Learn Dothraki > Dothraki Language Updates

Things learnt from IM.

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ingsve:
I just chatted a bit with David Peterson over AIM to get some questions answered. Here is what was learnt.

First of all I asked about the relationship between verbs and certain mouns. We have for example the verb dothralat which mean to ride and dothrak that means rider. Since we have a lot of words that is some type of person that has the ending -ak I figured that they work the same way. I asked David about this and he confirmed that this is true. -ak is like an agentive suffix. This means two things. We have a bunch of nouns that we can now form verbs out of and we also have lots of verbs that we can form some type of agent nouns out of.  It won't always be straightforward what the new word will mean or how common it would be in the language etc but it wouldn't be wrong per se especially in the right context.

Some of the new words that have been derived in this way is:

fonat=to hunt
verat=to travel
vichomerat="to be respectful"

Another word, sajat, can also be formed but it's not known right now what it means. We also have the word ifak=foreigner but that meaning is only metaphorical. We already know the corresponding verb ifat to mean to walk so the literal translation of the word ifak is walker which of course is a good word to describe foreigners for the dothraki.

This also confirms a translation I had guess which was that awazak=screamer.

I also oncfirmed another translation. We guessed that the word as means words which is true but it is the accusative form. The nominative is ase.
The accusative for inanimate nouns is formed by dropping the last vowel as long as the remaining word doesn't violate the rule of what consonants or clusters a word can end on.

There are two ways of saying "you" depending on who is listening. The common word to use is yer but when you want to be respectful you instead use the word shafka. Furthermore the word shafki means your and shafkea is the allative case.

-oon is the ablative suffix and -aan is the allative suffix.

The word vos=not

In sentences where there is a controlverb there is a complementizer that is added to the noun.

Example: Anha goshok mehrazef shafki athiroe.

I am.sure that.horse your will survive.

the prefix me- is the complementizer in this case. It can in this example be compared to the role that the word that has in the sentence "I'm sure that your horse will survive". It doesn't always work like the english that but in this case it works ok.

Also David says hi to everyone.

KoErin:
Kudos, Ingsve, this is a great, great job. 

Allative, acusative, ablative, dear lord... in Portuguese, such things have different names or don't even exist!

But, many thanks. Also, Say hi to Peterson :)

ingsve:

--- Quote from: KoErin on April 05, 2011, 04:12:15 pm ---Kudos, Ingsve, this is a great, great job. 

Allative, acusative, ablative, dear lord... in Portuguese, such things have different names or don't even exist!

But, many thanks. Also, Say hi to Peterson :)

--- End quote ---

Portugese probably has the accusative case but allative and ablative are very uncommon among the common european languages so I wouldn't be surprised if you've never heard of them.

ShadowedSin:
Liking how his verbs so far are have some regularization with their suffixes. Though I'm pretty sure we'll see some irregular verbs sometime, though I know many of us conlangers despise those things. I know it's something I removed in my last language >>

ingsve:
I chatted a bit with David Peterson again today. He wanted to clear up some confusion over a couple of words. I had asked about the words vichomerak and chomak which seemed to have the same meaning and David had also mentioned that using the word chomak while adressing a dothraki would be seen as insulting and he wanted to explain why that is.

First of all, we know these words mainly from the greeting Athchomar chomakea which means "respect to those that are respectful".

To start off we have the root chom which relates to respect. From this we have the verb chomat which means "to be respectful" and the noun athchomar which means "respect".
The other expression we have seen is vichomerat which seems to be the same word but with the circumfix /vi- -er/ added. David explained that this circumfix has the meaning of changing an action verb from something done at an instant into something done for a prolonged time. So while chomat means "to be respectful", vichomerat instead means "to be habitually respectful".

He gave another example as well. The verb tihilat means "to look at, to glace at", vitihirat instead means "to watch, to observe" which would imply prolonged looking.

Now, the reason why using the word chomak (one that is respectful) to a dothraki is insulting is that it implies that someone isn't respectful since you make an overt reference to it. Respect between fellow dothraki is something that is taken for granted so when you overtly refer to a fellow dothraki as being respectful it sends up a red flag. David gave the example of a husband and a wife and trust. Trust between a married couple is something that is taken for granted so when the wife says to the husband "I trust you" it means that she probably doesn't trust him because why would she then need to state it. It's the same way with the word chomat and the dothraki. You don't have to ever state that you trust a fellow dothraki so when you do it implies that you don't really trust them.

As for the uses of chomak and vichomerak that relates to when the dothraki are speaking to people outside the tribe. When they first meet someone that they respect, like Jorah Mormont for example, they might refer to him as chomak, "one who is respected". If they have a long and continuous relationship with someone they respect they would eventually switch and refer to them as vichomerak instead meaning something like "one who is respected for a long time".

Another thing that was learnt from the chat is that there are four different words for the word "that". In the previous chat summary above I mentioned the prefix me- which is a complementizer in the specific sentence used in that example. Today David also used the word fini in an example: Serja fini haja which means "a leather west that is strong". Fini is a complementizer in relative clauses and also translates as "that".

On top of those examples we also have the "that" which appears when we point at something, like that fool. We already know a word for this which is rek but David now tells us that there are two different words used depending on how far away from you something is. Rek refers to something that is further away from you while there is another word that we yet don't know that is used for things that are right next to you or close to you metaphorically.

David also said that we will get lots more info when the Language Creation Conference comes around. They are allowed to release anything they want during talks/presentations so hopefully we will get lots of good info in a few weeks time.

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