (leather west) would be serj but for oqet there is no declension.

This makes sense to me IF that first "inanimate" is supposed to be "animate" and it's a typo.  ;)

Mandarin 给 (gěi) means "give" and is used for the sense of "allow" as well.

Thanks for all of your work and time here.

Is there any chance that David is working on one long sentence or two (or a short paragraph) that shows a "snapshot" of of how much of the grammar works. E.g. something with all of the cases and phrases like "this father with the whip" piled together in a coherent brief story that could be an "orientation" for folks who already understand grammatical concepts (and what ablative means, for example) but want to see the puzzle fitting together in a canonically correct way?

Examples like the stacking/ordering of the noun modifiers that he did with "this father" give new learners a way to memorize a fragment of canon and then go back and reference it when they are trying to build their own phrases correctly.

Perhaps I should be lurking more...  :-X


33
Introductions / Re: M’ath
« on: April 25, 2011, 11:55:34 pm »

Welcome.

I know Lajaki was at a Na'vi meetup in California so that would be my initial guess at least.

As for a word for lurker. I would guess that it could be a word derived from the word esshey which means roof since everything that is done under a roof is considered dishonest or secretive and that would sort of fit for a lurker (the secretive part, not the dishonest). I guess it would also work to use a metaphorical use of a word that would mean to sneak or prowl or something like that as well but we don't have a word for that yet.

Thanks for the warm welcome and for the guess. Congratulations! You're the winner!!

To understand things like metaphors/allusions to esshey and the like I really am going to need to either read the books or get HBO. Hmmm... books cheap from library... HBO, ?, not so much...

For now I think I'll stick with Verak. I'm already being too vociferous to qualify as a lurker anyway.  :P

PS: Seems I've made my first careless error in Dothraki already. I *think* I meant to spell that above as akatthi. I'm not exactly sure *why* I'm under the impression that it is a more correct spelling, but oh well... I still felt the need to confess.

PPS: If it is possible to turn on the "Modify" option for posts for which a logged-in member is the author, I suggest/request doing that. Somehow I can never catch (all of) my sloppy errors via that Preview button. I'm sure it's one of my (many) character flaws.


34
Dothraki Language Updates / Re: Phrases
« on: April 25, 2011, 11:40:02 pm »
Yes, there is an accusative case. In that expression however it's the ablative case that is used. Athchomar simply means respect and chomak means one who is respectful. When you add the ablative case ending -ea (which I believe also expresses plural in this case but I'm not 100% sure on that) the translation becomes "respect to those that are respectful"

That's very interesting about the ablative on chomak. So:

   chomat, vin., be respectful
   athchomar, n., respect
   chomak, n., one who is respectful...??

But, I was actually asking about about examples like

   Yer ofrakhi vosecchi sajoes mae!

       and

   Me ray kaffe rek tokikes.

where sajoes and tokikes are given as the dictionary forms (in the dictionary) and are showing up as direct objects in these sentences (seemingly unmodified for a difference in case). Is it the situation that -(e)s is already showing the accusative and the nominative forms are just not known yet, or are nominative and accusative the same (with certain noun classes)? Perhaps I'm operating under the incorrect assumption that the dictionary is showing nominatives?

Another example, though, is Oqet vichitera oma vafikh-oon. vs. Me oge oqet oskikh. Oqet seems completely uninflected to me whether the subject or the object.

Out of these sentences the only one I have heard yet is "Athchomar Chomakea, [zhey] khal vezhven. Azhi anhaan asshilat..." which is said by Illyrio when Dany first meets Drogo.

Not all of these sentences will appear in the show however. Some are examples sentences given by the creator of the language.

It's nice to know that they've actually started using the language in the early episodes. Is dropping zhey officially permitted by Petersonian rules as far as is known, or was it likely a convenience or error associated with the pragmatics of dialog on set? Any theories??

Azh_ in both gift and allow is evocative of Mandarin 给 (gěi). Interesting.

So what case is on anhaan (‹‹‹ anha (?)) in Azhi anhaan asshilat... ?


35
Introductions / M’ath
« on: April 25, 2011, 06:42:49 pm »

Greetings all.

In everyday life I'm Britton. Several of the Na’vi langauge tribe know me in person and at least one of them has slept on my sofa in San Francisco. If nobody confesses, then you can figure it out through a game of akathi questions.

   ;)

I have not read the book(s). I don't have HBO. I'm disappointed that there is no Dothraki word yet for "lurker". I'll try to be polite.

My native language is English.

We can leave it at that for now.  :)


36
Dothraki Language Updates / Re: Phrases
« on: April 25, 2011, 06:06:39 pm »

Athchomar chomakea.

So there is no accusative case? Redundant because the OBJ always follows the verb (SVO)?

Have any of these been spoken canonically in the series by actors yet?


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