The Dothraki language is a constructed fictional language in George R. R. Martin's fantasy
novel series A Song of Ice and Fire and its television adaptation Game of Thrones, where
it is spoken by the Dothraki, the indigenous inhabitants of the Dothraki Sea. The language
was developed for the TV series by the linguist David J. Peterson based on the Dothraki words
and phrases in Martin's novels. As of September 2011, the language comprised
3,163 words, not all of which have been made public. In 2012, 146 newborn girls in the
U.S. were named "Khaleesi", the Dothraki term for the wife of a khal or ruler, and the title
adopted in the series by Daenerys Targaryen.
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 Turkish, Russian, Estonian, Inuktitut and
Swahili. David J. Peterson and his development of the
Dothraki language were featured on an April 8, 2012 episode of CNN's The Next List. He
went on to create the Valyrian languages for season 3 of Game of Thrones.
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
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 and Spanish,
due to the dental consonants." Regarding the orthography, the Dothraki themselves
do not have a writing system—nor do many of the surrounding peoples. 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.
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. 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: 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.ˈɾak] star, rhaesh [ɾha.ˈeʃ] country, khaleesi [ˈxa.l̪e.e.si] queen.
Grammar Parts of speech
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 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 Basic word order is SVO. In a basic sentence,
the order of these elements is as in English: First comes the subject, then comes the verb,
then comes the object. Khal ahhas arakh. The Khal sharpened the arakh.
rakh haj strong boy alegra ivezh wild duck
jin arakh this arakh) rek hrakkares that lion
When only a subject is a present, the subject precedes the verb, as it does in English:
Arakh hasa. The arakh is sharp.
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. but adjectives, possessor and prepositional phrases all follow the noun:
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.
In the episode "Andy's Ancestry" from the United States television show The Office,
Dwight Schrute created the Dothraki phrase "throat rip" by placing "throat" in front
to make it the accusative. David J. Peterson adapted that language technique and called
it the "Schrutean compound". Sample
Nevakhi vekha ha maan: Rekke, m'aresakea norethi fitte.
/ˈn̪evaxi ˈvexa ha maˈan̪ ˈrekːe ˈmaɾesakea ˈn̪oɾeθi ˈfit̪ːe/
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.
References
External links The official Dothraki blog
The LCS blog about the language The Dothraki Language Wiki