Messages

16

Beginners / Re: Help needed for a senior thesis

« on: March 13, 2013, 11:37:12 am »

Hey, if you've got somewhere you need to be, feel free to leave me to my own devices here.  I'm still trying to work out my riddle.  Would it be "Ajjin vaster, me samvaan.  Fini me?" or "Vaster ajjin, me samvaan.  Fini me?"  The latter sounds better in English ("Speak now, it is breaking.  What is it?"), but then it would be, "Vaster.  Ajjin me samvaan.  Fini me?" ("Speak.  Now it is breaking.  What is it?")  And that's if I have my Dothraki grammar right in the first place.

If it were the third option, vaster would no longer be acceptable (if it was to begin with).  Sooo...

Anha vasterak.  Ajjin me samvaan.  Fini me?

Does that work?  I'm talking out my ass here.

17

Beginners / Re: Help needed for a senior thesis

« on: March 13, 2013, 11:22:12 am »

You've got no reason to be sorry.  I came butting my nose into your topic. 

18

Beginners / Re: Help needed for a senior thesis

« on: March 13, 2013, 11:14:31 am »

You'd know more about it than I would. 

And I wanted to try and translate a riddle.  I've got most of the pieces, I think, to string together; I just need to hammer out the proper syntax.  I'm looking at the riddle, "No sooner spoken than broken.  What am I?"

These are the words I've compiled that I think I'd need:

(samva) broken
(vasterat) to converse, to speak with
(ajjin) now
(vos) (negator)
(fini) what (question word, when speaking of an inanimate object)
(me) it, he, she

And what I've got so far is:

Ajjin vaster, me samvaan.  Fini me?

Which to me sounds like, "Now speak, it is breaking.  What is it?"

19

Beginners / Re: Help needed for a senior thesis

« on: March 13, 2013, 10:48:33 am »

Yes.  Let's. 

... Want to play a game?

20

Beginners / Re: Help needed for a senior thesis

« on: March 13, 2013, 10:34:30 am »

I wouldn't be the one to ask for the Dothraki way, but in English they would be lowercase purely because of their connotation.  The speaker isn't pointing to east and west as specific locations or regions, but as a direction.

21

Beginners / Nesolat, Ezolat, Ganat

« on: March 13, 2013, 10:30:53 am »

I'm bringing this topic back to life because I have a question (and it's too small of one to warrant a whole new topic).  Are there any key differences between the three ways to say "to learn" in Dothraki?  Or are they interchangeable?

I pulled all three from here.

22

David's Dothraki blog / Riddles

« on: March 13, 2013, 10:22:13 am »

I'm new and all, but I have what I think is an interesting suggestion.  Why not Dothraki riddles?  They'd flesh out the Dothraki culture more (like the haikus did) and give those of us who've started learning the language interesting brain teasers to play with (since we'd first have to translate the riddle correctly and then find the answer).

23

Beginners / Re: Help needed for a senior thesis

« on: March 13, 2013, 10:08:28 am »

Sorry to get you excited if you thought this was someone answering your question (I'm as new as you are).  But wouldn't east and west be lowercase (I'm unfamiliar with nominative versus ablative) because only the direction is specified, not the location?  I'm talking about the difference between a relative geographical direction versus a specific region/culture/ethnicity.

The wind blew from the east.

The man came from the East.

In those examples east is used a general direction, while East in English indicates that this man is from a specific location relative to the speaker's.  So... they would be nominative, wouldn't they?

I could just not know what I'm talking about.  I tend to stick my nose into conversations I have no business being in.

24

Introductions / Athchomar chomakea. Hake anne Jasati.

« on: March 13, 2013, 09:37:45 am »

Athchomar chomakea.  Hake anne Jasati.  Anha jasak hajinaan mezhilak erin asti.  Anha, zhey Jasati, atak nesolaan Dothraki.

Hello everyone; I know I probably made plenty of mistakes, but I hope I did okay for my first attempt (this is my first time learning a conlag).  I built my name using the examples David gave on his blog, instead of with the Wiki.  If I got this wrong... well, I hope I can still change it. 

I went with, "jasak" because I couldn't find a word in the English to Dothraki dictionary purely for laugh, and the rule in tutorial 1 to reduce a word to its base was to drop to be (at/lat).  I tagged, "-ak" at the end because I've noticed it tends to follow Anha (i.e. anha qiyak, anha sajak, etc.).  "me-" before zhilak because it follows hajinaan, and I couldn't find "to love something" so I chose "to love someone".  I used erin asti because asti seemed an acceptable root of astilat (or would it just be ast?).  That's the sentence I had the most difficulty with, and would greatly appreciate it if someone could come along and give me a play-by-play of what I've said.

"I was shooting for, "Respect to those that are respected.  My name is Jasati.  I am (laughter) because I love a good joke.  I, Jasati, will learn Dothraki."