Anha

Dothraki

Dothraki Phrasebook This entry is part of the phrasebook project, which presents criteria for inclusion based on utility, simplicity and commonality.

For other Dothraki entries on this topic, see Basic.

Etymology

From a blend of the nominative Proto-Plains *anǝk (“I”) and the partitive Proto-Plains *ankǝ (“of me”).

Source

Coined by George R. R. Martin in the book A Game of Thrones.=====Source Spelling===== anha

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /ˈanha/

Rhymes: -anha

Pronoun

anha (nominative first person singular, plural kisha)

1. I; first person singular personal pronoun, nominative case

   Khalakka dothrae mr'anha.

   A prince is riding inside me.

   -Daenerys (A Game of Thrones)

Inflection

Dothraki Personal Pronouns First Person Second Person Third Person Singular Plural Singular Plural Formal Singular Plural Nominative anha kisha yer yeri shafka me mori Accusative anna yera mae mora Genitive anni kishi yeri shafki mori Allative anhaan kishaan yeraan yerea shafkea maan morea Ablative anhoon kishoon yeroon yeroa shafkoa moon moroa

Translations

Sense: first-person singular pronoun (I) ^[‌edit‌]

• Astapori Valyrian: nyk
• Azrán: jo
• Bodzvokhan: ha
• Chakobsa: ne
• Dothraki: anha
• Engála: un
• Gandal: chun
• G'Vunna: künnǝ
• Hen Linge: a
• High Valyrian: nyke
• Inha: ii (fire), nan (stone), aa (water), he (wind)
• Irathient: ume
• Kinuk'aaz: t'ep
• Lishepus: aan
• Méníshè: éì
• Munja'kin: tun
• Noalath: hus
• Ravkan: eya
• Sangheili: jan
• Shiväisith: kir
• Sondiv: elo
• Trigedasleng: ai, a (variant)
• Væyne Zaanics: huþ, hiþ (used only by God)
• Veda: kyun
• Yulish: hö
• Zemeni: avi

Creation and Usage Notes

So. To be clear, this pronoun came directly from George R. R. Martin. It was used in A Game of Thrones in the sentence above. I did not "borrow" the pronoun from the Arabic first person singular pronoun ابا [ˈana]. I never would have done that for a number of reasons. Whether George R. R. Martin cribbed it from Arabic I can't say (honestly, I suspect not). Having said that, I made two mistakes with respect to this pronoun. First, in a scene in episode 103 I had Daenerys intentionally mispronounce this pronoun. This went along with a number of other intentional mispronunciations and grammatical errors that helped to illustrate how Daenerys was learning, but had not yet mastered, Dothraki. I had Daenerys miss the [h] in pronouncing anha. I shouldn't have done that, because (a) it sounded quite similar to the Arabic pronoun, and (b) once I "sanctioned" it (albeit for good reasons), it resulted in Emilia Clarke saying ana several other times throughout the show when she wasn't supposed to. That was regrettable. Second, I made a characteristic mistake in adapting the sentence from A Game of Thrones shown above. I figured which words meant what, decide the mr' would be an elided version of a preposition mra, decided that anha would be some form of the first person pronoun, and then forgot to consider the context when I went on to develop the case system. Originally I had intended the pronoun to be much shorter in the nominative (maybe something like an), and the -ha part to be some sort of case. I completely forgot about that until it was too late. Then I was stuck with a preposition assigning the nominative—something that is quite rare in a case language whose adpositions otherwise assign non-nominative cases. Anha was always intended to be a non-nominative form of the first person pronoun. My brain skipped ahead several steps and forgot the earlier ones. Thus we're stuck with anha in the nominative and prepositions like mra paradoxically assigning the nominative case. Dreadful. -David J. Peterson 15:35, 9 December 2019 (PST)