Similarity to existing languages

[shmosh]

What do you think? I find Dorthraki similar to Arabic and Afrikaans.

[ingsve]

What do you think? I find Dorthraki similar to Arabic and Afrikaans.

Yes, the similarity to arabic is deliberate. That was one of the languages the creator of the language was inspired by when it comes to sound. It has a lot of the guttural sounds you find in arabic so when people hear it it reminds them of arabic but to someone who really knows arabic it wouldn't sound as similar.

There are also elements such as the trilled r's and dental consonants that make it sounds a bit like Spanish.

I'm not familiar enough with Afrikaans to know what elements might make it similar to that.

[shmosh]

It's the trilled r that reminds me of Afrikaans. Not Spanish, I don't know why, maybe because Spanish is pronounced so quickly and Dothraki at slower pace. 
You're right that Arabic is similar to Dothraki only at first sight. I think that Dothraki lacks the ugly gluttural sounds present in Arabic and there are certainly no triliteral roots.

[ingsve]

It's the trilled r that reminds me of Afrikaans. Not Spanish, I don't know why, maybe because Spanish is pronounced so quickly and Dothraki at slower pace. 
You're right that Arabic is similar to Dothraki only at first sight. I think that Dothraki lacks the ugly gluttural sounds present in Arabic and there are certainly no triliteral roots.

Well, the guttural sounds aren't really noticeable in the show, at least not yet. The actors aren't used to making those sounds so I've heard lots of mistakes in their pronounciation. For example everyone on the show seems to pronounce /kh/ as if it were a /k/ but it's really the velar fricative [x ]. I haven't heard how they pronounce q on the show yet. It should also be guttural.

[Najahho]

It's the trilled r that reminds me of Afrikaans. Not Spanish, I don't know why, maybe because Spanish is pronounced so quickly and Dothraki at slower pace. 
You're right that Arabic is similar to Dothraki only at first sight. I think that Dothraki lacks the ugly gluttural sounds present in Arabic and there are certainly no triliteral roots.

You should remember the Spanish-speaking countries motto: Ours Is The Trilled R 

[Hrakkar]

Athchomar zhey Shmosh!

Do you speak Afrikaans? That's not a language you hear about every day.

Insgive, I had no idea that guttarals were supposed to be guttaral like that. I haven't heard this in spoken examples, even by David Peterson. Besides kh, what other sounds are guttural? (Learning Klingon is definitely helping with the fricatives!)

[ingsve]

Athchomar zhey Shmosh!

Do you speak Afrikaans? That's not a language you hear about every day.

Insgive, I had no idea that guttarals were supposed to be guttaral like that. I haven't heard this in spoken examples, even by David Peterson. Besides kh, what other sounds are guttural? (Learning Klingon is definitely helping with the fricatives!)

I guess that depends on what definition of guttural you use. Certainly /kh/ and /q/ are and /h/ of course eventhough we don't usually thingk of it that way. There aren't that many examples of /q/ in the various audio sources from David without digging through the longer text but the best example I could find was the pronounciation of oqet in the beginning of this clip: http://www.wired.com/geekdad/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/oqet.mp3

You hear that the /q/ is pronounced almost in a swallow, much more throaty than a normal /k/.

[Qvaak]

I guess that depends on what definition of guttural you use. Certainly /kh/ and /q/ are and /h/ of course eventhough we don't usually thingk of it that way.

Yeah. Reading Wikipedia article it seems "guttural" is pretty much just a synonym for "harsh". While english /h/ [h] and /g/ [g] are definitely throat-based, they aren't usually cosidered guttural, while harsh sound like Dothraki /kh/ [ x ] is. based on what I've heard and what I've approximated myself, the dothraki /q/ [q] sounds pretty nice - not ugly at all.

[Hrakkar]

I listened over and over to that sound clip. The oqet is pretty clear; the rest of it I don't think I have completely worked out. In any case, I will agree with Ovaak that the Dothraki 'q' sound is not that bad at all, compared to, say, a Klingon 'Q'.

However, we are stealing Shmosh's introduction thread, so I think we will 'return to our regularly scheduled channel' and continue this thread in the 'beginners' section.