Learn Dothraki and Valyrian

Learn Dothraki => Beginners => Topic started by: Najahho on March 20, 2012, 08:07:35 pm

Title: Translating my signature (corrections please)
Post by: Najahho on March 20, 2012, 08:07:35 pm

I wanted to roughly translate my signature.

It should be "Strength will always drive/guide me". Since I didn't find "strength" I opted for "Victory will always guide me", words that appear in the dictionary. However the verb paradigms seem a little confusing, although I know we have the -lat and -at paradigms. From what I get I finally got: "Najaheya vidrie anna ayyey".

Is this correct? What's wrong with it?

Edit: I edited the position of the adverb which is commonly at the end of the sentence.

Title: Re: Translating my signature (corrections please)
Post by: Hrakkar on March 20, 2012, 09:06:59 pm

Baldor, good to see you back!

As far as I can tell, your sentence looks fine, but I am not the sharpest linguistic stick in the pile.

You might want to play around with haj (adj) 'strong' or hajolat (v) 'to grow strong'.

Title: Re: Translating my signature (corrections please)
Post by: Najahho on March 20, 2012, 09:43:42 pm

I thought of using "strong" but couldn't find the noun, how do you make a noun from an adjective? Kind of like "strong-ness" XD

Also, how is it that "hajolat" ends up being "hajas!" in the expression.

Title: Re: Translating my signature (corrections please)
Post by: ingsve on March 21, 2012, 12:08:42 am

Quote from: Baldor on March 20, 2012, 09:43:42 pm

I thought of using "strong" but couldn't find the noun, how do you make a noun from an adjective? Kind of like "strong-ness" XD

Also, how is it that "hajolat" ends up being "hajas!" in the expression.

Yes, there is a way to make nouns out of adjectives. It's with the circumfix ath- -(z)ar http://wiki.dothraki.org/dothraki/Derivational_morphology#Simple_Nominalization. (http://wiki.dothraki.org/dothraki/Derivational_morphology#Simple_Nominalization.) The word for strength is simply athhajar.

Hajas comes from the verb hajat="to be strong". Hajolat is a different verb that means "to become strong/to grow strong".

So your original sentence would then be "Athhajar vidrie anna ayyey."

Title: Re: Translating my signature (corrections please)
Post by: Najahho on March 21, 2012, 07:04:26 am

Thank you so much, ingsve.

Then I can proudly parade my new signature in Dothraki! It really is a very interesting well-rounded language, can't wait to know more about it.