Asshekhqoyi Anni Save…Save

Well, it’s that time again. It’s been another year, and now I’m thirty-three. It’s been a heck of a year. I presented at TED and El Ser Creativo, did a really epic season of Game of Thrones that got totally shafted by the Golden Globes, the first season of Defiance, Thor: The Dark World, and picked up a couple new projects. What I didn’t do was get to 4,000 Dothraki words. :( Things have really slowed down on that front. Having a bunch of stuff to work on is outstanding, but it does mean that I’m not able to expand the languages as much as I’d like to, or give them as much attention as I’d like to. I haven’t forgotten about anything, I can assure you, it’s just going to take more time for me to get things settled.

Consequently, there’s not a lot of new material to work with for this year’s Dothraki haiku competition—which begins right now! I’ve thought a lot about expanding to include Valyrian, so here’s what I’ll say. I will allow Valyrian haiku, but they won’t compete directly with the Dothraki haiku. If there are a sufficient number of submissions, I’ll make Valyrian a permanent member of the haiku competition. For now, though, Valyrian is an expansion language, and Valyrian compositions will not be accepted for the coveted Mawizzi Virzeth.

Now, let’s see if I can come up with something of my own:

Vezh chak karlina
Ma frakhoki vash kashi
Eya kishoon.

Okay, that should be figure-out-able, but I won’t lie: it’s a little tricky.

This year’s challenge word is noreth, “hair”. Because I like it. Again, the challenge word is not required, but if you wanted something to give you a jump start (in case you can’t think of a theme ex nihilo), try using the challenge word. It’s got kind of a strange shape (and was likely inspired by the Moro word ndreth, which is the plural of ereth, which means “clothes”).

And here are the rules, reposted from last year:

Guidelines

For the purposes of this contest, a haiku is 17 syllables long, with the syllable counts for each line being 5, 7 and 5, in that order. If you need to fudge, we’ll set up a separate category for haiku that are 17 syllables, but maybe don’t hit the right line numbers.

Also (and this is important), since this is Dothraki, we are definitely going by syllable count, not mora count. Regarding syllable-counting, in Dothraki, a syllable is defined as a vowel plus one or more consonants on either side. A syllable cannot contain more than one vowel, which means that a word like kishaan is trisyllabic, not disyllabic.

If it helps, you may or may not contract the various prepositions that contract. So, for example, mr’anha (two syllables) is the usual way of saying “inside me”. For your haiku, if you wish, you can separate the two out, i.e. mra anha (three syllables). You can also drop purely epenthetic e vowels (so the past tense of “crush”, kaffe, can be rendered as kaff’). Feel free to play with word order and drop pronouns, as needed, bearing in mind that such language is figurative, and the reader will still need to be able to figure out who’s doing what to whom.

For Valyrian: Long vowels count as two mora, and a vowel with a coda counts as two mora, but a syllable will not have more than two mora. So a long vowel plus a coda consonant will still be two mora, for the purposes of the poem. Try doing this with mora, instead of syllables, and see how it goes. This will make it more like a real Japanese haiku. If you need a particular word in a particular number/case combination or a verb in a particular conjugation, please let me know and I’ll give it to you.

Addendum: Rising diphthongs count as two mora (i.e. ae and ao); falling diphthongs count as one (e.g. ia, ua, ue, etc.). Also, word order is certainly freer in poetry than it is in everyday speech, but the rules about adjectives still apply (i.e. you use the short forms if the adjective appears directly before the noun it modifies; otherwise they’d take their full forms). And, finally, word-final consonants are extrametrical. Thus if a word ends in -kor, that counts as one mora, not two.

Shieraki gori ha yerea! Fonas chek!

99 comments

  1. Gosh, that haiku is hard to figure.
    With a bit of gut-feel my first guess would be
    Silent stallion gallops
    And [we] feel the tremors linger
    Everywhere on us.

    Oh but the hair! I so did not learn enough on the IRC.
    Is it singular thing akin to beard or eyebrow? Or is the singular denoting to a single strand? Or is it a bit of both, maybe like in English where there’s a separate singular meaning denoting to hair growing from scalp? What of all hair translates to noreth? Animal hair; hair on your arms?

    Asshekhqoyi vezhvena!

    1. As an inanimate noun, noreth is more of a mass noun than a count noun. It refers to hair as a substance. It’s not appropriate for a strand of hair, unless context demands. It wouldn’t be used for animal fur. It’s not the word for “mane”, but it could refer to the type of hair that a horse has (after all, why wouldn’t a Dothrak use the same word for a horse’s hair than a human’s hair?). It probably wouldn’t be used for body hair. Does that help?

  2. David, I know exactly how you feel. But with a reduced workload from GoT for this season, perhaps there will be more ‘Dothraki for fun’ (If the Dothraki have fun ;) ) this year, like this haiku contest.

    I am looking forward to writing a haiku or two. Noreth has lots of interesting possibilities for inclusion! Finally, I second Qvaak’s interesting questions about this word (which is simply ‘hair’ in the dictionary, and will for now be used in the typical English understanding of this word.)

    1. >Sigh< I got more. Sorry!

      • What if I want to use naejot as a verb prefix? I assume it’s not just naejotu-, that seems unlikely. What form does it actually take?

      • I need a word that refers to the intersection of land and sea, such as shore, coast, or even beach.

      1. Yes, or rather I derived it from jikagon “to send.” I got the impression that those prefixes are added quite freely, but feel free to strike that compound down. Oh, come to think of it, is the problem that jikagon is already the applicative of *ikagon meaning… something or other?

        But returning to the actual idea here, I was trying to say “send out” (or possibly “send forth,” which for my own reasons I prefer) as a paraphrase for “cast out, exile.” I supose you might prefer something from ilzigon, the literal equivalent of “cast”?

        I figured AV nejorezlivas must be somehow derived from naejot iōragon, but that was just a guess anyway.

        Rāenion, eh? I bet there’s an etymological connection with rāenagon (and rēnābagon).

        Anyway, thanks for the new info, let’s see if this gets me anywhere!

  3. This took a rather long time, but it was a lot of fun! I actually used the Valyrian word for hair, ōghar, in my poem. The haikus are probably filled with grammatical flaws, but I will get to those. I have added some notes indicated by square brackets.

    Ziry jehikas
    gēlenkor ōghri,
    iosre hūra [1]

    Translation:
    It shines upon
    silver hair,
    the cold moon

    Second version

    Jehikas iosre [2]
    gēlenkor ōghri
    ōños bantio [3]

    Translation:
    Shines coldly upon
    silver hair
    the light of night

    Notes:
    [1] My mother tongue is Swedish, and constructing a sentence this way – referring to the subject first as it/he/she and at the end with a noun – can sometimes be heard in everyday/dialectal speech, and I think that might also be true for English in some parts of the world. I haven’t ever seen it in poetry though. So can you write this way in Valyrian?
    [2] How would you create an adverb corresponding to “coldly”?
    [3] Can this word order, verb-object-subject, be used? It was the only way I could get number of mora correct. Hopefully the adverb of iosre will not change it.

    I would be very happy to receive some feedback. Thanks in advance.

    1. It looks like there are some problems with mora count here.

      • By my count the first version is: 5:8:6—that last one could be 5 if the s is allowed to syllabify with the -re instead of the io-, but even then the middle line should be 7, not 8, right?

      • And for the second version I count: 5~6:7:7

      1. Well, guessing based on Latin: it should be possible but totally unnecessary, since if you removed the ziry the sentence would work just as well. A Classics scholar would say the ziry was probably there just to complete the verse. (I suppose another possibility is that it’s emphatic, or kind of deictic, like you’re standing out at night pointing at the moon, saying “She shines upon….”)

      2. The regular equivalent would be *iosrī. However, leaving iosre as is should still produce a grammatical sentence, and in fact in Latin the adjective would be preferred here! “It shines cold upon…” in other words, it is the ōños that is iosre, rather than the shining.

      3. Not my call, of course, but is implicit in my answer to 1, I think it’s fine.

      1. Alright. Since I’m testing my hand on Valyrian too, I’m rather interested to get my mora count right, so…

        Zi-ry je-hi-kas
        I count six, since the last syllable looks heavy.

        gē-len-kor ōgh-ri
        I count nine, since the last syllable looks like the only light one. Is /nk-/ an allowed onset?

        What am I not getting?

        1. Well, I’m assuming some rules from Indo-European mora counting, which David might not have mentioned because they don’t apply in Japanese. Which can be boiled down to “final consonants are tricky.”

          1. In Greek and Latin (and I presume Sanskrit and Persian), if a word ends in a single consonant, preceded by a short vowel, then it counts as long if followed by a consonant, and short if followed by a vowel. In other words, the sylabification treats it as gē-len-ko-rōgh-ri, as if there were no word boundaries.

          2. Furthermore, in G&L, the last syllable of a line is always treated as of indeterminate weight. If the line is supposed to end in a heavy syllable but doesn’t, no one will care. I think this is for the same reason: at the end of a line, a word is treated as if it could be followed by anything. If that rule applies here, then -kas could count as either one mora or two.

          I strongly suspect that at least the first rule is true in HV. Notice that the weight of the final syllable in a word does not affect the placement of accent. This is also the case in Latin, and it’s claimed this is because the final syllable is “extramoraic.” Granted, the situation is different in Latin, because the idea is to phrase the rule in such a way as to place the accent a set number of morae from the end… which will not work in HV.

          1. Makes sense. I’ve lingered near linguistic circles long enough to get the notion that the words aren’t usually separated by pauses or somesuch easy definite separators. Consonants jump to the onset of the next word’s first syllable, why not.
            I’m still kinda feeling like maybe forgetting this. It’s at least partially a question of how haiku is read, how separate the words fall. Though Valyrian has far too high average mora count to my comfort, so losing some would make things easier.

          2. I’ll update the post after this.

            Zi-ry je-hi-kas
            I count six, since the last syllable looks heavy.

            Word-final consonants are extrametrical. (I knew this and yet did not write it. Fail!)

            gē-len-kor ōgh-ri
            I count nine, since the last syllable looks like the only light one. Is /nk-/ an allowed onset?

            I count 8—which is still one too many, but not two too many. That line is:

            2-2-1 2-1

      1. Thanks! The Dothraki Wiki pages on Valyrian grammar and vocabulary were of great help, really. So credit to you and the others who work on them.

        My understanding when I wrote was that short vowels are one, and long vowels two mora. I didn’t think of any other factors. Do stressed syllables count as two mora? Or is there something else I am missing?

        1. A closed syllable counts as two morae. Except that, apparently, word-final consonants don’t count.

          And thanks! It’s good to know that my obsession with describing HV is not being wasted ;)

  4. I wanted to try something fun n’ new, and since last year I did not manage to call up a goup effort on renga sort of adventure, I decided this year I’d create a loosely linked jouney in conversation between languages, Valyrian and Dothraki. The format is 5-7-5 // 7-7 // 5-7-5 // 5-7-5 // 7-7 // 5-7-5 and it’s two person Rengay. The haiku and two-liners should stand on their own; this is not one poem in a usual sense.

    Mra qevir noreth
    fenoe hatifaan;
    azho qosari.

    Dōre dȳnes
    valī ipradis.

    Mas athasari
    tolorro mahrazhoa
    finis adakh me.

    Zaldrīzo
    oktia zaltom
    ībommi.

    Zhavorsa nem addrivish;
    vaes vil avirsae.

    Bantio gō
    vēzos jēdri
    melemilza.

    I’ll probably write a bit longer commentary on the forum, but here’s at least a rough translation:

    In a forest hairs
    stick to face;
    gift from spiders.

    No animal
    eats men.

    Desert’s treasures
    are bones of men
    whom it ate.

    Dragon’s
    city with burned
    bones.

    Dragons have been killed;
    cities will manage to burn.

    Before night
    the sky the sun
    will redden.

    1. It seems the word-final consonants are strictly off the mora count, so all three of my Valyrian parts are wrong. Fixage attempt:

      Dȳñes ābrī
      arghussus daor.

      Arghugon was my initial word choice, so it’s nice to go back to that. And I lost the tilde somewhere along the road, so it was nice to get to correct that too. Moving to ābri does not feel so good, but I initially was not too happy with “manly man” wibe, so “woman” might work even better, if there really is some room for general “human” interpretation.

      Ībommi
      zaltoma dārion
      zaldrīzo.

      Moving to dārion felt the right choice, but I’m not sure if I like losing the nominative/accusative distinction. I guess it’s more likely to work. That should not be so bad, should it?

      Bantio gō
      vēzos jēdrī
      melemilza.

      If “skies” works as well as it does in English, this is only an improvement.

      1. Ābrī: I’m surprised the “manly man” vibe is a problem: I had taken it to be the point. Apparently it wasn’t, though, so you’re right to be concerned about misreadings. Still, I don’t know if that can keep its gender-free sense in the plural (as opposed to collective.)

        Zaltoma: Unless I am much mistaken, I believe this needs to be zaltommi, which unfortunately changes the mora count.

        1. I’m surprised the “manly man” vibe is a problem: I had taken it to be the point.
          It grew on me during the process, but initially I was going the other direction. I would have kept the vala if the count had worked.

          Zaltoma: Unless I am much mistaken, I believe this needs to be zaltommi, which unfortunately changes the mora count.
          Bah. Of course. I forgot the plural somewhere along the process. Back to drawing board.

  5. I’m on vacation, so I don’t have as much time for this as I’d usually like…

    Here’s a quick shot at Dothraki. Does someone feel like checking the grammar…?

    Vezh ahajana
    Vosma mra noreth anni
    Ale ayena.

    I guess it could be a Dothraki saying meaning “Honor is not a matter of raw strength.”

  6. I find it impossible to do something meaningful within the HV rules. Most HV words have a bajillion morae (very much unlike Japanese). Anyway:

    Oirenkys
    morghūltas sīr.
    Vaoreznon.

    1. Even with the latest mora rules update I gotta agree. As a challenge it’s manageable enough but as a clever formula for poetry of pristine beauty, it’s a bust. There just isn’t enough wiggle room. Of course our vocab is also small, but I doubt that’s the real root of the problem.

      I do like the mora counting for Valyrian (and no mora counting for Dothraki), I just think that it’s more suited for longer forms.

        1. This is why HV was a test language this year. The whole point of doing a haiku competition is that the structure is easy to understand and easy to emulate. It works out pretty well for Dothraki, but if HV is too big for it, I’d rather just not do HV than admit for a different poem type. After all, the point of the haiku competition is that it’s well within the grasp of just about anyone. If things start to get too complicated, it’ll muddy the light, off-the-cuff nature of the competition.

          But, yeah, as for a natural form for the language, a haiku is suited neither to Dothraki nor High Valyrian. Clearly each of them wants a different style of poem—perhaps one that exists, perhaps one that needs to be invented. Since Japanese haiku are based on moras and since moras are relevant to HV stress, I thought doing it with moras was worth a try. But maybe if we want to try it again next year we’ll just work with syllables.

  7. I’m trying my hand (as well as I can) at a High Valyrian haiku, and I was wondering if I could have the plural instrumental form of the word for “tear”, as in what you cry. The poem I’ve got working around it is

    Embar limas
    Lopenkos [tears] yn
    Rȳbi daor

    2-1 1-1
    1-2-1 x 1
    2-1 2

    The sea cries
    Salty tears but
    We must not hear

    I’m wondering a few things about this. Is the instrumental case as I have it allowed in line two, ie “The sea cries with salty tears”? Also, is there a distinct word for listen as opposed to hear?

    1. I can tell you, but you’re not going to like it. The instrumental plural is qūvommi: five moras. The accusative plural is qūvī, which is a little better, but still pretty big. I think either case word work.

      But hey, this is just me talking, but if you put Qūvommi first, that’s five mora! It would require a change in the ending on lopenkos, yes (incidentally, “tear” is lunar), but it might work. Might have to get rid of yn which is dead weight.

      Nothing separate for “listen” at the moment, but if such a thing did exist, it would likely be longer than “hear”… Oh, in fact, it would just be the eventative form, which I created thanks to Mad Latinist. So “to listen” would be ryptegon. I guess the aorist, first person plural subjunctive of that would be ryptessuty. Kind of a mouthful.

      I swear, HV is just not suited to the haiku… I truly applaud the efforts of all of you who are giving it a shot!

      1. OMG you actually used that?! I had been wondering! Awesome!

        BTW, do I understand you right that word-final consonants, being “extra-metrical” should not be counted at all? Because if so, this neat little haiku should work:

        “Zaldrīzes
        buzdari iksos
        daor” vestras.

          1. Drat. Well, I’ll hold off my thoughts on this, until I’ve posted my main submission.

            But Najahho/Esploranto suggested I go with the short form buzdar, which allows:

            “Zaldrīzes
            buzdar iksos daor,”
            ziry vestras.

            Or maybe bony or even besy would be better than ziry, because it would give a nice Astapori flavor to it.

    1. On syllabification and rising diphthongs, see here et seq.

      As for whether or not Valyria can refer to the entire Valyrian realm, this DJP quote from email correspondence might be a clue:

      Combining that with the above, someone who is Valyrian (or of the Valyrian peninsula, maybe) would be a Valyrīhy.

      …or maybe not, because it depends a bit on interpretation. But I take it to mean Valyria can refer either to the peninsula, or the Freehold (much like “Rome” can be either the city or the empire.)

        1. Well, I did just notice one thing. Every word that starts with a j has been mistranscribed. It’s transcribed as if all j were pronounced like the “y” in “yellow”. It isn’t. I also disagree with comment about y at the top.

          1. These are issues that have been there from the begining. I’ve been meaning to fix those, but I’m not entirely sure what to put in their stead.

            For the phonological notes I’d rather just redirect readers to the phonology page so they can get the whole story, but we were tying to knock out something like what the Dothraki vocabulary page does, so we could get to work on the actual vocab.

            For the pronunciation of ‹j› and ‹w›, we didn’t want to prejudice the issue (since those both have multiple possible articulations, depending on the era and region), so Najahho just picked /j/ and /v/, and we hoped the phonology notes would take care of the ambiguity. Since we don’t want to officially endorse Dany’s pronunciation, or Mel’s, or Thoros’s, or that of Old Valyria, I’m really not sure what symbol we should use.

            But you are right, both of those things are badly in need of an overhaul.

        1. You told me vestretan < vestragon is totally regular. I took this to mean that -etan was regularly the perfect of a-stem verbs, but perhaps that was too sweeping an assumption. Is there a deeper rule here?

          The three certain examples we have are ropatan, pryjatan and vestretan. Perhaps the rule is e after two consonants, a otherwise??

  8. I had another try, and I do think this one has more poetic qualities than the last one. Probably misunderstood the way you count count moras but anyway, here it is:

    Māzīlzi
    ōrbar ñuqīr
    jelmyssi

    which translates as

    Will come
    smoke and ash
    with the winds

    1. If I count right, the second line is short a mora, under our host’s rules (according to which the final -r in ōrbar should not be counted).

      Other than that, this is really good!

    1. Sounds good. And also kinda right, according to all I hear. It’s still a bit of a mystery to me, how poetry picks its rules from prosody. There’s probably a lot of stuff that’s more tradition than deterministic result of prosody of natural speech. Wikipedia’s article on extrametricality even goes to some trouble on emphasizing that the concept is “theoretical” and mainly related to stress.

      Imma say that the original version of my Rengay shall contain my official submissions (though dȳñes of course needs its tilde) … for now.

  9. Nice composition! Not convinced of the readings, though. First one is all meter and no natural word stress (though I’m sure I’ll be shown a spectrogram proving the contrary soon enough! ;o), whereas the second one sounds like it got bored with the concept of syllable quantity after the first two syllables…

  10. This probably has a ton of flaws in it, but…

    Be Nuqir
    ilvi Dekuragon
    va Morghon

    idk how to type the line above for extended vowels. :P
    If someone could correct it, it would be much appreciated. :)

    1. OK, correcting the grammar (assuming I understand your intention right), we get something like

      Bē ñuqrio
      īlvi dekūri
      va morghot

      “On ashes, we walk to death.”

      So let’s see, mora-count:

      4 (5 if we let q count as closing the syllable.)
      7
      4 (5 if we count the t, which DJP has decided is valid)

      So… you’re close!

  11. This isn’t really related to the competition, but I would really appreciate some help with a few words. I would like to know the words for

    “will” (the noun, as in what one wants),
    “daily” (my own guess would be tubōña or tubenka),
    “to do wrong, to sin, to trespass”,
    “to forgive”,
    “temptation”,
    “to save” (or “to free”) and
    “evil” (which of course is very cultural/religious, so I could understand why you would want to stay away from creating it)

    I suppose you can guess what I am trying to translate…

    1. How about this, Joel:

      Jēdrarra luus īlvus kepus,
      Jevus brōzys bērāelagon,
      Jevos dārios māzigon,
      Jevos jaeltos massigon
      Jēdār se tegot keskydoso.
      Īlvon tubenkon havon īlot tepās,
      Se īlvon jenkton rughās,
      keskydoso īlvo enkiarzaro jenkton rughī.
      Se īlōn qrinjemagon daor,
      yn īlōn hen qubrot dāerūljās.
      Mōrī ondor dāriōn jehikagōn mirrē jēdarra āo issi.
      Kesys sagon.

      1. (There’s a lot of clunkiness in there, of course. Instead of “hallow”, I constructed bērāelagon to mean “hold high”, but I doubt it works that way. Similarly, I just use rughagon “drop” in place of “forgive”, and shorten “to lead us into temptation” to qrinjemagon “to lead us astray”.)

      2. Impressive. I wasn’t even going to try! Here are my notes:

        Jēdrarra luus īlvus kepus,

        You could, of course, have included iksā, but I assume you left it off because it’s unstated in the original Greek? But it already shows up in the Latin, so seems you could go either way on that basis. As for the grammar, we’ll have to see what Āeksio Peterson has to say, but it seems like there’s a good chance the verb will turn out to be mandatory.

        Jevus brōzys bērāelagon,

        I believe you cannot add bē- to a verb without also using the locative applicative, so that should be bēv-, or, I suspect, in this phonological environment, bēb-. So Bēbrāelagon?

        It also took me embarrassingly long to recognize the voc+inf. construction!!

        Jevos dārios māzigon,
        Jevos jaeltos massigon

        I’m thinking jaeltios (i.e. from the Type II substantive) is more likely. It’s abstract, an it’s a verbal noun. Also, probably a mass, rather than a specific item.

        Jēdār se tegot keskydoso.

        Interestingly both the Greek and the Latin say “as in Heaven and on Earth.” But I don’t think the modern languages go that way, and your solution seems pretty good.

        Īlvon tubenkon havon īlot tepās,

        Yes, probably. Unless you want to be really psycho and attempt to represent the Greek ἐπιούσιον, Latin supersubstantialem, the intended meaning of which is totally obscure and debated for centuries. But if you were that crazy, it would be easy to do with a calque: bēvissarior ;)

        Se īlvon jenkton rughās,

        OK, whence jenkton? I can’t figure that out! OH! I see! From enkagon “to owe”? Why did you make it applicative? In any case, the ending should not be -on but -ion (and why singular?)

        There’s that whole issue of “debts” vs. “sins” of course. If we want to go with the latter, I figure qringaoma “misdeeds” (on analogy to the attested qringaomagon “to fail, to misdo,” and gaomon deed—or so I assume, as I somehow neglected to ask for the citation form of gaomoti.)

        keskydoso īlvo enkiarzaro jenkton rughī.

        OK, so enkiarzy for debter? That aorist is kind of depressing, don’t you think? ;) And why passive?

        Se īlōn qrinjemagon daor,

        Qrinjemagon is clever, but the caveat is that we don’t know how the allomorphy works here. My intuition is that it should be *qrījemagon, but take that for what it’s worth.

        yn īlōn hen qubrot dāerūljās

        Clever clever. I would have just gone with the attested dērvi tepagon, but you’re right, we have enough information to guess a verb meaning “to make free.” Problem is that, nisi fallor, *dāerūljagon should mean “become free.” More likely *dāeremagon I think.

        Qubrot < qubir “evil thing.” Good. There’s also a chance, though, that it will turn out to be a -ves formation.

        Mōrī ondor dāriōn jehikagōn mirrē jēdarra āo issi.

        Mōrī “finally”? Shouldn’t it be Kesrio syt “because”?

        dāriōn: Can conjunctive lengthening be used if there’s more than two items (and if so do the middle items get it, or only the last one)?

        jehikagōn… infinitive used nominally? Can we do that?

        Mirrē jēdarra is a clever circumlocution, but hopefully DJP will give us something better ;)

        āo genitive seems unlikely here (I think that would have a reversed meaning here! “The power and the kingdom and the glory are over you”). Much more plausible is the possessive pronoun aōhon “yours” (or does that get pluralized if there are multiple items? *Aōha?)

        Kesys sagon.

        Kesys could of course bee form either kesy or kesir, but I think the latter is more likely. Keskydoso might be even better.

        OK, since I don’t get a preview option here, I’m just gonna post and hope for the best. If it’s screwed up, um, sorry?

        1. Jevos jaeltos massigon

          You know, it occurs to me that in both Greek and Latin “to happen” is used as the passive of “to do.” But what if we actually want to say “may your will be done” in HV? Is there a passive infinitive? We know all the finite passive endings, and think we can generalize them to any tense for which we know the active… we also know the participles. But not the infinitive.

          I suppose there’s always (Jevos jaeltios) gōntos sagon if we need it, but are we stuck with that?

        2. I only have time for a quick answer right now.

          • I left iksā away in the first sentence because the modern German translation is not a clause (“Unser Vater im Himmel…”). I don’t know about the Greek. I guess I was also under the impression that HV was one of those languages that didn’t take copulae too seriously, but come to think of it, it sure seems to use a lot of issa’s and the likes. I guess we should add it here.

          • “I’m thinking jaeltios (i.e. from the Type II substantive) is more likely.”
          — Well, we also have the -non ending… jaelnon, “a wishing”?

          • “OK, whence jenkton? I can’t figure that out! OH! I see! From enkagon “to owe”? Why did you make it applicative? In any case, the ending should not be -on but -ion (and why singular?)”
          — I was going to use the instrumental passive, but apparently qrim-picked the applicative affix instead. The thing owed is instrumental in enkagon, so perhaps henkion, henkariron, henknon…?
          — As to “why singular”: There’s several nouns in there that I would have liked to put into the collective, but the declension tables were so barren that I had to stick to the singular… man, our current declension party is basically a couple of warm Heinekens. :P

          • Qringaomon etc. — I figured that would rather mean “failure”, which is a quite different thing from “debt”.

          • “OK, so enkiarzy for debter? That aorist is kind of depressing, don’t you think? ;) And why passive?”
          — Passive: I remembered the accusative did not refer to the owed object in enkagon, but to one of the animate parties. However, it looks like I picked the wrong one! You’re right, it should just be something like enkarios “ower”.

          To be continued!

          1. • I left iksā away in the first sentence because the modern German translation is not a clause (“Unser Vater im Himmel…”). I don’t know about the Greek.

            Well, Greek πάτερ ἡμῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς, Latin Pater noster qui in caelis es (actually, I think the liturgical version puts the es right after the qui) The best-known English version begins “our father who art in heaven,” which preserves a second person relative clause, very rare in modern English.

            I guess I was also under the impression that HV was one of those languages that didn’t take copulae too seriously…

            You would think, but see, for instance, here.

            — Well, we also have the -non ending… jaelnon, “a wishing”?

            Possibly, but I get the impression that that’s one of the few affixes we cannot assume is productive ;) Plus, would that ln > nn soundchange occur here?

            Oh, we also have the -arion ending, which is more likely to be productive.

            — I was going to use the instrumental passive, but apparently qrim-picked the applicative affix instead. The thing owed is instrumental in enkagon, so perhaps henkion, henkariron, henknon…?

            AH! OK, that makes more sense now. I had forgotten about the peculiar (to us) syntax of enkagon. But presumably you want to propose henktion and henkarion (the -ion and -non could also be possibilities)

            As to “why singular”: There’s several nouns in there that I would have liked to put into the collective, but the declension tables were so barren that I had to stick to the singular… man, our current declension party is basically a couple of warm Heinekens. :P

            Heinekens? Is that a pun on henkagon? ;) In most cases it’s possible to guess the collective, but I didn’t always note that on my declension charts.

            Qringaomon etc. — I figured that would rather mean “failure”, which is a quite different thing from “debt”.

            Well, the Matthew version speaks of debts, the Luke version speaks of sins/trespasses. I’m not a Christian, but I know there’s a whole history of disagreement about which word to use here in services, about which I can tell you nothing.

      3. I really enjoyed reading your translation, Zhalio, realizing how many mistakes I have probably made in mine. But anyway, the first part is basically how I wrote it before asking here, and the second part I have completed after reading your and Mad Latinist’s discussion . I see now that the subjunctive probably cannot be used for a third person command, but I left it there even if it doesn’t actually make sense. Also, I screwed up on the passive forms. So yeah…

        Jēdrarra issa lus Īlvus Kepus
        aōha brōzi rijīboks,
        aōhon dārion māzios,
        aōhon jaelion gaomagoks,
        tego bē hae jēdrarra.

        Īlvon havon tubenkon īlot tepās kesy tubī,
        se īlva qringaomia īlot henujikās,
        hae qringaomia gontan īlon henujiki,
        se va zobriot jemagon daor,
        yn īlon hen qubvē dāeremās.

        1. And some notes:
          “Hae” was what I went with orignally, and I left it as it was. “Keskydoso” might be more appropriate, but it just seems a bit clunky to me.

          īlva qringaomia īlot henujikās,
          hae qringaomia gontan īlon henujiki

          This is supposed to mean “send away our wrong-doings, as we send away the wrong-doings done to us”. Probably doesn’t though.

        2. Oh, and why does “lua” become “luus” in the vocative? I’ve never seen a double vowel printed in HV, so that’s why I am asking. I would understand “lūs” though.

          By the way, does anyone have tips for typing macrons without having to change the keyboard layout very much? Right now I am copy-pasting, which takes some time. I have a Swedish keyboard, so stuff like ´`~¨^ is quite easily accessible to me. Maybe something that makes tilde (~) + vowel into a macroned vowel instead?

          1. Hi Joel,

            nice job! I agree that luus looks strange; we just don’t know what happens in that particular form. I also agree that lūs looks pretty convincing.

            I use the U.S. Extended keyboard, which allows easy access to the macron (alt+a on the Mac).

        3. I see now that the subjunctive probably cannot be used for a third person command, but I left it there even if it doesn’t actually make sense.

          I don’t think we know one way or another whether or not that’s possible. Latin, for instance, has both the jussive subjunctive (sit) and the third person “future imperative” (estō), both of which mean roughly the same thing. So having more than one way to do this in HV would not shock me.
          That said, the close association with daor in HV probably makes the subjunctive unattractive for things you want to happen.

          Jēdrarra issa lus Īlvus Kepus

          We probably want iksā here, not issa. Modern English is uncomfortable with “you who are,” but many languages are not. For instance Latin quī in caelīs es, Spanish que estás en los cielos, French notre père qui es aux cieux, and even English who art in heaven.

          Oh, and why does “lua” become “luus” in the vocative? I’ve never seen a double vowel printed in HV, so that’s why I am asking. I would understand “lūs” though.

          The root ends with u-, the ending begins with -u, so the result is probably going to be *luus, pronounced as two syllables, /ˈlu.us/. This isn’t really much stranger than the solar nominative being luys (which is confirmed to exist, and be pronounced /ˈlu.ys/) so my first assumption would be that that the uncontracted form is correct. But who knows, it’s possible that it contracts to lūs (I doubt, for instance, that the collective of Targārien is *Targāriir). Of course, only David J. Peterson knows for sure.

          aōha brōzi rijīboks,

          Hmm, come to think of it, maybe rijībuks since it should be ever-praised, rather than just right now? (With the already-stated caveats about the use of the subjunctive).

          aōhon dārion māzios,
          aōhon jaelion gaomagoks,

          It is quite possible that jaelion exists, it certainly sounds plausible, but I don’t know if we can assume it. A safer guess would be, as discussed above, jaelarion or something like jaeltir.

          tego bē hae jēdrarra.
          “Hae” was what I went with orignally, and I left it as it was. “Keskydoso” might be more appropriate, but it just seems a bit clunky to me.

          Hmm, one advantage of keskydoso is that, as written, it’s as ambiguous as English “like heaven” (i.e. does it mean earth is like heaven? That his will is done like heaven? Or, of course, the intended meaning “in heaven like on earth”). But I think HV is less nitpicky about this kind of thing than Latin.
          Hmm, I wonder, can hēnkirī mean “in the same way,” or only “together”?

          Īlvon havon tubenkon īlot tepās kesy tubī,

          Oh crud, the wiki still says kesy tubī, but I’m pretty sure that should be kesȳ tubī (as you may know, there have been a lot of problems with macrons, because the program DJP has to use for script-writing won’t allow them.)

          se īlva qringaomia īlot henujikās,
          hae qringaomia gontan īlon henujiki,
          This is supposed to mean “send away our wrong-doings, as we send away the wrong-doings done to us”. Probably doesn’t though.

          I don’t know if hae can be used as an adverb.
          See my comments on *jaelion, and my proposal of *qringaomon above.
          As for henujikagon, DJP told me in email correspondence that it’s a licit formation, but there is some special grammar that goes with it, which I have not yet written up on the wiki:

          • First of all, the object of a verb with an applicative prefix (i- or u-) must precede the veb immediately.
          • Second of all, if the applicative prefix is u-, the object goes into either the genitive (-o, -oti) or dative (-ot, -oti) based, believe it or not, on phonological triggers: if the verb begins with a vowel, you use the dative (lentot ujitta “thrown (from) the house”), if it begins with a consonant, including h, then you use the genitive (lento henujitta “thrown from the house.”)

          Of course, I don’t know how this works in a sentence like this, but I imagine se īlva qringaomia īlo henujikās (with a genitive) would mean “Throw our misdeeds from us.” Which, I suppose, is close enough.
          Assume the existence of qringaomion, “misdeeds done to us” would probably be qringaomia īlot gonta or īlot gonta qringaomia. I suppose qringaomia gonta īlot is also possible, but with the caveat that DJP also told me that if a word in the gen or dat immediately precedes a u- verb, it must be the applied object of that verb… of course that fits in with the previous sentence, which (in my version) had that structure: qringaomia gonta īlon henujiki “we are throwing from us the done misdeeds.” (On that note you might also want an aorist here, which is probably henujikī with a long i)

          se va zobriot jemagon daor,

          Just so long as we take zōbriot to mean “darkness” (as a metaphor for evil or temptation), rather than “blackness” (of color).

          yn īlon hen qubvē dāeremās.

          We have not yet seen enough examples of the -ves sufix to know for certain how it would combine with quba; but it almost certainly is not *qubves. I speculate that it might be *qubirves.

          By the way, does anyone have tips for typing macrons without having to change the keyboard layout very much? Right now I am copy-pasting, which takes some time. I have a Swedish keyboard, so stuff like ´`~¨^ is quite easily accessible to me. Maybe something that makes tilde (~) + vowel into a macroned vowel instead?

          Like Zhalio, I use the US Extended keyboard on my Mac, which makes this very easy. If you’re on a Mac I recommend it (but may be able to help if that’s inconvenient). If not, I can’t really help.

          1. Excuse the ugly formatting here. I was so sick of blowing blockquote-tags that I typed this up in a WP program, then tested it on the wiki before posting it here. That solved the blockquote problem, but introduced new issues….

            1. IRC, July 29 of last year (btw, coming tonight?)

              8:51:28 PM Mad_Latinist: lua: opposite problem. We know the citation form, but I kind of doubt the other genders are luon luor and least of all luys.

              8:52:35 PM DavidJPeterson: lu·a, -ys, -on, -or
              8:52:49 PM Mad_Latinist: wow! It really is luys!
              8:53:16 PM Mad_Latinist: but that doesn’t form a diphthong does it? All your other examples … well, didn’t involve two high vowels ;)

              8:54:05 PM DavidJPeterson: It’s not actually diphthong.

              8:54:08 PM DavidJPeterson: Just consecutive vowels.
              8:54:15 PM DavidJPeterson: That said, it is an oddball.

              Hmm, I took that to mean that lua, luon and luor were each one syllable, but luys was two. But that could also be read to mean that all the forms were dissyllabic.

              And in any case, if you’re asking me when you said this, clearly that throws this whole thing into doubt. Care to clarify?

            2. Reached the end of the “reply” chain.

              Yes, if the form was luys, it would certainly be two consecutive vowels. All the other forms are monosyllabic (e.g. [lua]). However since I never used it, I ended up changing it to lȳs. More on this when my post on relative clauses goes up (I did say I was going to do that, and it’s coming soon).

          2. Some corrections and experimenting, most notably henkȳsi which I get from henka “same” > henkir “the same (abstract) thing” which takes the assumed instrumental henkȳsi, which I then imagine to mean “in the way of the same thing”. Not sure if it necessary, or even correct, but I like it more than keskydoso. I also included the doxology and “amen” in this version (still making assumptions about the subjunctive).

            Jēdrarra iksa lȳs īlvus kepus
            aōha brōzi rijībuks,
            aōhon dārion māzios,
            aōhon jaelarion gaomaguks,
            tego bē henkȳsi jēdrarra.

            Īlvon havon tubenkon īlot tepās kesȳ tubī,
            se īlva qringaoma īlo henujikās,
            henkȳsi tolyr īlot gontis lua qringaoma henujikī
            se va zobriot jemagon daor,
            yn īlon hen qubī dāeremās.

            Kesrio syt dārion, ondor, jehikariōn nākelīlarē jēdā aōha issi.

            Kesir iksos.

            1. Nākelīlarē is a nice construction! And exceptionally euphonic, too. Maybe one could use nākelīlarī as an adverb and omit jēdā?

              I see you used the new lȳs there — that’s the form for lu-ys, though, and what we want here is that for lu-us. I would expect lūs in analogy to lȳs.

              It looks strange to me not to use the final lengthening on each non-initial member of a list — doesn’t -que in Latin also work like that? Nūmāzmo udir jaeli, āeksius!

              I also don’t expect the subjunctive to work as an optative, although it would feel natural to me too. We probably would have seen such a construction in action by now; instead, we have the vocative + infinitive.

              Once we have a correct final version, this would make a great piece for pronunciation practice! :)

            2. … henkȳsi which I get from henka “same” > henkir “the same (abstract) thing” which takes the assumed instrumental henkȳsi…

              So far as I can tell, aquatic paradigms keep the r in every case except for the vocative. So most likely henkrȳsi.

              gaomaguks should be gaomuks (sorry, forgot to correct that on your last draft!)

              What is the intended syntax of tolyr?

              It looks strange to me not to use the final lengthening on each non-initial member of a list — doesn’t -que in Latin also work like that? Nūmāzmo udir jaeli, āeksius!

              Wait, I thought that’s what he DID do?

              As for Latin, it varies. Any word for “and” (and Latin has a ridiculous number of synonyms for it!) can be applied to every member of a list, to no member of a list, or only to the last member of a list, oddly enough.

              D’oh! It’s āeksios. :P

              Don’t feel bad ;)

            3. Tolyr is supposed to mean “other (ones) in general”, from assumed tolys “other one”. So “henkȳsi tolyr īlot gontis lua qringaoma henujikī” I would transcribe as “by-way-of-sameness others-in-general us have-done which misdeeds we-always-send-away” or in plain English “in the same way as we send away the misdeeds which others have done us”. Is the syntax wrong?

  12. And here’s the second part of my response:

    • “*qrījemagon”
    — Yeah, that was actually my first instinct too, but then I figured qrin- was probably the basic form, and -nj- was an agreeable enough cluster.

    • “Problem is that, nisi fallor, *dāerūljagon should mean ‘become free.'”
    — Oh, I see. I built the verb in analogy to rāpūljagon “to soften”, but now I see that that’s probably meant as an intransitive rather than transitive verb. Damn the inaccuracy of English! ;)

    • “More likely *dāeremagon I think.”
    — Really? Wouldn’t that mean “to come free”, which is pretty much the same thing as dāerūljagon?
    — I’m surprised we don’t have a word for “make” yet. Maybe one could use verdagon “arrange” to build dāerverdagon “to arrange to be free”? Nah, I guess dāervi tepagon or perhaps va dāervot jemagon?

    • “Mōrī “finally”? Shouldn’t it be Kesrio syt “because”?”
    — Hmmm, I’m reading kesrio syt as “because of this; this is why”. But the known examples (“…for now I am two”) seem to indicate otherwise. I guess you’re right, it should say kesrio syt.

    • “āo genitive seems unlikely here (I think that would have a reversed meaning here! “The power and the kingdom and the glory are over you”). Much more plausible is the possessive pronoun aōhon “yours” (or does that get pluralized if there are multiple items? *Aōha?)”
    — I picked the genitive pronoun because I didn’t quite know what form to put the possessive in. What number do you assign to several abstract entities…? I’m not sure where you get that implied nuance for the genitive, though. In fact, the German translation says “Denn Dein ist das Reich…”, which I read as a genitive personal pronoun, as in the antiquated “vergiß mein nicht”. (The correct form of the genitive personal pronoun would be “meiner”, though, I believe. It’s so much out of use I’m not even sure.)
    — In any case, the Highroyal Jovian edition uses the unambiguous dative of ownership here. ;o)

    «Nan Tic ſon id ringun ed ja poeſtade ed ja gloera in oenes aedades.»
    [nan tiç sɑn i ‘driŋgə ne gjə baʃta:d e gjə glɑjr in ɑjnz
    ɛ’da:dz]

    • “In most cases it’s possible to guess the collective, but I didn’t always note that on my declension charts.”
    — I don’t know them well enough to guess, so I’d be grateful for some greyed-out entries! Though I realize it’s a ton of work.

    Man, I sure made a lot of obvious mistakes in that short piece! In my defense, I was under time pressure. ;) So, can we write up a new “best guess” version?

    1. • “More likely *dāeremagon I think.”
      — Really? Wouldn’t that mean “to come free”, which is pretty much the same thing as dāerūljagon?
      — I’m surprised we don’t have a word for “make” yet. Maybe one could use verdagon “arrange” to build dāerverdagon “to arrange to be free”? Nah, I guess dāervi tepagon or perhaps va dāervot jemagon?

      On this point, see http://wiki.dothraki.org/High_Valyrian_Derivational_Affixes#-emagon. DJP has more-or-less confirmed I’m on the right track there.

      “āo genitive seems unlikely here (I think that would have a reversed meaning here! “The power and the kingdom and the glory are over you”). Much more plausible is the possessive pronoun aōhon “yours” (or does that get pluralized if there are multiple items? *Aōha?)”
      — I picked the genitive pronoun because I didn’t quite know what form to put the possessive in. What number do you assign to several abstract entities…? I’m not sure where you get that implied nuance for the genitive, though. In fact, the German translation says “Denn Dein ist das Reich…”, which I read as a genitive personal pronoun, as in the antiquated “vergiß mein nicht”. (The correct form of the genitive personal pronoun would be “meiner”, though, I believe. It’s so much out of use I’m not even sure.)

      On this point, see http://wiki.dothraki.org/High_Valyrian_Noun_Cases#Genitive: “Personal pronouns generally do not use the genitive to express possession, instead they use their possessive adjective. However, they still use the genitive in other contexts…”

      So far as I can think of, we have two examples in our corpus of “official” HV:
      …rūso zȳhosy gōvilirose zijo syt pyghas lue prūmie. “… with his child beneath the heart that beats for him.” (Gen. obj. of postposition)
      …Jemēlo syt ziry mazemagon jemo bēvilza. “… It is incumbent on you to take it for yourselves.” (Gen. obj. of locative applicative—a topic I need to write more about on the wiki.)

      Every other example is either a possessive pronominal adjective (aōha etc.) or a possessive pronoun (aōhon etc.), the most germane example being … se zȳhon suvio perzō vāedar issa. “… and his is the song of ice and fire.” I’d say this demonstrates pretty clearly that the form we want is in fact that 3ter. Only issue is whether or not the possessive pronoun is ever pluralized.

      The reason I argue that a genitive is likely to *reverse* the meaning here is that in Latin, when there is a pronoun involved, you use the possessive adjective for a “subjective genitive” (e.g. amor meus “my love,” i.e. the love that I feel), and an actual genitive for an “objective genitive” (e.g. amor meī “the love of me,” i.e. the love felt for me.) Kingdom/power “of you” is likely to mean “over you.”

      I am as usual getting this from Latin. HV and Latin are not as similar as I like to pretend they are, but our corpus so far seems pretty consistent with the theory that pronominal genitives should be treated the same way.

      “vergiß mein nicht” I didn’t know German had ever had the “genitive of memory!”

      I’ll see what I can do about collectives on the declension page—at least in the nominative. It is known that they don’t all decline identically (though apparently they do decline very similarly), so I don’t want to add too many guesses for other cases.

      Yes you made a lot of mistakes, but you still did an incredible job. Like I said, I wasn’t even going to try, so I’m in no position to begrudge your errors ;)

  13. Good news: they’ve announced the Season 3 Blu-ray Histories & Lore video extras:

    Old Ghis & Slaver’s Bay (Jorah Mormont )
    House Reed (Meera Reed)
    House Bolton (Roose Bolton)
    House Frey (Catelyn Stark)
    House Tully (The Blackfish)
    The Lord of Light (Thoros of Myr)
    Wargs and the Sight (Bran Stark)
    The Red Keep (King Joffrey)
    Robert’s Rebellion (Petyr Baelish and Lord Varys)
    The North (Jon Snow)
    The Reach (Margaery Tyrell)
    The Riverlands (The Blackfish)
    The Stormlands (Brienne of Tarth)
    The Westerlands (Tywin Lannister)
    The Vale (Petyr Baelish)

    On my personal wishlist, I kind of hoped we’d get TWO videos for Slaver’s Bay, given that Qarth also got two (and Slaver’s Bay is more developed in the story). Well maybe it’s one very long video.

    But on my wishlist, I hoped we’d get one video for “Slaver’s Bay” in general (narrated by Mr. Exposition Jorah), and…totally on a limb here…I had hoped we’d get a video specifically about the Unsullied, narrated by Grey Worm, *entirely* in subtitled Valyrian. Well, next time, next time…

    1. Speaking of which, any news if they will fix the misspelling of R’hllor from “The Climb” in the Blu-ray version?

    1. Hi David,
      If only one haiku per contestant I allowed, please use my final submission, since I misunderstood the rules at first. That is also the one I am most pleased with. Here it is again, in case you can’t find it:

      Māzīlzi
      ōrbar ñuqīr
      jelmyssi

  14. I have a submission in Dothraki. It pertains to my recent and ongoing forays into Dothraki and translation, namely of Game of Thrones into it.

    Athkisar notat
    Lirof mra lekhofaan
    Noreth nem jesa

  15. Hi! i hope you can help me. I need translation from english to dothraki this phrase “I am a daughter of the rigour (or rigor), more than of the talent” is for a tattoo, please, help me with this, is very important to me.Excuse my poor english, i´m chilean. I hope a fast reply. Greetings

  16. Please, where (online or elsewhere) can I find a full description of Dothraki and High Valyrian grammar and a complete vocabulary?

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.