M’ath to all those attending Comic-Con in San Diego! Enjoy. Some of us ’round here still have work to do! (In fact, I spoke with Dan Weiss and David Benioff yesterday, and they’re not making it this year, either [season 3, and whatnot].) A quick note for those visiting from out of state, though: This weather is NOT normal. It straight up rained here in Orange County—poured! That may be humdrum if you’re from New York or Florida, but in Southern California?! I can’t remember the last time.
Anyway, if you’re wandering around the Gaslamp and happen to bump into anyone dressed as Khal Drogo or Daenerys and want to say “boy, howdy!”, here’s a quick and dirty Dothraki primer:
| Dothraki | English | Audio |
|---|---|---|
| M’athchomaroon! | Hello! | |
| M’ath! | Hi! | |
| Hash yer dothrae chek? | How are you? | |
| Chek! | Good! | |
| Anha garvok! | I’m hungry! | |
| Anha fevek! | I’m thirsty! | |
| Hash rekak che Oil Oiton che Jonathon Freykis? | Is that Will Wheaton or Jonathan Frakes? | |
| Vojosor heme vos ahhimo anna. | I’m not into furries. | |
| Finne zhavorsa anni?! | Where are my dragons?! | |
| Anha afichak rek h’anhaan ma vorsoon ma qoyoon! | I will take what is mine with fire and blood! | |
| Fonas chek! | Goodbye! |
Listen to the audio for the pronunciation—or just be sure the vowels are pure and you pronounce the Q’s like K’s (they’re not, but that’s close enough). If you’d like more of an introduction, you can check out the other posts on this blog, or head over to YouTube where sunquan8094 has an entire series of Dothraki tutorials. San athchomari to all those that made the trip down! I plan on being there next year. Until then, fonas chek!
[Featured Photo: Me, my wife and my little sister down in San Diego in younger days. The relationship to the topic at hand is…tenuous.]
New sentences! This calls for the regular question set.
We know to thirst and to hunger from long way back, but there seems to be asymmetry in these terms. Would Anha fevesok! be “I’m growing thirsty.” Is Anha garvok! literally “I’m growing hungry!” ..and what (if anything) would Anha garvak! mean?
We have hem as fur. Heme is furry and Hemelat is to be furry?
Himat or what? Seems a new stem to me.
Is it just an error that dragon has only one v?
Could you use two consecutive mas in sentence like “Anha afichak rek h’anhaan ma vorsoon ma qoyoon!”, the first being with and second the leading and?
We know to thirst and to hunger from long way back, but there seems to be asymmetry in these terms.
Only seems. Would it simplify matters to know that the stem for “hunger” is garvo- and the stem for “thirst” is feve-? To grow hungry would be garvosolat and to grow thirsty would be fevesolat.
We have hem as fur. Heme is furry and Hemelat is to be furry?
Yes, or, more neutrally, to have fur.
Himat or what? Seems a new stem to me.
It means to clench (intransitive).
Is it just an error that dragon has only one v?
No; it can go either way. It’s an old word, and the case for the geminate is weak (i.e. the stem for lizard ends in v and the stem for fire begins with v). The two (with or without the geminate) are pretty much in free variation, kind of like nay-gative and neh-gative for “negative” in English.
Could you use two consecutive mas in sentence like “Anha afichak rek h’anhaan ma vorsoon ma qoyoon!”, the first being with and second the leading and?
Yeah, it would be the same. After all, the word ma as “and” came from the instrumental preposition. And, in fact, the doubling and transparency to case came exactly from constructions just like this.
Someone contacted me through my Facebook page, and he’s hiring someone to translate his comic into Dothraki. Here is is. I’m thinking about it at the moment. Would you, ingsve, qvaak, hrakkar, or daenerys be interested, or is this something worth doing?
Is that one specifically? If so, why? Dothraki’s kind of specific to ASoI&F. But yeah, I think that’d be a good opportunity for one or perhaps a group of you guys who’ve been working with the language for so long.
As for if it’s worth doing, it depends on how much time it’s going to take you and how much money you’d get—and how much extra vocab you’d need. I mean, I’ll help out, but if there’s a lot of words that need to be coined, I just won’t have the time, which means you’ll have to work with compounds or derivations, and I’d want to take a look at them before canonizing them.