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The fine folk who worked to compile the dictionary probably used pre-existing rules of root modification set by DJP to create a whole mess of words that aren't used in the show. I believe the show hasn't even used an eighth (maybe less) of what is in the dictionary.

Huh, I'm I've done the same with my Bible translation (which is still on-going, just been really busy), so yeah I get it.

True.  I think Dothraki has the same problem as spanish, where words contain many syllables and aren't as efficient about carrying meaning.  This makes Dothraki speakers speak at a rather fast rate in order to carry a conversation at a normal interval of time.  I'm not the best at explaining what I'm talking about, so I'll let the paper explain for me:
http://ronnetsell.net/html/rate_of_speech_and_comms_effic.html

Oh yeah, no I know what you're talking about. Speaking anecdotally, the speed of my California English just can't compared to my Spanish!

Honestly, I wouldn't use ammithrat all that much since I have the Jussive instead. Using your example sentence, I would much prefer it to be structured as "Mithrates hrazef" or "Let the horses rest" than the needlessly long "Kisha eth ammrithi ammithraki hrazef hatif dothrae adothraki alle".

My bad, guess I'm not used to conjugating the 1st person plural. I'm wondering where ammithrat came from since it's not in the dialog. Maybe the handbook? Also, while that might work in this context, what if I wanted to say "we rested the horses before riding further."? You'd kind of have to say "Kisha ammithrish hrazef hatif adothraki alle." I suppose you could say "Kisha azhish hrazefaan mithrat hatif kisha adothraki alle.", but then thats longer than just using ammithrat, and if the word exists, it must be used, as odd as it may seem to us non-Dothraki speakers.

I'm gonna have to disagree with you there, Choyosor; mithrat = se reposer, ammithrat = faire se reposer
Kisha eth ammithri hrazef hatif dothrae alle. - Nous devons faire se reposer les chevaux avant de continuer à monter.

Yeah you're probably right since you appear to know french better than I do (which is to say none at all).  I just looked up the definition of ammithrat, which has no distinction from mithrat in the dictionary, and found an example sentence in french online.  Triple translation is tough on a wee boy like me

Haha, Well that's two years of high school French, 4 years of Duolingo, and 22 years of speaking a related language gets you (mostly the knowing a related language thing)! Yeah, I think just to rest as a transitive verb is weird in English, though it is acceptable. "We should rest the horses" or "We should make the horses rest" sound odd (at least to me). "We should give the horses a rest," "We should let the horses rest" might be more idiomatic and natural-sounding translations (again, at least for my dialect of English).

p.s. I fully expect Alizia to ask me to translate my atrocious French and please no one ask me to actually try and speak French because I'm sure I sound like I have a potato in my mouth when I do.

M'ath! Anha iddek yera!

I actually got into Dothraki the same way! Eventually I started watching the show too which is phenomenal. And yeah, if a person doesn't have any interest in the language and/or the culture surrounding that language, it's gonna be very hard to make someone learn it. Choyosor's outline is the best way to start learning the language, though I would add that you also look through the dialog on here once you've learned the core grammar to get a better feel for how the language works, and don't hesitate to post in the beginner's section or pm one of us with any questions. I'm still relatively newish myself, but I at least have much of the core grammar down and anything else I'm more than happy to try and figure out! I try to check the forums daily but If I don't respond for a day or two I'm probably busy with school or life but will do my best to respond as soon as possible.

p.s. I should also add that David Peterson has made other conlangs for sci-fi and fantasy shows such as the languages of Defiance, Trigedasleng for the 100 (the most enthusiastic community around his languages, according to David Peterson, and the easiest to learn since it's descended from English), and the languages of the new Emerald City show. You will also be able to learn High Valyrian on Duolingo sometime this summer, as David Peterson himself is working on a course for the language.
https://incubator.duolingo.com/courses/hv/en/status

[ale]

What is the different between "ale" and "alikh" ? Why they don't be adverbs ?

Well, according to the dictionary, because one's a noun and the other is an adjective. No but seriously, it's just because that's how Dothraki developed. Consider plus in French: it comes from latin adjective plus, which was used like any ol' adjective in the plural but required the following noun to be in the genitive in the singular:
Sunt plures feles hic. - There are more cats here. - Il y a plus de chats ici.
but
Est plus casei. - There is more (of the) cheese. - Il y a plus de fromage.

Plures and feles are both in the nominative plural in the first sentence, but in the second plus is in the nominative singular and caseum in the genitive singular. You can see how over time this little quirk in the singular spread to the plural.

As in French, adjectives in Latin could also stand alone, acting like nouns.
Ego volo plus (alicuius). - I want more (of something). - Je veux plus (de quelque chose).

You can already see how plus can start to be reanalyzed as an adverb. Eventually quantity and degree where conflated in Vulgar Latin, As plus + adj. started to replace the comparative and superlative.
Ego sum fortior quam is. > *Eo su plus forte qua illui. - I am braver than he is. - Je suis plus brave que lui.
Now we lop off that "qua illui" and we get:
Ego sum fortior. > Eo su plus forte. - I am braver. - je suis plus brave.
And thus plus became reanalyzed as an adverb in French with de taking the place of the lost genitive when used with nouns.


In terms of ale and alikh and their uses:
We know they're not used with adjectives, as Dothraki as the comparative and superlative for that.

Here's two examples of Dany using ale as an adjective with a noun:
Dany S6E6: Anha aqafak san ale yeroa ei Khaloon ray qaf khalasaroon mae! - I will ask more of you (or, a heap more from you) than any Khal has ever asked of his khalasar!

Dany S6E4: Hazi ale khadosoon. - That is more than most have.

In the first example you see ale being used like any other adjective to modify the noun. The same is true in the second, only it's in the predicate.

I think the most adverby form will be ale:
Anha acharak vos ale.

Alikh, meanwhile, acts as a dummy noun when the grammar requires it, similar to san + gen. and plus + gen. in Latin:
Drogo S1E7: Kisha vastoki vos alikh hrazefi ido m'adori shiqethi. - "Let us speak speak no more about wooden horses or iron chairs."
*Anha zalak mesine ale. - I want more soup. - Je veux plus de soupe.
*Anha zalak alikh. - I want more. - Je veux plus.
But they sometimes appear interchangeable,:
Drogo S1E8: Anha acharak vos ale. - I will hear no more.
Dany S2E5: Anha acharak vos alikh. - I will hear no more.
Drogo S2E10: ...ma anha zigerok nesat vos alikh. - ...and I don't need to know more.

seeing as san is also treated as an adverb, I guess it makes sence alikh would be too. It's possible both forms can currently be used adverbially, and Dothraki will eventually settle on one or the other (because the Dothraki are totes real and GoT is a documentary series, right?), but who knows? (Well, David, David Peterson knows.)

Ammithrat = se reposer

Me ammithri mra okre mae = Elle se repose dans sa chambre

I'm gonna have to disagree with you there, Choyosor; mithrat = se reposer, ammithrat = faire se reposer
Kisha eth ammithri ammithraki hrazef hatif dothrae adothraki alle. - Nous devons faire se reposer les chevaux avant de continuer à monter.

(pardon mon français, je ne suis pas locuteur natif. On doit dire "nous devons faire se reposer les chevaux," ou "nous devons faire les chevaux se reposer?" lequel sonne plus naturel?)

[tikkheya]

M'athchomaroon !

I don't understand what melikheya and tikkheya means... "the patient's/instigator's half of the act". Have you some example to explain that ?

They're linguistic terms having to do with grammatical agency. I believe they correspond with English patient and agent, respectively, maybe patient/agent+verb since tikkheya is also listed as meaning verb? An agent is a noun or noun phrase in a sentence that carries out the action while a patient is a noun or noun phrase that undergoes or receives a verb's action. e.g. "the boy hit the ball." "the boy" is the agent and "the ball" is the patient. Don't confuse agent with subject and patient with direct object, Even if we make the sentence passive ("the ball was hit by the boy") "the boy" is still the agent and "the ball" the patient. You can read a bit more about it on their wikipedia pages:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_(grammar)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_(grammar)

[to slice/cut into]

Alright, I have a question regarding the root of two words:

Is there a connection between the verbs to slice/cut into(rissat) and to fix (arrissat)? If so, what semantics lead to this connection?

perhaps arrissat: to make cut > to make sharp > to make useful, make work (a dull arakh is a useless arakh, afterall) > to fix?

on an unrelated note, I think rhoa should be marked as a class A inanimate noun in the dictionary, based on its use in S2E2:

Jin tish mori! Mori ogish ven mae ven rho.
They did! They butchered him like an animal.

Nem azhates shafkea ei rek shafki zali, M'Azhates Vojjori shafkea san azhasavvi ma rhojosorea m'okeosea akka!   

Would it be at all possible to just put this into a google doc and get updates in real time? I think that may be easier then trying to update and sync our two documents.

I much prefer Word over Google docs but I'll give it a try. I update the docs attached to the first post with all the correction I make, though, so everything is up to date. I also won't be making so many changes hereon out. My next post will only have 6 corrections to ch. 1-5 plus the translation of ch. 6, which I have finish but have to look over for errors.

[movekkhat]

UPDATE: this information is now obsolete, see first reply to this post.

M'ath eyak!

To improve my understanding of the Dothrai language and better my Bible translation I've gone back to all the dialog available and found some interesting tidbits I thought I'd share concerning expressing purpose in Dothraki.

Expressing purpose in Dothraki was my weakest area in Dothraki grammar and was the main reason I went back to the dialog. You can express the purpose in Dothraki in a couple of ways:

The verb movekkhat[to be intended for, be for] is clearly meant for expressing purpose:
Mas ovray movekkhi moskay.
The remaining valuables are for loading. Jorah S2E10

There is, however, something fishy about this construction. This is the only instance of a concatenative verb taking the present participle rather than the infinitive form of a verb. The fact that Jorah, a non-native speaker, is the only one heard using it and that the gerund/present participle is also used in the English translation make me wonder if this is not a non-native speaker's mistake, and the sentence should in fact be *mas ovray movekkhi moskat. Both Spanish and English have concatenative verb +infinitive and concatenative verb + gerund/present participle constructions, though, so perhaps not.

If you want to say something is good for some purpose, you might also use the verb davralat:
Haesh rakhi davrae zafraan.
Lamb men make good slaves., or, Lamb men are good for slaves. Rakharo S1E8

Let's say you want to express the purpose of a noun in a clause; a simple relative clause of purpose will do the job:
Ador finaan khal nevasoe.
A chair for a king to sit on. (lit. A chair that a king sits on.) Dany S1E7

Again, here's Khal Drogo, dropping the relative pronoun but otherwise expressing the same idea:
Khal vos zigereo adoroon anevasoe maan.
A khal doesn't need a chair to sit on, or A khal doesn't need a chair [he] sits on it. Drogo S1E7

If you've studied Latin, you know that purpose and result can be muddied together and treated the same way. Dothraki seems do something similar, using majin plus a verb in the future tense to tie together the main clause and subordinate clause:
Khal Drogo vazhoe mora azzafrokea, majin azzafroki vazhi kishaan ma hoshor ma tasokh ma tawakof.
Khal Drogo will make a gift of them to the slavers, and/and so/so that the slavers will give us gold and silk and steel. Rakharo S1E8

You might even drop the majin, as one of Khal Moro's wives does here:
Khal Moro: Hash khal drivoe, hash at gachi disse vekha ha khaleesisaan mae.
Wife #1: Vaes Dothrak. Vaesof Doshi Khaleen.
Wife #2: [majin] Athira asshekhis mae ma khaleenisoa khali drivi.

Khal Moro: When a khal dies, there is only place for his khaleesi.
Wife #1: Vaes Dothrak. The Temple of the Dosh Khaleen.
Wife #2: To live out her days with the widows of dead khals. Or, [and so] she will live out her days with the widows of dead khals S6E1

And earlier from Qhono:
Anha vo zigerok meme deva ahilek mae vi choyokh.
I don't need that she [is smart?] I will 'hit' her through the ass. Qhono S6E1

You can see both in action in the Dosh Khaleen Priestess's words in S6E3:
Ei khalasari ray essash vaesaan ershe haji Khalaroon Vezhvena, fini ashiloe mori ajerie ostirge mori haji aheshkoon sila meshes.
All the khalasars have returned to the ancient city for the Khalar Vezhven, who will meet[and so]they discuss their plans for the coming winter. Dosh Khaleen Priestess S6E3

Using verbs like movekkhat and davralat, relative clauses, and majin plus the future tense, Dothraki is able to comfortably express purpose.

Quite a few changes again, although this time most have to do with expressing purpose, something I've had a lot of trouble with in Dothraki. I'll be writing up a post on what I've found concerning expressing purpose in Dothraki, but for now everything I uncovered has been implemented in this translation.

Some of the more common or systematic changes were:

all instances of Khal > VEZHAK in small caps
Changed treatment of rhoa from inanimate to animate and changed bare stem from rho to rhoa in all words derived from it.
Removed all instanced of hash were not needed e.g. "Hash fin yer ray et?" [Gen 3:13]
Gen 5 - all instances of ei ashekhi fini X thir meshes > ei asshekhi atthirari X jadish; mra qora > yolish maan; me e avesaan X > X yol maan; irge athyolari X > irge X yol; makhalaleqel to mahalaleqel; Noah > Noakh

[zhey]

I skimmed through Living Language: Dothraki just now and found these three instances of zhey:
Anha tih avees yer, zhey Zhaqo, asshekh.
I saw your father, Zhaqo, today. p.32

Khal shafki, zhey Khal Saddo, me ray atthas san dozgi.
Your Khal, Khal Saddo, He has laid low many enemies. p.107

San athcomari shafkea, zhey lajak.
Much respect to you, warrior. p.108

The last one is clearly the traditional vocative case, but in the first two zhey is again acting as a clarifier, adding additional information to the sentence.

Good find, zhey HoeriVezhof!
(Its interesting we don't have a noun for 'find', 'catch' or 'discovery'.

Thank you! and perhaps *ezikh from ezat[to find] +ikh[resultative], *fogikh from fogat[to hunt] +ikh[resultative], or even qorasokh, if you look at the act of discovering as a hard battle after which you are rewarded with your 'prize' or 'spoils.'

[Ki jini anha astak asqoy, anha, Drogo ki Bharbosi.]

M'ath eyak!
To improve my understanding of the Dothrai language and better my Bible translation I've gone back to all the dialog available and found some interesting tidbits I thought I'd share concerning names.

Names appear to be fully declining animate nouns that take whatever case the sentence requires of it.
Ki jini anha astak asqoy, anha, Drogo ki Bharbosi.
This I vow Drogo son of Bharbo. S1E7

Aggo dothra ma khalasaroon anni
Aggo belonged to my khalasar. S6E4

Hiles Aggoes.
graddakh Aggo. S6E4

However, when the title Khal is placed before the name, only the title is declined. This is consistent throughout the corpus.
Me dothrakhqoyoon torga Khali Bharbo.
He was a Bloodrider under Khal Bharbo. S1E3

Anha aqafak zhey Khaloon Moro ajjalanes ma yeroon.
I'll ask Khal Moro for a night with you. S6E1

Anha chiorikemoon ha Khalaan Drogo ki Bharbosi.
I was wife to Khal Drogo, son of Khal Bharbo. S6E1

Note the use of zhey in the second example, though. We all know zhey as a vocative particle placed before the name of the person being addressed.
Jadi, zhey Jora Andahli.
Come, Jorah the Andal.

Zhey jalan atthirari anni. Hash azisi?
Moon of my live. Are you hurt?

It can even be used as a semi-direct address where the person is present but is merely being pointed out in the discussion, not directly spoken to (Note that in both instances the names are properly declined for their role in the sentence).
Che ishish me vallayafa yera attihat zhey Rhalkoes athyazharoon yeri?
Or maybe you'd like to show Rhalko here what you taste like? S6E4

But there are instances in the corpus like zhey khaloon More where the person being addressed is not physically present.
Hrazef shafki nokittish mahrazhes anni zhey Iggo.
Your horses trampled my man Iggo.

Mori nokittish akka mahrazhes anni zhey Akho.
They also trampled my man Akho. S6E4

Also note the lack of agreement here.
mahrazhes anni zhey Iggo, not mahrazhes anni zhey Iggoes.

So what's going on here? Assuming no errors in the text, it's possible that zhey is acting here as a sort of as a pseudo-topicalizer., emphasizing the following name without fronting it. The lack of agreement in the last two examples may be due to the fact that, like when zhey is playing its vocative role, it is not part of the sentence but simply providing additional information. This is all just speculation, though; there's not enough examples to go on.

There is also this lone usage with a place name by Dany, but seeing as this is the only example of it and it's by a non-native speaker, I don't know how reliable it is.
Zhey Qarth?
Qarth? S2E4

I'm curious to hear what others think about the whole subject of names and zhey's usages.
Anha zalak m'anha acharak dirge shafki aranikhi.

[[26]Majin Vojjor ast, "Movelates kisha mahrazhes fin vena kisha, vekhates venikhi kishi mra mori; javrathates?[to rein in; to rule, to reign] eshin havazhi, ma zir asavvi, ma drogikhey, ma ei ivezhe she sorfosor, ma ei filkakis fini filki she sorfosor." 27Majin Vojjor move mahrazhes venikhaan Mae, venikhaan Vojjores move me mora; mahrazhes ma chiories move me.]

M'ath! Footnotes, Hyperlinks, and a TON more corrections!

So, yeah, I lied when I said there wouldn't be so many corrections next time. Most were minor grammar and typo corrections, some were a change in vocabulary (e.g. Athevar instead of evo, drogikheya instead of rhoa drogikhi. The only major changes were to Gen1:26-27, which I changed to:

[26]Majin Vojjor ast, "Movelates kisha mahrazhes fin vena kisha, vekhates venikhi kishi mra mori;  javrathates?[to rein in; to rule, to reign] eshin havazhi, ma zir asavvi, ma drogikhey, ma ei ivezhe she sorfosor, ma ei filkakis fini filki she sorfosor." 27Majin Vojjor move mahrazhes venikhaan Mae, venikhaan Vojjores move me mora; mahrazhes ma chiories move me.

I'm still not sure if I'm satisfied with it, though.

I also added Footnotes to each chapter. the footnotes contain details about the original hebrew and other text (these taken mostly from my English source) and alternative translation either offered by the English source or provided by me. I've also added hyperlinks to the footnotes as well as to the chapter on a table of contents to make navigating the documents easier.

I think I'm done when it comes to formatting the docs, and I'll be translating each chapter at a slower and more careful pace from now on to avoid such a huge amount of corrections.

[mesilat]

Thank you! I love translation in general, especially as it's generally a good learning exercise and boy is this one one!

Coining additional words is a great idea but with one caveat I think you are already aware of: We can't add any of these new words to the official lexicon becuse all words added there either have to come from David Peterson, or be approved by him (which has happened a couple of times in the past).

Yes, I completely understand that these new words are not official and shouldn't be added to the official lexicon without David Peterson's approval. All these new words are, however, derived from Dothraki words only using the derivational morphology listed here in the Wiki and inferences I've made based on canon examples. Most are fairly straight forward:

      mesilat [to be pregnant] + (s)o [dynamic] = mesisolat [to become pregnant]

others required a bit of creativity, but make sense (to me, at least) as a plausable gloss:

      hethkat [to be ready, prepared] + [causative] = ahhethkat [to make ready, prepare (the land), i.e. to till]

and lastly, some is just a placeholder or just the English in brackets if I see no clear derivation:

      athesinasozar gillosori [changing of the weather, i.e. season] placeholder

I just added the new words' derivations on to the Bible Vocabulary page which I'll update after this post.

That made coming up with a lot of terminology tough to do, especially because the Na'vi are essentially hunter-gatherers. Dothraki on one had contains a lot more culturally appropriate settings for the Biblical world, but lacks a lot of the 'kind' language needed for much of scripture.

The lack of 'kind' language is a problem, fortunately that hasn't been too much of a problem in Genesis for now. If I ever get to Psalms, though...*shudders* Dothraki also doesn't have a lot of agricultural vocabulary, which presents a problem as well.

...this is novel enough that I will share this project with David.

In any case, I'm looking forward to looking over your work when I have more time.

Keep up the good work and God bless!

Thank you so much again! Hopefully I will have already correct the countless errors I've caught having gone over what I have done so far!

P.S. I stickied this thread!