Messages

In fact in your own example you make my point... even the stative makes it "one who is beautiful" not "one he is beauty-fied"...

"I am beautiful" is the very example of Active Voice...

At least we can agree that when this -ak is applied to a verb it creates an active agent.

[Shekh ma shieraki anni]

That's good,  but shouldn't you use a more passive agent? Because the "love of my life" is actually the "lovee" you mean, not the "lover" that is the one who is speaking, the eromenes, not the erostes.

I can se your logic in reasoning this, but the usage of language is ultimately determined by culture. Since Shekh ma shieraki anni and Jalan athirari anni have been established by culture, they would be the most appropriate terms to use. As far as passivity goes, true love, especially between two people, in not a 'passive' thing in the least. A more passive construction might be saved for a sentence like 'I love rutabagas'.

Sometimes, for some reason, the word that would best 'fit the bill' in English simply does not exist in another language, and I think this is a good example. Another, even stronger example of this comes from Na'vi, where there there is no infinitives. So therefore, to say 'I love you' requires the more complex construction Yawne nga lu oeru - 'beloved you (are) to me'. (Of course, these words can be freely rearranged as Na'vi has free word order).

I totally agree with you in these respects.

But you mistake what I said. I'm not saying love is passive, I'm saying that in this case "love of my life" what one means is "the one I love", the "love" as in "the object of my love" which is the person I'm referring to. In this case the noun is "passive" syntactically, because it is "the object of my love" (note that object is the accusative you'd use in "te amo" for latin). That is why this "love of my life" can be easily replaced with "beloved of my life" (note a passive verb). If you use -ak, I think it implies an active aspect, "to ride" -> "rider" (he who rides), "to guard" -> "guard" (he who guards), "to love" -> "lover" (he who loves someone), so in this case, the one saying the words is the "zhilak" and the other... well... the "zhilak-ee" xD

But I agree with you about the culture determining the construction and I agree that "Jalan athirari anni" and the other are the norm to express this very common expression of ours. Also that each languages can express it in their own way.

Btw: don't we have a way to turn verbs into nouns? Shouldn't we try that? (If we want to use that phrasing, but I repeat I concur that "Jalan..." is the more common way to express this).

Cheers guys, I'll get an IRC plugin and see if I can get online when you're all there.

To be fair, conlanging "is" pretty geeky.  But still, I've never slept out overnight in front of a cinema dressed as an Ent or Klingon or what have you, nor do I make chainmail and go to reenactment fairs etc, so I figure the hardcore fantasy fans are still nerdier than most of the linguists are.

I'm with you on that last note, my friend. Myself I did toy around with my own version of Valyrian, and I'd be quite interested in contacting you. Do you have an e-mail, or messenger you use frequently?

That's good,  but shouldn't you use a more passive agent? Because the "love of my life" is actually the "lovee" you mean, not the "lover" that is the one who is speaking, the eromenes, not the erostes.

Wow! So the first confirmation of Valyrian, and it seems it's already developed enough to deliver a speech!
They didn't go with gibberish for that while waiting for David to develop something else, right?

Hi there and welcome to the group! Great to meet you and see that we have so much in common.

I hope you enjoy the language and also check David's blog to see the latest comments about it: http://www.dothraki.com/

Do you have any messenger? Skype, Msn, Gtalk?

[Zhey ave kishi fini vekha she asavva]

So... the best we have, (thanks to all the suggestions, ideas, corrections, comments, etc from Hrakkar, Qvaak and Ingsve!) is:

Zhey ave kishi fini vekha she asavva
Our father who is in heaven
Vichomerates hake shafki.
May thy name be honored.
Jadates khalasar shafki.
May thy kingdom come.
Tates ki athzalari shafki, ven she sorfosor ven she asavva.
May thy *will be done, in earth as in heaven.

Now we have a few lines left. May I suggest:

Azhi kishaan hadaen kishi asshekh (can't find "daily" or "everyday" or anything there)
Give us our food today
-- (here we have no "forgive" or "forget" or "take away" or "debt")
Vos idro kisha Melaan (no word for "temptation")
Don't drive us into Evil
ma *asserisi kisha (formal imperative) Meloon (from seris 'free' > *serisat (taking into account naqis/naqisat) and then causative *asserisat)
and *free us from Evil

* Words with asterisk mean that we had to derive them from other words and are guesses.

Well, this has been tough and it can't be done with the limited corpus we know to date. But it's been fun to try, suggestions? Ideas?

Where do you all hang to chat?

On the IRC. irc.dothraki.org/dothraki

Why is it that I still can't get on that thing!?

Any news in the dothraki wiki word by word development?

And it might be that Dothraki city names (not that they have many cities) are always formed this way.

So it seems... we can begin translating our cities' names into Dothraki! Saying 'hi' from Vaes Davrachaf! Or Erinchaf? 'Good Winds' or Vaes Erini Chafi? Vaes Davrasi Chafi? It should be animate right? with plural

I doubt it can be seen as an adposition. Having two nouns next to each other already has a meaning so in the strictest sense Vaes Dothrak could be read as "The city is a rider". I think one way to look at it is as a compound phrase or simply as a proper name.

Well, I'm sorry to bring this up again but I think I was right with my idea: http://www.dothraki.com/2012/04/halahasar-tolorri/#comment-430

Here David explains Vaes Tolorro as an apposition of the two words, and gives as an example of another apposition the name of the city Vaes Dothrak, "Rider City" not that the city is a rider.

Cheers!

Oh, so I need to have a server too?

Talking about the dothraki wiki and all... I have a question... how did you do it? I mean, it's not a wikia project, how do I have to do to make a wiki? I wanted to make one about a Saga of books in Spanish, but I don't know how.

Thanks a lot to all for the corrections, suggestions and all the work