Dothraki learners for Thronecast

[Hrakkar]

Ok, I have had a chance to play with this translation a little bit. Some of it just plain brilliant. Other parts simply cannot be sung within the melodic/rythmic constraints of the song. The biggest problem is number of syllables.

Well, there are quite many words that aren't vital to the core meaning of the text, and some other small tricks like dropping the epenthetic es (if that works for haiku syllabe count, they should be elidable here too).
Vosma kash anha mithre san ajjalani arrek,
kash anha dirge disse meyer ray et anhaan k'athmalari.
->
Vosma kash anha mithr' arrek,
kash dirg' meyer et anhaan k'athmalari.
Just a bit iffy. Some things are easy to streamline, some less so. It won't be easy, no matter what.

I will try those changes out and see how they might help. In the meantime though, I am going to try a much simpler song that everyone should know: "Twinkle, twinkle little star". I think we have most or all of the vocabulary to do this song, and I think it can be translated with fewer references to tenses, etc. I am hoping to have a lot of time on Saturday to finally sort this all out.

I made a couple of the substitutions that were discussed, using both thirolat and negwin. IMHO, thirolat is a much better match for 'survive' than vistesok.

Ya. I'm definitely not arguing against thirolat. How do you use negwin? Anha negwino is probably the surest bet, just without the nem ingsve had there, I'd say.

I used anha negwino, and I like how it works in this role. The verse absolutely does not flow with nem there. The nice thing about songs is there is some room to bend the grammar rules to make things fit into the verses.

[Hrakkar]

I finally kind of gave up trying to make 'I will survive' work, so I tried something more basic, and had much better luck:

Sis sis shierak naqis (Twinkle twinkle little star)

Sis sis shierak naqis
Anha dirgek san qisi yer
Yer oleth rhaesheseri sekke yath
Ven dan she asavva yath
Sis sis shierak naqis
Anha dirgek san qisi yer

Corrections? (I took some minor liberties with grammar, to get it to work as a song)
Corrections?

Here are the questions I have been asked to answer, and the answers I came up with:


How are you?

    Anha dothrak chek assekh. (I am riding well today)

How long have you been learning Dothraki?

    Anha ezok lekh Dothraki ha firesofaan at. (I have been learning the Dothraki language
       for one year.)

How many words do you know?

    Anha nesa akatken ase vosma nesa chek disse chizhinda ase. (I know 200 words, but
        know well only 60 words.)

How easy is it to learn? Easy like Spanish or hard like Mandarin?

    Lekh Dothraki onrojan lekh tawak vosma anrojan san lekhmove. (The Dothraki language is less
        complex than natural languages but more complex than many constructed languages.)

Again, comments or corrections are welcome!
This has been an important exercise for me, as it is the first really complex translation I have done!

[ingsve]

The number comes before the noun it's numbering. I'm not really sure if it would come before or after the preposition though but my guess is it's after that as well so perhaps something like:

Anha ezok lekh Dothraki ha at firesofaan.

Disse and chek should come last in the sentence so:

Anha nesa akatken ase vosma nesa chizhinda ase chek disse.

Chek could at times be moved to after the verb but I don't think the sentence is heavy enough for that in this case.

When you use adjectives in that manner you need to make them into a verb (by adding -at and conjugating). You also need to express "harder than" in some way. I think the comparative verb class might apply in this case. Also when using san the noun should be in genitive "heaps of conlangs"

Lekh Dothraki onrojana lekhoon tawaka vosma me anrojana sanoon lekhmovi.

This is my take on these but I might have forgotten something or something might not apply in a specific situation so getting a another opinion on it would probably be good.

[Hrakkar]

When you use adjectives in that manner you need to make them into a verb (by adding -at and conjugating). You also need to express "harder than" in some way. I think the comparative verb class might apply in this case. Also when using san the noun should be in genitive "heaps of conlangs"

Lekh Dothraki onrojana lekhoon tawaka vosma me anrojana sanoon lekhmovi.

This is my take on these but I might have forgotten something or something might not apply in a specific situation so getting a another opinion on it would probably be good.

Thanks! Looks like I was pretty close on the first sentences. And the changes you suggest for the final sentence make sense when in the comparand class (I hadn't even considered verb classses here. Good catch!). But I do have a few questions about how you reworked this, that I still don't understand.

1. Where is the extra 'a' at the end of o/anrojan coming from?
2. Why is the ablative class being applied to san and not to kekhmove, which instead is in the genitive? Shouldn't the ablative be on the main noun here, because of the comparand? Do you consider san here to be a noun or a determinitive (and can a determinitive be marked with a case?)

I like what you did with ma in that sentence. I was wondering if Dothraki had a mechanism for idicating a prior noun/noun phrase without repeating it.

[ingsve]

When you use adjectives in that manner you need to make them into a verb (by adding -at and conjugating). You also need to express "harder than" in some way. I think the comparative verb class might apply in this case. Also when using san the noun should be in genitive "heaps of conlangs"

Lekh Dothraki onrojana lekhoon tawaka vosma me anrojana sanoon lekhmovi.

This is my take on these but I might have forgotten something or something might not apply in a specific situation so getting a another opinion on it would probably be good.

Thanks! Looks like I was pretty close on the first sentences. And the changes you suggest for the final sentence make sense when in the comparand class (I hadn't even considered verb classses here. Good catch!). But I do have a few questions about how you reworked this, that I still don't understand.

1. Where is the extra 'a' at the end of o/anrojan coming from?
2. Why is the ablative class being applied to san and not to kekhmove, which instead is in the genitive? Shouldn't the ablative be on the main noun here, because of the comparand? Do you consider san here to be a noun or a determinitive (and can a determinitive be marked with a case?)

I like what you did with ma in that sentence. I was wondering if Dothraki had a mechanism for idicating a prior noun/noun phrase without repeating it.

1. It's the 3rd person verb conjugation. You turn the adjective into a verb so it becomes onrojanat and then conjugate it for the 3rd person so it becomes onrojana.

2. San is a noun and nothing else. While you use the determiner "many" in English, in Dothraki the same meaning is expressed using a noun. Think of it as "heaps of conlangs" rather than "many conlangs". Also san becomes the main noun in that phrase since lekhmove only describes what it is you have a heap of.

Also the word I added was me and not ma so I simply refered to the previous subject as "it".

[ingsve]

Here is the Thronecast episode with Hrakkar.

Thronecast Season 2 Episode 3

[Daenerys]

Congratz, Hrakkar!

[Hrakkar]

That's a well-done little production they have there!

I can see (hear?) now that I had a tendency to use ä instead of a, which is something I tried to avoid in practice. I also botched a word in the second line of 'Twinkle, twinkle, little star'. I guess you make mistakes like this at 4:45 in the morning my time. Nevertheless, I had a lot of fun doing it!

I have been at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas all week. Lots of GoT stuff being shown here. One video in particular showed how they mounted a (rather large) TV camera on the end of a sword to get some very unusual shots while wielding the sword!

[ingsve]

That's a well-done little production they have there!

I can see (hear?) now that I had a tendency to use ä instead of a, which is something I tried to avoid in practice. I also botched a word in the second line of 'Twinkle, twinkle, little star'. I guess you make mistakes like this at 4:45 in the morning my time. Nevertheless, I had a lot of fun doing it!

I have been at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas all week. Lots of GoT stuff being shown here. One video in particular showed how they mounted a (rather large) TV camera on the end of a sword to get some very unusual shots while wielding the sword!

Ya there was few minor things on the pronounciation but overall it was very well done. One thing I noticed was that you tended to pronounce /q/ as [kw] or [qw] rather than [q].

[Hrakkar]

Ya there was few minor things on the pronounciation but overall it was very well done. One thing I noticed was that you tended to pronounce /q/ as [kw] or [qw] rather than [q].

Back from NAB. It was a really good time, maybe the best show ever for me. After the show, I helped a friend take down his booth. Then, we went and toured Hoover Dam and nearby Boulder City. We stopped and visited a couple friends on the way home, and enjoyed lightning at night, all around us, as we drove. One of the memorable moments of NAB was going into the Dolby booth only to see Ned Stark lose his head on a big screen.

I am not 100 percent sure what th difference is between /kw/ and /q/ is, but I have been trying to make the /q/ sound at the back of the throat as explained in David's blog post on the subject. I also find that the ease or lack thereof of pronouncing /q/ depends on the letter that follows it. For English speakers, this is something new, as u always follows q.

[ingsve]

Ya there was few minor things on the pronounciation but overall it was very well done. One thing I noticed was that you tended to pronounce /q/ as [kw] or [qw] rather than [q].

Back from NAB. It was a really good time, maybe the best show ever for me. After the show, I helped a friend take down his booth. Then, we went and toured Hoover Dam and nearby Boulder City. We stopped and visited a couple friends on the way home, and enjoyed lightning at night, all around us, as we drove. One of the memorable moments of NAB was going into the Dolby booth only to see Ned Stark lose his head on a big screen.

I am not 100 percent sure what th difference is between /kw/ and /q/ is, but I have been trying to make the /q/ sound at the back of the throat as explained in David's blog post on the subject. I also find that the ease or lack thereof of pronouncing /q/ depends on the letter that follows it. For English speakers, this is something new, as u always follows q.

Well, the difference is that there is no [w]-sound in [q]. One way to notice the difference would be if you try to pronounce the q-sound without moving your lips at all. That would probably minimize the tendency to add a w which I guess is something that comes from how q is commonly pronounced in english.

As for the q-sound with vowels, remember that there is a vowel change after /q/ which could probably ease pronounciation so [a] becomes [ɑ], [e] becomes [ɛ], [ i ] becomes [e] and [ o ] becomes [ɔ].

[Hrakkar]

Insgive, that is helpful. It would probably also be helpful to learn how those modified vowel sounds sound, rather than just assuming that the presence of the /q/ will pretty much ensure they come out correctly.

[ingsve]

Insgive, that is helpful. It would probably also be helpful to learn how those modified vowel sounds sound, rather than just assuming that the presence of the /q/ will pretty much ensure they come out correctly.

This is a page I use to get help with how IPA sounds sound:

http://www.yorku.ca/earmstro/ipa/

[Qvaak]

That is a great page. You've linked it once before, haven't you? I must say, though, all the voiceless plosives sound strongly aspirated to me (I'd be inclined to transcribe them as "thaa", "khaa", "qhaa" etc. if I'd go just by my intuition). It's not a problem with Dothraki, really, as they do aspirate at least sometimes, as far as I understand, but it serves as an example of how there's still so much wiggling space within the scope of one IPA symbol that it can still sound patently wrong for some language.

[ingsve]

That is a great page. You've linked it once before, haven't you? I must say, though, all the voiceless plosives sound strongly aspirated to me (I'd be inclined to transcribe them as "thaa", "khaa", "qhaa" etc. if I'd go just by my intuition). It's not a problem with Dothraki, really, as they do aspirate at least sometimes, as far as I understand, but it serves as an example of how there's still so much wiggling space within the scope of one IPA symbol that it can still sound patently wrong for some language.

Ya, I've posted it a long time ago I think.

And yes those do seem aspirated at least when he's saying the versions that is followed by an /a/ but not as much when he finishes on the consonant.