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From NYMag’s culture blog, “Learn to Speak Dothraki and Valyrian From the Man Who Invented Them“:
Bad news, Game of Thrones fans: You are mispronouncing Daenerys’s honorific, Khaleesi. But don’t feel bad. On the HBO show, her smitten man-servant Jorah has been saying it incorrectly as well; the more accurate pronunciation should be “KHAH-lay-see,” not “ka-LEE-see.” That’s according to David J. Peterson, the language creator responsible for all of the Dothraki and Valyrian dialogue spoken on the show, and he’s driven mad every time he hears it… As the architect of the language’s grammar and pronunciation rules, he’s the only one who can correct it with authority, but he lost the battle to correct the pronunciation on the show early on. “The producers decided they liked the other way better. They probably thought most people were pronouncing it that way anyway, which is true.”
Of course, Peterson did not coin the word Khaleesi. It existed in George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, along with a couple dozen others dreamed up by the author. But Thrones producers decided we needed to hear Drogo and his people speaking more extensively in their native language and searched for someone to flesh out a whole language, just as Marc Okrand did with Klingon and Paul Frommer did with Avatar’s Na’vi. Peterson, who has a masters in linguistics from the University of California–San Diego and founded the Language Creation Society, spent twelve to fourteen hours a day, every day, for two months working on the proposal that landed him the Thrones job. When he was finished, he had more than 300 pages of vocabulary and notes detailing how the Dothraki language would sound and function. “The application process favored those of us who were unemployed at the time, which I was,” Peterson laughed…
Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss credit Peterson with having come up with a lot of “really, really vile things to say in Dothraki” that they didn’t write themselves, and he has tried to top himself with the more common, bastardized version of Valyrian spoken by Kraznys. “Part of the fun doing the Low Valyrian is that I could really take a bat to pretty, proper High Valyrian. Sometimes I imagine High Valyrian being a piñata of a princess castle,” Peterson said. So far this season, Kraznys’s colorful line from episode three — “And this because I like the curve of her ass” (translated: “Si kizy vasko v’uvar ez zya gundja yn hilas”) — has gotten a big reaction online…
Liquid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IouiZ1J_AJo <– Metal version of GoT intro, excellent.
Death Panel Truck
And in other news, water is wet, and I don’t give a fuck about fantasy TV bullshit.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Death Panel Truck: Congratulations. Here’s a cookie.
PsiFighter37
Whooooooooooo
Guess who got fucking lit up like a crackerjack in Montreal tonight
PF37 +4 dranks +poutine
The prophet Nostradumbass
@PsiFighter37: Well, I’m not in Montréal, so I’m going to guess that it’s you. Too bad Les Habs didn’t have a game.
raven
Nothing like that calf cramp alarm clock!
NotMax
Whew. Just in time, the FAA probs shall be cleared up so they won’t impact the teeming gazillions winging in to the new Temple of Arbusto for its public opening on May 1, anxious to buy $13 pairs of socks, $60 polo shirts, $23 letter openers, $550 bomber jackets and a $400 fountain pen at the gift shoppe.
Oh, and a jigsaw puzzle sure to rivet the kiddies’ interest (not). Note that Nixon and the gang appear to be laughing at Lincoln; also the conspicuous absence of Hoover and a gaggle of others.
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
That picture just reeks of Jon McNaughton, doesn’t it? Except, no Jeebus.
raven
@NotMax: Where’s the brother in that shot?
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@raven: there have been no black republican presidents.
WereBear
I think it’s fascinating that there are “rules” our brains expect. And that’s just the sounds made by human organs…
raven
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS): Dang. . .
WereBear
I’m in the process of recording Tristan’s vocalizations. He’s part Siamese and has been a “commenter” all his life. There’s definite grammar there; and he uses the same sounds for the same things.
gnomedad
Obama Orders Reinvasion Of Iraq After Illuminating Trip Through Bush Presidential Library
Also, too, from “SurlyThor” on Facebook:
What’s the difference between Iraq and Vietnam?
Bush knew how to get out of Vietnam.
PurpleGirl
@NotMax: I wanted to look at the fountain pen. It wasn’t pictured on-line, so I was disappointed.
(Of course, if I really wanted to spend $400 on a fountain pen, I’d go to Art Brown’s, the home of fantastic classic and modern, arty fountain pens. I go there to buy ink and less costly writing implements.)
gnomedad
@SiubhanDuinne:
Lincoln is looking at TR and rolling his eyes?
PurpleGirl
@PurpleGirl: I did a Google search for the pen and the one site that seems to have a picture of it sent my Avast into protection mode and won’t display. I found of picture of a pen that is supposed to be the GW Bush pen in a Google picture search. I think it’s sort of cute if you take off the G W Bush name. But it ain’t worth $400.
Baud
@NotMax:
Entitled “Lincoln Reveals He’s Now a Democrat”
debbie
@gnomedad:
Sadly, the real news is even stupider: I didn’t catch the name of the Republican House member, but he denounced the FAA furloughs and shouted that this wouldn’t have happened if Ronald Reagan was president.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@debbie:
Sigh. This is why we can’t have nice things.
Baud
@debbie:
Technically accurate, since a mature, responsible political party controlled Congress throughout the Reagan presidency.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@Baud: Ahem.
NotMax
@PurpleGirl
Interesting. There was a picture there when I poked around on Friday at the site, but it isn’t even listed there any more.
Baud
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS):
Fair enough. I was thinking narrowly about allowing government services to be defunded.
Schlemizel
this popped up n this mornings op ed page & I thought it might generate some discussion here
Are you ready for the death of football?
Baud
@Schlemizel:
Serious issues, but that piece was a bit hyperbolic and data free, no?
Hobbes
I just figured that the pronunciation was due to Khaleesi being a load-word. I think it was used somewhere in the background material for ‘The Ice Dragon’.
Cassidy
@Schlemizel: Well that was poorly written.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
OT, but the Governor of North Carolina is replacing the elections board just as an investigation into campaign contributions gets going.
debbie
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS):
I know! I’m waiting for the audio to post on NPR to get the guy’s name. I want to see if he’s old enough to have been around for the PATCO bust.
Schlemizel
@Baud:
Well, there is the data point about the lawsuit and the other about the suicides (perhaps not specific numbers but data none the less) but beyond that he draws a logical (possible) outcome and tosses in his personal feelings that I bet are shared by many parents. What did you want?
@Cassidy:
Not the most erudite perhaps but nobody wants to comment on his conclusion?
Baud
@Schlemizel:
He made a bold claim about the death of football. I expected a stronger basis for that claim than I saw.
Irving
@Schlemizel: What’s missing from that article: any actual data proving high school football participation is declining.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@Baud: It’s John Kass, who’s a blowhard known for being a blowhard in Chicago, anyway.
PeorgieTirebiter
@Baud: Perfect.
Schlemizel
@Baud:
That claim is going to be adjudicated soon but it has been documented pretty well, that he does not cite the studies is not a fault of the writing.
@Irving:
I do not believe he has said “This is happened already” what he is arguing is that it is happening & will happen more often as the evidence becomes better understood and more widely known. This is hardly the first thing I have read by a parent saying they will not encourage their kid to play football.
I am surprised that nobody wants to discuss the issue he brought up, that football could be in trouble, instead we want to quibble about irrelevancies.
Cassidy
@Schlemizel: I don’t know who the writer is but as long as there are poor black men and boys in the inner cities who can stop being poor by running really fast for the entertainment of white America, football isn’t going anywhere. Secondly, someone should mention to that asshat that MMA currently sells out arenas in large cities and get millions if PPV buys. The piece reeks of privilege and living in a bubble.
Baud
@Schlemizel:
Like I said initially, serious issues. But that particular piece doesn’t hang together well, and I didn’t find it credible.
Citizen_X
@debbie:
Now they’re just fucking with us.
Citizen_X
@raven:
The black man is not in the scene, because he’s already served the Republicans.
…in two elections, back to back! BOOM!
debbie
@debbie:
Turns out it was Florida’s own, Rep. John Mica. Good grief.
Pooh
Why do Anne Laurie’s posts just show up as a black box on the mobile site?
sherparick
Sometimes I wish I could hand a dragon to John Boehner, Scott Walker, and the Koch Brothers, and just say “Dracarys.” Most of our current problems would be solved.
Gus
All I can think of reading this post is this .