The Generic Dothraki Blog Thread

[Qvaak]

For anyone, who still missed it, the blog is up and running, three posts already. There's some discussion there, be sure to check it out.

So far david has given thorough basics for pronunciation of geminates (doubled consonants, that is) and also kindly showcased an alternate ortography test by yours truly. Apart from a few stray tidbits (eg. that homorganic oral stop can't be followed by fricative - or that consonant lengths are probably closest to Arabic) what we've learned so far is more corroborating what we know than expanding on our knowledge. So not a flashy mind blowing rollercoaster opening, but solid well-written stuff for anyone to read who's interested in Dothraki or conlangs in general.

I eagerly await for more.

[Qvaak]

If someone expected regular updates the Things Learnt From IRC way, I don't think they're coming. The information is available for all to see on the blog, isn't going anywhere and is much higher quality than any summary could ever be. David's blog has already surpassed ten post landmark and, is if I may say, entertainingly diverse.

For discussion, though, the blog is somewhat limited platform. I already feel I've flooded the comments a bit. So here, then, some further comments on the relative clause post.

 - Pronominal forms of prepositions were a cool thing to learn. We have at least two examples on the texts we already have, and they were pretty damn hard to understand before:
[...] yesi nemo ficho mehas venikh veri [...]
Rough literal translation would likely be The crone took for herself a likeness of a wolf., Peterson's less rough version is the crone turned into a wolf. We see that reflexive does indeed cause the preposition-pronouns, and that the subject does not take the case that the preposition would assign.
Anha arissak foth ma vidrik qoraes anhoon memras [...]
Roughly: I will cut the throat and guide the hand of mine inside. Peterson's: I will slice your throat and shove my hand inside it. This might be even more revealing on the scope of use. There's no special sentence structure to demand for pronominal preposition. The clumsier Anha arissak foth ma vidrik qoraes anhoon mra maan. Does not seem so clumsy anymore, but mra maan still collapses into memras. And again the allative is nowhere to be seen; now there isn't even any word that could be reasonably expected to carry the case.

 - It remains to be seen, how different rules for questions will be, David said there woud be some modernity. My "educated" guess would be that the fin declines the same way and pronominal prepositions are used the same, but the default word order is SVO, from which the word in question will be fronted. So while Anha tih fes finoon zimeme adra mawizze memas means I saw the carrot the turtle distracted the rabbit with, I'm guessing Finoon adra zimeme mawizze memas? would mean What did the turtle distract the rabbit with?

 - It seems the Demonstrative Pronouns chapter on the wiki will be needing a major overhaul, but that'll have to wait till we know a little bit more.

 - So what would be the fluent way to say "You ate poisoned food"? If we got the answers I was originally fumblingly looking for, I guess that would be Yer adakh hadaen fini nem izze. Simple, if still less compact than in English.

[Qvaak]

Taking this to the forum again, musings on the post Say Your Right Words this time:

Winter Is Coming
Ingsve's Aheshke Jada should be correct; he found it even already written by David. Still, I think my Aheshke Zin Jada fits nicely. It has a sense English can't easily achieve. Just to explore more exotic possibilities: weather seems to be sometimes expressed with passives. Something like Aheshke Nem Ajjada, "It's coming winter." might be a queer possibility.

We Do Not Sow
The only real question here seems to be whether to use vo, vos or vosecchi. I'm rooting for vosecchi, but all can be argumented for.

Here We Stand
Jinne kisha vikovareraki is my new favourite variant. Could jinne be more problematic in Dothraki than in English? Nah. Unlikely. To dothraki the abstraction might seem comical, though; they seem quite earth-bound people. "I don't see them standing here. Stupid words."

Growing Strong
I think ingsve's Hajoy is a winner. Well, participle is not the most explored feature of the language, so there might be further possibilities, Hajoyi for plural perhaps.
Athhajozar .. Hajolat .. Hajok .. Nemo Ahhajoki .. Zin Hajolat
The hardest thing is to decide, what "Growing Strong" most importantly wants to convey.

Hear Me Roar
I'm almost certain Charas Anna Zorak! is ungrammatical. Probably the most interesting alternative is Charas Anna Kash Zorak! - it actually should not work for non-pro-drop language either, I think, but I seem to remember that somewhere in situation like that the immediate repetition of a pronoun was dropped. Charas Kash Anha Zorak! is of course a solid yet uninteresting alternative.

It depends on the context of translation, but more than likely you'd want to carry a sense of lofty formality and grave ancietness of the words, so I guess all-around VSO-word order might be in order:
Jada Aheshke
Velaineroki Vosecchi Kisha
Jinne Vikovareraki Kisha
Charas Kash Zorak Anha!

And then there is the honor stuff. Tully's needs no further comments, but I would probably have left the whole house words thing to a blog comment without that. Any idea, how that would best translate? The whole, unabridged idea, is, I think, "We are as high as the honor is high." ..Which I'd translate Ven kisha yathaki ven chomokh yatha. But can you really say Ven yath ven chomokh? I see no real reason, why not, but remain doubtful.
Ven Athyathar Ven Chomokh
Ven Yath Ven Vichomer
...?

[ingsve]

You mention Charas Anna Zorak! as ungrammatical which I agree with but you don't mention Charas m'anha zorak. Isn't that the most likely version? Also the correct word for "we do not sow" is vo. This is another phrase we already know about from the very IRC chat that brought us the words for sowing and planting to begin with.

[Qvaak]

I thought I was continuing the discussion, so I skipped some repeats. Yes, Charas m'anha zorak! is still my favourite. My Charas anna fin zora! ain't that bad either.

As for We Do Not Sow, that Peterson has used vo is a strong argument for it, yes, but I don't think that necessarily makes the others incorrect. Maybe David even wants to see other good translation than the ones he's already made.

[Qvaak]

To recap, a list of kinda-definite translations for mottoes of westerosi houses:

House Targaryen: Fire and Blood — Vorsa ma Qoy
House Stark: Winter is Coming — Aheshke Jada
House Mormont: Here We Stand — Jinne Kisha Kovaraki
House Greyjoy: We Do Not Sow — Kisha Vo Velaineroki
House Tully: Family, Duty, Honor — Rhojosor, Atthar, Chomokh
House Arryn: As High as Honor — Ven Yath ven Chomokh
House Lannister: Hear Me Roar! — Chari Anna Zorat!
House Tyrell: Growing Strong — Hajolat

I used the capitalisation from Westeros.org's page. It's hilariously bizarre idea, that Dothraki might have it's unique capitalisation and punctuation rules.