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why dothraki?

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khaleesiforever:
Hi guys,
so I'm currently working on a article for a class about colanging and created languages, ie dothraki. I'm a huge fan of the show and the books. I'm also planning on attempting to learn Dothraki at one point. What I need now, though, are some reasons behind joining communities like this one, why are you interested in these languages, how hard was it for you to learn Dothraki, and things like that. If you guys could help me out and give me some answers to those questions, I'd be super happy and so would my teacher. Thanks :)

ingsve:

--- Quote from: khaleesiforever on April 16, 2012, 11:41:15 am ---Hi guys,
so I'm currently working on a article for a class about colanging and created languages, ie dothraki. I'm a huge fan of the show and the books. I'm also planning on attempting to learn Dothraki at one point. What I need now, though, are some reasons behind joining communities like this one, why are you interested in these languages, how hard was it for you to learn Dothraki, and things like that. If you guys could help me out and give me some answers to those questions, I'd be super happy and so would my teacher. Thanks :)

--- End quote ---

Personally I have been interested in the concept of created languages for a long while ever since I heard of Esperanto being a created language, I've also been interested in learning languages for a long while and I know (to varying degrees) Swedish (native language), Norwegian, English, German and Spanish.

I'm also a longtime fan of the A Song of Ice and Fire books and Collectible Card Game and I followed the development of the TV show since it was optioned by HBO back in 2007 or whenever that was. So when they announced that they had hired someone to create the Dothraki language I saw an opportunity to combine my interest in languages and GRRM's world.

As for why one chooses to become active in a community I guess that lies at the core of communities as a whole. It's simply more fun to share an interest with other people who also like the same thing rather than just taking it on as a solitary interest.

Learning the language has been pretty organic for me. Since I've been involved almost from the start in documenting the publicly available information a lot of things are learnt simply by finding the new words, documenting them in our wiki, explaining the grammar in the wiki in a way that is accessible for people and by helping others who are attempting to learn the language.

One thing that separates learning a constructed language from learning a natural language is that you also get to learn about the thought process behind what choices were made in constructing the language and that also ties into understanding the culture the language is created for. That in itself also ties into the interest in the source material.

Hope that helps as a start at least. If you have more specific questions feel free to ask them and hopefully some other people will chime in with their motivations as well.

khaleesiforever:
Thanks :)

Hrakkar:
The Dothraki learning project was originally started by a member of the Na'vi learners community, and I kind of stumbled into it oe day. In the list of the first 100 words or so that were posed was a word hrakkar for 'white lion'. Since I am a total lion nut, I thought that was cool, and that this might also be afun language to learn. So, i stared (slowly at first) learning about the language, and watching its inital development. As I learned more and more about how Dothraki worked, I realized that in many ways, it was the exact opposite of Na'vi. So, I put mor emphasis in learning it. Up to this point, I knew nothing about the story behind the language, so I obtained and read 'Game of Thrones'.  So, now, I was a student of the language and an ASOIAF fan! Last summer, I met David Peterson and ended up spending several days with him and the colanging community at the WorldCon Science Fiction convention (which happened to be in my home town of Reno, Nevada last year). So in a lot of ways, the whole introduction and assimilation of this language, and the culture that spawned it, happened backwards for me. The whole experience has been worthwhile, as Dothraki has an interesting, and somewhat challenging grammar. It has helped me understand language better in general.

khaleesiforever:
Wow, you got to meet David Peterson; that is awesome. Thanks for you reply, it was helpful. I'm also attempting to learn the language, any good ideas on where to start?

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