Propose Topics

[Qvaak]

Blog posts will require topics to discuss. David (J. Peterson) said he will welcome topic proposals from us people here. So let us let the wishes fly.

This thread is reserved for topic proposals. Keep any lengthier discussions on the other threads. Even though Mr. Peterson has usually kept his distance, it is very likely that he will be reading this (Hi, David).

[ingsve]

I'm interested in various vocabulary topics:

-Colors
-More on numbers
-Animals
-Emotions

[Qvaak]

A motley selection of topics interesting me..

 - vocabularish: obscenities & expletives
Where and when; why and why not. What is taboo and what isn't even considered dirty talk...

 - language use: informal speech
What gives in when dothraki speak carelessly and unclearly?

 - grammar: tenses
How closely does the use of past, present and future resemble english? How do the verbal auxiliary thingies like laz and ray exactly work with the tenses? Are zero copula sentence ablatives and allatives just parts of the tenses, or do they carry a different sense and/or scope?

 - audience participation: critique and corrections
Fine. I seem to be the most eager sentence crafter around here, so this is a kind of me-topic. Anyway, learning from mistakes is a great way to learn. I warmly recommend.

 - creation process: creating scopes for word meanings
It seems to me that meanings of words in separate languages rarely truly coincide. There is always etymological weight, core meaning, connotations, special uses.. stuff. How are the scopes of word meanings created in dothraki?

[Daenerys]

How about the topic of time? 
Time of day? Year? Today? Yesterday? Tomorrow? A week? Morning? Evening? Afternoon? Etc.



Looking through the current dictionary, September 26, 2011, while some of the vocabulary is there, the topic is incomplete.
I see listed: midnight, tonight, today, year, yesterday, but currently missing are: day, morning, night (referring to night in general versus tonight or this night), afternoon (midday), sunset, sunrise.

Would there be a way to designate time of day?  I would think that position of the sun in the sky would perhaps be a way, since the 24 hour clock, may not be relevant to a nomadic tribe?

[ingsve]

One question I saw on the Westeros.org forum is now the Dothraki would pronounce Westerosi names etc. It could be intersting with a blogpost about how a Dothraki accent would sound and what types of errors would make up their broken English.

[Daenerys]

Seasons... what would be the words for summer, winter, fall, spring?

Temperature?  I see the word for hot, but not for cold, warm? What of other tactile vocabulary, such as soft, rough, smooth, hard, tough, tender?

[Daenerys]

Responses to: "Hash yer dothrae check?"

This came up in our ICQ chat on September 28th.
"Hash yer dothrae check?", lierally "Do you ride well?" would be a way of asking "How are you?". In the Reno presentation dialogue example, the second lajak replied "Voessechi!", literally "No way", which would mean "Not well"?

Could responses also be:
"Vos. Anah vos dothrak chek." (No. I do not ride well.")
or
"Sek. K'athjilari. Anha dothrae chek." (Yes. By righteousness. I ride well.)
or
"Vos, I am tired." (No. I am tired.) - It was thought may not be correct response, because the literal question is "Do you ride well?"
or
"No. I do not feel well. (Here a lajak may not admit to being ill or not feeling well, but they may say it about someone else in the khalazar I would think.)
or
"I am OK." (Neither well or unwell.)

Also, how would one distinguish between saying someone, like that non-Dothraki, is a a poor/good equestrian, versus well/not well?

"Dothras chec", in the dictionary, says "Be cool!". Would that be a way to tell someone, "Take care!"? or would that be  "Fonas check" (hunt well), distinguishing, between in English, "Take care!" can be "goodbye" or more seriously we can say "Hope things go better" or "Take care of yourself"?

[Qvaak]

Another small selection:

 - wordplay
there must be some language tests laying around; doggerels, puns, tongue twisters, garden path sentences... anything?

 - pronouns
There are demonstrative pronouns and person pronouns, but what else? I understand that adverbs for location and time might be analysed as pronouns. And then there was that hazak, derived from haz...

 - canons and artistic licence
This topic keeps popping up. Dothraki is created for the TV-series, but the original book canon still seems perhaps even the foremost creed. And, any way, the language demands a lot of interpretation and writing of the culture, so where does one rise the borders of artistic licence? How much are these just self-imposed constraints, how much explicitly agreed on.

 - phonotactics
What consonant clusters are allowed at the coda, what at the onset, what are allowed all in all? Are there some basic rules for simplifying the clusters when they grow bad?

[Jasi]

I'm new and all, but I have what I think is an interesting suggestion.  Why not Dothraki riddles?  They'd flesh out the Dothraki culture more (like the haikus did) and give those of us who've started learning the language interesting brain teasers to play with (since we'd first have to translate the riddle correctly and then find the answer).