3. Dothraki Text

Text

Anha vo thirok ki sani assokhi. Kash anha thirak atthiraride, kash anha laz tak movekh qemmemmo. Anha shillok mehash anha laz movesok mae, hash anha laz tak mae.

Anha kis gach rekke anha zigere elat, vosma ei idrikh solottisi anni idosh.

Majin anha mov liwasares assokhi h’anhaan adothrasok athyofizar atthirari. Kijinosi, anha azhak atthiraridaan attihat anna osqoy.

English Translation

I don’t live by many rules. While I dream, I can do strange magic. I believe that if I can imagine it, I can do it.

I tried to figure out where I needed to go, but all the directions on my map were fake.

So I created a collection of rules for myself to navigate the insanity of life. In this way, I let the dream show me the Blood Path.

Grammar and Vocabulary

Official Website: http://dothraki.com/

Unofficial Website: http://wiki.dothraki.org/

-All the grammar you’ll need should be on the unofficial site. It also explains the romanization system, which I hope is straightforward.

-Typological facts: word order = SVO; prepositional; NG; NA; NR. Adverbs generally come sentence-finally.

-The infinitive form of a verb ends in /-(l)at/. Strip off this suffix to get the verb stem. The verb stem by itself serves as the past tense form of the form in the positive grade. In the negative grade, a suffixed -o is added to the verb stem in the past tense. In the present and future tense, verbs take personal suffixes. There are both positive /-ak/ and negative /-ok/ first person singular present tense forms in this text. The future tense of a verb is built off the present (the stem plus the personal ending). To the form the future tense, prefix /a-/ to the present tense form.

-There is no copula in Dothraki. If you have X-NOM Y-NOM, it means “X is Y”. The nominal forms listed in the lexicon are the nominative forms of a given noun, unless otherwise stated.

-Dothraki has five cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, allative and ablative. Only the first four feature in this text. Unless otherwise stated, the subject of a verb takes the nominative, and the object takes the accusative. The genitive is used in possessive constructions (such that X Y-GEN means Y’s X). Otherwise, the various prepositions will state what case they assign to their governed noun phrase.

-Aside from the pronouns (whose relevant declensions are listed in the lexicon), you’ll find a few declined nouns. Inanimate nouns drop their final vowel before being declined. The genitive ending is /-i/, and for animate nouns, the accusative ending is /-es/ (which is added regardless of whether the word ends in a vowel). The allative ending is /-aan/. Where an irregular form is needed, it will be listed in the lexicon.

-Dothraki has a series of adverbial conjunctions which work a little differently from English. One such is /kash/. A phrase like “kash X kash Y” means “while X, Y happened” or “X when Y”. The other, /hash/, works the same, but it’s “if x, then y”.

-An odd facet of Dothraki grammar is “in order to” constructions. To say something like “I X’d in order to Y”, you’d simply add the future tense first person singular form of Y directly after the equivalent of X’d. This happens in one spot in the text.

-To say something like “I let him X”, you’d say “Anha azh mae X”, where X is an infinitive.

-The word /osqoyi/ I’m leaving vaguely defined, because it came vaguely defined. The word /os/ means “path”, and /qoy/ means “blood”, so this literally means “Blood Path”, but what that means is up to you. Here are some other blood compounds in Dothraki: /asqoyi/ (word + blood) = oath; /asshekhqoyi/ (day + blood) = birthday; /jalanqoyi/ (moon + blood) = total eclipse of the moon; /kathqoyi/ (net + blood) = weighted net; /shoqoyi/ (mark + blood) = evidence; /vorsqoyi/ (blood + fire) = funeral pyre.

 

LEXICON

anha (pron.) I (first person singular nominative pronoun)

anna (pron.) me (first person singular accusative pronoun)

anni (pron.) my (first person singular genitive pronoun)

anhaan (pron.) to me (first person singular allative pronoun)

assokh (ni.) rule, order

atthirar (ni.) life

atthirarido (ni.) dream (accusative is atthiraride)

athyofizar (ni.) insanity

attihat (v.) to show

azhat (v.) to give, to allow

dothrasolat (v.) to navigate

ei (det.) all, all of

elat (v.) to go

gachat (v.) to figure out

ha (prep.) for (assigns the allative case)

hash (adv./conj.) if/then (see grammar notes)

idolat (v.) to be fake

idrikh (ni.) direction, landmark

kash (adv./conj.) while, during, when (see grammar notes)

ki (prep.) by, because of (assigns the genitive case); also precedes quoted speech

kijinosi (adv.) in this way, thus

kis (part.) a particle meaning “to try to”

laz (part.) a particle meaning “be able to”

liwasar (na.) collection

mae (pron.) him, her, it (third person singular accusative pronoun)

majin (conj.) and then, then, so, and so, consequently

me- (pref.) complementizer used to introduce subordinate clauses

movekh (ni.) magic trick, trick, amazing feat

movelat (v.) to create (note: past tense is mov)

movesolat (v.) to imagine

os (ni.) path

osqoyi (ni.) Blood Path (see grammar notes)

qemmemmo (adj.) strange

qoy (ni.) blood

rekke (adv.) where, wherever, the place which

san (ni.) pile (used attributively to mean “a lot” or “many”, but still inflects as a noun)

shillolat (v.) to believe

solotti (na.) map

tat (v.) to do

thirat (v.) to live

thirat atthiraride (vp.) to dream

vo (part.) no, not (negator)

vosma (conj.) but

 

zigerelat (v.) to need

 

 

GLOSSARY

 

A = adjective

ALL = allative

adj. = adjective

adv. = adverb

conj. = conjunction

expr. = expression

G = genitival phrase

GEN = genitive

N = noun

n.= noun

na.= animate noun

ni. = inanimate noun

nm. = name

NOM = nominative

O = object

P = preposition

part. = particle

prep. = preposition

pron. = pronoun

R = relative clause

S = subject

V = verb

v.= verb

X = an argument of the verb or clause

Y = a different argument of the verb or clause