Mērion... lantir... tomir! (Harior, āeksios!)

[jdm314]

Today I'm in even more of a hurry that usual, as I have a 7 PM concert (I'll miss the first showing of GoT, so no spoilers please!). As a result, please forgive any incompleteness or shoddyness.

News items:

• The Valar Javaris promo ran again last week, and I've finally found it online. check it out. Comedy gold!
• DJP posted again, "The Valyrian Word

Comments

[leoboiko2]

> he would have been stuck with a chain of genitives, which is always a risky situation in any langauge

Would you be so kind as to elaborate a bit on this point? Are those potentially confusing, or generally avoided in languages with case?

In a related note, I once said jokingly, of the English clitic "'s" vs. a true genitive case, the following exaggeration: "Dænerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Chains, and Mother of Dragons's dog". A (presumably native) speaker of Finnish then wrote me this: Dænerys Myrskysyntyisen, Targaryenin suvun, Andalien ja Ensimmäisten ihmisten kuningattaren, Suuren Ruohomeren khaleesin, kahleiden murtajan ja Lohikäärmeiden äidin koira. I don't know any Finnish but looking in online dictionaries for the easy picks:

• suvun seems to be gen. of suku "kin";
• ensimmäisten gen. pl. of ensimmäinen "the first";
• ihmisten gen. pl. of ihminen "human, person";
• kuningattaren gen. of kuningatar "queen";
• suuren gen. of suuri "great";

[leoboiko2]

kahleiden gen. pl. of kahle, chain :P

How many words are there that we know from both AV and MV? I'd be nice to see a compact comparison list. Or to make one... I'm not working much with Valyrian, but that does not sound too big a project.

- Qvaak

[jdm314]

We don't have a list per se. Probably the easiest way to do it would be to run down the etymologies listed at [[Astapori Vayrian Vocabulary]].

[jdm314]

Would you be so kind as to elaborate a bit on this point? Are those potentially confusing, or generally avoided in languages with case?
I admit that my "any language" comment was meant half jokingly. But only half: I do suspect there's some truth to it.

It's definitely true in Latin. There the problem is that if you say something like Daenerydis Andalorum et Primorum Virorum Reginae theoretically any of these words could be possessor or possessed: for all we know it's "Of The Andals and the First Ones of the Queen of the Men of Daenerys" (unlikely, I know, but the point stands that these get confusing.)

Now, this is less of a problem in High Valyrian for two reasons:

• DJP has repeatedly made the point that HV is more tolerant of ambiguity than Latin is.
• The prose word-order is much more rigid.

Of course that second point is nuanced by the fact that, particularly in titles, genitives may precede or follow

[ext_1754441]

Great analysis as always! Whenever there is Valyrian on the show this is pretty much the first place I go online after watching. A possible HV etymology for rehedesíazar occurred to me: rhēdessiarza, which literally means "being known (always)", which might over time have shifted through meanings like "well-known" > "esteemed" > "noble".

[jdm314]

Brilliant! That is very plausible, though if it's right both actors rather botched the pronunciation.

Note, by the way, that that is nearly exactly the etymology of "noble" itself, Latin nōbilis being from noscō and all.

ETA: Oh, and flattery will get you everywhere ;)

[ext_1754441]

That sounds very plausible indeed. Could -arza > -azar be the same kind of metasthesis as āeksio > aeske?

- Zhalio

[ext_1754441]

Well, flattery is always nice, isn't it? Although I wouldn't blame the actors too much, the word is quite a mouthful. That is an interesting fact about Latin!

[anonymous]

Not that I'm searching for qringōntra, but the plural of vēttir is vēttra! So it should be Jaehoro Valarō Vēttra....
-Papaya.