Appendix:High Valyrian Duolingo Tips and Notes

Basics 1

JIŌRNA! 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:

CONSONANTS B, D, H, L, M, N, Z are pronounced roughly the same as they are in English. IPA: [b], [d], [h], [l], [m], [n], [z]. G is always pronounced hard, as in "get"; never as in "genre" or "gel". IPA: [ɡ] K, P, T are pronounced similar to English, but without aspiration (compare "pie" to "spy". The Valyrian P is pronounced as in "spy"). IPA: [p], [t], [k] S is always pronounced voiceless, as in "dose"; never as in "rose". IPA: [s] R is always trilled, as in Spanish "perro". IPA: [r] V is now pronounced as in "vet", but used to be pronounced as the "w" in "wet". IPA: [v] (Modern); [w] (Ancient) J is now pronounced as in "jam", but used to have a slightly more palatal pronunciation. IPA: [dʒ] (Modern); [ɟ] and [j] (Antiquated) Q is pronounced like a "k", but much further back in the mouth, with the back of the tongue touching the uvula. There is no English equivalent. IPA: [q] GH is a voiced guttural sound like a noisier version of the "g" in Spanish "lago". There is no English equivalent. IPA: [ɣ] or [ʁ] LJ is pronounced like the "lli" in "million". IPA: [ʎ] Ñ is pronounced as in Spanish "ñ" or the "ni" in "minion". IPA: [ɲ] RH is pronounced like Valyrian R, but with no voicing. IPA: [r̥] VOWELS A is pronounced as in "father". IPA: [a] E is pronounced as in "get", and is never silent. IPA: [ɛ] or [e] (no distinction) I is pronounced as in "machine". IPA: [i] O is pronounced as in "note". IPA: [ɔ] or [o] (no distinction) U is pronounced as in "rude". IPA: [u] Y is pronounced like the "i" in "machine", but with the lips fully rounded as if one is pronouncing U. IPA: [y] Ā, Ē, Ī, Ō, Ū, Ȳ are pronounced exactly as their macron-less counterparts but are held for a longer duration. IPA: [aː], [ɛː]~[eː], [iː], [ɔː]~[oː], [uː], [yː] 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.

SINGULAR AND PLURAL 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.

ADJECTIVE PLACEMENT 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.

SIMPLE COORDINATION 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!

PRO-DROP 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.

Phrases 1

NOUN CASE 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:

Vala ābre urnes. Ābre vala urnes. 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:

If the nominative is -a, the accusative is -e. If the nominative is -i, the accusative is -ī. If the nominative is -es, the accusative is -ī. If the nominative is -ys, the accusative is -i. If the nominative is -yssy, the accusative is -ī. These generalizations will suffice for this skill. Soon you'll learn more rules regarding the formation of the accusative and other cases.

VERB ENDINGS 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:

If the subject is "I", the verb ends in -n. If the subject is "he, she, it", the verb has an -s or -z in its ending. If the subject is "they", the verb has -zi, -si, or -is in its ending. Again, these generalizations will suffice for this skill. Soon you'll learn more rules regarding the formation of the all verbal conjugations.

Basics 2

NOUN CASE 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:

Vala ābre urnes. Ābre vala urnes. 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:

If the nominative is -a, the accusative is -e. If the nominative is -i, the accusative is -ī. If the nominative is -es, the accusative is -ī. If the nominative is -ys, the accusative is -i. If the nominative is -yssy, the accusative is -ī. These generalizations will suffice for this skill. Soon you'll learn more rules regarding the formation of the accusative and other cases.

VERB ENDINGS 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:

If the subject is "I", the verb ends in -n. If the subject is "he, she, it", the verb has an -s or -z in its ending. If the subject is "they", the verb has -zi, -si, or -is in its ending. Again, these generalizations will suffice for this skill. Soon you'll learn more rules regarding the formation of the all verbal conjugations.

Demonstratives 1

DEMONSTRATIVE PRONOUNS 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:

kesy "this (inanimate)" bisy "this (animate)" kony "that (inanimate)" bony "that (animate)" Note: It's up to the individual speaker to decide whether animals are animate enough to earn a B-class demonstrative pronoun.

Lunar Class

INTRODUCTION TO GENDER 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:

Lunar Class (Hūrenkon Qogror) from the word hūra "moon" Solar Class (Vēzenkon Qogror) from the word vēzos "sun" Aquatic Class (Embōñor Qogror) from the word embar "sea" Terrestrial Class (Tegōñor Qogror) from the word tegon "earth" 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 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.

Solar Class

INTRODUCTION TO GENDER 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:

Lunar Class (Hūrenkon Qogror) from the word hūra "moon" Solar Class (Vēzenkon Qogror) from the word vēzos "sun" Aquatic Class (Embōñor Qogror) from the word embar "sea" Terrestrial Class (Tegōñor Qogror) from the word tegon "earth" 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 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.

Aquatic Class

INTRODUCTION TO GENDER 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:

Lunar Class (Hūrenkon Qogror) from the word hūra "moon" Solar Class (Vēzenkon Qogror) from the word vēzos "sun" Aquatic Class (Embōñor Qogror) from the word embar "sea" Terrestrial Class (Tegōñor Qogror) from the word tegon "earth" 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 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.

Terrestrial Class

INTRODUCTION TO GENDER 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:

Lunar Class (Hūrenkon Qogror) from the word hūra "moon" Solar Class (Vēzenkon Qogror) from the word vēzos "sun" Aquatic Class (Embōñor Qogror) from the word embar "sea" Terrestrial Class (Tegōñor Qogror) from the word tegon "earth" 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 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.

GAME OF THRONES NOTE 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.