Learning High Valyrian from English
Created: 2023-12-21
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Welcome to High Valyrian for English speakers! High Valyrian is the language of the old Valyrian Freehold, a thriving civilization destroyed by a mysterious cataclysm centuries before the action of Game of Thrones begins. It was a language of dragon tamers and warriors, but is now a language of refinement and education—a memory of a bygone era. It's the language of the Mad King Aerys, of Aegon the Conqueror, and of Daenerys Targaryen, Mother of Dragons.
High Valyrian is an inflectional language, where the form of a noun changes to indicate the role it plays in a sentence, or verbs inflect for their tense, aspect, and voice. Generally, adjectives come before the nouns they modify, and verbs come at the end of the sentence.
As you begin your study of Valyrian, you may want to know how the Roman letters used to spell the language are pronounced. In Old Valyria, the language was written with a glyphic writing system, but in our world, we use a variant of the Roman alphabet for simplicity's sake. Here's a description of the system:
Note: As a shortcut, you can type a double version of the vowel to stand in for a vowel with a macron. Thus, if you type yy it will be understood as ȳ by Duolingo.
In this lesson you'll be learning the singular and plural pairs for some common words. In High Valyrian there are a number of pluralization strategies, so pay close attention to the ending of each word you learn.
High Valyrian is a language whose nouns inflect for gender, number, and case. Adjectives will agree with all three of these elements. In this lesson, you'll only be focusing on plural agreement; other types of agreement will come later.
Adjectives most commonly precede the nouns they modify, but they may follow the nouns they modify either for stylistic reasons, or to prevent overcrowding. Thus, if you have sȳz which means "good", then "good man" can be translated as sȳz vala or vala sȳz.
High Valyrian doesn't use a word like "and" when coordinating two non-modifying consecutive elements. Instead, the last word in a pair or trio of nouns, adjectives, or even verbs is modified in some way to indicate that it is participating in a coordinative structure. One common strategy is to lengthen the final vowel of the last word in a list and shift the word's stress to the end. Watch out for word-final long vowels in sentences with coordination!
You'll be learning some High Valyrian pronouns later. For now, if you see a verb, the subject will either be listed first, or will be a pronoun not present. Take, for example, the sentence Vala issa. Translated simply, it could mean "The man is", but that's not a very useful sentence. A better translation would be "He is a man", where "he" is simply not necessary.
You may recognize the word for "yes" from the previous lesson. In fact, it's identical to the word for "is". In High Valyrian, what we translate as "yes" is more accurately translated as "it is".
(Note: Generally you match the tense of the sentence. So if you want to say "Yes, it will be fine," then you say kessa "it will be" instead of issa "it is". As you haven't learned the future tense yet, issa is used exclusively, for the time being.)
Negation is a bit more complex in High Valyrian than other languages, so you'll be learning about it later.
High Valyrian words are stressed most commonly on the penultimate (second-to-last) syllable. When the antepenultimate (third-to-last) syllable is heavy (i.e. it contains a long vowel, a diphthong, or ends with a consonant), and the penultimate syllable is light (i.e. it contains a short vowel with no coda consonant), then the antepenultimate syllable is stressed.
Here are some examples (below, H stands for "heavy" and L stands for "light"):
The only exceptions to this rule occur with commands, both singular and plural, which are uniformly stressed on the final syllable. Additionally, conjunctive lengthening requires the final syllable of the final word to be stressed, as shown below:
In High Valyrian, nouns change their form based on their grammatical role in the sentence. In this lesson, you'll be introduced to two cases. One you've been using since the beginning: the nominative case. The nominative case is used with the subject of the sentence. It's considered the basic form of the noun, and is the form you'll learn first when you learn a new noun.
The second case you're going to learn about in this lesson is called the accusative case. The accusative case is used with the object of the sentence. For example, in the English sentence "The man sees the woman", "the man" is the subject (the seer), and would take the nominative case in Valyrian. "The woman", on the other hand, is the object (the seeee), and would take the accusative case. In English, it's obvious who does what to whom, because a verb stands in between the two nouns. In High Valyrian, though, both of these are licit translations:
Rather than word order, the form of the noun is what tells you who does what to whom. In this case, ābra "woman" changes its ending from its usual -a to -e.
There are several different strategies for forming the accusative case, all of which you'll learn later. For this lesson, here are the important ones:
These generalizations will suffice for this skill. Soon you'll learn more rules regarding the formation of the accusative and other cases.
In this skill you'll notice a few different strategies for marking a verb. High Valyrian verbs agree with their subjects in number and person. For now, you'll see endings for the third person singular (he, she, it) and plural (they), as well as the first person singular (I). Pay special attention to when a verb ends with -sa vs. -za vs. -as in the third person singular, as not all verbs consistently take the same ending.
Some generalizations you may notice:
Again, these generalizations will suffice for this skill. Soon you'll learn more rules regarding the formation of the all verbal conjugations.
In this lesson you're going to learn some demonstrative pronouns. Though adjectives agree with nouns in case, number, and gender, it's important to remember that demonstrative pronouns do not. Pronouns take their own plurality, depending on their referent, and make a simple distinction between animate (B-class) and inanimate (K-class). In addition, there are two sets of pronouns depending on distance. Thus:
Note: It's up to the individual speaker to decide whether animals are animate enough to earn a B-class demonstrative pronoun.
High Valyrian is a language with genders, much like Spanish, German, or Arabic. Unlike those languages, though, the genders of High Valyrian have nothing to do with biological sex. Instead, the genders are named based on key nouns within each gender that serve as the prototype for the rest of the paradigm. The genders are:
Every noun of High Valyrian belongs to one of these four genders and requires its adjectives to agree with that gender. Gender in nouns can most often be recognized by a set of characteristic endings associated with each gender. In the four gender skills you will learn to recognize and manipulate those characteristic endings.
The lunar class is the most robust High Valyrian noun class. Lunar nouns can take a, e, i, o, or y as theme vowels. Most lunar nouns take some sort of -i suffix in the plural and accusative (though the latter will often coalesce with a final -a producing an -e suffix). Note that while the accusative plural for lunar nouns is always -ī, the accusative singular of some types of lunar nouns (for example those ending in -e) also take -ī in the accusative singular, rendering their singular and plural forms identical in the accusative.
Many important nouns referring to humans are lunar, so it pays to get a solid handle on lunar endings moving forward.
High Valyrian is a language with genders, much like Spanish, German, or Arabic. Unlike those languages, though, the genders of High Valyrian have nothing to do with biological sex. Instead, the genders are named based on key nouns within each gender that serve as the prototype for the rest of the paradigm. The genders are:
Every noun of High Valyrian belongs to one of these four genders and requires its adjectives to agree with that gender. Gender in nouns can most often be recognized by a set of characteristic endings associated with each gender. In the four gender skills you will learn to recognize and manipulate those characteristic endings.
The solar class is the probably the most common class found in High Valyrian. Solar nouns all have either an s or a z in their nominative endings. While the accusative endings of solar and lunar nouns are similar, solar nouns typically take a double ss plus their theme vowel in the nominative plural.
Adjectives agreeing with solar nouns take different endings from those agreeing with lunar, terrestrial or aquatic nouns, as can be expected, but a few endings also display variant behavior depending on whether the adjective precedes or follows the noun it modifies. If one wanted to say "my leaders", for example, one would take the plural of "leader", jentyssy, and put the solar plural form of "my" in front to get ñuhyz jentyssy. Upon reversing the order, though, a vowel that is ordinarily dropped reappears, resulting in jentyssy ñuhyzy.
There is an additional stipulation if a solar plural adjective precedes a k, p, s, or t. While one would say ñuhyz jentyssy with a z ending, if one wished to say "my days", one would say ñuhys tubissa, with the z becoming an s on account of the following t. The z would, of course, reappear were the order reversed, giving us tubissa ñuhyzy.
High Valyrian is a language with genders, much like Spanish, German, or Arabic. Unlike those languages, though, the genders of High Valyrian have nothing to do with biological sex. Instead, the genders are named based on key nouns within each gender that serve as the prototype for the rest of the paradigm. The genders are:
Every noun of High Valyrian belongs to one of these four genders and requires its adjectives to agree with that gender. Gender in nouns can most often be recognized by a set of characteristic endings associated with each gender. In the four gender skills you will learn to recognize and manipulate those characteristic endings.
The aquatic class is the smallest High Valyrian noun class. Aquatic nouns all have an r associated with their endings and have a limited number of theme vowels (only a, e, i and o). Unlike other classes, the r rarely disappears in different case and number combinations, making this a challenging class of nouns to decline. Aquatic nouns, like terrestrial nouns, typically take an -a in the plural.
Take note of a special spelling change that occurs when an r follows an h due to a variety of case and number combinations. In the singular, for example, the word for "my" is ñuhor in the aquatic. In the plural, the o drops out and an -a is suffixed. This should produce ñuhra, but hr is not a licit sequence of High Valyrian. Instead, the word is respelled ñurha and pronounced accordingly.
High Valyrian is a language with genders, much like Spanish, German, or Arabic. Unlike those languages, though, the genders of High Valyrian have nothing to do with biological sex. Instead, the genders are named based on key nouns within each gender that serve as the prototype for the rest of the paradigm. The genders are:
Every noun of High Valyrian belongs to one of these four genders and requires its adjectives to agree with that gender. Gender in nouns can most often be recognized by a set of characteristic endings associated with each gender. In the four gender skills you will learn to recognize and manipulate those characteristic endings.
The terrestrial class is the simplest noun class in High Valyrian. Terrestrial nouns all have an n associated with their endings and typically have a theme vowel in o. Terrestrial nouns take a plural in -a and never make a distinction between the nominative and accusative.
Most terrestrial nouns refer to places, inanimate objects, or abstract ideas or actions. It's an important class, but probably the simplest one to learn and remember.
One of the key characters of Game of Thrones is Daenerys Targaryen. You've seen her first name already, but now you'll see her last name in High Valyrian: Targārien. As it is a family name, it will always be preceded by an article, and will not be used on its own the way a first name would. As an analogy, consider how Shakespeare refers to a Montague or a Capulet in Romeo and Juliet. In the examples that use Targārien as a noun, the English translations will do the same thing.
The genitive case is assigned to the possessor in a possessive phrase. In English, we mark possessor's in two ways:
In learning the genitive case of High Valyrian, it will be most productive for you to liken it to the first strategy above.
The genitive is uniformly marked with an -o suffix (occasionally -ō, but never a different quality vowel), so the genitive case is easy to identify. To identify a possessor, as in the phrase "the man's horse", one puts the possessor in the genitive. The other noun is in whatever case it is given in the sentence. For example:
As with adjectives, the order of possessor and possessee may be reversed in High Valyrian. Thus, both valo anne and anne valo mean "the man's horse". The order of possessor-possessee is strongly preferred, however, and should only be reversed in cases of overcrowding, or for honorific transposition. As an example of the latter, Daenerys is referred to as Daenerys Stormborn. In High Valyrian, that is translated as Daenerys Jelmāzmo, where jelmāzmo is the genitive of jelmāzma, the word for a violent storm.
In High Valyrian, an adjective agrees with the noun it modifies in gender, number, and case. If one were to translate a simple sentence like "The good boy's mother is sleeping", the Valyrian equivalent of good, sȳz, would need to agree with the gender, number, and case of the noun it modifies. In this sentence, "good" modifies "boy", not "mother". The mother may be good or may be evil; we don't know. All we know for certain is that the boy is good. Thus, the appropriate translation is as follows:
Above, muña is in the nominative singular because it's the subject of the sentence (it's the mother that's sleeping, not the boy). The adjective, though, modifies taoba. And what's taoba up to? Nothing: Taoba is simply the possessor of muña. It is, therefore, in the genitive case. Consequently, the adjective that modifies it, sȳz, must also be in the genitive case. Hence, sȳro taobo. Translating it as sȳz taobo would be incorrect.
There is a known error on Duolingo with exercises that have card selection and genitive plurals. That is, for something like "Those are the masters' horses" (multiple masters have multiple horses), there will be no possible way to give the correct answer in English. This is not an error I'm able to fix: It's an error with Duolingo's system. I have reported the error, but there's really nothing more I can do aside from completely eliminating exercises featuring the genitive plural.
In George R. R. Martin's universe, the Unsullied are an army, and the English word is invariant. The Unsullied can refer to one or many Unsullied. One can also say an Unsullied to refer to one. The word is never pluralized. Consequently, Unsullied's can be singular or plural.
The genitive case is assigned to the possessor in a possessive phrase. In English, we mark possessor's in two ways:
In learning the genitive case of High Valyrian, it will be most productive for you to liken it to the first strategy above.
The genitive is uniformly marked with an -o suffix (occasionally -ō, but never a different quality vowel), so the genitive case is easy to identify. To identify a possessor, as in the phrase "the man's horse", one puts the possessor in the genitive. The other noun is in whatever case it is given in the sentence. For example:
As with adjectives, the order of possessor and possessee may be reversed in High Valyrian. Thus, both valo anne and anne valo mean "the man's horse". The order of possessor-possessee is strongly preferred, however, and should only be reversed in cases of overcrowding, or for honorific transposition. As an example of the latter, Daenerys is referred to as Daenerys Stormborn. In High Valyrian, that is translated as Daenerys Jelmāzmo, where jelmāzmo is the genitive of jelmāzma, the word for a violent storm.
In High Valyrian, an adjective agrees with the noun it modifies in gender, number, and case. If one were to translate a simple sentence like "The good boy's mother is sleeping", the Valyrian equivalent of good, sȳz, would need to agree with the gender, number, and case of the noun it modifies. In this sentence, "good" modifies "boy", not "mother". The mother may be good or may be evil; we don't know. All we know for certain is that the boy is good. Thus, the appropriate translation is as follows:
Above, muña is in the nominative singular because it's the subject of the sentence (it's the mother that's sleeping, not the boy). The adjective, though, modifies taoba. And what's taoba up to? Nothing: Taoba is simply the possessor of muña. It is, therefore, in the genitive case. Consequently, the adjective that modifies it, sȳz, must also be in the genitive case. Hence, sȳro taobo. Translating it as sȳz taobo would be incorrect.
There is a known error on Duolingo with exercises that have card selection and genitive plurals. That is, for something like "Those are the masters' horses" (multiple masters have multiple horses), there will be no possible way to give the correct answer in English. This is not an error I'm able to fix: It's an error with Duolingo's system. I have reported the error, but there's really nothing more I can do aside from completely eliminating exercises featuring the genitive plural.
In George R. R. Martin's universe, the Unsullied are an army, and the English word is invariant. The Unsullied can refer to one or many Unsullied. One can also say an Unsullied to refer to one. The word is never pluralized. Consequently, Unsullied's can be singular or plural.
As you move on to learn about possessive adjectives, note that you'll now be expected to decline any adjective in any number, class and case combination you've already seen. For aquatic nouns this can prove challenging. In particular, pay attention to three adjectives and their singular and plural pairs in the aquatic:
The first pattern we've seen already in the former Aquatic skill. In the second, notice that the r disappears completely. In fact what happens is the jr sequence is illicit in High Valyrian, and so simplifies to j. A similar simplification happens with sr and zr, both of which become j.
The last pattern is one that is widespread in High Valyrian and is important to commit to memory. When a nasal consonant (either n or m) is followed immediately by r, the nasal is deleted, and the previous vowel lengthens. In addition, a homorganic voiced nasal (d for n and b for m) appears in between the vowel and the r. Thus, what was originally konra became kondra and then kōdra.
In the third person singular, there are two pronouns: ziry and ūja. When they occur as possessive pronouns, they still agree with the possessor—even if the possessor isn't stated. Thus both of the phrases below are correct:
The first is used when the possessor of the house is a noun that is in the aquatic or terrestrial gender. The second is used when the possessor of the house is in the lunar or solar gender. Both take -on becomes lenton is terrestrial.
Because most humans are lunar or solar, zȳh- is more likely to be used when the possessor is animate, but both mean essentially the same thing. In a phrase with no other context (most of the phrases you'll see in Duolingo), you're likely to see either.
High Valyrian's kinship system is a bit more detailed than that of English. High Valyrian has what's known as an Iroquois Kinship system, meaning that certain common words cover more ground in High Valyrian than they do in English.
For example, the word muña "mother", which you've learned, is used with one's mother's sisters as well. Consequently, the word can mean "aunt", depending on the context. The same happens with the words for "brother" and "sister" and one's parallel cousins.
High Valyrian also distinguishes between siblings of different ages. Thus, valonqar, which means "younger brother", is a different word from lēkia, which means "older brother".
The vocabulary of each lesson is designed to go together, so that you learn the words for parallel cousins all at once, and cross cousins later. Look for patterns of interpredictability to help you memorize pairs of words. For example, the words for younger siblings/cousins (hāedar and valonqar) are both aquatic, whereas the words for older siblings/cousins (lēkia and mandia) are both lunar. Such subsystems are present throughout the larger kinship system.
Thus far you've learned how to ask yes/no questions (identical in form to statements, but with question intonation). In this skill you'll learn to ask WH-questions. WH-questions are questions which, in English, have a word with a "WH" in them (i.e. who, what, where, when, why, how).
In High Valyrian, WH-words begin with s (in fact, either sp, for animate, or sk, for inanimate), and appear uniformly at the beginning of the sentence.
The words sparos "who" and skoros "what" are pronouns that decline fully (including the genitive form sparo, which we'd translate into English as "whose"), and the adjectives spare "which (animate)" and skore "which (inanimate)" [NOTE: Not yet present in course. Coming soon!] are adjectives that agree with the nouns they modify in case, gender, and number.
The following WH-words should be learned as phrases, though you'll be able to figure out how they're formed later on:
The word skorverdon "how many" is special. Skorverdon is always followed by a noun in the genitive plural. Thus "how many men" would be skorverdon valoti. Remember that skorverdon is the actual argument, though, so in the sentence "How many men are singing?" the verb should be third person singular, since the noun skorverdon is singular.
In the Song of Ice and Fire universe, animals serve as the standard bearers for some of the most famous houses. For example, the wolf is associated with House Stark; the lion with House Lannister; the fish with House Tully; and the dragon with House Targaryen. Often the animal names will be used to stand in for a member or head of that house.
Pay special attention to certain of the words in this skill, as they instantiate some of the more unusual declension paradigms of High Valyrian.
So far you've seen a number of verbs conjugated in their present tense forms. Now you'll learn the full system of present tense conjugation.
As you know, verbs in High Valyrian agree with their subjects in person and number. In determining what endings a verb will have, it's important to determine what type of segment ends the verb root: a consonant or a vowel. Those that end in consonants have endings which vary, while those that end in a vowel have fairly uniform endings.
Vowel-final stems display the following behavior:
For the second person forms, the final lengthened vowel varies based on the final vowel of the root. Thus idakō is "you attack" and līrī is "you smile".
Regular consonant-final stems display the following behavior:
The endings you see above will change on occasion depending on the final consonant of the root. For example, words that end in a voiceless stop (p, t, k, or q) will often (but not always) have a third personal singular ending -sa. Roots that end in r or l will take third person endings of -za in the singular and -zi in the plural. Other changes with other consonants are less regular, and should be memorized.
As a final note, take care to distinguish those verb roots that end in a consonant, and those that end in -a. Their endings will be similar in many, but not all, cases. For example, ȳdran "I speak" looks like it could be a consonant-final form, or an a-final form, but ȳdrasi "they speak" could only be an a-final form.
This skill is going to teach you a series of new adjectives. Not that bōsa can mean "long" or "tall", depending on the context, and also note that harrenka is a word that doesn't have a direct equivalent in English (or not a simple one, at least). Be sure to pay close attention to the gender and number of the noun each of these adjectives is modifying!
Food is one of the most important aspects of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. This skill will give you some vocabulary to get you started. One brief note. Previously, you've known only sȳz to mean "good". While you can use sȳz with food, it generally refers to the quality (i.e. how well made it was), rather than the taste. To describe food as "good" (meaning that you like the taste of it), you should use the word ēngenka instead.
Something to keep in mind as you explore this section—and throughout your study of High Valyrian—is the distinction between mass nouns and count nouns. Mass nouns are those that refer to large entities as a single, cohesive unit (like rice), whereas count nouns refer to individuable, countable entities (like apples). In general, lunar and solar nouns tend to be count nouns, while terrestrial and aquatic nouns tend to be mass nouns. As a result, a word like havon is best translated as "bread", whereas a word like onjapos is best translated as "the carrot" or "a carrot".
One important type of word you'll be encountering for the first time is a common nominal derivation ending in -illa. These words tend to refer to masses or substances, despite ending with a characteristic lunar -a. Because of that, words ending in -illa are aquatic and not lunar.
As an example, avero you know as the word for "grape". The derivation averilla is the word for "wine". It declines just like vala but takes agreement like lōgor, as shown below:
This is one of the oddities of the High Valyrian lexicon, but as -illa words are quite common, it's important to pay special attention to this distinction.
The dative case is assigned to the indirect object of a verb. The most canonical indirect object is a recipient, as shown below:
In High Valyrian, the dative case can also be used with destinations implied by the action of the verb (e.g. verbs of motion).
The dative singular is almost always formed by adding a -t to the genitive singular form of a noun. Where the genitive takes a lengthened -ō suffix, the vowel is shortened before the -t is added. Here's a regular example:
And here's an example with an elongated -ō genitive singular:
The form of the dative plural is always identical to the form of the genitive plural.
Regarding placement, the dative argument generally comes in between the subject and direct object, but it's not crucial. Both sentences below would be considered rather ordinary in High Valyrian:
Certain verbs will take a dative object, even if they generally don't in English. For example, the verb gōvilemagon, which you'll learn in lesson 2, means "to put under", where the object (the thing that has something put under it) is always in the dative case.
High Valyrian has a small number of prepositions. You will be introduced to two of them in this skill: va "towards" and hen "from". Prepositions in High Valyrian will govern different cases, at times. In this skill, you'll be learning the functions that each of these prepositions has when their associated nouns take the dative case.
The preposition va means "to" or "towards" or "up to" or "into" when its noun is in the dative. Its interpretation depends on the context. One distinction that might be made, for example, is as follows:
In a different context, though, that second sentence might mean "I go up to the house" or even "I go towards the house".
The preposition hen generally means "from", but when its associated noun is in the dative case, it means either specifically "out from the inside of" or "on account of" or "because of" or "for". You wouldn't use hen with the dative to describe someone leaving a city, but you would use it to describe someone exiting a room. Even so, one wouldn't be surprised to see a contrast like this:
A more common usage of hen with the dative, though, would be something like the following:
As we move on to non-core cases, an important point about adjectival concord must be raised. As with solar plural nominative adjectives, the form of an adjective for many non-core cases changes forms depending on whether it occurs before or after the noun. Those that follow the noun are fuller in form than those that precede it. Here are the dative forms for an adjective that follows a noun:
CLASS I
CLASS II
CLASS III
Now this next part is very important. Here's what happens to these same adjectives when they occur before a noun:
CLASS I
CLASS II
CLASS III
There is one important exception. If the word following the adjective begins with a vowel, then those forms that end in t (and just t, so excluding those that end in ȳrot) retain their t. This affects only the singular forms (and in Classes II and III, only the lunar and aquatic genders). Keep this information in mind as you move forward through new skills and learn new adjectives!
Technically the direct object of gōvilemagon should be in the genitive when appearing before the verb, not the dative! For now, the dative is fine.
Thus far you've learned how to make positive statements in High Valyrian. In this skill you'll learn how to make negative statements.
The basic way to negate a verb in High Valyrian is to end the sentence with daor, a word you've seen before. The only trick is that the form of the verb changes when negated. In Valyrian, a verb changes its form from the indicative to the subjunctive when negated (no need to worry about what the subjunctive means yet. For now, just know it's the form of the verb used in negative sentences). By way of comparison, here's a positive sentence and its negative version:
The agreement pattern for verbs in the subjunctive should be familiar. In addition to their agreement forms, subjunctive verbs take an o theme vowel after the root. Consonant-final stems display the following behavior:
Vowel-final stems behave a little differently. Those that end in -a take the exact same endings as consonant-final stems, as shown below with the verb ȳdragon:
Verbs whose stems end in other vowels have different forms. For verbs that end in either -e or -i, the final vowel of the root becomes i, and then they take the endings as usual, as show below with the verb nevegon:
For verbs that end in either -o or -u, the final vowel of the root becomes v, and then they take the endings as usual, as show below with the verb bardugon:
As with present tense forms, take care to distinguish those verb roots that end in a consonant, and those that end in -a.
IMPORTANT NOTE: The correct form of the infinitive for "to attack" is idakogon.
High Valyrian has seven personal pronouns. Though High Valyrian has four genders, these genders aren't perfectly reified in the pronominal inventory. These are the nominative forms for High Valyrian's personal pronouns:
Five of these pronouns—those with only one variant—are fairly straightforward in their usage. In the third person singular, there are two pronouns: ziry and ūja. When the intended referent of the third person singular pronoun is a noun whose gender is either lunar or solar, you use the pronoun ziry; when its gender is aquatic or terrestrial, you use the pronoun ūja. When there's some doubt, as to the referent, one generally uses ziry for animate referents, and ūja for inanimate referents, because in general animate nouns are either lunar or solar, and terrestrial or aquatic nouns are usually inanimate.
That said, it truly does depend on the referent. Consider the semantically similar words hāedar and mandia, which mean "younger sister" and "older sister", respectively. If you wanted to say "I love her", you'd actually translate it two different ways depending on which sister was intended:
Outside of pōnta "they", which declines like a standard lunar noun ending in -a, the declensions of the personal pronouns are unpredictable. Pay special attention to how they decline in the exercises in this section.
As a brief note, generally pronouns are not used in the nominative. They certainly may be used, and are often used for emphasis, but otherwise verbal agreement suffices.
Possessive pronouns (as opposed to possessive adjectives) are pronouns that stand in for an entire possessive phrase. English speakers would do well to distinguish these two grammatical categories, as they're sometimes identical in English. Consider the following sentences, which are distinct grammatically:
The form is the same, but the meanings are different. In High Valyrian, the forms are always distinct.
High Valyrian possessive pronouns take the form of a terrestrial noun ending in -on. Their forms are as follows:
Note that the same distinction with respect to gender concord apples to zȳhon and jāhon as applies to ziry and ūja.
The locative case is assigned to the location of the action of a verb. The most canonical use of the locative is with generic locations, as follows:
In High Valyrian, the locative case is also used to mark the objects of certain verbs (you'll learn more about these later), and also used to mark the objects of the preposition hae "like, as".
The locative singular has two basic forms. One type of locative singular is formed by lengthening the theme vowel of the nominal ending. Here are a few examples of this type of locative ending:
NOUNS ENDING IN -A
NOUNS ENDING IN -AR
NOUNS ENDING IN -E
NOUNS ENDING IN -ES
NOUNS ENDING IN -I
NOUNS ENDING IN -IA
NOUNS ENDING IN -IEN
NOUNS ENDING IN -IR
NOUNS ENDING IN -IS
NOUNS ENDING IN -Y
NOUNS ENDING IN -YS
Nouns with any other ending have a locative that is identical in form to the dative, as shown below:
In the plural, almost every single noun has a locative that is identical in form to their plural dative and genitive forms. Only nouns ending in -y and -ys have unique locative plural forms. They are shown below:
NOUNS ENDING IN -Y
NOUNS ENDING IN -YS
When used on its own, the context of the sentence will determine the precise definition of the locative case phrase. For example, under ordinary circumstances, Taoba qurdot dēmas will be translated as "The boy sits at the table", since this is how humans usually interact with tables. Kēli qurdot dēmas, though, will likely be translated as "The cat sits on the table", as cats are incorrigible.
When using "to be" with a locative predicate, one uses ilagon rather than sagon. The verb ilagon means "to lie", but is often better translated as "to be". Here's an example:
The verb ilagon can also be used for presentational/existential constructions. For example, the sentence above could also be translated as "There is bread on the table".
Adjectives in the locative generally follow the form of their nominal counterparts. Thus, where one expects to see a lengthened vowel in a noun, one will see a lengthened vowel in the adjective, and the same holds for dative forms. Here is a summary of postpositive locative adjectival forms:
CLASS I
CLASS II
CLASS III
The exact same rules that applied to dative adjectives apply to locative adjectives. Bearing this in mind, here are the prepositive locative adjectival forms:
CLASS I
CLASS II
CLASS III
Again, for singular forms that end in t (excluding those that end in ȳrot) the t reappears when the following word begins with a vowel.
Certain nouns inflected in certain number/case combinations can be used as adjectives. For example, ēngoso is the instrumental singular declension of the word ēngos, which means "tongue". Declined thus, it means something like "with a tongue" or "with the tongue". When used pre-nominally, though, it takes on the meaning of an adjective, as shown below:
Every so often you'll encounter a noun that can be used this way. In this skill, you'll learn four such nouns:
In use, these adjectival nouns are almost always restricted to pre-nominal position, and they are rarely used predicatively. They can be used in different positions, but for now it's best to use them in pre-nominal position only.
As a final note, even though they have adjectival meanings, these adjectival nouns are still nouns, and so they do not agree in gender or number with the nouns they modify.
High Valyrian's color terminology is not as advanced as that of a modern language. High Valyrian has a small number of color terms that cover a wide ranging spectrum of shades and tints. Perhaps the best way to categorize the main color terms of High Valyrian is as follows:
As you can see, there's not a perfect mapping, but there's usually broad agreement amongst speakers about what term to use with an actual object being described.
As a way of helping remember which English term pairs with which Valyrian term, here's a correspondence set for the prototypical values for English's 11 basic color terms:
Now here's the High Valyrian to English version of the above list:
Like all languages, High Valyrian has words that originate from other sources. Many words, when borrowed, can be easily slotted into one of Valyrian's many noun declension classes, but some cannot. One of these is the name of Daenerys's dragon Rhaegal. Since High Valyrian no longer has nouns that end in l, names like this one fall under the default borrowed class (always lunar). The declension of this class is a little from the ones you've learned. Please study the partial below:
You'll learn the other forms when you encounter the other three cases in future skills.
In this skill, you'll be introduced to the vocative case. The vocative case is assigned to nouns one is addressing directly. For example:
The vocative always has an -s associated with it. In the solar, the vocative singular is often identical to the nominative singular. Otherwise, you add an -s to the nominative form, for most gender/number combinations. For example:
Certain gender/number combinations also feature a vowel change, and sometimes a lengthened vowel. Be sure to note them:
Care must be taken with aquatic and terrestrial forms, as the characteristic r and n of each gender is lost in the vocative:
In High Valyrian, there are several different ways to issue commands, depending on if the referent is second person or non-second person; if the referent is singular or plural; or if the command is positive or negative. In this skill, you'll be introduced to each type of command in each successive lesson.
The most basic form of command is the positive command given to a second person referent. In High Valyrian, there are two different verb forms, depending on if the referent is singular or plural. There are also different forms of the verb depending on if the stem ends in a consonant or a vowel. A summary is given below:
Plural, C-Final Ipradātās! "Eat!"
Singular, V-Final Kelīs! "Stop!"
In other words, with a final consonant, the endings are -ās and -ātās for singular and plural, respectively. When the verb stem ends in a vowel, though, the ā vowels are replaced with lengthened versions of the final vowel in the stem.
Negative commands are fairly simple. You simply take the infinitive form of the verb and follow it with daor. Thus:
Finally, commands can be issued to non-second person referents. Such commands are often translated with "let" in English, even if they're not explicitly requests. For example, when your boss says "Let me see what you've been working on", they're not really asking permission. In High Valyrian, while there is a distinction between requesting permission and non-second person commands, the English translations may be unhelpful in distinguishing between the two.
To form a non-second person command, you use the infinitive form of the verb plus the vocative form of whoever or whatever is being issued a command. The vocative noun phrase occurs directly before the verb. For example:
For negative non-second person commands, simply add daor afterward:
The High Valyrian perfect is less a tense than an aspect. You use the perfect to indicate that an action has been completed. Often it is used in the past tense, and is translated as such, as shown below:
Ziry ūndan. "I saw him."
Sometimes it makes more sense to translate the High Valyrian perfect as an English perfect, as opposed to a simple past tense:
Issa, iprattan. "Yes, I have eaten."
In High Valyrian the distinction is unimportant. Any perfect can be translated either way.
Forming the perfect in High Valyrian is fairly simple. Most of the time, one adds a t to the root and then adds the present tense agreement endings. Here's a regular example below:
This holds for many verbs whose stems end in a consonant, and almost all verbs whose stems end in a vowel.
A good number of verbs whose stems end in a consonant have an irregular stem in the perfect. This stem will need to be learned and memorized, although many are somewhat predictable. Here, for example, is the conjugation for the verb rȳbagon, "to hear" in the perfect active indicative:
Above, the long ȳ shortens, and the b devoices to p before the voiceless t of the perfect. Many irregulars have shortened vowels or devoiced consonants. Some cause the t of the perfect to voice to d.
The subjunctive is formed the same way as the indicative. Here's a regular example:
And here's an irregular example:
The verb urnegon, "to see" is highly irregular. Its perfect stem is ūnd-, to which all agreement endings are added. Its full perfect conjugation is shown below:
The verbs emagon, jagon, and sagon are likewise irregular, and conjugate the same way. Their perfect stems are ēd-, ist-, and ist-. (Note: This renders jagon and sagon identical in the perfect.)
As a note, the adverb sīr, which you know as "now", translates more accurately as "already" when used in conjunction with a verb in the perfect.
The instrumental case is assigned to the tool by or through which the action of the verb is completed. Crucially for Valyrian, the canonical use of the instrumental is with an inanimate object, as shown below:
In High Valyrian, the instrumental case is also used to mark the object (or one of the objects) of a number of verbs. For example, for the verb kisikagon “to feed”, you use the accusative with the direct object (the one who is fed), but you use the instrumental with the food one is fed. The instrumental is used for the only object of mijegon “to lack”; the name (not the one named) for the verb brōzagon; the thing owed for the verb enkagon “to owe”; and the type of armor or garment worn for the verb jomīsagon “to wear, to carry”.
The form of the instrumental, as with the comitative case, which you’ll learn soon, varies. The basic form of the singular ending is formed by adding the consonant s (most nouns) or m (nouns ending in -y or -ys) to the genitive and then adding the theme vowel (though do note the common io to ȳ change). Below are the forms of the instrumental for some noun forms:
NOUNS ENDING IN -A
NOUNS ENDING IN -AR
NOUNS ENDING IN -E
NOUNS ENDING IN -ES
NOUNS ENDING IN -O
NOUNS ENDING IN -ON
NOUNS ENDING IN -OS
NOUNS ENDING IN -I
NOUNS ENDING IN -IO
NOUNS ENDING IN -IR
NOUNS ENDING IN -Y
NOUNS ENDING IN -YS
In the plural, every single instrumental (and comitative) is formed the same. Simply double the consonant and replace the final vowel with i. Thus, if qilōnomy is “with the whip”, then qilōnommi is “with the whips”. For an S example, if belmoso is “with the chain”, then belmossi is “with the chains”.
Adjectives in the instrumental generally follow the form of their nominal counterparts. Thus, where one expects to see an M instrumental in a noun, one will see an M instrumental ending in the adjective. Here is a summary of postpositive locative adjectival forms:
CLASS I
CLASS II
CLASS III
The prepositive forms lose their final vowels or final syllables. In some cases, the internal vowels change as well. Bearing this in mind, here are the prepositive instrumental adjectival forms:
CLASS I
CLASS II
CLASS III
The comitative case is assigned to a person with which the subject performs action of the verb. Crucially for Valyrian, the canonical use of the comitative is with an animate object, as shown below:
The form of the comitative, as with the instrumental case, varies. The basic form of the singular ending is formed by adding the consonant m (most nouns) or s (third declension or o theme nouns) to the genitive and then adding the theme vowel (though do note the common io to ȳ change). Below are the forms of the comitative for some noun forms:
NOUNS ENDING IN -A
NOUNS ENDING IN -AR
NOUNS ENDING IN -E
NOUNS ENDING IN -ES
NOUNS ENDING IN -O
NOUNS ENDING IN -ON
NOUNS ENDING IN -OS
NOUNS ENDING IN -I
NOUNS ENDING IN -IO
NOUNS ENDING IN -IR
NOUNS ENDING IN -Y
NOUNS ENDING IN -YS
In the plural, every single comitative (and instrumental) is formed the same. Simply double the consonant and replace the final vowel with i. Thus, if valoma is “with the man”, then valommi is “with the men”. For an S example, if raqiroso is “with the friend”, then raqirossi is “with the friends”.
Adjectives in the comitative generally follow the form of their nominal counterparts. Thus, where one expects to see an M comitative in a noun, one will see an M comitative ending in the adjective. Here is a summary of postpositive locative adjectival forms:
CLASS I
CLASS II
CLASS III
The prepositive forms lose their final vowels or final syllables. In some cases, the internal vowels change as well. Bearing this in mind, here are the prepositive comitative adjectival forms:
CLASS I
CLASS II
CLASS III
First and second person pronouns only have m forms in the comitative and instrumental; third person pronouns have unique comitative and instrumental forms.
High Valyrian has a number of terms for body parts, and possession works roughly as it would in English. Unlike some languages, where one doesn't use personal possessive pronouns with one's own body parts, it's perfectly natural to use personal possessive pronouns with body parts in High Valyrian, as shown below:
In general, though, if there is something else in the sentence that suggests possession, one does not need to include a possessive pronoun. Here is an example:
Using ñuhys in the sentence above isn't wrong, per se, it's simply unusual. In some circumstances, one would actually use pronouns for disambiguation:
(Note: The above sentence is exceedingly peculiar.)
One special note on the use of cases with a body part. When one does something with one's own body part, the instrumental case is used. When one does something with someone else's body part, on the other hand, the dative case is used. Here's a nice example contrasting the two:
The use of the instrumental and dative cases in this way is obligatory, and as a result, a possessive pronoun is commonly not used in sentences of this type, as its use is unnecessary.
An adverb is a word that can stand on its own as a phrase. There are three types of adverbs: temporal adverbs (adverbs having to do with the passage of time); locative adverbs (adverbs having to do with place and location); and manner adverbs (adverbs having to do with how the action of a verb is performed).
Both temporal and locative adverbs tend to be placed at the very beginning of a sentence. This is there preferred position. That said, both temporal and locative adverbs may be placed elsewhere in the sentence, depending on what part of the sentence is to be emphasized. Even so, after sentence-initial placement, pre-verbal placement is the next most preferable spot. Here's an example:
The same rules of placement serve for locative adverbs. In general, locative adverbs are derived from nouns using either the dative or locative cases. Temporal adverbs are either basic, or are derived using a derivational strategy more commonly employed with manner adverbs. These will be described now.
In English, many manner adverbs are formed by adding "-ly" to an adjective. In High Valyrian, there are a couple different endings depending on the adjective class. Examples are shown below:
Placement of manner adverbs is a bit less strict. Sentence-initial placement is used to emphasize the adverb; pre-verbal placement is a bit more usual. Equally common is placing the adverb directly after the subject. Here's an example:
As a final note, some adverbs have different meanings depending on whether the speaker intends to use them as a manner adverb or a temporal or locative adverb. Aderī, for example, can mean "quickly" or it can mean "soon". Context should help to determine which translation is most appropriate.
High Valyrian uses a base-10 number system like English and many Western languages, meaning that the basic numerals run 0 through 9, and a new digit is added at powers of 10 (so 10, 100, 1,000, etc.). Cardinal numerals in High Valyrian are modifiers, but not all will agree with the nouns they modify. A summary of the system is presented below.
The cardinal numerals 1 through 9 are standard adjectives that agree with the nouns they modify in case, gender, and number. Given the nature of numerals, the number concord is uniform: The number 1 is always singular, and the numbers 2 through 9 are always plural.
The numerals 1 through 9 are either Class I or Class II adjectives. They are presented below (assuming Lunar singular concord, for the sake of presentation):
Except in rare circumstances, numbers will precede the nouns they modify. Again, they will agree with the nouns they modify in number, and nouns whose number is other than singular should be marked plural when modified by a number. Here are a few examples:
The formation of numerals above 9 is a bit simpler. First, ampa is used for 10. While this word is an adjective, it does not agree with the noun it modifies in any way. Ampa is invariant.
Now, having established that ampa is invariant, you do actually have to change it when you move to numbers beyond 10. The numerals 11 through 19 are formed by placing the adjectival form of the numeral 1 through 9 first followed by ampa in its coordinative form—i.e. ampā. The first numeral still agrees with the noun it modifies in case, gender, and number, so it will need to be modified. Again assuming Lunar singular concord, here are the numerals 10 through 19:
Here are some examples of how these numbers are used with nouns:
Notice that when used in the number 11, mēre actually shows plural concord.
The numerals 20 through 99 work the same way as ampa. Specifically, there are unique words for the multiples of 10, and as with ampa, they are invariant in form. As with the numerals 11 through 19, these words are preposed by the numerals 1 through 9 to get, e.g., 21 through 29, and the multiple of ten is placed in its coordinative form. Here's an example with 20:
Now here are all the multiples of 10:
The same rules for nominal concord apply.
Numerals 100 through 999 work a little differently. There are invariant forms for the multiples of 100, and then for numbers in between, one uses se as a connector followed by the full number (no extra coordinative morphology is used). The multiples of 100 are:
Here's an example of a complex number in the hundreds modifying a noun:
The word used for 1,000 is pyrys, and it is a noun. It does not modify a noun as an adjective. Instead, the modified noun is placed in the genitive plural, and the noun pyrys takes the case assigned to it by the verb. For numbers beyond a thousand, the number 1 through 999 modifies pyrys itself. Here are a couple examples:
The High Valyrian future is used for distant projections about what will happen, as well as to commit the subject to some future course. Here's a quick example:
Daenerys dāri ȳdrēlza. "Daenerys will talk to the king."
You could also translate this with the English "go" future:
Daenerys dāri ȳdrēlza. "Daenerys is going to talk to the king."
If a sense of immediacy is desired, though, the present is used, as shown below:
Tubī Daenerys dāri ȳdras. "Daenerys is going to talk to the king today."
This latter fact is something to keep in mind. In this course when you see a future tense sentence, assume that the actual marked future tense will be used.
The future stem in High Valyrian has an l associated with it, but what happens between the root and the l differs depending on the root's termination. For roots ending in a consonant, -il is added, and then the present tense agreement set is added after that, with a small caveat that in the first person, a sound change results in the unique ending -inna. An example is shown below:
The agreement facts hold for other verbs whose roots end in vowels. What differs is the vowel before the l. In each case, the vowel is long, but the quality differs based on the placement of the vowel. When the root vowel is a or o, the result is -ēl; when the root vowel is otherwise (e, i, or u), the result is -īl. Here's an example (using the third person plural) of each type of vowel ending:
There are a second set of subjunctive agreement endings in High Valyrian, and the future tense is the first place you'll see them. They are similar to the subjunctive endings you already know, but the o is replaced by u. These endings are added to the future stem, whose formation we've just discussed. Here's an example:
Again, these endings are added to the future stem, so be sure to effect the necessary vowel change in vowel final stems, as shown below:
The verb sagon, "to be" is barbarically irregular in the future tense. Using the stem kes-, the verb conjugates as a present tense verb would, but it has future meaning. Here is its full conjugation paradigm:
The verb emagon is regular, with a consonant-final stem em, and the verb jagon is lightly irregular, having a future stem īl. This means that the first person form for the future indicative of jagon is īnna, "I will go".
As you know, the third person singular version of the verb sagon is used for "yes" in High Valyrian. Where it makes sense, the tense of this verb matches the tense of the sentence. Thus, in a future tense context, you will see kessa used to mean "yes", though issa will always work as well.
The infinitive form of the verb is a non-finite form that refers to an action in general, as opposed to an action performed by some specific entity. The infinitive form ends either in -gon (for vowel-final stems) or -agon (for consonant-final stems). Thus far you've seen one use of the infinitive form (issuing jussive commands to non-second person entities). In this skill you'll see others.
Many verbs allow or require the use of a second verb in the infinitive. Schematically, these phrases with verbs like these look like this:
One familiar one will be the verb kostagon, which deals with ability (you've seen this stem in words like kostilus, "please", and kostōba, "powerful"). Here's an example of how it's used:
The subjects and objects remain in place, their cases unchanged. In effect, the infinitive form signals that the phrase is not done yet, and one must move on to understand the full intent of the phrase.
Other verbs like kostagon include sylugon, "to try", and rakegon, "to take part in", both of which you'll see in the first lesson. Another, gīmigon, "to know", is shown in the second lesson. When used in such a way, it has the meaning "to know how to".
A small number of verbs take the subject of the embedded verb as their object. This is how that looks schematically:
The case of the subject of the infinitive depends on the main verb. The first such verb you'll see is sytilībagon, which is used for weak obligation (e.g. "should"). The verb is generally used in the third person singular with no expressed subject. Its object, which comes directly before it, is in the accusative. Before that is the infinitive (the thing which should be done), and before that are the other arguments of the phrase. Here's an example:
Remember that sytilībagon, used in this way, generally does not agree with anything in the sentence:
Another way of translating this verb is "to be for". Thus, the last sentence could also be translated as "It is for you to talk to the woman."
In the third lesson you'll see the verb bēvilagon, which is used for strong obligation (e.g. "must"). It works like sytilībagon, except that the pre-verbal nominal must be in the dative/genitive case (in this case, always the genitive. The dative is used when the following word begins with a vowel; the genitive is used otherwise). Here is an example:
The last sentence might also be translated "The knight has to praise the king."
There are many types of composite causative verbs in High Valyrian, but the verb sahagon can be used for any causative construction. The verb is conjugated normally, with the causer being assigned the nominative case; the causee (the one forced to act) being assigned the dative* case; and the other arguments being assigned their natural cases. Here's an example:
In the present tense, sahagon has the stem sah-, and in the perfect, it has the stem sēt-.
In this skill, look out for the following irregular perfect stems:
High Valyrian has a series of indefinite demonstratives that refer to exactly how many of something is being referred to. These are words like "any", "some", "every", "each", "all", etc.
The basic correspondences are as follows:
Various endings are applied to these basic roots to form adjectival and pronominal forms. Take care to distinguish between which forms are adjectival, and which are nominal, as the endings sometimes overlap.
Though you have seen it previously, this is the first time you will need to deal with the paucal and collective numbers of High Valyrian. These numbers are counterparts to singular and plural, in a way. The best way to think of the number system is like this:
How exactly these numbers are formed and used will be taught in a future skill. The important thing to note for this skill is that four of the five words in lesson 3 are either paucal or collective. Paucals can be identified by a thematic final -n, while collectives can be identified by a thematic final -r.
For now, it's important to know two things about paucals and collectives:
For the most part, paucals and collectives decline like borrowings (so they take -i in the accusative), but there are a few differences. Here's a full declension of olvȳn "much, many":
Now here's a full declension of mirror "whatever":
These forms are a little tricky, and they change depending on the theme vowel of the declension (so a dative for a lunar noun endings in -a would end in -ta), but given the meanings of the words in this lesson, you'll probably be using the nominative, accusative and genitive more than anything else, and those case forms are relatively simple.
High Valyrian was spoken by most of the residents of a kingdom, the Valyrian Freehold, that has sense been destroyed in the world of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. At the time of action, the language is still spoken as a language of learning, and by many in Essos as a second language (considered a "formal" variant of their version of Valyrian, which is now, in fact, a different language). Nevertheless, many other languages are more widely spoken, and the action of the series takes us to many different lands.
In this skill you'll see some of the many places and peoples found in the Song of Ice and Fire universe—many of which you'll likely heard of either from the books or the HBO series Game of Thrones.
Like any language, High Valyrian can accommodate borrowings. Some of these borrowings are altered to better fit the language, while some stay more or less the same. In terms of sound, you will see the following digraphs are not normally used in Valyrian proper:
Not all of these sequences will be present in this skill, but you may see them in future skills.
In addition to foreign sounds, you will also see foreign declensions. Most borrowings are shoved into the sixth declension, where they share similar endings to paucals and collectives (for which, see the Determiners 2 skill). Most have a characteristic -i ending in the nominative singular, but some borrowings are allowed to remain unmodified. Additionally, you will see unfamiliar word endings in many borrowed words (for example Qarth and Junkae). It would do well to pay special attention to these forms.
For the most part, declensions of these -i borrowings will look like this:
For different declensions, remember the signs to look for: s in the instrumental; m in the comitative; a long vowel in the locative (or a duplicate dative form); some kind of -i in the plural and/or accusative; epenthetic h in certain paradigms. Some pattern you've already seen will help you to figure out the patterns used for borrowings (after all, that's the source from which they were drawn).
The passive voice is used to emphasize the direct object of a transitive verb, and deemphasize the subject. Here's a simple example in English:
"The pear was eaten (by the man)."
The by-phrase is usually optional. In High Valyrian, a special form of the verb is used to indicate a passive. This form is most commonly associated with a -ks suffix. Here's how the above phrase would be translated into High Valyrian:
Melvo (valo ondoso) iprattaks.
Passive phrases are useful if the agent of the verb isn't known, or if the speaker doesn't wish to specify the agent. It can also be helpful to use a passive phrase when chaining clauses together in a discourse, so one doesn't have to switch subjects.
Not including passive infinitives, there are three forms for each passive verb. Looking at the present tense for a regular C-final verb first, they are as follows:
This basic pattern holds for most tenses. Here's how it would look with a real verb:
With a V-final verb, the root vowel participates in the paradigm:
In the subjunctive, the usual pattern holds, with final y replacing final i (only the forms are shown below):
The perfect works as one would expect. Here is the indicative:
And here is the subjunctive:
The future is irregular, based on the patterns you've learned thus far. In the indicative, the first/third person plural is simply -iks, as shown below:
The subjunctive forms keep the u vowel seen elsewhere in the paradigm:
There is a present and perfect infinitive (e.g. ipradakson and iprattakson), and positive commands are issued with the second person form of the passive.
The subject of a passive command is in the nominative, even if a command is being issue to a third person entity.
There are two different ways to reintroduce an agent. The most common way is to use the instrumental of ondos "hand" as a postposition governing the genitive. Thus:
Taoba valo ondoso ūndaks. "The boy was seen by the man."
Literally it's "The boy was seen by the hand of the man", but the "hand" part of it no longer factors into the meaning. If the agent is plural, the postposition is pluralized as well:
Taoba valoti ondossi ūndaks. "The boy was seen by the men."
If the agent is indefinite and generic it may be placed directly before the verb in the genitive:
Taoba valo ūndaks. "The boy was seen by a man."
If ondoso/ondossi is used, the agent may be definite or indefinite. If a preposed genitival agent is used, the interpretation is always indefinite and generic.
Every so often, you may come across an impersonal verb in High Valyrian. In this skill, there is davābagon, which means "to rain". It doesn't take any subject, and conjugates as if it had a third person singular object. Some weather verbs do take a subject, on the other. Jehikagon "to shine" is one such, and it does take subjects (i.e. things that shine, like vēzos "sun" or qēlos "star".
Though we haven't learned full relative clauses yet, there are cases where a clause can be used to modify a noun, and they behave slightly differently from any other type of clause. Consider these two sentences:
(a) Vale tegot ūndan. "I saw the man on the ground." (b) Tegot vale ūndan. "I saw the man on the ground."
Though both have the same translation, their interpretations are quite difference. In sentence (a), the man may be on the ground, but he need not be. The subject could have been standing on the ground when he saw the man in a tree.
On the other hand, in sentence (b), the man must be on the ground. In fact, part of what defines the man in sentence (b) is that he is on the ground. The subject, on the other hand, could be anywhere (perhaps I was in the tree when I saw him).
These small modifying clauses are not proper relative clauses, because they lack verbs. Their tense is dependent entirely on the matrix verb, and they're not as versatile as relative clauses, which can take their own subjects and objects. Nevertheless, if the intent is to describe a noun as if it were a relative clause, that modifying noun must come directly before the noun it modifies. Placing it after will result in a different interpretation.
There are a couple new collective nouns in this skill whose declensions you haven't yet learned: sōnar "winter" (the collective of "snow") and jelmior "weather" (the collective of "wind"). Remember that these trigger singular agreement on the verb. Here are their declensions:
Sōnar is from the same paradigm as valar (as in valar morghūlis). Here is jelmior:
The word for "season" is lunar jēda, and its collective jēdar means "year". You've seen that word in Numerals 1. It so happens that the aquatic word jēdar exists, and it means "sky". Its similarity to jēdar "year" is a coincidence. Be sure not to confuse the two, as they have different declension patterns (as well as meanings!).
For fans of A Song of Ice and Fire, the way I chose to translate "Stormborn", Daenerys's last name, is with the word Jelmāzmo, the genitive of jelmāzma "storm". Thus, Daenerys Jelmāzmo is "Daenerys of the Storm".
Take note of the word vellaros, which means "a pair of pants". The word "pants" by itself is plural in English, and the same goes for trousers. Not so with vellaros. The word is singular, but refers to an entire pair of pants. The plural refers to multiple pairs of pants. Take care when translating!
In this skill you'll see a preview of the collective number. The collective is like the plural, but refers to all of something. The collective can sometimes be used to form new words. In this skill, mīsītsor means "clothes", which even in English is kind of like a collective noun. Collective forms have their own declensions, and it will be important to know that the accusative of mīsītsor is mīsītsori.
The postposition syt (etymologically related to sȳz "good") can be used to mean "for", "intended for", or "on behalf of" in a benefactive sense. The noun which precedes it must be in the genitive.
The new verb ozmijegon means "to miss" in the metaphorical sense. Its object takes either the instrumental or comitative depending on whether or not the object is animate. If you miss a person (or a turtle), the object takes the comitative. If you miss your favorite book, the object takes the instrumental. Take care to recall which declensions have identical instrumentals and comitatives when reviewing examples!
You have already mastered recognizing and forming subjunctives in every tense and voice you've learned up to this point. Until now, you've used those forms for negative sentences. The original intent of the subjunctive, though, was for use in subordinate clauses where the verb has uncertain, hypothetical, or conditional force. In this lesson, you'll learn one verb—jaelagon "to hope"—which requires its subordinate verb to be in the subjunctive. Here are three examples:
As you can see, there is nothing that is equivalent to the English word "that" in these clauses. Instead, the matrix clause is simply tacked on at the end, even if it has an overt subject.
Do note that a subordinate clause can be subjunctive and negative. It looks no different from a matrix negative clause, as shown below:
There may be additional subtleties required to use the subjunctive effectively, but this should be enough information for you to successfully complete this skill.
The adjective hobrenka is translated as "idiotic" and only "idiotic". Suffice it to say that it is not a very nice word, and the full range of its definitions will not be given—rather, it will be left to your imagination.
Up to this point, these lessons haven't been completely honest. You have seen many verbs beginning with u/v, or i/j, and perhaps a few beginning with h/a/s/z that were not as straightforward as they appeared. This is because in High Valyrian, there is a special voice system which uniquely identifies certain arguments in the sentence and alters the meaning of the clause slightly.
This system is a very old system, and is on its way out at this stage of the language's evolution. (By the time it has evolved into a language like Astapori Valyrian, it is completely gone.) That said, it is still mostly productive, and knowing how the system works will help you use High Valyrian more effectively.
When a verb takes a subject, it is assumed that that subject has the mental and physical capacity to carry out that action, even if that action is taken unintentionally (as with falling). When the subject of a verb could never undertake an action of its own volition (say, because it's inanimate), a special form of the form is used: the instrumental passive. Here is an instructive example:
While a man can use a knife to cut bread, a knife can't do anything—ever. High Valyrian makes note of this fact in the grammar.
This means that sentence you've learned in previous skills aren't necessarily accurate. Any time an inanimate noun is the subject of a sentence, the instrumental passive should be used. That said, as time wore on, Valyrian speakers became less and less inclined to use the instrumental passive consistently.
To form the instrumental passive…
Note that to reintroduce an agent, one uses ondoso the way one would with a passive, and if an instrumental passive is passivized, the old subject is reintroduced with the instrumental.
The locative applicative takes a locative argument and makes it the direct object of the verb. This direct object is then marked with the dative, unless it is singular and occurs directly before the verb and the verb begins with a consonant, then it is marked with the genitive. Here is an example:
There is a slight difference in meaning, in that when the applicative is used, the object is assumed to be directly affected by the action of the verb.
Locative applicatives can take locative postpositions as prefixes to specify their meanings further. These occur directly before the u or v prefix.
To form the locative applicative…
The oblique applicative takes a non-local argument and makes it the direct object of the verb. This direct object takes the accusative. Here is an example:
The meanings of oblique applicative are often idiomatic, and should be memorized.
Oblique applicatives can take non-local postpositions as prefixes to specify their meanings further. These occur directly before the i or j prefix.
To form the oblique applicative…
If an applicative is passivized, its new object becomes the new subject. Thus, Ziry ilimataks means "He was cried for", not "He was cried".
In ancient times, the promoted argument would always be placed directly before the verb. This ordering was relaxed by Daenerys's time, but preverbal position remains the default ordering for applicatives and instrumental passives.
"Why didn't you come to the Small Council meeting?" "Because I was feeding a goat to my dragon, of course!"
Providing excuses for not having done something is a perfect opportunity for us to delve into...
The High Valyrian imperfect is used to describe ongoing actions in the past tense. Here's a quick example:
Ñuhi zaldrīzī kisikilen. "I was feeding my dragon."
Compare the above to the perfect tense:
Ñuhi zaldrīzī kisittan. "I fed my dragon."
Use the perfect tense to describe an event in the past that is over and done with; use the imperfect to imagine oneself in that moment in the past.
You'll notice a similarity between the imperfect and future tenses. This isn't an accident, as the tenses are related. The future co-occurs with the -a set of agreement suffixes; the imperfect with the heretofore unseen -e set. Here's an example using a verb root that ends in a consonant:
Note that in this tense, the -n associated with the first person shows up in the plural, as well as the singular.
The agreement facts hold for other verbs whose roots end in vowels. What differs is the vowel before the l. In each case, the vowel is long, but the quality differs based on the placement of the vowel. When the root vowel is a or o, the result is -ēl; when the root vowel is otherwise (e, i, or u), the result is -īl. Here's an example (using the third person plural) of each type of vowel ending:
Contrasting with the future, imperfect subjunctives co-occur with the -o set of agreement suffixes, as opposed to the -u set. Here's an example:
Again, these endings are added to the future stem, so be sure to effect the necessary vowel change in vowel final stems, as shown below:
Where it occurs, the verb gīmīmagon takes a direct object that is the person whose taught (in the accusative), and an indirect object that is the subject that's taught (in the dative).
This skill will introduce you to the finer points of Valyrian cuisine! It will also introduce you to a new number: the paucal number.
High Valyrian has four different grammatical numbers, compared to English, which has two. As a refresher, while English has singular and plural, High Valyrian has singular, plural, paucal, and collective. One uses the paucal number to indicate a few of something—that is, a small, indefinite plural amount.
Compare the following:
The paucal can be translated several different ways into English. For our purposes, stick with "a few".
The paucal of a noun ends either in -un, -yn, -ȳn, or -in, after which case endings are added. The cases of the paucal are same across noun types, save a theme vowel. Here's an example with valar "man":
A couple of notes. First, the instrumental and vocative are always identical in the paucal. Second, the nominative, accusative, and genitive are always the same, across noun types. They consist of the paucal suffix, plus -i in the accusative and -o in the genitive. After the genitive, the final vowel of the paucal form is dependent on vowel class. Aquatic and lunars ending in -a take a; solars and lunars ending in -y take y; terrestrials, lunars, and aquatics ending in o take -o, etc. Here's a second example with anne "horse" that will hopefully make this pattern clear:
Finally, when a noun in the paucal serves as the subject of a sentence, it takes plural agreement on the verb. Similarly, when referring to a paucal noun with a pronoun, use plural pronouns (e.g. pōnta in the third person).
Sometimes the paucal number is used to derive a new noun. For example, while mentys is "soldier", mentyn is best translated as "squadron" or "phalanx". When words derived in this fashion have been used enough that they become standard, they themselves can be pluralized. Plural paucals always have the same inflections. Here is an example:
These special paucal plural forms should look familiar enough (and, yes, for nouns with a theme vowel of i, the instrumental/comitative paucal and the instrumental/comitative paucal plural are identical).
Do note that these paucal plural forms are really only used with a small number of paucal nouns that have been reanalyzed as units. Most of the time, the paucal simply means "a few of" whichever noun has been paucalized.
A quirk of the verb lēdegon is that it assigns the genitive case to the substance with which a vessel is filled. Thus, you'd say Māvos rizmo lēdetan "I filled the jar with sand" rather than Māvos rizmoso lēdetan. As for dohaeragon, "to serve", the direct object of serving is the person served. The thing served (say, food) is rendered in the instrumental.
One of the most iconic elements of the Song of Ice and Fire universe is its dragons! At the time of the first book, A Game of Thrones, dragons are creatures of lore, as they are considered to be extinct—until Daenerys hatches three new dragons from eggs she was given as a wedding gift!
In this skill you'll learn some dragon vocabulary, so you can describe dragons flying, eating, burning things to the ground, and other common dragon-related activities.
In the English editions of George R. R. Martin's books, there are a number of dragons mentioned, and the spellings of their names take advantage of English spelling conventions to convey a certain draconic aesthetic. The Valyrian equivalents of these names sometimes differ from their English counterparts, so be sure to study these English spelling as you do the exercises in this skill:
Additionally, there are two names that are rendered as English translations, rather than Valyrian names. These are those two names (please make a note of the English spellings!):
Names that end in -ks (e.g. Arraks) are a little different from usual names. The s in these names occurs in the nominative, accusative, vocative, instrumental, and comitative, but in no other cases. This means that the genitive of Arraks is Arrako, while the instrumental is Arrakso. Compare this to Merakses, where the genitive is Merakso, and the instrumental is Meraksose. A little confusing, but the endings are important!
In addition to the dragons, there are a number of famous names from the books that are included in this skill. Bear in mind that some of these names apply to more than one character (for example, the Viserys mentioned in this skill is different from the Viserys in the first season of Game of Thrones), and some of the names are similar. Yes, Rhaenyra and Rhaenys are different people (and be grateful we didn't include Rhaena, who is also a different character!).
In order to command a dragon to breathe fire, one uses the word for "dragonfire"—drakarys—in the vocative (which, of course, is identical to drakarys).
In order to feel good about yourself in High Valyrian, you need to know how to say "yourself"! In this skill you'll focus on expressions of esteem—both for oneself and others—and you'll learn to use High Valyrian's reflexive pronouns.
A reflexive pronoun is something like "myself" or "yourself". High Valyrian's reflexive pronouns function roughly the same as English's: They are stand-alone pronouns that take the same cases as other nouns in High Valyrian, and they refer back to the subject of the sentence.
Unlike the other personal pronouns of Valyrian, reflexive pronouns are regular: All of them end in -la or -da, and they all decline as a lunar noun ending in a. Consequently, once you learn how one is declined, you'll learn how they're all declined. This is the declension of the first person singular reflexive pronoun nykēla "myself":
And this is the full list of reflexive pronouns:
As a note, you likely won't use all the cases for all these pronouns regularly, and these pronouns never appear in any number but the singular.
Similar to English, High Valyrian uses its reflexive pronouns for emphasis. In a way, there are three levels of emphasis in High Valyrian, as illustrated with the trio of sentences below:
Unlike English, these reflexive pronouns may be used in subject position. It's roughly like saying "Myself will speak to the queen". (Though do note: You can never have more than one reflexive pronoun in one sentence.)
For the curious, in older forms of the language, a reflexive pronoun in subject position would have triggered third person singular agreement. In modern times, one generally uses the agreement pattern of the pronoun itself, as above.
The verb nēdākogon (as well as all other verbs ending in -ākogon) take a locative direct object, rather than an accusative direct object. Take note!
Adjectives like rytsa, which means "healthy" (and from which the High Valyrian greeting rytsas derives!) have a peculiar aquatic paradigm. While you might expect the nominative/accusative plural to be rytsra, that's a bit of a mouthful for a Valyrian speaker. Instead, it comes out as rydja. Something similar happens with adjectives whose stems end in ps (e.g. lykāpsa), and ks (e.g. ruarilaksa). When taking a suffix starting with -r, they become bj and gj, respectively.
In this skill you're going to learn a bit about construction, and learn some common buildings in the Valyrian Freehold.