Language constraints

The Dothraki language was developed under two significant constraints. First, the language had to match the uses already put down in the books. Secondly, it had to be easily pronounceable or learnable by the actors. These two constraints influenced the grammar and phonology of the language: for instance, as in English, there is no contrast between aspirated and unaspirated stops.

Consonants

There are 23 consonant phonemes in the Dothraki language. In the following IPA chart, each sound in Dothraki is given with the romanization in brackets.

The letters ⟨c⟩ and ⟨x⟩ do not appear in Dothraki, although ⟨c⟩ appears in the digraph ⟨ch⟩.

⟨p⟩ and ⟨b⟩ seem to appear only in names, as in Pono and Bharbo. These consonants were used in the past but have since lenited into [f] and [v]. They can still be used as variants of /f/ and /v/.

Voiceless stops may be aspirated. This does not change word meaning.

The geminates of consonants marked with digraphs have a reduced orthography:

• ⟨kkh⟩ represents /xː/ (not /kx/)
• ⟨tth⟩ represents /θː/ (not /tθ/)
• ⟨ssh⟩ represents /ʃː/ (not /sʃ/)
• ⟨zzh⟩ represents /ʒː/ (not /zʒ/)

Vowels

Dothraki has a four vowel system shown below:

There are no diphthongs.^[9][10]

In the A Song of Ice and Fire books, ⟨u⟩ never occurs as a vowel, appearing only after ⟨q⟩, and only in names, as in Jhiqui and Quaro.

In sequence of multiple vowels, each such vowel represents a separate syllable. Examples: shierak [ʃi.eˈɾak] ('star'), rhaesh [ɾhaˈeʃ] ('country'), khaleesi [ˈxa.le.e.si] ('queen').

The vowels /i, e, o, a/ are realized as [e, ɛ, ɔ, ɑ] after /q/. /o/ turns into [ɤ] after dental consonants.^[11][12] /o/ can be pronounced as [u] after /ɡ, k, x/.^[11]

Parts of speech

Though prepositions are also sometimes employed, the language is foremost inflectional. Prefixes, suffixes and circumfixes are all used. Verbs conjugate in infinitive, past, present, future, two imperatives and (archaic) participle; they also agree with person, number and polarity. Nouns divide into two classes, inanimate and animate. They decline in five cases, nominative, accusative, genitive, allative and ablative. Animate nouns also decline according to number.^[13][14]

Word order

The basic word order is SVO (subject–verb–object). In a basic sentence, the order of these elements (when all three are present) is as in English: first comes the subject (S), followed by the verb (V), and then the object (O).

When only a subject is present, the subject precedes the verb, as it does in English:

In noun phrases, there is a specific order as well. The order is as follows:

In prepositional phrases, prepositions always precede their noun complements.

Further examples of demonstratives include:^[15]

Further examples of adjectives include:^[16]

Adverbs normally are sentence final, but they can also immediately follow the verb. Modal particles precede the verb.^[13]

In the episode "Andy's Ancestry" from the United States television show The Office, Dwight Schrute created the Dothraki phrase "throat rip" by putting "throat" in the accusative and placing it in front of the transitive verb. Compounds of this sort are a form of object incorporation. Peterson adopted this technique and called it the "Schrutean compound".^[17][18]