Learn Dothraki > Dothraki Language Updates

Animate or inanimate nouns.

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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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