User:Aegon/High Valyrian Tutorial/1-1
Chapter 1-Nominative
Note: copy/paste from Latin wikibook to see what it looks like.
The Nominative Case
The Nominative case refers to the subject of a sentence. For example:
The girl is pretty
"The girl" is the subject of this sentence. In its simplest form a sentence will have a subject stated as a noun and will give some further information about the subject. The second part of this sentence tells the reader that the girl is pretty. This is called predicating the noun. This sentence consists of a subject and a predicate. As you know from English, an adjective is a word that denotes some quality, which in this sentence is attractiveness. The noun and adjective are joined together by the word "is", which is called the copula. Note that the copula simply connects the words and gives almost no information about the subject.
The sentence in High Valyrian has the same grammatical elementsː
riña litse issa
The noun is followed by the predicate. The only difference is the absence of an article which has to be supplied by the translator. Riña can be translated as "girl", "the girl", or "a girl". Can you tell which word is the copula?
Translate the followingː
- Valyria kara issa
- Valyria kostōba issa
- Valyria dārion issa
Where were military battles occurring?
Translate the following (hint: Valyriā, in the locative case, that will be addressed later, means 'in Valyria')ː
- Rios Valyriā ilza
- Blēnon Valyriā ilza
- Qelbar Valyriā ilza
Notice that this second exercise used the copula ilza, this is called the locative or existential copula. It functions similarly to issa and is used when describing location.
Note the conjunction given in the Vocabulary, and translate the followingː
- Valyria kara se kostōba issa
- Valyria kostōba issa se Ghīs kara issa
- Valyria se Ghīs vȳhot issi
Vocabulary
| Lesson Vocabulary | |
|---|---|
| High Valyrian | English |
| kara (adj. I) | great, magnificent, excellent |
| kostōba (adj. I) | powerful, strong, mighty |
| litse (adj. II) | cute, pretty, fair, beautiful |
| riña (1lun.) | girl |
| dārion (3ter.) | kingdom |
| rios (3sol.) | canyon, valley |
| blēnon (3ter.) | mountain |
| qelbar (1aq.) | river |
| puer (m.) | boy |
| pater (m.) | father |
| māter (f.) | mother |
| domina (f.) | mistress |
| dominus (m.) | master |
| lūdus (m.) | school |
| Valyria (1lun.) | Valyria |
| Ghīs (3sol.) | Ghis |
| Britannia (f.) | Britain |
| trīclīnium (n.) | dining couch (room) |
| iksan iksā issa iksi iksāt issi |
I am you are he/she/it is we are you are they are |
| ilan ilā ilza ili ilāt ilzi |
I am you are he/she/it is we are you are they are |
| laborat, laborant | (he/she/it is) working, (they are) working |
| amat, amant | (he/she/it) loves, (they) love |
| se (conj.) | and |
Key to Vocabulary:
- 1lun. = first lunar
- 1aq. = first aquatic
- 3ter. = third terrestrial
- 3sol. = third solar
- High Valyrian nouns have one of four genders (lunar, solar, terrestrial, and aquatic) and are formed into five groups of declension with a sixth declination group for borrowed words and paucal and collective nouns. Lunar nouns ending in "-a" or "-ia" in the Nominative Singular are of the 1st declension. Most High Valyrian names for countries and cities are 6th declension borrowed nouns, so they end with "-i" in the Nominative Singular.
- sg. = singular
- pl. = plural