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As fans of the series (in book or TV adaptation format) will be aware, A Game of Thrones features numerous words in phrases in the fictional Dothraki language. David J. Peterson was hired to expand this material into a full conlang for the HBO series--a language which you can now learn yourself if you so desire!
But, that's not what we're interested in right now! There are plenty of existing resources on what conlangs are, how to make them, why you should want one for your book, and so on. What I am concerned with is how it is used effectively in a book.
We've already seen a couple of examples of multilingual integration in Kill the Beast and This Darkness Light, but those have advantages in using natural languages, which some readers might actually know--and which they could look up translations for, if they really wanted to. Using a conlang instead comes with both additional freedoms and restrictions.
So, let's review the approaches to multilingual integration for monolingual audiences that we've seen so far:
- Make It Obvious
This works just as well for a conlang as it does for a natural language--with the advantage that it is much harder for readers to catch you in an error! - Make It Irrelevant
This is theoretically just as usable as Making It Obvious, but using a conlang requires a clearing a much higher bar to justify its usage if it really is irrelevant. In many cases, however, there is an overlap between Obvious and Irrelevant--especially for things like culture-specific titles, you can get away with making the fact that it is functioning as a title fully Obvious, while the precise meaning is Irrelevant. - Make It An Easter Egg
Well, when you use a conlang, none of your readers will know the language ahead of time. It may seem, therefore, that this technique is simply unavailable in this context. But that is not entirely true! It takes a lot of work, but if you Teach the Reader, as explained last time, you may be able to set up conlang Easter Eggs in later parts of a narrative. - Narrative Translation
Most generally, this just means that you straight-up tell the reader what second-language text means. How exactly you do that, however, can be further broken down into more specific techniques: - Intrafictional Translation
This occurs when a character translates the second language. A marginal example of this occurs in Kill the Beast, when Danielle reads the tombstone inscription, - Subtitle It
This Darkness Light used this technique frequently. In film, it occurs when you literally put subtitles on the screen. In literature, it just refers to situations in which the narrator, in narrative text, provides a translation for the reader. - Explain It
This Darkness Light also used this technique, when identifying the Lord's Prayer. This also has some overlap with Making It Irrelevant--you explain what bits of the second language text are relevant, without providing an actual translation of that text, because the full literal meaning is not relevant.
So, what does G. R. R. Martin do with Dothraki? Well, let's look at some examples.
Unless I have missed something, the reader's first exposure to Dothraki is as follows:
The Dothraki called that land Rhaesh Andahli, the land of the Andals.
This is a fairly straightforward case of subtitling, although there is a hint of "Make It Obvious", insofar as G.R.R.M. did not decide to make the Dothraki ethnonym for the Andals something unrecognizably different (in the way that, e.g., the German word for German is Deutch, and the Russian is Nemskiy.)
A little later, we are introduced to the word khalasar, in context with some other bits of Dothraki:
“Drogo is so rich that even his slaves wear golden collars. A hundred thousand men ride in his khalasar, and his palace in Vaes Dothrak has two hundred rooms and doors of solid silver.” There was more like that, so much more, what a handsome man the khal was, so tall and fierce, fearless in battle, the best rider ever to mount a horse, a demon archer.
Placing a palace in Vaes Dothrak makes it pretty Obvious that that is the name of a place. More specifics are Irrelevant. And a khalasar is clearly a thing that men can be a part of--and which is probably related to khal. A tribe, an entourage, a horde? For the moment we know enough, and that can carry the reader until a character explicitly refers to it as a "horde". Note that we've already met Khal Drogo, and a reader could be forgiven for thinking that Khal is just a first name--this passage, however, makes it clear that khal is not a proper noun; thus, it must be a title. Make It Irrelevant, clarified later by Make It Obvious. Only slightly later, we get this passage:
“We won’t need his whole khalasar,” Viserys said. His fingers toyed with the hilt of his borrowed blade, though Dany knew he had never used a sword in earnest. “Ten thousand, that would be enough, I could sweep the Seven Kingdoms with ten thousand Dothraki screamers."
which helps cement the image of what a khalasar is in practical terms, even if a specific definition is not provided. The word khas is handled similarly:
She and Mormont had outdistanced the rest of their party, and now the others were climbing the ridge below them. Her handmaid Irri and the young archers of her khas were fluid as centaurs, but Viserys still struggled with the short stirrups and the flat saddle.
So, we don't know exactly what a khas is, but apparently it's some kind of group of people, which includes archers. All further references to a khas reinforce that it is a) a group of warriors (via references to "men of [her] khas", "warriors of her khas", etc.), and b) something that is owned by Danaerys.
“Didn’t you learn anything that day in the grass? Leave me now, before I summon my khas to drag you out. And pray that Khal Drogo does not hear of this, or he will cut open your belly and feed you your own entrails.”
And furthermore, something that Danaerys can summon to do violence on her behalf--a royal bodyguard!
The phrase dosh khaleen presents an interesting case:
“When the khal chooses,” Illyrio said. “He will have the girl first, and after they are wed he must make his procession across the plains and present her to the dosh khaleen at Vaes Dothrak.”
Dosh khaleen is introduced here in a Make It Irrelevant context--but a particular kind of one. We don't need to know what a dosh khaleen is precisely (except that its a noun), because it won't be relevant until after a whole procession across the plains. But, by introducing the phrase here, without a specific definition, G.R.R.M. creates anticipation and narrative tension--we want to get that part of the story to find out what it is! (Also note the reinforcement of Vaes Dothrak as a place name, by using it with the preposition "at".)
And we do, several hundred pages later...
“The princess must be presented to the dosh khaleen . . . ”“The crones, yes,” her brother interrupted
Note that we have here a case of Intrafictional Translation, which is followed up a few pages later by Making It Obvious:
“Only the crones of the dosh khaleen dwell permanently in the sacred city, them and their slaves and servants,”
Three different strategies applied to one phrase!
G.R.R.M. generally doesn't go for straight up, unresolved, Make It Irrelevant approaches, except for one case with a hapax legomenon:
“Here and now,” Ser Jorah agreed. “You ought to see it when it blooms, all dark red flowers from horizon to horizon, like a sea of blood. Come the dry season, and the world turns the color of old bronze. And this is only hranna, child. There are a hundred kinds of grass out there, grasses as yellow as lemon and as dark as indigo, blue grasses and orange grasses and grasses like rainbows.
The word hranna is never defined any more precisely... but, it doesn't really need to be. It's basically just there to sound like Dothraki.
We get a case of Explaining It when G.R.R.M. introduces the arakh with an appositive phrase to provide the definition:
She heard a shout, saw a shove, and in the blink of an eye the arakhs were out, long razor-sharp blades, half sword and half scythe.
Further references to arakhs throughout the novel are always in contexts which Make It Obvious that it is some kind of weapon, (much like the context of khas always makes it obvious that it is a group of men) which helps with recalling the specific definition given initially:
The trader vaulted over the stall, darting between Aggo and Rakharo. Quaro reached for an arakh that was not there as the blond man slammed him aside. He raced down the aisle.
What do you reach for during a fight? A weapon!
Dothraki hooves had torn the earth and trampled the rye and lentils into the ground, while arakhs and arrows had sown a terrible new crop and watered it with blood.
What waters the ground with blood? Weapons!
“If her wailing offends your ears, Khaleesi, Jhogo will bring you her tongue.” He drew hisarakh.
What do you draw? A sword!
The Dothraki had mocked him for a coward when he donned his armor, but the knight had spit insults right back in their teeth, tempers had flared, longsword had clashed with arakh, and the rider whose taunts had been loudest had been left behind to bleed to death.
What clashes with a longsword? Some other kind of sword!
The technique is used again to define hrakkar:
“Yes, my sun-and-stars,” Dany said. Drogo would take his bloodriders and ride in searchof hrakkar, the great white lion of the plains.
And G.R.R.M. also employs the Explain It strategy to introduce the term maegi, but with different grammatical machinery:
“Maegi,” grunted Haggo, fingering his arakh. His look was dark. Dany remembered the word from a terrifying story that Jhiqui had told her one night by the cookfire. A maegi was a woman who lay with demons and practiced the blackest of sorceries, a vile thing, evil and soulless, who came to men in the dark of night and sucked life and strength from their bodies.
Introducing the explanation with an explicit statement that "A maegi was..." could be awkward.. but G.R.R.M. gets away with it here since the explanation is provided intrafictionally, as part of a character's thoughts.
Next, let's look at khaleesi (possibly the single most famous Dothraki word); it is taught to the reader through a progression of Making It Obvious and Intrafictional Translation:
“A handsome gift, Khaleesi,” Magister Illyrio said of the last, after he had told her what it was. “Most lucky.”
Here, we know that Illyrio is addressing Danaerys, so the reference of Khaleesi is obvious. The structural similarity to khal further suggests that it is a title--so, probably something like "queen". Note that G.R.R.M. didn't have to make it that obvious! After all, "king" and "queen" in English don't have any similar obvious relation.
“She is the pride of the khalasar, “ Illyrio said. “Custom decrees that the khaleesi must ride a mount worthy of her place by the side of the khal.”
OK, so a khaleesi is a position of high status, next to the khal--again, sounding a lot like a queen!
“You are learning to talk like a queen, Daenerys.”“Not a queen,” said Dany. “A khaleesi.” She wheeled her horse about and galloped down the ridge alone.
And here we have Danaerys explicitly comparing khaleesi and "queen", simultaneously confirming the inferred definition, explaining why G.R.R.M. felt the need to bother teaching the reader a new word rather than just using "queen" (because the cultural implications of the role are quite different from the modern Anglophone associations of "queens" even if their literal definitions are the same), and using the Dothraki language to assert her adoption of a new cultural identity.
While G.R.R.M. does not do the work to set up Easter Eggs, we have so far seen him employ just about every other possible strategy--except for explicit subtitling. Explicit subtitling tends not to work very well with individual words--and individual words or short phrases are most of what G.R.R.M. shows us of Dothraki. But when we get to full sentences, he transitions exclusively to that strategy:
“Khalakka dothrae mr’anha!” she proclaimed in her best Dothraki. A prince rides inside me! She had practiced the phrase for days with her handmaid Jhiqui.The oldest of the crones, a bent and shriveled stick of a woman with a single black eye, raised her arms on high. “Khalakka dothrae!” she shrieked. The prince is riding!“He is riding!” the other women answered. “Rakh! Rakh! Rakh haj!” they proclaimed. A boy, a boy, a strong boy.
Just like Michaelbrent Collings preferred in This Darkness Light!
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