Learn Dothraki and Valyrian

General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: Havazhyol on September 29, 2012, 01:38:48 am

Title: Help for translation
Post by: Havazhyol on September 29, 2012, 01:38:48 am
Hi,

I'm willing to learn and speak Dorthaki (much more classy when yelling at someone then Sindarin ^^ )

I sought for a topic of this kind and did'nt find it, so I launch this one.

I try to define a translation for "unicorn".
Since Dothraki would give a description of this beast, i went along with " Hrazef ma at chiva " which liiteraly means "horse with one horn", i used "one", for I couldn't find a translation for "unique".

Many thanks to those who will help and sorry if this topic is a double.

Fonas chek, Dothraki vezhven!
Title: Re: Help for translation
Post by: ingsve on September 29, 2012, 02:38:38 am
Hi,

I'm willing to learn and speak Dorthaki (much more classy when yelling at someone then Sindarin ^^ )

I sought for a topic of this kind and did'nt find it, so I launch this one.

I try to define a translation for "unicorn".
Since Dothraki would give a description of this beast, i went along with " Hrazef ma at chiva " which liiteraly means "horse with one horn", i used "one", for I couldn't find a translation for "unique".

Many thanks to those who will help and sorry if this topic is a double.

Fonas chek, Dothraki vezhven!

Yes, that's one way of doing it though the preposition ma assigns the ablative case so the phrase would be something like Hrazef ma at chivoon.

You could also create it as a compound word like for example hrazefchiva which would mean something like hornhorse.

BTW, the word unicorn does not come from the word unique. It's from the latin word "unicornis" which is a compound of "unus" meaning one and "cornus" meaning horn.
Title: Re: Help for translation
Post by: Havazhyol on September 29, 2012, 03:43:38 am
Thank you, Admiral. (It's a twap!!!) I think 'ill go with the compounded word.
Title: Re: Help for translation
Post by: Najahho on September 30, 2012, 06:36:17 pm
Then you could translate "unicornus" literally as "atchiva", right? translating each component. Maybe an ending here would be needed? Is there an ending that's used to create animal names from other words?
Title: Re: Help for translation
Post by: ingsve on October 01, 2012, 11:55:28 am
Then you could translate "unicornus" literally as "atchiva", right? translating each component. Maybe an ending here would be needed? Is there an ending that's used to create animal names from other words?

I'm not sure how compounding works when you use a numeral. It might be that at would take on a different form when you use it in a compound which is why I left that option off for now. I was planning on asking David about that on the next IRC chat.
Title: Re: Help for translation
Post by: Hrakkar on October 01, 2012, 12:51:35 pm
And that will be an interesting question to get an answer about. Number/noun combinations have many practical uses.

I would personally go with hrazefchiva. It is much more descriptive than atchiva, and is a term far more likely to be coined by a Dothraki.

There are no special rules I am aware of for animal names, and the names in Dothraki run the gamut. About the only special rule I would think of is to be aware of animacy. At this point, only David can for certain indicate if a word will be animate or inanimate. In general, if a word has an animate ending, it is most likely animate. Some words with inanimate endings are still animate (Hrakkar is a good example).

I wonder if hrazefchiva would be animate? I think unicorns are mentioned a few places in ASOIAF.
Title: Re: Help for translation
Post by: ingsve on October 01, 2012, 02:28:01 pm
And that will be an interesting question to get an answer about. Number/noun combinations have many practical uses.

I would personally go with hrazefchiva. It is much more descriptive than atchiva, and is a term far more likely to be coined by a Dothraki.

There are no special rules I am aware of for animal names, and the names in Dothraki run the gamut. About the only special rule I would think of is to be aware of animacy. At this point, only David can for certain indicate if a word will be animate or inanimate. In general, if a word has an animate ending, it is most likely animate. Some words with inanimate endings are still animate (Hrakkar is a good example).

I wonder if hrazefchiva would be animate? I think unicorns are mentioned a few places in ASOIAF.

No, hrazefchiva is inanimate since it's a compound word. The rules we do have for animacy seem to be exception-free so I see no reason for it not to follow the rule of other compounds.
Title: Re: Help for translation
Post by: Havazhyol on October 02, 2012, 12:58:21 pm
Wow that's what i call a reaction for a topic! (never thought i would lauch such a debate  ;D ) Thanks a lot guys and/or gals!

Now, for practicing the Dothraki I intend to translate texts or songs, but some of the words i have to translate are absents from the dictionnary whether not used by the Dothrakis in ASOIAF, and/or not created by David Peterson yet.

Here are some lacks i found, and tried to fill up :

- to care (for), to matter, to have interest in (someone or something)   ;  i thought to use the sentence "what I want/hope for" (fin zalak).
- to trust (someone or something)   ;  i thought the word "friend, trustee" (okeo) could be a good basis, if turned it to a verb (okeat / okelat...) or something this way.
- to open  ; same as "to trust" I thought the word opening, vulnerability, opportunity (ovrakh) and turning it to a verb.
- to close ; didn't found a way to deal with it.
- truth ; same process as the verb.
- all, every ; didn't found a way to deal with it.
- else  ;  i thought using "other" (eshna).
- forever  ; i went with  "for always" (ha ayyey).

If you have any comment and/or correction, be my guest.

Damn this language is fun  :P
Title: Re: Help for translation
Post by: ingsve on October 02, 2012, 06:03:16 pm
Wow that's what i call a reaction for a topic! (never thought i would lauch such a debate  ;D ) Thanks a lot guys and/or gals!

Now, for practicing the Dothraki I intend to translate texts or songs, but some of the words i have to translate are absents from the dictionnary whether not used by the Dothrakis in ASOIAF, and/or not created by David Peterson yet.

Here are some lacks i found, and tried to fill up :

- to care (for), to matter, to have interest in (someone or something)   ;  i thought to use the sentence "what I want/hope for" (fin zalak).
- to trust (someone or something)   ;  i thought the word "friend, trustee" (okeo) could be a good basis, if turned it to a verb (okeat / okelat...) or something this way.
- to open  ; same as "to trust" I thought the word opening, vulnerability, opportunity (ovrakh) and turning it to a verb.
- to close ; didn't found a way to deal with it.
- truth ; same process as the verb.
- all, every ; didn't found a way to deal with it.
- else  ;  i thought using "other" (eshna).
- forever  ; i went with  "for always" (ha ayyey).



If you have any comment and/or correction, be my guest.

Damn this language is fun  :P

- to care (for), to matter, to have interest in (someone or something)   ;  i thought to use the sentence "what I want/hope for" (fin zalak).

This might be a good intermediate fix but it feels like a concept that there ought to be a more specific word for. It's something to ask David about. Also don't forget the pronoun I = anha. Dothraki is not a language where you can drop the pronoun at will so it should be fin anha zalak.

- to trust (someone or something)   ;  i thought the word "friend, trustee" (okeo) could be a good basis, if turned it to a verb (okeat / okelat...) or something this way.

Respect is something central to the Dothraki so it might work to use chomat + allative case (to respect someone) as a substitute for trusting someone. Since okeo is an animate word I think the stem always includes the last /o/ as well so to make it into a verb would probably be something like okeolat. BTW there is a nice backstory behind the word okeo: http://www.dothraki.com/2012/05/vojjor-ershe-ma-sashi/ (http://www.dothraki.com/2012/05/vojjor-ershe-ma-sashi/)

- to open  ; same as "to trust" I thought the word opening, vulnerability, opportunity (ovrakh) and turning it to a verb.

I'm pretty sure there must be some other word for "to open" since ovrakh has a distinctly different origin which can be seen here: http://www.dothraki.com/2012/06/hash-yer-ast-fin/ (http://www.dothraki.com/2012/06/hash-yer-ast-fin/)

- to close ; didn't found a way to deal with it.

Probably also a specific word needed. Possibly derived from the word for open whatever that turns out to be.

- truth ; same process as the verb.

- all, every ; didn't found a way to deal with it.

"all, every" is simply ei. It's in the vocabulary. Or is there a specific sentence where you don't know how to use it?

- else  ;  i thought using "other" (eshna).

eshna is probably a good choice depending on the context in the sentence.

- forever  ; i went with  "for always" (ha ayyey).

Forever and always are synonyms so you don't need to add "for". For example "I will live with you forever"/"I will live with you always".

I'll send some of these words to David to see what he says about them.
Title: Re: Help for translation
Post by: ingsve on October 09, 2012, 07:48:18 pm
I got some translations from David:

mra zhor + ablative= expression with the meaning "to be important to someone" example arakh mra zhor lajakoon "The sword is important to the warrior." It literally means "The sword is within the heart of the warrior".
azzhonathat=the open, to expose
qisi= close (near)
ayyeyaan or ayyey= forever
shillat=to trust someone
athshillar=trust
Title: Re: Help for translation
Post by: Havazhyol on October 10, 2012, 11:14:23 am
Awesome, many thanks to you. This will greatfully help in my learning process.

Edit : for the verb "to close" , is there a negative derivation that should be used, as vos, which should lead to vos azzhonathat (+ negative declination, of course)
or should a more specific word be used (and so, asked to Khal David?)

One more thing : the verb "To care" should be used as "to matter for"? ex : "I don't care about this"  = "I don't matter about this" ?

Edit 2 : Than i'll patiently wait for it.
Title: Re: Help for translation
Post by: ingsve on October 10, 2012, 12:07:12 pm
Awesome, many thanks to you. This will greatfully help in my learning process.

Edit : for the verb "to close" , is there a negative derivation that should be used, as vos, which should lead to vos azzhonathat (+ negative declination, of course)
or should a more specific word be used (and so, asked to Khal David?)

One more thing : the verb "To care" should be used as "to matter for"? ex : "I don't care about this"  = "I don't matter about this" ?

David didn't have a word for "to care" so he would need some more time to come up with something.
Title: Re: Help for translation
Post by: Najahho on October 10, 2012, 08:25:52 pm
I was going to say that "always" and "forever" are not exactly synonyms. For instance, in Spanish you have "siempre" but also "por siempre", which are used in different circumstances. In the case of the examples you give:

"I will live with you forever"/"I will live with you always".

you have in spanish "Viviré contigo siempre" and "Viviré contigo por siempre"... the meaning is different, albeit very subtly.
Title: Re: Help for translation
Post by: Najahho on October 10, 2012, 08:27:31 pm
Awesome, many thanks to you. This will greatfully help in my learning process.

Edit : for the verb "to close" , is there a negative derivation that should be used, as vos, which should lead to vos azzhonathat (+ negative declination, of course)
or should a more specific word be used (and so, asked to Khal David?)

One more thing : the verb "To care" should be used as "to matter for"? ex : "I don't care about this"  = "I don't matter about this" ?

Edit 2 : Than i'll patiently wait for it.

Well... "not to open" is not exactly the same as "to close"... you are just not opening... but you are not in fact closing.
Title: Re: Help for translation
Post by: Havazhyol on October 16, 2012, 04:26:21 am
Thank you for all your answers.

I now have another question for translation, it is kind of a signature :

I send/throw you a thousand soft kisses, my queen.  -->  Anha ovvethak shafka dalen zoqwa tashi, Khaleesi anni.

Is this correct?



Title: Re: Help for translation
Post by: Qvaak on October 16, 2012, 06:33:00 am
Quote
Anha ovvethak shafka dalen zoqwa tashi, Khaleesi anni.
Ovvethat is an exellent word choice, and conjugated right too. Dalen zoqwa thashi (you missed an h on thashi) is a thing that is thrown, and thus should be the direct object, marked with accusative. We don't know the animacy of zoqwa, and it could easily go either way, so add that to the list of things to ask David, if you want to get this comfortably right. It's either dalen zoqwe thashi or dalen zoqwaes thashi. As inanimate, zoqwa would get an epenthetic -e to ease the pronunciation. There are different ways to deal with plurality when there are numerals modifying the argument, but adjective in plural is a surefire choice here, and the noun here will not mark the plurality anyway, so no problems there.

Shafka is a complementary object, but still needs to be tied to the syntax. It's the target, so allative is the case to go with, I'm sure. Not sure about the word order - is it bad form to put complementary argument before the direct object? Perhaps. If you want to be sure, flip shafkaan after the dalen zoqw[e?] thashi.

Khaleesi anni needs to be introduced with vocative particle zhey preceding it.
Title: Re: Help for translation
Post by: Havazhyol on October 16, 2012, 06:49:35 am
So the sentence would ride the following ways :

Anha ovvethak [shafkaan] dalen zoqwe thashi [shafkaan], Zhey Khaleesi anni  (zoqwa ni)

Or

Anha ovvethak [shafkaan] dalen zoqwaes thashi [shafkaan], Zhey Khaleesi anni  (zoqwa na)

M'kay, one more thing to ask the Khal vezhven...

Thank you Qvaak
Title: Re: Help for translation
Post by: Havazhyol on November 07, 2012, 12:16:38 am
Hi all,

I have some ansmers from David :

to close : Ajjonat.

to open : Esajjonalat.

Azzhonathat does not mean to open, it is the opposite of Qemmolat, to cover. (so it would only mean to expose as Ingsve said)

Zoqwa : (copy/past of his answer)

It's an inanimate noun of Class B, hence its paradigm is:

zoqwa
zoqwe
zoqwi
zoqwaan
zoqwoon


About Unicorn, he had a little preference for the descriptive way (Hrazef ma at chivoon), but since both of the answers worked, he leaves the choice to us...

Fonas chek!

(Sorry for double post)
Title: Re: Help for translation
Post by: Najahho on November 13, 2012, 11:27:19 am
Thank you for all your answers.

I now have another question for translation, it is kind of a signature :

I send/throw you a thousand soft kisses, my queen.  -->  Anha ovvethak shafka dalen zoqwa tashi, Khaleesi anni.

Is this correct?

Well I think ovvethak is ok, but shafka should probably be in allative "shafkea" and "zoqwa" in the accusative... which I'm taking is "zoqwe", if this is right then "thash" doesn't need the plural because "kiss" would be inanimate. This is if "kiss" is inanimate, of course, type B.

So to recap: "Anha ovvethak dalen zoqwe thash shafkea, zhey Khaleesi anni."

Although I think you can assume "anni" is redundant here.

Edit: Because of a problem in connection I answered this before all the explanations that precede. I think I guessed most of what was said :D but note that "shafka" has all. "shafkea".
Title: Re: Help for translation
Post by: Qvaak on November 14, 2012, 06:25:18 am
Quote
note that "shafka" has all. "shafkea".
Oh yes.
Title: Re: Help for translation
Post by: Havazhyol on November 20, 2012, 12:01:00 pm
M'ath !

My newbie level requires some lights for the following sentence.

Asi gizikhveni anni ha lekhaan dothraki ha yeroon ajada loy asshekhi ajjin.

My sweet words from Dothraki language for you will come in a few days now.  aka My Dothraki poetry will be under your eyes soon.

Is this correct?
Title: Re: Help for translation
Post by: Qvaak on November 20, 2012, 02:00:46 pm
Quote
Asi gizikhveni anni ha lekhaan dothraki ha yeroon ajada loy asshekhi ajjin.
My sweet words from Dothraki language for you will come in a few days now.  aka My Dothraki poetry will be under your eyes soon.
Is this correct?
Nope. It's not correct. You write with kiai (to borrow from another language I don't speak). Downside is, it does not get right, exactly. But on the upside, that's the best way to learn.

Ase is inanimate noun, so it does not have (an explicit) plural, but the adjective can (and usually should) still mark it, so ase gizikhveni, I would think.

You got ablative and allative mixed. Lekhoon is "from language" and yeraan is "for you" (or if you want that in plural, as if you are talking to us, it's of course yerea ... or you can go formal/public/distanced and use shafkea - that works the same for singular and plural).
Mnemonic, anyone? Perhaps from -> -oon/oa and towards -> -aan/ea... "for" pretty much destroys the mnemonic, but I find what I mostly remember mnemonics, is how they don't work, so then they kind of work again. "Towards" also has a strong sense of not being "there" yet, which is handy, because Dothraki ablative ("from") carries the sense of still being "there" (cf. ma; nirat; inalienable possessions).

Try using less prepositions. Dothraki use primarily noun cases, and prepositions only when cases won't deliver. It seems to me lekhoon dothraki works fine without preposition, yeraan probably also.

Structurally I'm not a big fan of that quite enormous subject argument with two adpositional phrases (Asi gizikhveni anni ha lekhaan dothraki ha yeroon). I'd probably try tp break it down, to form a relative clause, maybe. But this is not about grammatical right ot wrong anymore, just ruminating on stylistic possibilities.

"In a few days now" is a curious phrase, and does not necessarily translate well at all: "What? Now and/or few days? Make up your mind!" Something like loy assekhi ajjinoon ("in a few days from now") could work better ... or worse. I don't think we have too sure footing among time/place adverbs altogether.
Title: Re: Help for translation
Post by: Havazhyol on November 21, 2012, 12:53:27 am
M'ath.

So, to recall, the two sentences should be :

Ase gizikhveni anni lekhoon dothraki yeraan loy asshekhi ajjinoon.
sorry Qvaak but my sweet words are for someone else  ;D

and

Anha ovvethak dalen zoqwe thash shafkea, zhey Khaleesi.

(Which language is kiai borrowed from?)
Title: Re: Help for translation
Post by: Qvaak on November 21, 2012, 11:46:01 am
Quote
So, to recall, the two sentences should be
Perhaps? You may notice I'm often far from sure. I'm only a bit more advanced student. Anha ovvethak... sentence looks actually rather solid, but Ase gizikhveni... is more adventurous and a lot more unsure.

Quote
Which language is kiai borrowed from?
That's from Japan, if I'm not mistaken. Quite used in martial arts world, but I have picked it from go vocabulary. It should be ~ fighting spirit, mettle.
Title: Re: Help for translation
Post by: Najahho on November 21, 2012, 05:23:45 pm
Not wanting to be nit-picky but: Shouldn't "in a few days"  use some kind of preposition? I mean you just wrote "from dothraki to you few days from now", I would suggest using she. Although my heart says "mra". :p
Title: Re: Help for translation
Post by: Havazhyol on November 22, 2012, 06:17:53 am
That's from Japan, if I'm not mistaken. Quite used in martial arts world, but I have picked it from go vocabulary. It should be ~ fighting spirit, mettle.

That's what I thought. Well kiai is, as you pointed, more an onomatopoeia from martial art than a real word. (it's known as the killing sound as well)
If I had to describe my way in nihhon gô I would say that I write with kokoro or toshi, I have hi no tôshi (heart in flame). Even tôshido (path of the heart) might be correct ( but I need to check that).

Well time to go back to Dothraki for me .   ;D
Title: Re: Help for translation
Post by: Qvaak on November 22, 2012, 09:35:50 pm
Quote
Not wanting to be nit-picky but: Shouldn't "in a few days"  use some kind of preposition? I mean you just wrote "from dothraki to you few days from now", I would suggest using she. Although my heart says "mra". :p
Perhaps? hehh... I'd say no, but that's just my poorly educated guess. Dothraki are less preposition-happy than English, so I try to do without when is seems feasible. I probably try too hard, though. We're not on a strong footing with these kind of adverb things. Simple things like rekke, silokh or ajjin certainly work as is, as they do in English (even though exopressions like "today" seem to have an incorporated preposition).
If you mean that the phrases mean a bit different things, I guess they do. Even in English you can (I think) say either "Few days from now..." or "In a few days..." and the former has a sense of "after few days have passed" and latter "within a few days time", but since the time scale is imprecise and I would use neither of potentially imminent occurence, I find them practically identical in meaning.

I would think it's hard to be nit-pickier than me, and why not, if you could; when most of us are nowhere near linguists, discussion is the best way to widen one's perpective and see the problems and possibilities.

Quote
That's what I thought. Well kiai is, as you pointed, more an onomatopoeia from martial art than a real word. (it's known as the killing sound as well)
Ah well, maybe it's more real word as a "loan word" in English text. It's certainly used: http://senseis.xmp.net/?Kiai (http://senseis.xmp.net/?Kiai)
Title: Re: Help for translation
Post by: ingsve on November 22, 2012, 10:05:49 pm
Quote
That's what I thought. Well kiai is, as you pointed, more an onomatopoeia from martial art than a real word. (it's known as the killing sound as well)
Ah well, maybe it's more real word as a "loan word" in English text. It's certainly used: http://senseis.xmp.net/?Kiai (http://senseis.xmp.net/?Kiai)

Perhaps it's similar to a word like Hurrah which also has an onomatopoetic aspect but is also word in its own right.
Title: Re: Help for translation
Post by: Havazhyol on November 23, 2012, 02:48:30 am
Perhaps it's similar to a word like Hurrah which also has an onomatopoetic aspect but is also word in its own right.

My judo sensei told me that the Kiai was the perfect sound to represent an explosive attack.
1) It physicaly sheathe the abdominal muscles when shouted, which plays on the vertebral column, and so, help to ensure your equilibrium and position.
2) It's pronunciation is kind of a Gaussian, to speak in Ingsve technical langage. Ki- when you launch the attack the "0;0" point, and -iai is the curve itself, the a being the peak.

It must have been introduce in common language as a word.

Done talking of my life...
Title: Re: Help for translation
Post by: Najahho on November 25, 2012, 05:08:54 pm
Perhaps? hehh... I'd say no, but that's just my poorly educated guess. Dothraki are less preposition-happy than English, so I try to do without when is seems feasible. I probably try too hard, though. We're not on a strong footing with these kind of adverb things. Simple things like rekke, silokh or ajjin certainly work as is, as they do in English (even though exopressions like "today" seem to have an incorporated preposition).
If you mean that the phrases mean a bit different things, I guess they do. Even in English you can (I think) say either "Few days from now..." or "In a few days..." and the former has a sense of "after few days have passed" and latter "within a few days time", but since the time scale is imprecise and I would use neither of potentially imminent occurence, I find them practically identical in meaning.

I would think it's hard to be nit-pickier than me, and why not, if you could; when most of us are nowhere near linguists, discussion is the best way to widen one's perpective and see the problems and possibilities.

I don't know. As a linguist I don't think you can just say "few days from now" in the sentence and leave it like that, not in any language. I don't think Dothraki is "less preposition-happy than English" it just uses prepositions where it needs to, in this case it needs to, unless you could use an allative, but certainly it needs either a prep. or a case. But then again, this is my hunch.

About kiai:
I think it's quite a noun, I found: 気合(P); 気合い 【きあい】 (n) scream; yell; fighting spirit;
from what I could find it is well attested, common onomatopoeic expressions tend to be written solely in hiragana, this one has its own kanji. The kanji by themselves seem to mean "agreement of spirits" or "joining of spirits".
It of course could be the case that the noun just so happens to be great to represent the action, which is quite cool.
Title: Re: Help for translation
Post by: Qvaak on November 28, 2012, 11:14:09 pm
As far as Dothraki goes, this question is already answered (you can use she to clarify the syntax, but if you don't, loy is in accusative) so just some aftertoughts.

Quote
As a linguist I don't think you can just say "few days from now" in the sentence and leave it like that, not in any language.
The internet is full of broken language, so googling a phrase tells usually very little, but prepositionless "A few days from now" has made it to even some recent bible translation. The prepositioned version seems more common, but there are other fun adverb version there too, like "not many days hence".
I think the syntax is similar in structure to eg. "ten miles south of the city", where I'd be much more reluctant to add any preposition. Why do these work? Heck if I know. Perhaps modifiers like "a few days from" or "ten miles south of" work already so much like prepositions, that more isn't that crucial.

Quote
I don't think Dothraki is "less preposition-happy than English" it just uses prepositions where it needs to, in this case it needs to, unless you could use an allative, but certainly it needs either a prep. or a case
Dothraki has a case system augmented with prepositions. It generally uses prepositions only where it needs to; it uses prepositionless cases pretty much anywhere where they get the job done. The case system in Dothraki is rather limited, so prepositions have still a big comfortable place in the language. In English there aren't many alternatives to prepositions, so they are needed more often.
Title: Re: Help for translation
Post by: ingsve on November 29, 2012, 07:26:36 am
I don't think Dothraki is "less preposition-happy than English" it just uses prepositions where it needs to, in this case it needs to, unless you could use an allative, but certainly it needs either a prep. or a case.

In one of his talks David mentions a hierarchy for how things are done in Dothraki. The hierarchy was Canonical Case Role >> Non-Canonical Case Role >> Object of preposition >> Subordinate Clause. This means that if something can be expressed by a classic use of a case then that always comes first. Non-canonical case role is tied to what David calls "Verb Classes". This means that certain verbs take on a specific meaning when their object is in a non-canonical case. A typical example is the expression "I ride next to Khal Drogo". Here one might expect a preposition to be used but not in Dothraki. Instead you use the verb dothralat in combination with the genitive case which in this situation is non-canonical. So the sentence should be Anha dothrak Khali Drogo. There are lots and lots of verbs that get these types of special meanings when combined with certain cases so before using a preposition one must first make sure that there is no case that can be used in that specific situation. This is what we mean when we say that Dothraki is less preposition-happy than English.

http://wiki.dothraki.org/dothraki/Verb_Classes (http://wiki.dothraki.org/dothraki/Verb_Classes)
Title: Re: Help for translation
Post by: Havazhyol on July 31, 2013, 02:40:29 am
M'athchomaroon,

I've been thinking about translating some latin sentences, and since I'm not familiar with grammar (and maybe more) in dothraki I seek for thy help...

Carpe diem, quam minimum credula posteros (unfortunatly known by today's young people as yolo...  :-[ )
Seize the days, and trust a little in the future

I went with

Collect the day, and have few hope for tomorrow

Yanqo(s) assekhaan, vosma ray athzalar silokhaan zolle.    (not sur weither to use formal imperative or not)

Thank you ^^

Here is my try, I think I can already point an error with the translation of "to have"
Title: Re: Help for translation
Post by: Qvaak on August 01, 2013, 09:07:41 am
Alright. Let's do this again ;)

It's ultimately the translator's choice, what exact words to use, so going for yanqolat is, I guess, possible. There are problems with that, though. "To collect" (or "to gather") is an idea fundamentally applied to plural objects and uncountables. I guess you can, in English, say "I collected a penny", meaning that you picked up a penny (~"added a penny to my collection of money?" - or is that singular use reserved exclusively to debt collecting?).  Nevertheless, this is an extension probably not shared in Dothraki. To make matters worse, Dothraki is not as explicit with plurals as many languages, so pushing for the unusual singular use is even harder. As "a day" asshekh is animate, so there's a notable difference in plural, but asshekh has inanimate use too, as "today", so the reading would go easily there. Not that this would make any easy sense either, as "today" is fundamentally a singular event, but you might approach it as an uncountable, a mass noun, a waterlike puddle of now. And you could certainly be misled and confused.

Putting asshekh to allative is a whole another matter. Objects in sentences are in accusative, if there is no special reason for some other case. We know that yanqolat supports one special use of another case than accusative. You can use ablative to mark the fact that only some of something was collected, not all of it ("Anha yanqo korikh" - "I gathered the sticks" vs. "Anha yanqo korikhoon" - "I gathered some sticks"). What would allative mean here? Dunno. Maybe if asshekh were a complementary argument, allative might denote to the place where you gathered something ("gather the sticks in that corner") or the resultant collection of gathering ("gather the sticks into a pile"). Perhaps you might expect the main object of the sentence elided, resulting in something like "collect into a day".

I would go with qoralat as it feels pitch perfect to me. For true YOLO attitude qorasolat would work too. We have "to seize" as one translation for qoralat, but this is probably in part due to a bit misleading dialogue translation from the series: qoralat most likely does not explicitly denote to the act of taking, it denotes to holding, to keeping, to having. Qorasolat is the word explicitly denoting to taking, to making something your own. This has some rather dark undertones, though, as Dothraki are so fond of working on their own terms, so fond on abusing the priviledge of the stronger. The meaning of qorasolat extends from simple act of taking all the way to rape. And what would be more YOLO than "Abuse the day on your own terms with complete disregard to the damage you do to others."

I would go with informal imperative, as I view this more a suggestion than a straight out command. Depends on the take.

Why vosma? Of course "but" works just fine, considering the meaning of the phrase, but even your own translation of your Dothraki translation uses "and".  The latin does not use any conjunction (quam looks like a conjunctive, but if I'm not mistaken, it's just a part of an argument "quam minimum"), so you might even try to do without in Dothraki too. On the other hand, in my personal feel, plentiful use of conjunctions fits Dothraki, and I like to often use the complete precede-both-sentences system. That would not be wrong here, and in my opinion would nicely preserve the parallel sentiments feel of the original. The weak connection of the original gives me a feel of two independent but resonant sentiments, while "and" in the middle leans slightly on the "and consequently" direction.

Yes, ray for "to have" is decidedly wrong. English uses "to have" as an auxiliary verb for perfect tense (expressions like "I have x'd the z"). Dothraki uses auxiliary not-even-really-a-verb ray for similar expressions, but this has very little to do with what "to have" otherwise means in English. We saw before that qoralat can be translated as "to have". There's also an expression mra qora, literally "in hand", eg. "Korikh mra qora [anni]" - "I have a stick".

Trying to go "want little, hope little from tomorrow" does not does not seem a bad idea, but it's not easy, so why not use shillat, "to trust"? I would not say it's certainly the right kind of "trust" word, but seems very promising and straightforward.

My attempt would be, I guess
Ma qoras asshekhes, ma shillas silokh zolle.

You might drop the animate accusative from asshekh, and move it from "a day" to "today", as that's pretty much what's implied anyway, and the phrase would be more symmetrical, but, dunno, I kinda like the asymmetry and the indirect sense the asshekhes gives.