Dotrakhi is Turkish

[Starspear]

QFT, with the exception it's a bit more muddled than all that.

Most present-day "Turks" are genetically Greek/Phrygian/Armenian/Arab/whathaveyou who adopted the language of their conquerors who adopted the sedentary lifestyle of their captives. The Dothraki Sea is based on the great nomad highway but it wouldn't be surprising in the least to see some areas on its periphery fallen to a khalasar who "fall" into "decadence": it's essentially what will happen to any Dothraki who join Dany.

(If you haven't heard of the Khazars, you can check 'em out: some of the steppe people adopted Judaism instead of Islam, Tibetan Buddhism, or Tengriism.)

Similarly, any discussion of the languages has to realize there's a world of difference between what GRRM came up with (essentially Valyrian=Latin and Dothraki=Turkic, with some handwavian respellings) and what Peterson did to them for the show. For his part, Peterson goes out of his way to ignore real-life parallels (so far as claiming that breaking down dracarys as its obviously-intended "dragon fire" is beneath contempt) except where they amuse him ("chain"=belmon=Belmont=Castlevania). At this point, GRRM will send passages to him for translation on occasion, but it's still obviously not where the languages were originally sourced from or headed for.

Not muddled at all.

Turk in my posting refers to the Central Asians who ARE the ancestors of the Ottoman. They formed the superstrate. Not referring to Anatolian modern-day Turks.

GRRM is not a philologist. Far from it. He just makes up the language as he goes along. The parallels he makes are a mix and mash of various groups (see my thread: http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/108230-cultural-influences-anthropological-parallels/), and this rather superficially. No judgements, just is what it is - fantasy.

Yes, know about Khazars, but not applicable to posting.

[OccupyHarrenhal]

I've been studying Arabic for two years, and I've noticed one similarity other than Anha/Ana, the Nisba adjective used to indicate relationships (oftentimes origins)

In Arabic, the (male singular) adjective for Lebanese is "Lubnani," for American it's "Amreki," etc. Meanwhile, "Dothraki" is used is used in the Dothraki language as well as Common. And they call Jorah "Jorah Andali" (also used when Drogo talks about the land of the Andals)

[benalapin]

Think it's more accurate to say their culture was based off of the Turkic tribes, rather than Turkish.

[bahl]

Turkish makes sense, sound wise. And developing a language from nothing seems pretty hard work, so makes sense to borrow a bit.

[WinterKraken]

Probably Mongol way of life mixed with Turkish language & look...

But the Turks were actually Mongol tribes.

[Red-Viper]

But the Turks were actually Mongol tribes.

It's not that simple actually. Turks and Mongols are two, very very close nations but they were not same. Homeland of Turks were Mongolia but during that period, Mongols weren't living in Mongolia but North East of Mongolia. After Turks left Mongolia and moved west, Mongols settled modern day Mongolia. And, Turks who didn't move west, mixed with Mongols. Rest of the Turks who migrated to west, mixed with local peoples of Iran, Anatolia, Syria. Northern Turks mixed with Slavs and even Germanic peoples.

Anyway, like I said, their culture is very similar to Ancient Turks. and according to nytimes.com they inspired from Turkish language as well. Arakh (or Orak) means "sickle" in Turkish but that language still doesn't sound like Turkish to me.

[helter skelter]

Well it is not a secret that almost everything is inspired from real world. Seven kingdoms is like britain, free cities are like european cities, valyria is like roman empire, war of roses can be seen in blackfyre or todays events, qarth is like a rich middle eastern city bagdat maybe and dotraki are like the horse clans of asia. Turks, mongols or scyntians. But not ottomans. Ottomans were probably the most civilized, advanced and powerful people of their time until 1700s. Turks like huns or mongols are a better fit and they are not that much different. Cengiz Han was as mongol as he was turkish. His mother was turkish and at those times turks and mongols were not very different. Of course i am not talking about ottoman turks or semerkant and bokhara, i am talking about nomadic turkish and mongol clans. Even today there are sayings in turkish about horses and weapons. Khal is an obvious reference to khan which means the same thing in both mongolian and turkish.

[voodooqueen126]

I think there are similarities between the Dothraki and the Mongols and Ottomans.

For instance the Dothraki destroy civilized people, and that could be like the Mongol sack of Baghdad.

But the Mongols were clever and eventually assimilated into Chinese culture as the Yuan dynasty.

I think the upcoming fall of Volantis could parallel the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans.

Perhaps Qohor could be a mixture of Germany (with the technology) and Romania (the defiance against the Turks).

[Dog92]

On 12.5.2014 at 10:47 AM, benalapin said:

Think it's more accurate to say their culture was based off of the Turkic tribes, rather than Turkish.

 

That's right. The culture is similar to the old turkic tribes but not the language. Just the two words 'arakh' and 'Khal' have turkish origin but the dothraki sound is very different to turkish.That i can say as a turk. The sound of the dothraki language seems to resemble arabic mainly because of the pronounciation of 'KH' like in Khalessi. Arabs also pronounce this letter from the throat which produces the rough sound.

[permaximum]

As a Turk my answer is hell no

Nor the looks nor the language resembles Turks or Turkish even a bit. Even their culture is a lot different than Turkic ancestors. The only thing in common is old Turks were nomadic and as a consequence of that they used horses a lot. I believe Dothraki is a mix of Mongols and pre-Islamic Arabs and Kurds.

On the contrary Starks (not Tullies) really do resemble Turks. Their culture is similar. Their looks are similar (not today's Mediterrenean mixed look Italians, Greeks and Turks share) They both value honor to the stupidity, they both immensely value wolves to the point that they put wolf pictures into sigils, flags, money, coin and the legends. Actually according to the legend, Turkic race was supposed to come from one female direwolf named Asena and even at one absurd legend some with pure Turkish blood could become into a wolf ... In the end, I'm quite certain Starks were largely based on pre-Islamic Turks.

However it's a common mistake some people confuse Turks with Kurds and to some extent those with Arabic origin because there's a significant Kurdish population in Turkey.

[Syphon the Sanitator]

I think the Dothraki have a fair bit more freedom and culture than the turks, so I'm not buying this at all.

[Hodor's Aunt]

Two historic persons obviously missing in this thread are:

Timur aka Tamerlan

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timur

(btw: a "Turco-Mongol" conqueror)

and Hülegü

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulagu_Khan

There are much more tribes than just the "huns" (not really a tribe but a nation of very different tribes) and the "mongols". And much more leaders than just Attila and Djingis Khan. In fact Timur is one of the most important destroyer of all times. His influence in history is much bigger than Attila's. But he didn't reach Europe so our scholars didn't mind.