Dothraki News and Updates

[Khal_Qana]

M'aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaath Eyaki!

I return from the black, screaming, lukewarm abyss of college to once again spend my vacation on these forums, and boy howdy do I have some BIG announcements for December!

First on the list; I few months back I was contacted by the language app Amikumu to translate their UI into Dothraki, and over Christmas break I will be a giz zol dik getting that fully translated! However, I am going to need to contact whoever is in charge of making new roots for Dothraki, because the long, abstract words that I'm coming up with to describe things like "personal account" and "social media" are just not working out for me, and I gotta cut down on syllable count before Dothraki becomes Oligosynthetic.

Second; If I finish the Amikumu project before the end of break, I will get back to work on the Dothraki Atlas. I will start writing more into the culture of the Dothraki and begin to edit the lovely work that Reuben22 has done on the project and maybe possibly start to compile the first rough draft of it together! If I don't get to it before my winter break ends, I'll definitely be working on the Atlas in the summer of 2018 (honestly most of the work I was going to do on this was going to be in the summer anyway since I fully expect the Amikumu translation to take up most of December and January).

Final announcement; this is less of an announcement as it is a proposition to our community.  I think that we either need to relocate our official place of meeting, better advertise this forum to other people, or do a better job keeping people active in learning and using Dothraki/Valyrian so that this conlang develops a stronger and more centralized community.  There are many conlangs on the internet, and many of them are able to keep people engaged in the language on a daily basis, which appears to be a large issue with this forum.  Things like Na'vi are able to keep an active community for 10 years after the release of the movie which the conlang comes from, but we're struggling to have a new post or comment once a month.  Dothraki/Valyrian come from the biggest and most impactful TV show of the last three years or so; we should have more people!).  I can't tell you about how many people I've met on the internet who are interested in Dothraki/Valyrian but have no idea where to start or where to go to get engaged.  Within the next year or so, I think we should look into serious change about how we organize and how we reach out to new people online, lest we completely fall apart as a community and lose being able to make some amazing projects for the conlangs of Westeros.


That's about all, folks! I am going to be active here every day or so to keep you guys updated and engaged in what I plan for Dothraki this winter.  Zhey Hrakkar, Anh'avasterak ma shafkaan qisi movek ase sash ha Dothrakaan, majin hethki ha rekaan.

Foni chek!

[Reuben22]

Great news! I'm also going to re-commit to checking out this forum and commenting and posting more.

I know some folks have taken on long form translations of other works (books, the Bible, etc.). I'm making it my New Year's resolution to do the same, except I'll steer clear of "the canon" in academic and do something more millennial and fun. I welcome any suggestions!

[Khal_Qana]

Stories from oral tradition make great translation projects if you're looking for something good.  They generally use words that aren't modern or highly specific to the region of the world they come from, allow for you to really stretch your language knowledge/ability, and already has a bunch of prestige behind it (being an ancient story and all). You could use a story from your tribe if you also want something personable to you.

If you're interested in African stories I suggest The Epic of Sundiata.  It's pretty short as epics go, but I just find the messages and morals inside it incredibly profound.  Here's my favorite quote from the epic as a little teaser:

I teach kings the history of their ancestors, for the world is old, but the future often springs from the past

[Khal_Qana]

M'athchomaroon, fellow nerds and Russian bots!  I made us a Discord for us to have easy, breezy conversations that don't take weeks in between responses.

I hope you guys pop in and say hello!
https://discord.gg/px2PNDW