Dothraki

SPOKEN BY

Dothraki is spoken by the nomadic horse warriors known as the Dothraki who live in the Dothraki Sea.

DOCUMENTED BY

HBO hired David J. Peterson to create the Dothraki language for the adaptation Game of Thrones (2011– ), asking him to expand upon what George R. R. Martin (1948– ) had built into his Ice and Fire series: A Game of Thrones (1996), A Clash of Kings (1998), A Storm of Swords (2000), A Feast for Crows (2005), and A Dance with Dragons (scheduled for 2011).

BEHIND THE WORDS

The action of the story takes place in the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, where many fight to defend the realm … or take their place at its head.

DERIVATION OF THE LANGUAGE

David J. Peterson drew on Martin’s work and added concepts from Russian, Turkish, Estonian, Inuktitut, and Swahili.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LANGUAGE

Dothraki has four vowels.

The language uses a subject-verb-object structure.

A TASTE OF THE LANGUAGE

ayena (noun)—bell

chakat (verb)—to be silent

dorv (noun)—goat

eveth (noun)—water

fire (noun)—ring

hadaen (noun)—food

indelat (verb)—to drink

jalan (noun)—moon

kaffat (verb)—to crush

lajat (verb)—to fight

mithri (noun)—rest

noreth (noun)—hair

ostat (verb)—to bite

qoy (noun)—blood

rhaggat (noun)—cart

shekh (noun)—sun

tokikes (noun)—fool

vaes (noun)—city

yatholat (verb)—to rise

zhikhak (adjective)—sick

NUMBERING SYSTEM

at—one

akat—two

sen—three

tor—four

mek—five

zhinda—six

fekh—seven

ori—eight

qazat—nine

thi—ten

PHILOLOGICAL FACTS

David J. Peterson is president of the Language Creation Society, a group that exists to promote constructed languages. On its web page, www.conlang.org, you can purchase, among other things, T-shirts, beer-mug coasters, and iPhone cases. The society’s mission is “to promote conlangs and conlanging through offering platforms for conlangers to publish high-quality work of interest to the community, raising awareness about conlanging amongst the general public, organizing work for professional conlangers and people in the entertainment industry interested in adding more depth to their alternative worlds, and providing a central place for reliable contacts and information to those seeking to learn more.”

George R. R. Martin began writing A Song of Ice and Fire, of which Game of Thrones is the first volume, in 1996. The series is planned to run to seven volumes, but as of 2011, Martin had published only five, with a gap of nearly six years between the appearance of volume 4 (A Feast for Crows) and volume 5 (A Dance with Dragons).

IF YOU’RE INTERESTED IN LEARNING THE LANGUAGE

A good place to start if you’re interested in learning Dothraki is the unofficial web page of the language: www.dothraki.org.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Review the works listed above, the resources listed in the bibliography, and the web pages: “David J. Peterson’s Web Thing” (www.dedalvs.com/index.html), “Dothraki” (www.dothraki.org), “Dothraki Wiki” (http://wiki.dothraki.org/dothraki/Main_Page), and “A Song of Ice and Fire” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Song_of_Ice_and_Fire).