First few days

[KhalToddy]

Hello all, this is my first post and I have only recently begun to delve into the dothraki language and truth be told it's my first proper attempt at a language (bar a bad attempt at Spanish) and I was just wondering if you only needto change the words ( I think the proper term is conjugate nouns ) that end in "lat " and "at" ? Like what about words that end in at or ek, fa, kh etc do the stay the same or do I need to learn all conjugations for all endings ?

[Hrakkar]

M'athchomaroon, zhey  KhalToddy.
The somewhat complex declension and conjugation systems for Dothraki can be intimidating, especially for someone who has no experience with foreign languages. I was almost in that category when I started working with Dothraki.

One really important thing that is not obvious to a beginning user is the words given in the dictionary or the wiki are not in their most basic form, especially for nouns and verbs. You've picked up on some of this already, but basically, nouns are given in their nominative case and verbs in the infinitive (i.e. to verb) What does this mean?

Dothraki uses cases on nouns to indicate their function in the sentence: subject, object, 'possesive', or if they are indicating the action is moving towards or away from the subject. English is different. it uses word order to indicate a noun's function in a sentence.

Very carefully study the noun declension charts in the grammar section of the wiki. You will notice that the basic 'stem' form of the word is used when it is the object or accusative case. So, unless the noun is the object of the sentence, it will always have one of the suffixes attached to it. Although an effort has been made to explain things simply, the terminology takes some getting used to. If you don't understand a term, look it up online. Wikipedia is your friend here.

Verbs are a bit more complex. The infinitive form of a verb, as given in the dictionary, is not the most useful form of a verb, as most sentences do not need the extra 'to' in them. The only tense without any prefixes or suffixes is past tense. There is also a suffix difference, if the verb is used in a positive or negative sense. So, a 'stem noun' has no suffixes, and is past tense, indicative form (opposite of infinitive), and positive grade. Everything else needs suffixes, and in some cases prefixes. Again, study the conjugation chart very carefully!

On many words, especially nouns, it is hard to determine if the correct nominative ending is -at or -lat. On words that have a misleading ending, look in the wiki. Most words that have a misleading ending have their stem form shown, so you can learn what the correct endings are, that you can use.

Don't be afraid to ask questions. there are several folks who watch this list and are always glad to help!

[ingsve]

One thing to point out perhaps is that English does do a lot of the same declensions to many words, you might just not think of them like that.

Some examples:

He writes
They kissed
Cats
Greener
Yours

Then you also have more substantial changes to a word like:
I -> me -> my -> mine
We -> our etc.
Teach -> taught

All of the bolded parts are examples of declensions in English. Dothraki just have different ones that are used slightly more.

English also uses prepositions in places where Dothraki use for example a suffix or a prefix:

... from the forrest
... will teach
King of Sweden

[Qvaak]

I think for an absolute beginner Sunquan's lessons are the easiest starting point. The wiki is the most complete and accurate information repository available, but there's only little tutorial style stuff there.

It's very easy to be swamped with terminology - and it does not help that many of us are amateurs who won't always use the techical terms even exactly right. You'll eventually need to familiarize yourself with terms like nouns and verbs, declination and conjugation, object and subject, case and tense ... the list goes on and on. Take your time and make a good friend out of Wikipedia.

[KhalToddy]

M'athchomaroon, zhey  KhalToddy.
The somewhat complex declension and conjugation systems for Dothraki can be intimidating, especially for someone who has no experience with foreign languages. I was almost in that category when I started working with Dothraki.

One really important thing that is not obvious to a beginning user is the words given in the dictionary or the wiki are not in their most basic form, especially for nouns and verbs. You've picked up on some of this already, but basically, nouns are given in their nominative case and verbs in the infinitive (i.e. to verb) What does this mean?

Dothraki uses cases on nouns to indicate their function in the sentence: subject, object, 'possesive', or if they are indicating the action is moving towards or away from the subject. English is different. it uses word order to indicate a noun's function in a sentence.

Very carefully study the noun declension charts in the grammar section of the wiki. You will notice that the basic 'stem' form of the word is used when it is the object or accusative case. So, unless the noun is the object of the sentence, it will always have one of the suffixes attached to it. Although an effort has been made to explain things simply, the terminology takes some getting used to. If you don't understand a term, look it up online. Wikipedia is your friend here.

Verbs are a bit more complex. The infinitive form of a verb, as given in the dictionary, is not the most useful form of a verb, as most sentences do not need the extra 'to' in them. The only tense without any prefixes or suffixes is past tense. There is also a suffix difference, if the verb is used in a positive or negative sense. So, a 'stem noun' has no suffixes, and is past tense, indicative form (opposite of infinitive), and positive grade. Everything else needs suffixes, and in some cases prefixes. Again, study the conjugation chart very carefully!

On many words, especially nouns, it is hard to determine if the correct nominative ending is -at or -lat. On words that have a misleading ending, look in the wiki. Most words that have a misleading ending have their stem form shown, so you can learn what the correct endings are, that you can use.

Don't be afraid to ask questions. there are several folks who watch this list and are always glad to help!

Ahhh I see that made it a bit clearer, so would you say I should learn these correct conjugations and declensions first before I go any further ? Also is Dothraki quite closely related to English ? like can I use some examples for grammar from English and apply them to Dothraki or will I needto learn the way I learned English by just building up lessons and the fundamentals of the language by scratch ? Sorry if this makes no sense or seems silly but I basically know what a verb, noun and pronouns are anything else I'm not so sure of

[KhalToddy]

I think for an absolute beginner Sunquan's lessons are the easiest starting point. The wiki is the most complete and accurate information repository available, but there's only little tutorial style stuff there.

It's very easy to be swamped with terminology - and it does not help that many of us are amateurs who won't always use the techical terms even exactly right. You'll eventually need to familiarize yourself with terms like nouns and verbs, declination and conjugation, object and subject, case and tense ... the list goes on and on. Take your time and make a good friend out of Wikipedia.

You see it was his YouTube page I first visited when I decided I wanted to learn the language of the Dothraki but I got the impression he assumed his viewers had a lot of previous grammatical knowledge so I went to the wiki which confused me even more then I came here, maybe I never gave him a fair chance.

[KhalToddy]

M'athchomaroon, zhey  KhalToddy.

Hash yer dothrae chek, Hrakkar, i have seen that word "zhey" used a few times so when i seen you say it to me i automatically looked it up, it says "vocative marker" i have no idea what that could be but i thought maybe only people with certain "vocations" can have it infront of there title or maybe it distinguishes difference between hobbies and trades/vocations ?

[ingsve]

M'athchomaroon, zhey  KhalToddy.

Hash yer dothrae chek, Hrakkar, i have seen that word "zhey" used a few times so when i seen you say it to me i automatically looked it up, it says "vocative marker" i have no idea what that could be but i thought maybe only people with certain "vocations" can have it infront of there title or maybe it distinguishes difference between hobbies and trades/vocations ?

No, vocative means that it marks direct address i.e. that you are talking directly to someone rather than about them. There is an old word in English that had this same function, the word O as is "O ye of little faith" or "But be not thou far from me, O Lord".

In Dothraki it's mainly used in front of a name or a title when you are talking directly to someone like in a greeting etc.

[KhalToddy]

M'athchomaroon, zhey  KhalToddy.

Hash yer dothrae chek, Hrakkar, i have seen that word "zhey" used a few times so when i seen you say it to me i automatically looked it up, it says "vocative marker" i have no idea what that could be but i thought maybe only people with certain "vocations" can have it infront of there title or maybe it distinguishes difference between hobbies and trades/vocations ?

No, vocative means that it marks direct address i.e. that you are talking directly to someone rather than about them. There is an old word in English that had this same function, the word O as is "O ye of little faith" or "But be not thou far from me, O Lord".

In Dothraki it's mainly used in front of a name or a title when you are talking directly to someone like in a greeting etc.

Oh i now see its just a way of letting someone know your talking about them, so it wouldnt be used if you were talking about someone to another, just to that very person ? Thank you for clearing that up.

[Hrakkar]

Most of the linguistic terms seem to have their root in Latin, so there 'voca' or something like it means 'voice'.

It takes some getting used to linguistic terminology. It is sometimes hard to grasp that we have such complex words to describe something as natural as talking and listening. In the early days, the Na'vi community had an 'Introduction to Linguistic Terminology'. I suspect it is way out of date, as it appeared in the first couple of weeks of the community's existence. I think that this might be a good document to borrow and adapt for Dothraki (and probably Valyrian as well). For instance, gemination (double consonants) is really important in Dothraki, and is not used in Na'vi at all.

Although I have not watched many of them, Sunquan's videos are excellent.

There are a number of 'marker' words in Dothraki. In general, they are kind of like signs or placeholders, that suggest that some linguistic function is about to take place. Zhey, as has laready been pointed out, is like the English 'O', before a name or title, and pretty much used the same way.

I would not say that Dothraki follows the rules of English as much as it follows the basic rules of all languages. Anons, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, conjunctions, subjects, objects, particles, etc. They pretty much do the same thing in nearly all languages, and the terms to describe them attempt to standardize their meaning across all languages.

This is the 'high road' way to learn a language. This is the tougher way to learn, but there really isn't a 'low road' (like Rosetta Stone) way to learn Dothraki yet. The other advantage to the 'high road' way is it makes learning other languages much easier in the future. And if you are at all like me, it opened up a whole new world of meaning in language!

[KhalToddy]

Most of the linguistic terms seem to have their root in Latin, so there 'voca' or something like it means 'voice'.

It takes some getting used to linguistic terminology. It is sometimes hard to grasp that we have such complex words to describe something as natural as talking and listening. In the early days, the Na'vi community had an 'Introduction to Linguistic Terminology'. I suspect it is way out of date, as it appeared in the first couple of weeks of the community's existence. I think that this might be a good document to borrow and adapt for Dothraki (and probably Valyrian as well). For instance, gemination (double consonants) is really important in Dothraki, and is not used in Na'vi at all.

Although I have not watched many of them, Sunquan's videos are excellent.

There are a number of 'marker' words in Dothraki. In general, they are kind of like signs or placeholders, that suggest that some linguistic function is about to take place. Zhey, as has laready been pointed out, is like the English 'O', before a name or title, and pretty much used the same way.

I would not say that Dothraki follows the rules of English as much as it follows the basic rules of all languages. Anons, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, conjunctions, subjects, objects, particles, etc. They pretty much do the same thing in nearly all languages, and the terms to describe them attempt to standardize their meaning across all languages.

This is the 'high road' way to learn a language. This is the tougher way to learn, but there really isn't a 'low road' (like Rosetta Stone) way to learn Dothraki yet. The other advantage to the 'high road' way is it makes learning other languages much easier in the future. And if you are at all like me, it opened up a whole new world of meaning in language!

Yeah ill definitely look that up as it seems to be the terminology thats throwing me off, and i see that was a pretty dumb question on my part i just hadto put it into words i would understand so these are really the building blocks for all languages. Thank you so much for all your help hrakkar you obviously have a passion for parting knowledge onto beginners and experts alike, i am now going to go go and watch sunquan's videos and learn everything i can off him then polish off my skills at the wiki and if i have any troubles ill be sure to post on this forum. Fonas chek, until next time.

[Hrakkar]

And of course, don't be afraid to ask questions, even dumb questions. When you are learning something new, there are no dumb questions.