Dothraki language
Encyclopedia
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.
, there were 3,163 created words in the lexicon, 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" offering information on the state of the language.
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
.
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.
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.
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.
When only a subject is a present, the subject precedes the verb, as it does in English:
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.
Adverbs normally are sentence final, but they can also immediately follow the verb. Modal particles precede the verb.
Constructed language
A planned or constructed language—known colloquially as a conlang—is a language whose phonology, grammar, and/or vocabulary has been consciously devised by an individual or group, instead of having evolved naturally...
of the Dothraki, the indigenous
Indigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples are ethnic groups that are defined as indigenous according to one of the various definitions of the term, there is no universally accepted definition but most of which carry connotations of being the "original inhabitants" of a territory....
inhabitants of the Dothraki Sea in the series A Song of Ice and Fire
A Song of Ice and Fire
A Song of Ice and Fire is a series of epic fantasy novels by American novelist and screenwriter George R. R. Martin. Martin began writing the series in 1991 and the first volume was published in 1996. Originally planned as a trilogy, the series now consists of five published volumes; a further two...
written by George R. R. Martin
George R. R. Martin
George Raymond Richard Martin , sometimes referred to as GRRM, is an American author and screenwriter of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. He is best known for A Song of Ice and Fire, his bestselling series of epic fantasy novels that HBO adapted for their dramatic pay-cable series Game of...
. It was created by David J. Peterson, a member of the Language Creation Society
Language Creation Society
The Language Creation Society is a non-profit organization formed to promote constructed languages , support makers of constructed languages , and inform the general public about conlangs and the conlanger community...
, for HBO's television series Game of Thrones
Game of Thrones (TV series)
Game of Thrones is an American medieval fantasy television series created for HBO by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss. Based on author George R. R. Martin's best-selling A Song of Ice and Fire series of fantasy novels, the first of which is called A Game of Thrones, the television series debuted in...
. 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.
, there were 3,163 created words in the lexicon, 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" 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 SocietyLanguage Creation Society
The Language Creation Society is a non-profit organization formed to promote constructed languages , support makers of constructed languages , and inform the general public about conlangs and the conlanger community...
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
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
, Turkish
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
, Estonian
Estonian language
Estonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various émigré communities...
, Inuktitut
Inuktitut
Inuktitut or Eastern Canadian Inuktitut, Eastern Canadian Inuit language is the name of some of the Inuit languages spoken in Canada...
and Swahili
Swahili language
Swahili or Kiswahili is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Mozambique Channel coastline from northern Kenya to northern Mozambique, including the Comoro Islands. It is also spoken by ethnic minority groups in Somalia...
.
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."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
A Song of Ice and Fire
A Song of Ice and Fire is a series of epic fantasy novels by American novelist and screenwriter George R. R. Martin. Martin began writing the series in 1991 and the first volume was published in 1996. Originally planned as a trilogy, the series now consists of five published volumes; a further two...
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.
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 Labial consonant Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals... |
Dental | Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth... |
Postalveolar Postalveolar consonant Postalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate... |
Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... |
Uvular Uvular consonant Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be plosives, fricatives, nasal stops, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provide a separate symbol for the approximant, and... |
Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider... |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
m [m] | n [n̪] | |||||
| Lateral Lateral consonant A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth.... |
l [l̪] | ||||||
| Trill Trill consonant In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. Standard Spanish <rr> as in perro is an alveolar trill, while in Parisian French it is almost always uvular.... |
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
A Song of Ice and Fire
A Song of Ice and Fire is a series of epic fantasy novels by American novelist and screenwriter George R. R. Martin. Martin began writing the series in 1991 and the first volume was published in 1996. Originally planned as a trilogy, the series now consists of five published volumes; a further two...
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.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.
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.