Learn Dothraki and Valyrian

Learn Dothraki => Dothraki Language Updates => Topic started by: ingsve on May 14, 2011, 04:02:27 pm

Title: Davis Petersons talk at the Language Creation Conference
Post by: ingsve on May 14, 2011, 04:02:27 pm
There is now video available from David Petersons talk at the Language Creation Conference.

Right now there is only the unedited ustream footage available but I think ultimately they will get chopped up and hosted somewhere else.

For now the talk can be found here: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/14695942 (http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/14695942)

The talk starts at around 11:50 into the video. The slides are hard to see so it's easier to just follow along with the slides on PDF: http://conference.conlang.org/lcc4/speakers/djplcc4.pdf (http://conference.conlang.org/lcc4/speakers/djplcc4.pdf)

Later on I'll summarize all the information that is given in the talk.
Title: Re: Davis Petersons talk at the Language Creation Conference
Post by: Jenny on May 15, 2011, 07:23:14 am
For the relay, we got a lot of information and new words as well
(I don't really know what's new and what's not...)

http://dedalvs.com/relay/results/1.html (http://dedalvs.com/relay/results/1.html)
http://dedalvs.com/relay/results/17.html (http://dedalvs.com/relay/results/17.html)
Title: Re: Davis Petersons talk at the Language Creation Conference
Post by: ingsve on May 15, 2011, 08:49:02 am
For the relay, we got a lot of information and new words as well
(I don't really know what's new and what's not...)

http://dedalvs.com/relay/results/1.html (http://dedalvs.com/relay/results/1.html)
http://dedalvs.com/relay/results/17.html (http://dedalvs.com/relay/results/17.html)

Yep, those will take some time to sift through, especially the second one that doesn't have a vocabulary.

I just went through the talk and there were around 38 new words there depending on how you count.
Title: Re: Davis Petersons talk at the Language Creation Conference
Post by: KoErin on May 16, 2011, 10:51:08 am
I just updated the Vocabulary with the words from the first relay.

He introduces the "ni" (innanimate noun) classification, I put it on the Vocabulary as well.
Words such as dorvi  as ni. and dorv as n. I kept on the Vocabulary., but it may not be necessary.
David translates the word 'fini' as WH-word, but I'm not sure  what this means (what/which/who/whom etc?).
Title: Re: Davis Petersons talk at the Language Creation Conference
Post by: KoErin on May 16, 2011, 12:34:31 pm
I tried to guess what is what in the second Dothraki relay from the LCC4. Here are my guesses.
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0ArbW3bU0qmBydHUySTNzM1J1cmVrR3B3c0tNZ3dUdGc&hl=pt_BR&authkey=CJHp3YUF

Some of the words are already in the Vocabulary (I updated just a few moments ago), which I took from the first relay. I tried to keep it as simple and correct as I could, but it would be good to have a revision.
Title: Re: Davis Petersons talk at the Language Creation Conference
Post by: ingsve on May 16, 2011, 03:10:42 pm
I just updated the Vocabulary with the words from the first relay.

He introduces the "ni" (innanimate noun) classification, I put it on the Vocabulary as well.
Words such as dorvi  as ni. and dorv as n. I kept on the Vocabulary., but it may not be necessary.
David translates the word 'fini' as WH-word, but I'm not sure  what this means (what/which/who/whom etc?).
Nice, thanks. I was going to go through and update it when I found some time. There are also lots of words from the talk that needs to be updated and a few other words that aren't up yet.

Yes, I'm trying to go through the known nouns and assign either animate or inanimate to them but a lot of it is unknown. Dorv and dorvi are not separate words. Dorvi is the correct nominative form. It just that it had only appeared in declined forms before so we had no way of knowing that there was actaully another vowel there. I'm sure there are other examples as well.

Yes, WH-words is a common phrase for question words.
Title: Re: Davis Petersons talk at the Language Creation Conference
Post by: Verak on May 19, 2011, 11:37:40 am
The verb classes are very interesting. I really like the creativity involved in the interplay of them with the various 'unexpected' case markings. It's quite clever and playful and that's what makes this kind of language so fun.

I also liked his reading of the relay text. The sound of it is great!

I'm not watching the series yet, so that was really my first time to hear any good chunk of the language spoken. It is very Arabic-esque, huh?
Title: Re: Davis Petersons talk at the Language Creation Conference
Post by: ingsve on May 19, 2011, 12:12:41 pm
The verb classes are very interesting. I really like the creativity involved in the interplay of them with the various 'unexpected' case markings. It's quite clever and playful and that's what makes this kind of language so fun.

I also liked his reading of the relay text. The sound of it is great!

I'm not watching the series yet, so that was really my first time to hear any good chunk of the language spoken. It is very Arabic-esque, huh?

The way David describes it is that it does sound like arabic to someone who dosen't speak arabic since we are not really that familiar with hearing arabic so when we hear the velar fricative [x ] and the uvular plosive [q] it immediately reminds us of arabic.

Ya, the verb classes are intersting. Though it will probably be really hard to keep track of it and learn it all. There was a quote in an interview with the show creators Benioff and Weiss where they said that "I’ve been told Klingon was hard to learn, so we asked that it be easier to learn than Klingon." This is actually not true. David says that they never asked that. In fact Dothraki is much harder to learn than Klingon. What they are probably referring to is how easy it is to pronounce. It is at least easier to pronounce than Klingon is and that's really what matters for the show anyway since the actors won't be learning the language per se but only learning to pronounce it.
Title: Re: Davis Petersons talk at the Language Creation Conference
Post by: Verak on May 19, 2011, 10:24:03 pm
The way David describes it is that it does sound like arabic to someone who dosen't speak arabic since we are not really that familiar with hearing arabic so when we hear the velar fricative [x ] and the uvular plosive [q] it immediately reminds us of arabic.

Ya, the verb classes are intersting. Though it will probably be really hard to keep track of it and learn it all. There was a quote in an interview with the show creators Benioff and Weiss where they said that "I’ve been told Klingon was hard to learn, so we asked that it be easier to learn than Klingon." This is actually not true. David says that they never asked that. In fact Dothraki is much harder to learn than Klingon. What they are probably referring to is how easy it is to pronounce. It is at least easier to pronounce than Klingon is and that's really what matters for the show anyway since the actors won't be learning the language per se but only learning to pronounce it.

I think the doubled consonants also contribute to it sounding Arabic-y. And the rhythm.

Klingon is not that much more difficult to pronounce although the initial and final glottal stops on ’U’ (the opera) are a bit tricky. I'm sure that in the big picture of things, English is MUCH more difficult to pronounce than Dothraki, but not for me because it's my native language.

I agree that Dothraki is very very difficult to learn (grammatically) and clearly David has made it that way (at least partially) for his own enjoyment.

He's doing it "because he can". It's certainly his prerogative.

It continues to remind me of Classical Latin from a learnability perspective.

Title: Re: Davis Petersons talk at the Language Creation Conference
Post by: Qvaak on May 20, 2011, 02:50:05 pm
Kifindirgi yer zali meyer nem akemi m'anhoon? seems like nicely concentrated one sentence grammatical rollercoaster.

We have a subordinate clause slyly introduced with a prefix. And in the clause we have a verb in second person singular future passive. And the verb is targeting two words, one of which has travelled in the front of the verb because of the passive structure and the other one which has a preposition with elided vowel - practically making the preposition into prefix.
Huh?

The difference between fini andkifindirgi as well as difference between kemolat and kemat are good examples of Dothraki's derivational possibilities.

If we should understand the -o-, I have missed the explanation. There are quite few word pairs in dictionary with the same translation but one with -at and the other with -olat. Peterson ast ki: 'In the negative grade, a suffixed -o is added to the verb stem in the past tense,' but this just confuses me.
kemolat -past-> kemo -past negative-> (vos) kemoo
kemat -past-> kem -past negative-> (vos) kemo
No. I don't think so.

While fini seems to be all around wh-word, more exact question words are apparently constructed as compound words. Kifinosi breaks down into by what path and kifindirgi probably into something like by what reasoning.
Title: Re: Davis Petersons talk at the Language Creation Conference
Post by: Verak on May 20, 2011, 05:01:20 pm
Kifindirgi yer zali meyer nem akemi m'anhoon? seems like nicely concentrated one sentence grammatical rollercoaster.

Could I request that you GLOSS it? That would be super-helpful to me.

   :-*

Title: Re: Davis Petersons talk at the Language Creation Conference
Post by: ingsve on May 20, 2011, 05:27:13 pm
Kifindirgi yer zali meyer nem akemi m'anhoon? seems like nicely concentrated one sentence grammatical rollercoaster.

Could I request that you GLOSS it? That would be super-helpful to me.

   :-*

Kifindirgi yer zali meyer nem akemi m'anhoon?

Why you want that.you [passive particle] will.marry with.me?

Title: Re: Davis Petersons talk at the Language Creation Conference
Post by: ingsve on May 20, 2011, 05:37:06 pm
If we should understand the -o-, I have missed the explanation. There are quite few word pairs in dictionary with the same translation but one with -at and the other with -olat. Peterson ast ki: 'In the negative grade, a suffixed -o is added to the verb stem in the past tense,' but this just confuses me.
kemolat -past-> kemo -past negative-> (vos) kemoo
kemat -past-> kem -past negative-> (vos) kemo
No. I don't think so.

I don't see why that would be wrong. It seems correct.

We have two different verbs. One with the stem kem and the other with the stem kemo. The infinitive verb ending is -(l)at where the /l/ is used when a stem ends in a vowel which is why it's kemolat and not kemoat.

Kemoo is a perfectly grammatical word so I see no problem there and the only tricky part is confusing one kemo with the other but that shouldn't be too hard since one sentence will have a negator and the other won't.

As for the words themselves, they don't translate to exactly the same. Kemat is used for expressing that one part is marrying the other part as in "the groom marries the bride". Kemolat is used for what the third party i.e. the priest is doing. "The priest married the groom to the bride". I guess you could translate it as "The priest officiated the marrige of the groom to the bride." or something like that.
Title: Re: Davis Petersons talk at the Language Creation Conference
Post by: Verak on May 20, 2011, 10:52:34 pm

Kifindirgi yer zali meyer nem akemi m'anhoon?

Why you want that.you [passive particle] will.marry with.me?

Thank you! VERY helpful.

Is kifindirgi always the fixed form for "why"? If so, it's the longest WH-word I've ever seen in any language.


...

As for the words themselves, they don't translate to exactly the same. Kemat is used for expressing that one part is marrying the other part as in "the groom marries the bride". Kemolat is used for what the third party i.e. the priest is doing. "The priest married the groom to the bride". I guess you could translate it as "The priest officiated the marrige of the groom to the bride." or something like that.

Is it possible that ‹ol› commonly or even productively produces something like the causative?

Title: Re: Davis Petersons talk at the Language Creation Conference
Post by: ingsve on May 20, 2011, 11:15:52 pm

Is kifindirgi always the fixed form for "why"? If so, it's the longest WH-word I've ever seen in any language.

As far as we know it is. As Qvaak points out it seem to be a compound of ki, fini and dirgi. We don't know yet what dirg- might mean but it appeared in one of the headlines in the slides for Davids talk "Dirge Ha Nakhaan".

As for the words themselves, they don't translate to exactly the same. Kemat is used for expressing that one part is marrying the other part as in "the groom marries the bride". Kemolat is used for what the third party i.e. the priest is doing. "The priest married the groom to the bride". I guess you could translate it as "The priest officiated the marrige of the groom to the bride." or something like that.

Is it possible that ‹ol› commonly or even productively produces something like the causative?

We know that there is no causative case at least and from what we know my guess is that if you wanted to mark the causative in some other way it would be using a verb class instead. We know from the talk that there is a verb class that marks the source of something which would be close to the causative.

Also I read somewhere that David said regarding morphology that not everything has a distinct or clear meaning. The -o- in kemolat certainly comes from somewhere but where it comes from might have some unknown historical origin as well. There is another verb where the -o- appears as well that I remember. We have samven that means numerous and that turns into the verb samvenolat which mean "to surpass".
Title: Re: Davis Petersons talk at the Language Creation Conference
Post by: Qvaak on May 21, 2011, 04:06:54 am
Quote
There is another verb where the -o- appears as well that I remember. We have samven that means numerous and that turns into the verb samvenolat which mean "to surpass".

Pairs (or near pairs) we have

astat v. to say
astolat v. to say

charat v. to hear
charolat v. to understand

addrivat v. to kill
drivolat v. to die

gende n. rip
gendolat v. to rip

kemat v. to conjoin, to marry (someone to someone else, the latter is preceded by /ma/
kemolat v. to marry someone (use the preposition ma)

samvolat v. to break (when something breaks)
samvenolat v. to surpass
Title: Re: Davis Petersons talk at the Language Creation Conference
Post by: ingsve on May 21, 2011, 04:54:08 am
Quote
There is another verb where the -o- appears as well that I remember. We have samven that means numerous and that turns into the verb samvenolat which mean "to surpass".

Pairs (or near pairs) we have

astat v. to say
astolat v. to say

charat v. to hear
charolat v. to understand

addrivat v. to kill
drivolat v. to die

gende n. rip
gendolat v. to rip

kemat v. to conjoin, to marry (someone to someone else, the latter is preceded by /ma/
kemolat v. to marry someone (use the preposition ma)

samvolat v. to break (when something breaks)
samvenolat v. to surpass

Well, all of those aren't true pairs. Samvolat and samvenolat are not related at all. Samvolat comes from the stem samv and relates to breaking. Samvenolat derives from samven which is a word that means numerous which in turn is a similative (-ven) of the word san (the /n/ changes to an /m/) which means heap.

Also gende is a noun so it makes more sense to compare gendolat with gendat instead. Both means to rip but what the difference between them is is unknown. We also have aggendat (also "to rip") which is the verb for when something rips.

Astat mean "to say" but astolat means "to speak" so there is a slight difference in meaning.

It would be intersting to ask David about the derivation of these words as see where the -o- comes from.
Title: Re: Davis Petersons talk at the Language Creation Conference
Post by: Qvaak on May 21, 2011, 05:50:56 am
Quote
    kemolat -past-> kemo -past negative-> (vos) kemoo
    kemat -past-> kem -past negative-> (vos) kemo
    No. I don't think so.

I don't see why that would be wrong. It seems correct.
Actually I agree. That was stupid of me. It should be anything but strange for me to see words with same morphological background end up homonyms when inflected in different ways. We (finns, still) do it a lot. It's not terribly misleading, though allows for a large set of puns. ...oooo! When do we get our first puns in Dothraki?

Quote
Is kifindirgi always the fixed form for "why"? If so, it's the longest WH-word I've ever seen in any language.
Wherefrom and wherefore are just a letter shorter. Finnish has eg. millaisella, ~with what kind of. Compound structures and suffixes make words long.

Quote
Well, all of those aren't true pairs.
True. I didn't mean them to be. Just stuff I thought might be relevant to compare

Quote
Samvolat and samvenolat are not related at all. Samvolat comes from the stem samv  and relates to breaking. Samvenolat derives from samven which is a word that means numerous which in turn is a similative (-ven) of the word san (the /n/ changes to an /m/) which means heap.
Oh my. You always seem to have some serious insight. If I've read that from somewhere before, I have no recollection. Both samvolat and samvenolat are suffixed -o-lat, so maybe there are corresponding words samvat and samvenat. Maybe sometimes there aren't.
Still, are you sure they are not related at all? Samven might well derive from san. Like heapify, multiply or piecefy. "Multiply that vase!" "Fine." *CRASH* "Now it's multiple."

Quote
Also gende is a noun so it makes more sense to compare gendolat with gendat instead.
I meant to. Crappy cut and pasting. Sorry.

Quote
Astat mean "to say" but astolat means "to speak" so there is a slight difference in meaning.
They are both "to say" in the wiki's vocabulary. I'll adjust that if you didn't already. It's time to get my hands dirty helping with the wiki anyway.
Title: Re: Davis Petersons talk at the Language Creation Conference
Post by: ingsve on May 21, 2011, 06:17:30 am
Quote
Samvolat and samvenolat are not related at all. Samvolat comes from the stem samv  and relates to breaking. Samvenolat derives from samven which is a word that means numerous which in turn is a similative (-ven) of the word san (the /n/ changes to an /m/) which means heap.
Oh my. You always seem to have some serious insight. If I've read that from somewhere before, I have no recollection. Both samvolat and samvenolat are suffixed -o-lat, so maybe there are corresponding words samvat and samvenat. Maybe sometimes there aren't.
Still, are you sure they are not related at all? Samven might well derive from san. Like heapify, multiply or piecefy. "Multiply that vase!" "Fine." *CRASH* "Now it's multiple."

Ya, I'm sure. I made the same mistake in an IRC chat with David and that's when he explained the etymology of the words.

[2011-02-20 23:01:46] <ingsve> one word use I saw seemed like it was perhaps taken from english...you tweeted "Asshekh Dothraki samveno 2,300 as" which I think means today dothraki broke 2300 words?
[2011-02-20 23:02:23] <ingsve> if that translation is correct then the use of the word break there is the same as in english right?
[2011-02-20 23:02:42] <DavidJPeterson> No, that's not related to "break">
[2011-02-20 23:02:57] <DavidJPeterson> Oh, ha, ha.
[2011-02-20 23:03:00] <DavidJPeterson> Wow, those words are close.
[2011-02-20 23:03:05] <DavidJPeterson> Total coincidence, though.
[2011-02-20 23:03:10] <ingsve> cool
[2011-02-20 23:03:22] <DavidJPeterson> An appropriate definition for that would be "surpass"
[2011-02-20 23:03:39] <ingsve> ah ok
[2011-02-20 23:03:57] <ingsve> is the word samvo in the past tense even?
[2011-02-20 23:04:26] <DavidJPeterson> Yep.
[2011-02-20 23:04:56] <ingsve> well, that's what happens when we try to figure out translations...answer: gief more info
[2011-02-20 23:05:04] <DavidJPeterson> In fact, since I haven't talked about any other Dothraki words, I can talk about how that word works.
[2011-02-20 23:05:24] <DavidJPeterson> It derives from "san", which is a word for a heap or a pile.
[2011-02-20 23:06:03] <DavidJPeterson> Then there's the /-ven/ suffix which changes the "n" to an "m".
[2011-02-20 23:06:13] <DavidJPeterson> Has there been a definition for the /-ven/ suffix up anywhere yet?
[2011-02-20 23:06:45] <ingsve> nope
[2011-02-20 23:06:56] <DavidJPeterson> Been any words with that one, at least?
[2011-02-20 23:07:02] <ingsve> verven
[2011-02-20 23:07:19] <ingsve> if that is an example if-ven
[2011-02-20 23:07:25] <DavidJPeterson> Ah, yeah, that's one.
[2011-02-20 23:07:38] <DavidJPeterson> Looks like there's one more, but it's opaque...
[2011-02-20 23:07:43] <ingsve> gizikhven as well
[2011-02-20 23:08:00] <DavidJPeterson> Oh, three of them, then!
[2011-02-20 23:08:18] <DavidJPeterson> Heh, heh. Forgot about my candy army.
[2011-02-20 23:08:21] <ingsve> qosarvenikh
[2011-02-20 23:09:20] <ingsve> vezhveni is probably an example as well
[2011-02-20 23:09:26] <DavidJPeterson> Oh, absolutely.
[2011-02-20 23:09:32] <DavidJPeterson> Didn't know that one had come out.
[2011-02-20 23:09:33] <ingsve> stallion-ven-i
[2011-02-20 23:09:59] <ingsve> it was in the latest dothraki post I think
[2011-02-20 23:10:02] <DavidJPeterson> And /-ven/ is most often a kind of "similative", if that's even a word.
[2011-02-20 23:10:49] <ingsve> sort of like the suffix -like in english?
[2011-02-20 23:10:55] <ingsve> stallionlike
[2011-02-20 23:11:23] <DavidJPeterson> Yeah, kind of. It was inspired by a favorite prefix of mine in Kamakawi.
[2011-02-20 23:12:23] <DavidJPeterson> Though it's etymology is different.
[2011-02-20 23:13:11] <DavidJPeterson> So "samven" is like "numerous".
[2011-02-20 23:13:36] <ingsve> ok
[2011-02-20 23:13:48] <ingsve> "like having heaps"
[2011-02-20 23:14:13] <DavidJPeterson> Indeed. Heapish like sheep.
[2011-02-20 23:15:04] <DavidJPeterson> Then, through metaphorical extension, /samvenolat/ came to mean "to surpass".
[2011-02-20 23:16:19] <ingsve> ya, that is rather close to samvolat especially when the past tense is samveno
[2011-02-20 23:17:47] <DavidJPeterson> Ultimately, they come from two different sources, of course. The root /samv/ was originally *samb.
[2011-02-20 23:18:01] <DavidJPeterson> Whereas the "v" in "ven" was originally a *v.
[2011-02-20 23:18:19] <ingsve> ah ok
[2011-02-20 23:18:24] <DavidJPeterson> Heh, heh… That's funny. Never noticed that.
Title: Re: Davis Petersons talk at the Language Creation Conference
Post by: Qvaak on May 21, 2011, 01:48:03 pm
That a certain confirmation if I ever saw one.
Title: Re: Davis Petersons talk at the Language Creation Conference
Post by: Qvaak on June 06, 2011, 07:33:32 pm
I just got through Mawizzi Fin Zal Kemolat ma Yesisoon. It's been a long time since this was current, yes. I don't use time in a linear fashion like some boring human being. I wonder on which decade I find myself when I've read the series' dialogue through.

Some funny notions:
Ver seems to be a noun for 'wolf'. So verven, 'violent', would literally be 'wolf-like'. Nice.

Ven, 'like', seems to function not just as a suffix, but as a separate word too. It seems to even have very nice and dothraki-like structure for compairing the sameness of things: ven (the first thing to compare) ven (the second thing). And you can derive other words from it, too. Venikh is apparently a resultative of ven and seems quite logically to mean 'likeness' or 'form'.

I can't get my head around that nemo structure. Does it have something to do with passive? Does it have somethig to do with negative? I'm sure I don't know.
Title: Re: Davis Petersons talk at the Language Creation Conference
Post by: ingsve on June 06, 2011, 11:58:09 pm
I just got through Mawizzi Fin Zal Kemolat ma Yesisoon. It's been a long time since this was current, yes. I don't use time in a linear fashion like some boring human being. I wonder on which decade I find myself when I've read the series' dialogue through.

Some funny notions:
Ver seems to be a noun for 'wolf'. So verven, 'violent', would literally be 'wolf-like'. Nice.

Ven, 'like', seems to function not just as a suffix, but as a separate word too. It seems to even have very nice and dothraki-like structure for compairing the sameness of things: ven (the first thing to compare) ven (the second thing). And you can derive other words from it, too. Venikh is apparently a resultative of ven and seems quite logically to mean 'likeness'.

I can't get my head around that nemo structure. Does it have something to do with passive? Does it have somethig to do with negative? I'm sure I don't know.

I haven't gotten through all the details of that text yet so can't really comment much. We are allowed to use both texts in hte wiki however so I was thinking about doing a complete gloss of them for the wiki.