Me zaldrize tuzis ez perji, svagizi?
Here is my promised analysis of Aeske Hildebrand. But before we begin, let's have a quick roundup of other Valyrian news:
First of all, we have David J. Peterson's latest blog entry, Perzo Vujita (PV). Mr. Peterson has also released a few hints elsewhere:
On Twitter, he gave the HV word for "to lift," as manaeragon, which I suspect to be the etymon of AV maneragho "to win" (as in Manerágho zýa zómbe, selévas ji Dovoghédhy... "To win his shield, an Unsullied must...")
In "The Man Who Invented Game of Thrones' Languages," Peterson gives us a new official transcription: Si kizy vasko v’uvar ez zya gundja yn hilas “And this because I like the curve of her ass.” Boy was I off on that one. Si is "and," from HV se. Vasko "because" matches the Spanish equivalent porque exactly. V'uvar "the curve" gives us a rare example of the vi article. Ez means "of," more on which below. Gundja "ass" looks very un-Valyrian to me, and it would make perfect sense for it to be a Ghiscari borrowing. But I was apparently right about yn hilas.
In a comment, Mr. Peterson has also finally revealed what the four genders of High Valyrian are: solar, lunar, terrestrial, aquatic. The names do not really tell you anything about the class (as opposed to masculine, feminine, and neuter, which purport to be connected to biological sex), rather they represent the classic example of a noun of that class (that is the word for "sun" is solar, the word for "moon" is lunar, and so on.) There is at least some correspondence to semantic classes: It’s more like the declension classes correspond with some basic categories, and then those declensions fit into a single gender. So a lot of humans will be either lunar or solar, because many will have the ending -a or -ys (plus some others, but I mean words for humans that aren’t names). A lot of foods and plants will be terrestrial, because many end in -on, etc.
Be sure also to read Zhalio's speculation on gender, as his theory seems good, and in general he has an uncanny knack for figuring out Peterson's languages. Putting all this together, and reading between the lines, it looks like it may be something like this:
Now, let us return to Aeske Hildebrand. The English is a pæan to Dan Hildebrand, and a dirge for Kraznys mo Nakloz. The Valyrian... seems to be something quite different. Mr. Peterson describes this as an "inside joke," but I think it's easy enough for us outsiders to understand: the Valyrian is in the style of Kraznys, and the English is in the style of Missandei! In some cases the "diplomatic translation" can help us figure out the Valyrian, but much of the time it strays too far to help. Lets take a look.
Aeske Hildebrand, majin vaghoma av quvemagho, do av rijagho.
Master Hildebrand, I come to praise you, and with words to lift you up high.
majin: I come, which confirms the theory that the 1s ends in -n. Also as, as Dinok points out, this seems to indicate that this verb has a thematic -i- throughout (we've already seen that the 3s is majis (and the HV appears to be mazis). What happens in the 3p? More on that when we get to tuzis.
vaghoma- From context "in order to" is the logical guess. And if that's right, the etymology would presmably be from va "for" and ghoma, which might conceivably mean "purpose" or the like. This allows us to refine the sentence I previously transcribed "... i ivétras do révi jevaghó magigmíli sko vejotréi" ("…but speaks no praise to keep the price down"): it should start y ivétras do révije vaghóma gigmíli ... "but speaks no praise so that we will (keep down?)"
av: "you" 2s pronoun, accusative. Recall that Najahho and I proposed that the 2s acc pronoun was au or aut, from our incorrect ˣpíndau and the context of au tatágho "to serve you." Looks like even though our reasoning was faulty, we were actually quite correct: av tatágho.
Quvemagho and rijagho will be infinitives of purpose. I can't think of any way to get their meanings other than to guess, based on the form of the sentence: "I come to bury you, not to praise you" (as in Julius Caesar act 3, scene II) If this is right, it is tantalizing that rijagho is so close to revije and yet so far.
ETA: On second thought, this is unlikely, because it is Kraznys mo Nakloz who has died, not Dan Hildebrand!
Tentative translation: "Master Hildebrand, I come to bury(?) you, not to praise(?) you."
Oa Valyre sa nagostova; sa qrugh, he unir ez j’Astapor, lislisari he orgoz himi nobisto.
Your Valyrian is spoken with sublime grace; the strength of Astapor’s might is behind every sentence, and it flows like honey.
Oa: "your." This shows a pretty clear relation to av and o, the accusative and dative forms of the second person singular pronoun, as well as the HV aōhe.
nagostova: "weak." Compare the sentence I transcribed Nagízi lodóli sko do nagostováre ún sepá "This way we make sure that there is no weakness in them."
qrugh: My suspicion is that this is the same word I previously heard as dugh, "shit."
he: this surely must be the AV reflex of HV hae, a preposition which takes the locative. Only problem is, in the only example we have so far, hae dāero valoti, means "as free men." But it seems likely that this usage is idiomatic, and even in AV it also has a spatial meaning, such as "in." On the other hand, in the next sentence it seems likely to mean "as" again, so perhaps I am overthinking this.
unir: I don't have a guess as to what this means, but I am wondering if it might derive from a HV collective form.
ez: we have already seen this means "of," which matches the diplomatic translation.
almost certainly means "of," as in the diplomatic translation. Interestingly, we see in
lislisari: I have an inkling that -ari might be a passive suffix, as in mazméris funmári (apparently "they are trained") and mazedhas derari ("he was taken"). Could lislisari mean "it is poured out"? Peterson has repeatedly mentioned that most participles are formed with an -r- infix, which makes me wonder if the passive could have origin from a participial periphrasis (like the passive does in most modern European langauges, and in the perfect system of Latin). The problem is, this does not match up with things like keliton issa "is ended", sa tida "is done," and stas qimbroto "was cursed," where the passive participle (if that's what it is) seems to have a -t- infix (like Latin!)
orgoz: "piss" (see below).
nobisto: I don't know what this means, but compare the ending of vádo vistós, and univegístos from my first transcription, and begisto (below).
I don't have any real guesses for the meaning of unir, himi, or nobisto.
Tentative translation: "Your Valyrian is weak. It is shit. Like(?) [?] of Astapor, it is poured out(?) like piss [?] [?]"
Oa odri si narysta, si oa engo sa he mi tyvaro.
Your words move me, much as they have moved many.
odri: perhaps we can trust the diplomatic translation here (as well as in the last line), and take odri to mean "words"? This does not match HV kivio, but that is only attested in "I give you my word," and therefore may not mean a literal word.
si: appears to be the plural of sa "is." This makes a good deal of sense within the logic of AV, but one possible problem is that, while the HV etymon of sa seems to be íssa "he/she/it is," íssi does not appear to mean "they are" but "you (pl) are." That could easily be something that changed, though, and we don't have all the information on this yet.
narysta: possibly related to the -sto suffix.
si: well, there are actually at lest two separate words spelled si: the above, meaning "are," possibly from HV íssa, and this one, meaning "and," from HV se.
Mi might possibly be another form of me, the indefinite article.
I don't have anything for engo or tyvaro.
Tentative translation: "Your words are [?], and your [?] is like a [?]"
Ima vi nejo emi hubre, si hin kizir sizi, gimin sko oo jelevre tuzis ji gunjda emi begisto dos.
You are a handsome man, and all rejoice at the mere sight of you.
Ima: probably a verb in the second person
hubre: As we have seen, this means "goat" (or, less likely, "girl.")
hin: "from." HV hen. Recall that I speculated "from" was the literal meaning of the HV word. A further bit of evidence for this may be the verb henujagon "to leave," which could derived from hen (just as Latin abire "to leave" is derived from ab "from.")
Kizir looks like the demonstrative kizi with a suffix. Given the context I'm going to guess it means "here" or possibly "there."
gimin: "I know," another example of the 1s ending, but again with an i-stem verb.
oo: "your." That is oa in the other Astapori gender-even though we now know a little about HV gender, we still don't know much about it in AV.
tuzis: "smells." We have discussed this verb on more than one occasion, and now we know that the form is not tuzizes (much less zezorkos). What we've been hearing is tuzis ez "smells of," exactly equivalent to the English expression. This time, however, we don't get the ez. What does this do to the expression? Is the ez just optional, or does removing it change the meaning of the sentence (in English, for example, "smelling roses" and "smelling of roses" are two entirely different things)? I don't know. On a morphological note, notice that the first time we had this verb it was tuzis ez orkoz "he (Jorah) smells of piss," and the second time it was tuzis ez qrugh "they (the Dothraki) smell of shit." So now we know what happens to an i-stem verb in the third person: the plural and the singular collapse. We still have to find out what happens to the 2nd person -a ending.
gunjda: "ass," as in v’uvar ez zya gundja.
begisto: again this -sto ending. The spelling shows that I should have written uni besisto rather than "Univegístos" in my first transcription. But I have no guess what this means.
I have nothing for nejo, emi, jelevre, begisto, or dos.
Tentative translation: "You [?] the [?] [?] goat, and even from here(?), I know that your [?] smells (like?) the ass [?] [?] [?]."
Sir pigivas nya odri, Aeske Hildebrand, si gimis sko dory ilimozlivas vi murgho ez Kraznys mo Nakloz.
So read my words, Master Hildebrand, and know that the world is lessened by the passing of Kraznys mo Nakloz.
Sir: "now," HV sīr.
pigivas: "reads," if we trust the diplomatic translation. Note that the translation takes this as an imperative, and in the context of this sentence an imperative makes sense. But the form we actually get is pigivas, which looks more like a 3s present.
nya: "my." Cf. nyk "I", and HV ñuhys, ñuhe "my."
gimis: "knows," again a 3s form-or possibly 3pl, since this is an i-stem verb.
dory: "the world," if we are to believe the translation. Note the lack of article, though.
ilimozlivas: a verb in the future tense. From the context I'm guessing it means "will celebrate."
Tentative translation: "Now he reads my words, Master Hildebrand, and knows that the world(?) will celebrate(?) the death of Kraznys mo Nakloz.
First of all, we have David J. Peterson's latest blog entry, Perzo Vujita (PV). Mr. Peterson has also released a few hints elsewhere:
On Twitter, he gave the HV word for "to lift," as manaeragon, which I suspect to be the etymon of AV maneragho "to win" (as in Manerágho zýa zómbe, selévas ji Dovoghédhy... "To win his shield, an Unsullied must...")
In "The Man Who Invented Game of Thrones' Languages," Peterson gives us a new official transcription: Si kizy vasko v’uvar ez zya gundja yn hilas “And this because I like the curve of her ass.” Boy was I off on that one. Si is "and," from HV se. Vasko "because" matches the Spanish equivalent porque exactly. V'uvar "the curve" gives us a rare example of the vi article. Ez means "of," more on which below. Gundja "ass" looks very un-Valyrian to me, and it would make perfect sense for it to be a Ghiscari borrowing. But I was apparently right about yn hilas.
In a comment, Mr. Peterson has also finally revealed what the four genders of High Valyrian are: solar, lunar, terrestrial, aquatic. The names do not really tell you anything about the class (as opposed to masculine, feminine, and neuter, which purport to be connected to biological sex), rather they represent the classic example of a noun of that class (that is the word for "sun" is solar, the word for "moon" is lunar, and so on.) There is at least some correspondence to semantic classes: It’s more like the declension classes correspond with some basic categories, and then those declensions fit into a single gender. So a lot of humans will be either lunar or solar, because many will have the ending -a or -ys (plus some others, but I mean words for humans that aren’t names). A lot of foods and plants will be terrestrial, because many end in -on, etc.
Be sure also to read Zhalio's speculation on gender, as his theory seems good, and in general he has an uncanny knack for figuring out Peterson's languages. Putting all this together, and reading between the lines, it looks like it may be something like this:
- Solar: the lexical form ends in an s
- Lunar: ends in a vowel
- Terrestrial: ends in an n
- Aquatic: ends in an r
Now, let us return to Aeske Hildebrand. The English is a pæan to Dan Hildebrand, and a dirge for Kraznys mo Nakloz. The Valyrian... seems to be something quite different. Mr. Peterson describes this as an "inside joke," but I think it's easy enough for us outsiders to understand: the Valyrian is in the style of Kraznys, and the English is in the style of Missandei! In some cases the "diplomatic translation" can help us figure out the Valyrian, but much of the time it strays too far to help. Lets take a look.
Aeske Hildebrand, majin vaghoma av quvemagho, do av rijagho.
Master Hildebrand, I come to praise you, and with words to lift you up high.
majin: I come, which confirms the theory that the 1s ends in -n. Also as, as Dinok points out, this seems to indicate that this verb has a thematic -i- throughout (we've already seen that the 3s is majis (and the HV appears to be mazis). What happens in the 3p? More on that when we get to tuzis.
vaghoma- From context "in order to" is the logical guess. And if that's right, the etymology would presmably be from va "for" and ghoma, which might conceivably mean "purpose" or the like. This allows us to refine the sentence I previously transcribed "... i ivétras do révi jevaghó magigmíli sko vejotréi" ("…but speaks no praise to keep the price down"): it should start y ivétras do révije vaghóma gigmíli ... "but speaks no praise so that we will (keep down?)"
av: "you" 2s pronoun, accusative. Recall that Najahho and I proposed that the 2s acc pronoun was au or aut, from our incorrect ˣpíndau and the context of au tatágho "to serve you." Looks like even though our reasoning was faulty, we were actually quite correct: av tatágho.
Quvemagho and rijagho will be infinitives of purpose. I can't think of any way to get their meanings other than to guess, based on the form of the sentence: "I come to bury you, not to praise you" (as in Julius Caesar act 3, scene II) If this is right, it is tantalizing that rijagho is so close to revije and yet so far.
ETA: On second thought, this is unlikely, because it is Kraznys mo Nakloz who has died, not Dan Hildebrand!
Tentative translation: "Master Hildebrand, I come to bury(?) you, not to praise(?) you."
Oa Valyre sa nagostova; sa qrugh, he unir ez j’Astapor, lislisari he orgoz himi nobisto.
Your Valyrian is spoken with sublime grace; the strength of Astapor’s might is behind every sentence, and it flows like honey.
Oa: "your." This shows a pretty clear relation to av and o, the accusative and dative forms of the second person singular pronoun, as well as the HV aōhe.
nagostova: "weak." Compare the sentence I transcribed Nagízi lodóli sko do nagostováre ún sepá "This way we make sure that there is no weakness in them."
qrugh: My suspicion is that this is the same word I previously heard as dugh, "shit."
he: this surely must be the AV reflex of HV hae, a preposition which takes the locative. Only problem is, in the only example we have so far, hae dāero valoti, means "as free men." But it seems likely that this usage is idiomatic, and even in AV it also has a spatial meaning, such as "in." On the other hand, in the next sentence it seems likely to mean "as" again, so perhaps I am overthinking this.
unir: I don't have a guess as to what this means, but I am wondering if it might derive from a HV collective form.
ez: we have already seen this means "of," which matches the diplomatic translation.
almost certainly means "of," as in the diplomatic translation. Interestingly, we see in
lislisari: I have an inkling that -ari might be a passive suffix, as in mazméris funmári (apparently "they are trained") and mazedhas derari ("he was taken"). Could lislisari mean "it is poured out"? Peterson has repeatedly mentioned that most participles are formed with an -r- infix, which makes me wonder if the passive could have origin from a participial periphrasis (like the passive does in most modern European langauges, and in the perfect system of Latin). The problem is, this does not match up with things like keliton issa "is ended", sa tida "is done," and stas qimbroto "was cursed," where the passive participle (if that's what it is) seems to have a -t- infix (like Latin!)
orgoz: "piss" (see below).
nobisto: I don't know what this means, but compare the ending of vádo vistós, and univegístos from my first transcription, and begisto (below).
I don't have any real guesses for the meaning of unir, himi, or nobisto.
Tentative translation: "Your Valyrian is weak. It is shit. Like(?) [?] of Astapor, it is poured out(?) like piss [?] [?]"
Oa odri si narysta, si oa engo sa he mi tyvaro.
Your words move me, much as they have moved many.
odri: perhaps we can trust the diplomatic translation here (as well as in the last line), and take odri to mean "words"? This does not match HV kivio, but that is only attested in "I give you my word," and therefore may not mean a literal word.
si: appears to be the plural of sa "is." This makes a good deal of sense within the logic of AV, but one possible problem is that, while the HV etymon of sa seems to be íssa "he/she/it is," íssi does not appear to mean "they are" but "you (pl) are." That could easily be something that changed, though, and we don't have all the information on this yet.
narysta: possibly related to the -sto suffix.
si: well, there are actually at lest two separate words spelled si: the above, meaning "are," possibly from HV íssa, and this one, meaning "and," from HV se.
Mi might possibly be another form of me, the indefinite article.
I don't have anything for engo or tyvaro.
Tentative translation: "Your words are [?], and your [?] is like a [?]"
Ima vi nejo emi hubre, si hin kizir sizi, gimin sko oo jelevre tuzis ji gunjda emi begisto dos.
You are a handsome man, and all rejoice at the mere sight of you.
Ima: probably a verb in the second person
hubre: As we have seen, this means "goat" (or, less likely, "girl.")
hin: "from." HV hen. Recall that I speculated "from" was the literal meaning of the HV word. A further bit of evidence for this may be the verb henujagon "to leave," which could derived from hen (just as Latin abire "to leave" is derived from ab "from.")
Kizir looks like the demonstrative kizi with a suffix. Given the context I'm going to guess it means "here" or possibly "there."
gimin: "I know," another example of the 1s ending, but again with an i-stem verb.
oo: "your." That is oa in the other Astapori gender-even though we now know a little about HV gender, we still don't know much about it in AV.
tuzis: "smells." We have discussed this verb on more than one occasion, and now we know that the form is not tuzizes (much less zezorkos). What we've been hearing is tuzis ez "smells of," exactly equivalent to the English expression. This time, however, we don't get the ez. What does this do to the expression? Is the ez just optional, or does removing it change the meaning of the sentence (in English, for example, "smelling roses" and "smelling of roses" are two entirely different things)? I don't know. On a morphological note, notice that the first time we had this verb it was tuzis ez orkoz "he (Jorah) smells of piss," and the second time it was tuzis ez qrugh "they (the Dothraki) smell of shit." So now we know what happens to an i-stem verb in the third person: the plural and the singular collapse. We still have to find out what happens to the 2nd person -a ending.
gunjda: "ass," as in v’uvar ez zya gundja.
begisto: again this -sto ending. The spelling shows that I should have written uni besisto rather than "Univegístos" in my first transcription. But I have no guess what this means.
I have nothing for nejo, emi, jelevre, begisto, or dos.
Tentative translation: "You [?] the [?] [?] goat, and even from here(?), I know that your [?] smells (like?) the ass [?] [?] [?]."
Sir pigivas nya odri, Aeske Hildebrand, si gimis sko dory ilimozlivas vi murgho ez Kraznys mo Nakloz.
So read my words, Master Hildebrand, and know that the world is lessened by the passing of Kraznys mo Nakloz.
Sir: "now," HV sīr.
pigivas: "reads," if we trust the diplomatic translation. Note that the translation takes this as an imperative, and in the context of this sentence an imperative makes sense. But the form we actually get is pigivas, which looks more like a 3s present.
nya: "my." Cf. nyk "I", and HV ñuhys, ñuhe "my."
gimis: "knows," again a 3s form-or possibly 3pl, since this is an i-stem verb.
dory: "the world," if we are to believe the translation. Note the lack of article, though.
ilimozlivas: a verb in the future tense. From the context I'm guessing it means "will celebrate."
Tentative translation: "Now he reads my words, Master Hildebrand, and knows that the world(?) will celebrate(?) the death of Kraznys mo Nakloz.