Dothraki memrise courses

[Ifak]

I was excited to see that recently two Dothraki courses have sprung up on Memrise. I registered to Memrise right away and I am very satisfied with how the site helps you remember words. But I have a problem with the courses. The words that I am learning are words that I will never use or at least they are not something that I think I should be learning right at the beginning. Also, I want to learn so I can speak Dothraki with my girlfriend and words like gorat(charge), ildo(sword strike) and irvosa(distance of approximately one fourth mile) are of little use to me.

For this reason I was thinking of starting my own course on Memrise. A course that starts you out with useful words that you might want to learn in the beginning. Words like "yes", "no", "maybe", "hi", ...
I was wondering what your guys think and also if anyone would want to join me, since I'm a beginner and definitely not an authority on the Dothraki language.


EDIT: The Dothraki for Beginners course in now live!

[Hrakkar]

The idea has considerable merit, but you will have to generate your own word list and maintain it. Luckily for you, we are not getting a lot of new vocabulary right now, so this might be easier than it sounds.

My biggest beef with Memrise is its tendency to begin at the beginning of the alphabet where all the confusing /A/ words are!

[Qvaak]

I don't have much interest in Dothraki memrise courses myself, because I'm more into framework than into being able to use the language. I'm good at being a grammar nazi, but not so good at remembering words or managing the pronunciation, and that suits me fine. I've good experience on Memrise course on Toki Pona, though. Memrise is in my experience good for a really limited thing, for expanding vocabulary, but that at least it does relatively well.

Go for it. I'll help, if you have something to ask about. Our knowledge of conversational Dothraki is limited, as is our knowledge of Dothraki in general, but we do know some stuff.

Hear me on this, though: I don't know, how hardcore you are planning to get on grammatical side (or on phonetical side for that matter), but leave room at least. Dothraki words are not generally just unmutable units. Knowing that "dog" is jano or "to wait" is ayolat is almost useless, if you don't also know that jano is inanimate and in ayolat the stem ends in consonant and the infinite suffix is just the /-at/.

[Ifak]

I don't think Memrise is a good tool for learning a language but I do think that it's an exceptional tool for learning words. With that in mind, the intention of the course would be to help people learn a bunch of words easily, and they can later use this knowledge to learn to speak with the help of the wiki and other lessons.

[Qvaak]

I don't think Memrise is a good tool for learning a language but I do think that it's an exceptional tool for learning words.

Ya. That's what I was trying to say.

I think we're on a same page, but let me make sure:
Words are not just one sequence of sounds, they can have metadata. In English this is only relevant in irregularities (to know the word mouse you need to know that the plural is mice; to know the word bite you need to know that the past simple is bit and past participle is bitten), but on many languages the metadata is much more crucial. This is not about grammar, really, this is about what the words are.
How words have multiple meanings and none of them are usually exactly same as the meanings in other language is yet another big kettle of fish, but when it comes to memrise course, I'd waive that away as much as possible.

How about this:
For nouns all else can IMO be waived, but animacy should be indicated. You'll need to learn some irregular accusatives later, but knowing animacy you'll be able to use the words at least almost correctly. Since you need to be able to submit correct Dothraki words, it's inconvenient to attach metadata on Dothraki words, but it should be fine to add that to English, like:
jano - dog (inanimate)

For verbs the problem is the infinite ending, and infinitive is unuseful conjugation anyway. The past singular we use to accompany infinite isn't good either, because of epenthesis issues (it's good when accompanied with infinite precisely because of epethesis issues it shows, but won't stand on it's own). You might offer the verbs in third person singular - that's informative and useful. I would however suggest dealing with bare stems:
ayol - wait (verb stem)
There's one really cool advantage to this: you can offer all adjectives as verb stems and thus sneak-feed one cool characteristic of Dothraki language to your brain right from beginning:
thelis - blue (verb stem)
This would offer very few problems - considering all the other issues that must be waived, practically no issues at all - and would feel very streamlined.

For pronouns I'd just ask all declinations individually:
anni - me (I in accusative)
anhoon - from me (I in ablative)
yerea - to you (you in plural allative)
Though I don't much like using declined English pronouns, so I'd be tempted to go:
anni - 1SG accusative
anhoon - 1SG ablative
yerea - 2PL allative
because of course the cases do not correspond that well to English cases, but using techical terms is unappealing.

What do you think? Are you already building the course?

[Ifak]

Okay quick reply, it's really late, so I'll get into details tomorrow.

I know how words change when you actually use the language more than in English. I'm Slovenian (watch this youtube video if you're into languages and stuff http://bit.ly/1nK4KFY).

I know that it would be impossible to teach people how to use the language with this course, the idea is just to familiarize people with some common words. But I would sure love to get advice on how to make it easier to transition into learning the "rules" of the language, like adding info whether the noun is animate or not (whats the word for "rules" of the language again?).

So far I've made a couple of lists of words:
Everyday words like yes, no, maybe, nothing, why, ...
common deeds like to sleep, to eat, to drink, ...
common adjectives like beautiful, dry, wet, dirty, ...
common animals,
colors
and
numbers 0 - 10

I'll try to figure out what you wrote in the second half of your message tomorrow after I get some sleep.

[Ifak]

Allright here's the rest of it...

I too was thinking of adding information about animacy to the nouns. I think it's useful to know and people who don't want to learn it can still easily ignore it. I was going to do it with (an) and (in) next to the words to avoid clutter but I like your idea with the full word better, it's more fluent and I think easier for the brain to remember if the full word (animate)/(inanimate) is next to the noun.

I see what your trying to say when it comes to verbs, but it makes me just a tiny bit anxious to deviate from the norm and teach them in anything but the infinitive form. I'm not familiar with anything but the present time conjugations (that's as far is I've gotten in my learning), but I see how teaching the stem only would be better, because I know sometimes with werbs that end with -lat you can't know if the ending is actually -lat or just -at. But that's all I know about that.

The part with the adjectives I didn't really understand. I'm sorry, here's where the fact that I'm a total beginner becomes a problem I guess.

About the pronouns, not sure if I want to go into all that, because the course is going to teach the basic and common words only. But I see how teaching the nominative declination only isn't very helpful. So I'm not sure if I should teach everything or nothing (course would have no pronouns). That wouldn't be a tragedy since this course will be made with the other lessons in mind (you need to combine the course with other lessons in order to learn anything). Maybe using all of those declinations would overcomplicate a course that's trying to teach the simplest beginner words.

While writing this, I had an idea of maybe making a separate level (courses are devided into levels) that teaches animacy only. So in a few levels you learn a bunch of words and they have animacy in the brackets next to it as we said before, but then in a separate course you get a word and you have to choose if it's animate or inanimate. Sou you would have two chances to learn and improve the knowledge of this, in my mind, most tedious part of the Dothraki language.

Another thing. This course is just an idea that I've come up with. If anyone with more experience or knowledge wants to take over I'd be perfectly fine with that, since as I've said before, I'm not really an authority on the Dothraki language and I'm also only a beginner learner. I don't want to withold any rights from other eager individuals.

To sum up, I'd like to maybe see what other people think about the stems only idea, and what you think about evading the pronouns completely. Maybe you could also give me a more detailed explanation on the adjectives thing. Sorry for the wall of text.

[Qvaak]

I'm Slovenian (watch this youtube video if you're into languages and stuff http://bit.ly/1nK4KFY).

Har! Crazy enough Dual is a nice feature. I gotta say, though, that the video slightly over-emphasizes the issue. Even in English you'd get from single "Have you eaten?" to three or four options "Has she/he[/it] eaten?", "Have they eaten?" by simply changing to third person.

Another thing. This course is just an idea that I've come up with. If anyone with more experience or knowledge wants to take over I'd be perfectly fine with that, since as I've said before, I'm not really an authority on the Dothraki language and I'm also only a beginner learner. I don't want to withold any rights from other eager individuals.

Go forth. More/better Memrise courses would be cool, but since noone yet has done them, you are the most promising candidate. This is a small group of people, us active/semiactive Dothraki connoseurs. Your contribution will be appriciated. And you seem to be having a good grasp of things.

I'm not familiar with anything but the present time conjugations (that's as far is I've gotten in my learning), but I see how teaching the stem only would be better, because I know sometimes with werbs that end with -lat you can't know if the ending is actually -lat or just -at. But that's all I know about that.

The /-lat/ versus /-at/ confusion is all there is to that, really, but it's a nasty little issue.
If you know present tense conjugation, you know pretty much the whole conjugation. Past is super simple (Dothraki basically just flaunt the whole business of conjugating there, only marking plurals) and future is even simpler (it's not an independent scheme, just prefix addition to present tense scheme).

About the pronouns, not sure if I want to go into all that, because the course is going to teach the basic and common words only. But I see how teaching the nominative declination only isn't very helpful. So I'm not sure if I should teach everything or nothing (course would have no pronouns).

You could add a limited selection of pronouns/cases. If you give only singular pronouns and only nominative, accusative and genitive, that's mere nine words and fairly useful set. I was thinking you wanted to give a nice starting packet, and pronouns are usually one of the first things people want to learn.
Slovene (as I'm just reading from Wikipedia) and my own Finnish are both pro-drop languages. We can say simple stuff like "I kissed a girl" or "You are beautiful" without using pronouns, trusting the verb conjugation to convey the subject. Dothraki does not generally allow this, even when the verb conjugation marks the subject - they like the redundancy, you might say. So knowing pronouns is a little more important in Dothraki than it is in our native languages.

Maybe you could also give me a more detailed explanation on the adjectives thing. Sorry for the wall of text.

Wall of text! Let me tell you about adjectives and show what a real wall of text looks like! ... well, hopefully not

There are many ways to categorize verbs, but one is this: Some verbs are momentary acts, some are sustained actions. But some aren't about doing anything at all, just about being in some state, like sitting, lying, sleeping, living. We call these stative verbs. All Dothraki adjectives have also stative verb forms (all true adjectives, that is - not participles).

One might even take this further and say that speaking of adjectives as a separate category of words is not the best analysis of Dothraki at all. One might instead postulate that some stative verbs in Dothraki are simply adjectival. Those adjectival verbs can be integrated into noun phrases, and if they are, they lose their verb inflection pattern and adapt a simpler inflection pattern dependent on the noun they modify.

So, in this analysis we have eg. an adjectival verb zhokwalat, to be big. Thus we can say "Jano zhokwae." - "The dog is big." But it's cumbersome to say "Jano fini zhokwae osta anni." - "The dog which is big bites me." or "Anha tihak jan fini zhokwae." - "I see the dog which is big," so it comes as no surprise that we can integrate the adjectival verb into the noun phrase and say "Jano zhokwa osta anni." - "The big dog bites me." or "Anha tihak jan zhokwa." - "I see the big dog." If you really wanted to run with this idea, you might probably call this adjective a strong participle or somesuch.

But yeah, the gist of the rambling is that verbs and adjectives aren't as separate as they are in most languages. You need to be able to use adjectives as verbs to speak proper Dothraki, and those stative verbs derived from adjectives are only a small fraction more separate words than different conjugations. So it makes little difference if you learn the words as adjectives or in their verb form. If you learn verbs by their stem, then it makes even less difference.

[Ifak]

Thanks. That really cleared things up. I like this idea a lot and I was thinking that instead of deviating from the norm and teaching verbs with stems only, what if I would teach the adjectives first, and then in another level the same words in their verb (and infinitive) forms. With this, the people would learn both the verbs and adjectives and how they are connected and they would already know the words so it wouldn't really be extra work. But I notice that not all adjectives have a verb form, like the adjective ath (dry). There is no athat in the dictionary.

[Qvaak]

But I notice that not all adjectives have a verb form, like the adjective ath (dry). There is no athat in the dictionary.

That's just because the dictionary is incomplete. The verb form is usually listed if we have run into it specifically, and certainly listed, if it seems there might be some extensions past the adjectival meaning (eg. davralat can be used transitively with allative, which goes past the straightforward derivation from adjective). But most of the stuff that can be inferred (even with extreme certainity) is not listed. So there's no real doubt that there is a word athat and it means to be dry.

[Ifak]

Good to know. If you agree with the current plan, I'll try to assemble the words in the next few days and I'll just post the whole list here or send it to you for approval if I may.

[Qvaak]

Sure

[Hrakkar]

I've been really busy with work the past few days (and will continue to be for several more), so I have missed what is going on here. I like very much the ideas that are being considered here. Having a number of different memory courses might be a really useful thing, especially for people (like myself) who are not natively multilingual.

I think the 'rules of the language' word you are looking for is 'grammar'

[Ifak]

Okay I've assembled it or most of it at least. I'm just gonna post the whole list here. The items are divided into levels, so please feel free to offer advice on the order of the words, the levels, and the names of the levels and well... anything that you think could be improved. I also encountered some problems and dilemmas, so I wrote them all down as I went along. I'll put those at the bottom.

I also didn't add any pronouns because I don't know a whole lot about all those conjugations and declinations and whatnot. So I was hoping that one of you guys could add a list of pronouns that are used very often. Thanks!

Everyday words
sek - yes
vos - no
ishish - maybe
chek - good
m'ath - hi
m'athchomaroon - with respect (greeting)

Family
rhojosor - family (animate)
mai - mother (animate)
ave - father (animate)
simonof - grandfather (animate)
kristasof - grandmother (inanimate)
gaezo - brother (/)
inavva - sister (/)
rizh - son (animate)
ohara - daughter (inanimate)

Outside
gache - place, environs (inanimate)
feshith - tree (/)
halah - flower (animate)
qevir - forest (/)
ashefa - river (animate)
tozara - lake (animate)
olta - hill (inanimate)

Adjectives
davra - good, useful
edavrasa - useless, of poor quality
zhokwa - big
naqis - small
neak - long
fitte - short
ohazh - heavy
imesh - young
foz - old
diwe - wet
ath - dry

Verbs
davralat - to be useful
edavrasalat - to be useless
zhokwalat - to be large
naqisat - to be small
neakat - to be long
fittelat - to be short
ohazhat - to become heavy
imeshat - to be young
fozat - to be old
diwelat - to be wet
athat - to be dry

Pronouns
anha - I
anni - of mine
anna - me
yer - you
me - he, she, it
kisha - we
yeri - you (plural)
mori - they
eyak - everyone

Home
okrenegwin - stone house (inanimate)
okre - tent (/)
gref - wall (/)
davrakh - useful thing, app (inanimate)
emrakh - gate (inanimate)
ador - chair (inanimate)
az - blade (inanimate)
heffof - jug (inanimate)
jolino - cooking pot (inanimate)
khogar - word for one's apparel, clothes (inanimate)
khogari - box, trunk, chest, cask (inanimate)

Adjectives 2
reddi - skinny
oiro - fat
dik - fast
vroz - slow
erin - kind, good
mel - bad, evil
toki - dumb
ville - wise
yofi - mad, crazy
haj - strong
fish - cold
afazh - hot
afazhi - warm

Verbs 2
reddilat - to be skinny
oirolat - to be fat
dikat - to be fast
vrozat - to be slow
erinat - to be kind, to be good
melat - to be evil
tokilat - to be dumb
villat - to be wise
yofilat - to be mad, to be crazy
hajat - to be strong
fishat - to be cold
afazhat - to be hot
afazhilat - to be warm

Animals
rhoa - animal (/)
jano - dog (inanimate)
havzi - cat (/)
dalfe - cow (inanimate)
noah - bull (animate)
dorvi - goat (inanimate)
oqet - sheep (inanimate)
qifo - boar / pig (inanimate)
hrazef - horse (inanimate)
jiz - chicken (animate)
alegra - duck (inanimate)

Conjunctions and Determiners
ma - and
ven - like, as
ei - all, every
che - either, or
loy - some, few, any, a bit of
san - much, many
zhille - any

Adjectives 3
driv - dead
thir - alive
achra - smelly
sorf - dirty
gizikhven - sweet
jelaven - sour
zhifven - salty
havziven - lazy
ataki - first
remek - asleep
samva - broken

Verbs 3
drivolat - to die
drivat - to be dead
thirat - to live
achralat - to be smelly, to give of a smell
sorfat - to be dirty
gizikhvenat - to be sweet
jelavenat - to be sour
zhifvenat - to be salty
havzivenat - to be lazy
atakilat - to be first
remekat - to sleep
samvalat - to be broken ?
samvat - to be broken
samvolat - to break

Animals 2
gimi - mouse (/)
afis - fly (/)
giz - bee (/)
hlizif - bear (animate)
leqse - rat (inanimate)
qosar - spider (/)
ver - wolf (/)
yetto - frog (inanimate)
zir - bird (/)
mawizzi - rabbit (inanimate)
eshina - fish (/)
gezri - snake (animate)

Home 2
orzi - shoe (inanimate)
timvir - book (/)
yot - fruit (inanimate)
thom - juice (inanimate)
hadaen - food (inanimate)
gavat - meat (inanimate)
vinte - portion of meat (inanimate)
jelli - cheese (inanimate)
nindi - sausage (inanimate)
qazer - apple (inanimate)
zhif - salt (inanimate)

Outside 2
krazaaj - mountain (inanimate)
eyel - rain (inanimate)
asavva - sky (animate)
shekh - sun (inanimate)
jalan - moon (animate)
shierak - star (animate)
vaes - city (inanimate)
os - path, road (inanimate)
rhaesh - land, country (animate)

Numbers 0 - 10
som - zero (0)
at - one (1)
akat - two (2)
sen - three (3)
tor - four (4)
mek - five (5)
zhinda - six (6)
fekh - seven (7)
ori - eight (8 )
qazat - nine (9)
thi - ten (10)

People
voj - person (animate)
okeo - friend, trustee (animate)
mahrazh - man (animate)
rakh - boy, lamb (/)
rakhi - boy (insult) (/)
chiori - woman (animate)
nayat - girl (inanimate)
yalli - child (animate)
enta - baby, infant (/)
tokik - fool (animate)

Elements
sorfo - dirt (inanimate)
vorsa - fire (animate)
chaf - wind (animate)
eveth - water (inanimate)
jesh - ice (inanimate)

Verbs 4
tat - to do
elat - to go
adakhat - to eat
ammemat - to play a musical instrument
astolat - to speak
astat - to say
dirgat - to think
emat - to smile
ezhirat - to dance

Body
khado - body (animate)
nhare - head (animate)
lenta - neck (/)
elme - shoulder (inanimate)
qora - hand, arm (animate)
tir - finger (inanimate)
gango - belly (inanimate)
khaor - waist (inanimate)
rhae - foot, leg (/)
hlofa - wrist, ankle
vem - knee, elbow (/)
vemish - heel of the hand or foot (inanimate)
irge - back (/)
ilek - skin (/)

Phrases
Athdavrazar(!) - Excellent!
Me nem nesa - It is known
Vosecchi(!) - No way!
Hash yer dothrae chek? - How are you?
Anha garvok(!) - I'm hungry!
I'm hungry(!) - I'm thirsty!
Yer zheanae (sekke) - You're (very) beautiful
San athchomari yeraan(!) - Thank you! (a lot of honor to you)
Fonas chek(!) - goodbye (Hunt well! - Farewell)

Body 2
noreth - hair (inanimate)
vish - forehead (/)
hatif - face (/)
tih - eye (animate)
riv - nose, tip (/)
dech - cheek (inanimate)
gomma - mouth of a human (/)
heth - lips, rim (inanimate)
lekh - tongue (inanimate)
chare - ear (inanimate)
vik - chin (inanimate)
shirane - beard (inanimate)

Verbs 5
ezolat - to learn
ezzolat - to teach
fejat - to hate
frakhat - to touch, to reach to touch
frakholat - to feel
garvolat - to grow hungry, to hunger
fevelat - to thirst
ifat - to walk
layafat - to be happy

Seasons
vorsaska - summer (inanimate)
eyelke - spring (inanimate)
chafka - autumn (inanimate)
aheshke - winter (inanimate)

Other Nouns
vosi - nothing (inanimate)
atthirar - life (inanimate)
athdrivar - death (inanimate)
athfiezar - love (inanimate)
eme - smile (inanimate)
zoqwa - kiss (/)
lekh - language (animate)
athjerizar - discussion (inanimate)
ato - one, something (inanimate)
vekhikh - object, thing (inanimate)

Verbs 6
hoyalat - to sing
ifat - to walk
indelat - to drink
jasat - to laugh
khezhat - to be sad
zhilat - to love someone
jolinat - to cook
lommat - to bathe
lanat - to run

Colors
vishiya - color
dahaan - green
kazga - black
nozhoven - brown
reaven - purple
shiqeth - grey
veltor - yellow
vishiya - color
zasqa - white
thelis - blue
theyaven - pink
virzeth - red

Other Nouns 2
athvilajerar - war (inanimate)
qoy - blood (inanimate)
athrokhar - fear (inanimate)
athvillar - wisdom (inanimate)
atthirarido - dream (inanimate)
dirge - thought, idea (inanimate)
hake - name (animate)
ase - word, command (animate)

Verbs 7
laqat - to cry
nesolat - to learn
nevalat - to sit
nevasolat - to sit down
chilayat - to lie (body position)
chilat - to lie down
qafat - to ask
tihat - to look, to see
zoqwat - to kiss

________________________________________

Problems
ershe and foz both mean "old"

ohazhat - to become heavy, not to be heavy ??
what baout ville - wise (ajd) and the verb villat - to be wise. Looks liek an exception. How do we know the other unrecorded verbs that come from adjectives
aren't exceptions too?

haj - strong (adj); hajolat - to grow strong. Is hajat - to be strong?

afazh (adj.) - hot; affazhat - to warm, to give warmth, to make hot. Is afazhat, to be hot? and afazhilat to be warm?

samva - broken
samvolat - to break
is samvalat - to be broken?

chilay (adj) - laying
chilat - to lie down
can we conclude that chilayat means to lie?

what is verb transitivity?

is irge - "back" meant as a part of the human body?

lenta - stem, neck; can this be the neck of a human?

Change log

14.2.2014
- Added a Phrases level
- Moved sky from Elements to Outside 2
- Marked words that still lack an audio file
- Added a Conjunctions and Determiners level
- Added a Pronouns level

20.2.2014
- Removed exclamation mark from chek in Everyday Words

5.5.2014
- Removed nonexistent word from Conjunctions and Determiners

[Qvaak]

I'll try to comment more later, hopefully, but some stuff to keep the discussion going...

ershe and foz both mean "old"

Seems so. As far as we know, they are synonyms. Might be there is some difference in meaning, but we don't know it. Then again, a language without synonyms would be strange. We should expect more of them if and when the vocab grows.

lenta - stem, neck; can this be the neck of a human?

is irge - "back" meant as a part of the human body?

We've got a fair amount of our words with practically no context to go with. My guess would be that these are applicable to human body parts, but I can't say I have any proof.

chilay (adj) - laying
chilat - to lie down
can we conclude that chilayat means to lie?

No. Remember how I said "All Dothraki adjectives have also stative verb forms (all true adjectives, that is - not participles)." Well, this chilay is participle, not a true verb. The -y ending is a dead giveaway. Chilat is not in dynamic form (I'll come to that later), so the most accurate translation is probably a stative to lie.

ohazhat - to become heavy, not to be heavy ??

no, no. Ohazholat is "to become heavy", ohazat should be "to be heavy". You see, that -o- there is a bit tricky suffix-thingy, but at least almost always it's used to indicate that a verb is about a change and specifically abut a beginning of a change. So eg. chilat is probably about being lying, because simple Dothraki verbs tend to be by their core meaning stative. Then if you need to clearly use the verb to mark change, you derive the -o- form, which would be... chisolat, I think. This is not universal conjugation level stuff, but very common, productive derivation pattern.

what is verb transitivity?

Transitivity tells you if the verb takes an object. It's kinda short extra hint on what a verb means. If the verb is intransitive, it does not take (straight) object, so if you have eg. intransitive to burn (virsalat), you'll know that "the house burned" ("okre virsa") is good use and "I burned the house" (*"anha virsa okre") won't work. Useful, eh.

haj - strong (adj); hajolat - to grow strong. Is hajat - to be strong?
afazh (adj.) - hot; affazhat - to warm, to give warmth, to make hot. Is afazhat, to be hot? and afazhilat to be warm?

Ya. Should be.

what baout ville - wise (ajd) and the verb villat - to be wise. Looks liek an exception. How do we know the other unrecorded verbs that come from adjectives aren't exceptions too?
samva - broken
samvolat - to break
is samvalat - to be broken?

Argh, yes. Sorry. I tried to dodge this issue with some muddling "usually" and "probably" and "practically" type of words. Maybe it's a bit bigger issue than I'd like to think.
There are always some complications, as Dothraki does not try to be nice-to-learn artificial-like language; it tries to be warts-and-all natural-like language. You should always expect some nasty details, and with Dothraki you should expect the complications to be about epenthesis more often than not.
In this case it goes like this: You have an adjective/verb stem. If the stem is nice one like ath, you'll have an adjective ath and stative verb athat. But if the stem is eg. samv, Dothraki don't want to use it as is as an adjective, because the ending consonant cluster is too cumbersome. Then they jam an epenthetic vowel in the end, a vowel that is usually e, but is sometimes rarely something else, like in samva. But the ending vowel isn't part of stem, so it's just forgotten from verb form. Past singular of course has the same problem, but it always takes -e, never something else, AFAIK.
So, yeah, "to be broken samvat, assamvat proves that beyond any reasonable doubt, and I'm pretty sure we've discussed samva specifically with Peterson, even though surprisingly we apparently haven't added samvat to the vocab.
Damn it's good to have someone asking these questions. Thanks for the patience, hopefully you'll have it in spades.
I'd suggest you to not worry about this much, though. Some words, like fittelat may be wrong (could be fittat), but it's too frustrating to refrain from saying things like "I am short" just because we're not entirely sure about the whole scheme of fittat.