Dothraki language

Dothraki
Pronunciation	ˈd̪o.θɾa.ki
Created by	George R. R. Martin, David J. Peterson
Date created	from 2009
Setting and usage	A Song of Ice and Fire, 2011 series Game of Thrones
Users	Fictional language, zero speakers.  (no date)
Category (purpose)	constructed languages artistic languages fictional languages Dothraki
Category (sources)	constructed languages  a priori languages
Language codes
ISO 639-2	art
ISO 639-3	–
This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

The Dothraki language is the constructed language of the Dothraki, the indigenous inhabitants of the Dothraki Sea in the series A Song of Ice and Fire written by George R. R. Martin. It was created by David J. Peterson, a member of the Language Creation Society, for HBO's television series Game of Thrones. Dothraki was designed to fit George R. R. Martin's original conception of the language, based upon the few extant phrases and words in his original books.

As of 21 September 2011 (2011 -09-21)^[update], there were 3,163 created words in the lexicon, ^[1] though far from all words are known to the public. However, there is a growing community of Dothraki language fans, with websites like "Learn Dothraki" ^[2] offering information on the state of the language.

Development

The Dothraki vocabulary was created by Peterson well in advance of the adaptation. HBO hired the Language Creation Society to create the language, and after an application process involving over thirty conlangers, David Peterson was chosen to develop the Dothraki language. He delivered over 1700 words to HBO before the initial shooting. Peterson drew inspiration from George R.R. Martin’s description of the language, as well as from such languages as Russian, Turkish, Estonian, Inuktitut and Swahili.^[3]

Language constraints

The Dothraki language was developed under two significant constraints. First, the language had to match the uses already put down in the books. Secondly, it had to be easily pronounceable or learnable by the actors. These two constraints influenced the grammar and phonology of the language: for instance, voiceless stops can be aspirated or unaspirated, as in English.

Phonology and romanization

In Dothraki the consonants d, t, s, n are dental, which sets it apart from many languages. David Peterson has said that "You know, most people probably don’t really know what Arabic actually sounds like, so to an untrained ear, it might sound like Arabic. To someone who knows Arabic, it doesn’t. I tend to think of the sound as a mix between Arabic (minus the distinctive pharyngeals) and Spanish, due to the dental consonants." ^[4]

Regarding the orthography, the Dothraki themselves don't have a writing system—nor do many of the surrounding peoples (e.g. the Lhazareen). If there were to be any written examples of Dothraki in the A Song of Ice and Fire universe, it would be in a writing system developed in the Free Cities and adapted to Dothraki, or in some place like Ghis or Qarth, which do have writing systems.^[5]

Consonants

There are twenty-three consonant phonemes in the Dothraki language. Here the romanized form is given on the left, and the IPA in brackets.

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Plosive		t [t̪]			k [k]	q [q]
Voiced plosive		d [d̪]			g [ɡ]
Affricate				ch [tʃ]
Voiced affricate				j [dʒ]
Voiceless fricative	f [f]	th [θ]	s [s]	sh [ʃ]	kh [x]		h [h]
Voiced fricative	v [v]		z [z]	zh [ʒ]
Nasal	m [m]	n [n̪]
Lateral		l [l̪]
Trill			r [r]
Tap			r [ɾ]
Glide	w [w]			y [j]

The digraphs kh, sh, th and zh are all fricatives, while ch and j are affricates.

The letters c and x never appear in Dothraki, although c appears in the digraph ch, pronounced like 'check'. b and p seem to appear only in names, as in Bharbo and Pono.

Voiceless stops may be aspirated. This does not change word meaning.

Vowels

Dothraki has a four vowel system shown below:

Vowels	Diphthongs
i [i]	iy [ij]
e [e]	ey [ej]
o [o]	oy [oj]
a [a]	ay [aj]

In the A Song of Ice and Fire books, u never occurs as a vowel, appearing only after "q", and only in names, as in Jhiqui and Quaro.

In sequence of multiple vowels, each such vowel represents a separate syllable. Examples: shierak [ʃi.e.'ɾak] star, rhaesh [ɾha.'eʃ] country, khaleesi ['xa.l̪e.e.si] queen.

Grammar

Basic word order is SVO: subject comes first, then verb and lastly object. In a noun phrase demonstratives come first, but adjectives, possessor and prepositional phrases all follow the noun. Though prepositions are also sometimes employed, the language is foremost inflectional. Prefixes, suffixes and circumfixes are all used. Verbs conjugate in infinite, past, present, future, two imperatives and (archaic) participle; they also agree with person, number and polarity. Nouns divide into two classes, inanimate and animate. They decline in five cases, nominative, accusative, genitive, allative and ablative. Animate nouns also decline according to number.^[6][7]

Word Order

In a basic sentence, the order of these elements (when all three are present) is as in English: First comes the Subject (S), then comes the Verb (V), then comes the Object (O). Here's an example:

Khal ahhas arakh.

The Khal (S) sharpened (V) the arakh (O).

When only a subject is a present, the subject precedes the verb, as it does in English:

Arakh hasa.

The arakh (S) is sharp (V).

In noun phrases there is a specific order as well. The order is as follows: demonstrative, noun, adverb, adjective, genitive noun, prepositional phrase. Prepositions always precede their noun complements.

jin ave sekke verven anni m'orvikoon

this father very violent of.mine with.a.whip

this very violent father of mine with a whip

Adverbs normally are sentence final, but they can also immediately follow the verb. Modal particles precede the verb.^[6]

Sentence Examples

Nevakhi vekha ha maan: Rekke, m'aresakea norethi fitte. ['n̪e.va.xi 've.xa ha ma.'an̪ 'rek.ke 'ma.ɾe.sa.ke.a 'n̪o.ɾe.θi 'fit̪.t̪e]

seat-GEN exist-3SG.PRES for 3SG.ALL there-ACC with-coward-ALL.PL hair-GEN short

There is a place for him: There, with the short haired cowards.^[8]

References

1. ^ "The Header Script". 2011-09-21. Retrieved 2011-10-03. http://www.dothraki.com/2011/09/the-header-script/. 
2. ^ "Lekh". Dothraki. 2011-04-05. http://www.dothraki.org. Retrieved 2011-05-11. 
3. ^ "Official HBO Press Release". April 12, 2010. http://dothraki.conlang.org/official-hbo-press-release/. 
4. ^ "Creating Dothraki - An Interview with David J Peterson and Sai Emrys". April 22, 2010. http://www.tor.com/blogs/2010/04/creating-dothraki-an-interview-with-david-j-peterson-and-sai-emrys. 
5. ^ "Westeros.Ru interview". June 24, 2010. http://westeros.ru/?p=3779. 
6. ^ ^{a b} "Dothraki 101 post on HBO's Making Game of Throne's blog". December 15, 2010. http://www.makinggameofthrones.com/production-diary/2010/12/15/dothraki-101.html. 
7. ^ "Dothraki presentation at Language Creation Conference 4". August 22, 2011. http://conference.conlang.org/lcc4/speakers/djplcc4.pdf. 
8. ^ "Dothraki Presentation at WorldCon 2011". August 21, 2011. http://dedalvs.com/dothraki/dothrakireno.pdf. 

External links

• The official Dothraki blog
• The LCS blog about the language
• The Dothraki Language Wiki