Hey, cool. If you get Peterson to help on pronunciation, that's, like, the best. And if he catches an error or two in my text, we'll sneakily manage to learn a little too
There's a lot of room for second-guessing, but I can't pick any obviously stupid choices even looking at the text now. As I said earlier, I could process it further, if you wanted something different, shorter perhaps, but that's not strictly making it better - compromising, rather - so I'm happy as long as you're happy.
Well, I guess
Athchilar atthirari nem sanneya ha rekakea neva she me might be better as
Athchilar atthirari rayim sanneya ha rekakea neva she me (~ Limit of life
has been counted for those that sit on it) ... maybe
Not really essential change, eh.
But hey, what I
can still do is add a commentary, because that's what I always do
There's no need to find this interesting or intelligible (or even read through at all). Maybe Peterson goes "what the hell was he thinking!" and then can check my comments to find out.
One throne to rule a world built on betrayal ->
At ador ha akkelenataan rhaesheseres fin nem mari ki qosarvenikhi
~ One chair is for judging a world which was built by deception
Considering how Dothraki words fall, there's probably no close equivalent to "to rule". I chose
akkelenat, which works IMO pretty well here, but is a wee bit wonky on "winter will rule". Using the same word seemed good, though, and the known alternative
assolat (or perhaps hypothetical
vassorat) seemed only worse anyway.
I'm fairly trusting in my
ha+
infinite verb in allative, but of course that's not a certain working syntax and there are quite a few other options. All in all the text has such an abstract touch that I ended up using prepositions when a bare case might work, basically just to distance/vaguafy relations between words.
"Built on betrayal" is hard to translate. I was pretty much just fumbling for something, anything that felt promising and ended up with
ki, which of course makes
deception/lies straight out agent of building. Maybe something a bit subtler might be better, but the most obvious alternative
ma is IMO just duller.
Those that sit upon it have numbered days ->
Athchilar atthirari nem sanneya ha rekakea neva she me
~ Limit of life is counted for those that sit on it
We have some evidence (
finaan neva ave maisi mae) that
nevat should use allative as an object case for that which is sat on. I was caught on the non-standard (emphatic?) "upon", though, and felt that more distancing/abstract/clunky
she might give a similar abstracting emphasis.
Save for maybe leaning on
rayim instead of
nem I'm pretty happy with "athchilar atthirari nem sanneya". Seems it might get the message through without being a fixed idiom.
Real danger lurks outside The Wall ->
Athzhowakar tawaki ayola yomme Grefofoon
~ True danger waits beyond the Great Wall
Translating "to lurk" was of course pretty hopeless, but I was a bit miffed to fall so far. Dothraki should have at least something close to the effect of "to stalk", since hunting vocab should have a good representation. Might ask DJP about that.
Dunno, if The Wall is already translated somewhere, but
Grefof should work. I'd be slightly surprised if that weren't the official translation.
The blind believe it protects them all ->
Voji athtiharmeni shilli meme avijazera ei mora
~ Sightless people trust that it will protect them all
Yeah, we don't have a word for "blind". I might have made a much more daring coinage like
tihmenak, but
voji athtihmeni felt safe-ish and good.
We have a word
shillolat that's translated as "to believe", but considering how David just a while ago commented on the difference between the words, I trust that
shillat is the right word for this.
We have also two "protecting" words,
vijazerat and
savidosalat.
Savidosalat seems to have more "shielding" feel, so I would have preferred it, but unfortunately that would have called for
assavidosalat, and that felt a little heavy when we have a good simpler alternative.
I'm under an impression that Dothraki future is used more readily than English. This protecting felt odd to leave on present tense even if English does so. In other news: all over the text I was pining for Valyrian aorist. Dothraki does not feel so well fitted for discussing stuff in general sense. I take them for "here and now" type of people and see that reflected on the languege a bit.
In the end, the winter will rule ->
She nakho, aheshke vakkelena
~ In the end, winter will judge
Kept the fronted adverbial phrase.
