Dothraki - Notes from Other Languages

The Dothraki Language is a constructed language made by David Peterson, just like Paul Frommer's Na'vi, for the HBO series "A Song and Ice and Fire", based on George RR Martin's book. Here Lajaki of dothraki.org goes through the consonants of Dothraki, and shows how they are pronounced.

In this video I talk about some things that can be gleaned from looking at the other languages in George R.R. Martin's world, and the repercussions for Dothraki analysis.

http://www.dothraki.org = The Learn Dothraki Website
http://wiki.dothraki.org = The Dothraki Wiki
http://twitter.com/LearnDothraki = The Learn Dothraki Twitter
http://www.dothraki.conlang.org = Official Feed
http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/... = Forum

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Dothraki
• pronunciation
• linguistics
• Na'vi
• linguist
• trill
• tap
• IPA
• George
• RR
• Martin
• Song
• of
• Ice
• and
• Fire
• Game
• Thrones
• Khal

[LearnDothraki]

@EuripidesV Good call. I'm sure David Peterson has accounted for that, though.

[ThePhilosophersAbyss]

I don't think this will help, but I never really assumed that the common tognue was english. I kinda' thought that the common tognue could be a different language, but since Martin's readers read english, he just wrote everything in english as if he just translated it into our language. That may not make much sense, but I always wondered about that.

[LearnDothraki]

@ThePhilosophersAbyss That makes complete sense. As I said, Tolkien did the same thing with "Westron". It's an interesting idea.

[LaFara125]

please add subtitles to your videos

[Cowleesa]

Who's to say that some of the languages don't share a common ancestry? Maybe there was originally some kind of ursprache that each language has developed from. Cultures that come into contact with one another often exchange linguistic traits in their languages too. If the common tongue is to be seen as a sort of lingua franca then it would make sense that it incorporated aspects of all the languages.

Just some thoughts.. great video though!

[nactan]

japanese

burmese

...

probably a construction in the common speech. the dothraki might call themselves something else entirely. (endonym/exonym)

[EuripidesV]

I'd be hesitant to reason from orthography to phonetics, particularly with regard to gemination. Since English doesn't exhibit gemination in root words, but frequently exhibits doubled consonant letters (as in, for example, "letters"), I find it unlikely that GRRM would assign any phonetic reality to this doubling. Unless, of course, he speaks Italian—but I don't think he does.