Learn Dothraki > Dothraki Language Updates
Animate or inanimate nouns.
ingsve:
We have started assigning which nouns are animate and which are inanimate but there are still a lot of nouns where we don't know if it's animate or not. This thread will be a place to try and figure this out.
David has provided some general phonetic rules that determine animacy:
animate:
-ak
-asar, -eser, -isir, -osor
infinitive
inanimate:
-i (diminutive)
-(s)of (augmentative)
ath-(z)ar
-(i)kh
-eyya
compounds
Having removed all words that fall into any of these categories we are left with the following list:
vizhad silver
addo ajjalani midnight
ador chair
ahesh snow
asavva sky
ase word
ave father
ayena bell
azhasavva blessing
azho gift
chare ear
chiftik cricket
chiori woman
dorvi goat
dosh khaleen group of widowed khaleesi
dothraki The dothraki people ”the riders”
esshey roof
eveth water
fire ring
foth throat
gamiz rice
gende rip
gizikhven candy
hadaen food
haesh spawn
hatif face
havazh sea
heth rim
hrakka white lion
hranna a type of grass
hrazef horse
idrik leader of the hunt
jalan moon
jalan qoyi harvest moon
jano dog
jaqqa rhan ”mercy men” not litteral
jesh ice
jorok corn
khal leader, king
khalakka prince, son of khal
khaleesi queen
khas group of bodyguards, protectors
kher flesh
loqam arrow
maegi wise, sorceress of black magic
mawizzi rabbit
mithri rest
nhare head
noreth hair
orvik whip
qazer apple
qeso basket
qosar spider
rakh boy, lamb
rhae mhar Sore-foot
rhaesh land, country
rhaggat cart
riv tip
rizh son
sajo steed
san heap, pile, much
shierak qiya comet, bleeding star
shiqeth iron
shor garment mainly worn by women
tih eye
tikkheya verb
vado turnip
vaes city
vezh stallion
vikeesi slang for annoying woman.
voji people
vort tooth
zande satchel, sack
zhaqe bass
zhavvorsi of the dragon
zir bird
What we need to do now is find out some way to determine which of these are inanimate or animate. One way to do this is to look at example sentences. The easiest way is to find a sentence where the word is used as the object of a sentence. If the noun ends in -es or -is it will be animate otherwise it's inanimate. Also the genitive ending for words that end in a vowel is also a clue. Inanimate nouns will only have -i even after a vowel but animate nouns will instead have -si. Animate nouns also have various declensions for plurals of the ablative and allative so any word ending with a vowel that ends in -saan or soon rather than just -aan or -oon will be animate. Also any instance of the endings -(s)oa or -(s)ea will also be animate.
Hrakkar:
Maybe this is somewhat of a noobish question. Would things that are alive be automatically animate (many in the exception list)? Or is animate/inanimate a linguistic thing?
ingsve:
--- Quote from: Hrakka on May 18, 2011, 04:31:12 pm ---Maybe this is somewhat of a noobish question. Would things that are alive be automatically animate (many in the exception list)? Or is animate/inanimate a linguistic thing?
--- End quote ---
Well, David has created the language as a naturalistic language that has evolved over time and things tend to change over time. So there is some historical logic to what words are animate and which are inanimate but over time things have become jumbled to the point that you can't use things like that as a clear and fast rule. If you look at the word lekh for example it has two different meanings namely language and tounge. The strange thing however is that when it is used to mean language it is animate and when it is used for tongue it is inanimate. So there is an example that goes right against what you would probably have guessed.
Verak:
Is David still in the political situation that he can't just tell you what the animacy is for each noun item? He has to know already to be able to generate translations, right?
I can't imagine that HBO cares about keeping that information secret. I'd be SHOCKED if they even understand the concept of what it is and its relationship to the complexities of the grammar.
Revealing this information could in no way endanger the unfolding of the story on screen. If the word is already 'out there', what harm could it be for the very few folks who are learning the language to know what the animacy designation is for 'released' nouns?
I understand that for some folks it might be really fun to 'unravel' the mysteries of the 'irregular ni' like a puzzle, but just asking him does not seem unreasonable to me either as an option for how to get the info. He can always just say "Sorry. Can't."
ingsve:
Well, he could but that would require time to go through it all one word at a time with him. He's not really the guy who would come in here and post it all on the forum. He said at one point that it would feel strange for him to interact at that level. There will be words that we will have to double check with him at some point but the more words we can figure out in other ways the better. We still only have around 350 words of a language that has over 2700 words created so far so the list of words to double check with him could get really long.
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