Messages

1

Beginners / Re: My Dorhraki Translations

« on: February 14, 2013, 07:58:04 am »

Thank you. It seems that I've done a pretty good job, then.

I'd like to see more people questioning my assessments. I'll probably fight back, if I wasn't simply utterly & plainly wrong, but that's how we get discussion  I learn plenty simply dissecting these attempts, but as I'm not even close to being a liguists of any kind, my perspective has limits. I compare to Finnish and English, maybe read a bit of Wikipedia, but mostly I just ponder a lot.

If you mean that you compare Dothraki with Finnish and English, than I can say the same, only about Russian.

I'm guessing you are aiming at "Black ravens of blood will fly on the sky and all men will die."

Yes, and no. My initial wording was "black ravens of blood shall fill the skies, and humanity will perish." Now obviously, I have to adapt to Dothraki's lexicon, so that's the "yes."

I might be mistaken about what you're trying to do with qoyi. I think it works, though seems a bit iffy, sounds like "blood's black ravens" (would that even be that bad?). Be careful with English "of" structures, as they do many things, and don't always translate well to genitive. See comments on http://www.dothraki.com/2012/11/possession/ for a bit more direction.

From what I've read there, it seems that qoyi is probably the only way. I should have probably chosen "death" instead of "blood," but I guess it's (mostly) irrelevant. "blood's black ravens" does sound bad, but I believe that's exactly how it would be in Finnish or Russian, but then again, both these languages use the genitive like English (I think, since I don't speak Finnish).

Ma does not ring right to me. If nothing else, I'd probably at least throw the leading ma in (I tend to try to cram paired conjunction everywhere). There are many alternatives for this, but one is simple and strong: majin. That's a seeing a good deal of use in story telling (cf. http://dedalvs.com/relay/previous/lcc4results/17.html) and such, and has perfectly fitting sense of "and thus", or "consequently".

I would argue with you on this one, but the meaning of majin is exactly the one I've been looking for. I've even contemplated using it, but opted for ma instead, for some reason.

2

Beginners / My Dorhraki Translations

« on: February 13, 2013, 11:14:25 pm »

I have noticed that many people here seek advice for their Dothraki translations.

My only attempt for now: "Nihzosi kazga qoyi vovethi she asavva ma ei mahrazhi adrivoe."

I'm not sure whether nihzo or mahrazh are animate or inanimate; whether I should have used mre or she; and whether or not using ma is okay for a cause-&-effect clause.

Help will be appreciated.

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Introductions / Athdrivar ha dozgaan yeri

« on: February 12, 2013, 08:32:03 am »

Forgive my Dothraki, if it is incorrect.

I am Jaqqa, or Daniel. I have been following the ASoIaF series since 2011 (since the TV show) came out, and since then have read all the books. The Dothraki haven't really captured my interest in the books, but they have in the show, mostly because they have a language of their own. I am an avid conlanger, and thus, Dothraki is quite interesting (for me at least). Dothraki has even influenced my current conlang, vocabulary wise (for example, in my conlang, the word for "fog, mist" is duivesí ['dˠɰi:vʲeʃi:], from the Dothraki devesh).

So I guess I'm here to converse with other like-minded people, and to improve my Dothraki fluency.