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Kingdoms of the Ifeqevron


Frey Filet

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More likely in Volantis, behind the Black Wall. But in the northernmost part of Essos, covered with forests ?

But they're not dragonlords! It's not the same, they might be on the same level as the Velaryons, but they're lower than the Targaryens.

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After studying the Dothraki dictionary, it appears to me that Ifeqevron is a combination of the words "seven" and "foreigner". So could it allude to Kingdoms of the Seven Foreigners? As in the Seven Andal gods, or perhaps followers of these Seven Gods?

Perhaps the Andal Gods were real people who originated in the lands of Ifeqevron and founded the Andal religion? The problem for me would be that this would have occurred around 6000 years ago, which is long before the Dothraki were around.

But then, if we go with the other interpetation, which is that it refers to the Others, then the events that provided the Dothraki name for this region would have occurred even earlier - around 8000 years ago - which again, is long before the Dothraki emerged as a nation. One can only assume that the Dothraki inherited these names from their precursor tribes. This would hold true for whichever of the above explanations is the correct one.

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So could it allude to Kingdoms of the Seven Foreigners? As in the Seven Andal gods, or perhaps followers of these Seven Gods?

The problem for me would be that this would have occurred around 6000 years ago, which is long before the Dothraki were around.

I agree in the speculation that Ifequevron means seven strangers, somehow alluding to the seve Andal gods. How do we know when the Dothraki came to inhabit western Essos?

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  • 3 weeks later...

A possibilty that hasn't been mentioned yet what if: Ifeqevron = foreigners from the seven Kingdoms. Maybe the descendants of the Northmen who went on an expedition with Brandon the Shipwright? I mean they never returned so maybe they got stranded in Essos and made a new home for themselves there? It would be awesome if they still followed the Old Gods.

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A possibilty that hasn't been mentioned yet what if: Ifeqevron = foreigners from the seven Kingdoms. Maybe the descendants of the Northmen who went on an expedition with Brandon the Shipwright? I mean they never returned so maybe they got stranded in Essos and made a new home for themselves there? It would be awesome if they still followed the Old Gods.

Intriguing, I like it!

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  • 5 weeks later...

I think I have solved the mystery. Part of what I do for a living is study languages (I am a Spanish/Chinese/English translator).

So here goes:

IFEQUEVERON. We are told this word is Dothraki. It must obey Dothraki rules for making a noun or verb phrase into a regular noun. Credit to Chareg for comming up with this idea. We are told that it is the KINDGOMS OF THE XXXX so XXX is probably the name of some group, from the Dothraki point of view. So let is pick apart this word...

IFE, people have suggested that it has either to do with the word Ifak (foreigner), or Ifat (to walk), but other possibilities exist: iffi (victory), iffat (to make someone walk). This morpheme is the hardest one of all the words. So let is leave it for a moment. Whichever of these is right (and the meanings appear to be culturally related from the Dothraki point of view), it becomes slightly altered when the morpheme is smashed against the next one: QUEVR. I looked for rules in Dothraki that cause words to change their ending when near other words in order to stop what is cacophony in Spanish (basically combinations of sounds that don´t sound clear or are difficult for native speakers to pronounce when joined together). Chinese dialects also have this for tones (tone sandhi) because some tones just don´t go together well (third and third tone for mandarin speakers out there - it becomes a second and third tone).

ANYWAY, I don´t know Dothriaki cacophony rules, so I can´t say which of the -if words is getting modified after coming into direct contact with a q word.

Next phoneme: QEVR- . In Dothraki QUEVIR is forest. The map locates the kindgoms in a forest area, seems safe to say it is a forest.

Final Phoneme: -ON. When I first saw this, it looked like an obvious "-ero" suffix from Spanish, or a 者 from Chinese if you prefer. In English you might say -er but the idea is somewhat more widespread in Chinese/Spanish. To confirm my hunch, I looked at other Dothraki words (verb into verb-er nouns), and found: Lajak - to fight, LajakOON - fighter. I therefore think that the -oon, -on ending is the normal way to make a verb into a noun with the -er suffix.

So here we go.

IFE (?) QUEVR (FOREST) - ON (ER)

I would suggest, "KINGDOMS OF THE FOREST WALKERS" or "KINGDOMS OF THE FOREST FOREIGNERS" since both terms are both essentially homologous in Dothraki. Kingdoms of the forest victorious doesn't make much sense, nor does Kingdoms of the forestpeoplewhomakeyouwalk.(EDIT: this interpretation could possibly make sense in that they are "forest people who make [a Khalisar] walk [that is, defeat them by unhorsing and therefore humiliating them], but it is a stretch - and hard to say given that I don't know Dothraki cacophony rules - and actually it doesn't matter that much since the whole "if" mini-morpheme has to do with things un-dothraki).

Conclusions: Some sort of forest race is going on north of the Mother of Mountains. They don't use Dothraki riding skills, are viewed as foreigners, and don't seem to be viewed as 'Aresak' (Cowards) like the people of Ib. It is possible they are CoTF, and it is possible they are something else.

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I think I have solved the mystery. Part of what I do for a living is study languages (I am a Spanish/Chinese/English translator).

So here goes:

IFEQUEVERON. We are told this word is Dothraki. It must obey Dothraki rules for making a noun or verb phrase into a regular noun. Credit to Chareg for comming up with this idea. We are told that it is the KINDGOMS OF THE XXXX so XXX is probably the name of some group, from the Dothraki point of view. So let is pick apart this word...

IFE, people have suggested that it has either to do with the word Ifak (foreigner), or Ifat (to walk), but other possibilities exist: iffi (victory), iffat (to make someone walk). This morpheme is the hardest one of all the words. So let is leave it for a moment. Whichever of these is right (and the meanings appear to be culturally related from the Dothraki point of view), it becomes slightly altered when the morpheme is smashed against the next one: QUEVR. I looked for rules in Dothraki that cause words to change their ending when near other words in order to stop what is cacophony in Spanish (basically combinations of sounds that don´t sound clear or are difficult for native speakers to pronounce when joined together). Chinese dialects also have this for tones (tone sandhi) because some tones just don´t go together well (third and third tone for mandarin speakers out there - it becomes a second and third tone).

ANYWAY, I don´t know Dothriaki cacophony rules, so I can´t say which of the -if words is getting modified after coming into direct contact with a q word.

Next phoneme: QEVR- . In Dothraki QUEVIR is forest. The map locates the kindgoms in a forest area, seems save to say it is a forest.

Final Phoneme: -ON. When I first saw this, it looked like an obvious "-ero" suffix from Spanish, or a 者 from Chinese if you prefer. In English you might say -er but the idea is somewhat more widespread in Chinese/Spanish. To confirm my hunch, I looked at other Dothraki words (verb into verb-er nouns), and found: Lajak - to fight, LajakOON - fighter. I therefore think that the -oon, -on ending is the normal way to make a verb into a noun with the -er suffix.

So here we go.

IFE (?) QUEVR (FORREST) - ON (ER)

I would suggest, "KINGDOMS OF THE FORREST WALKERS" or "KINGDOMS OF THE FOREST FOREIGNERS" since both terms are both essentially homologous in Dothraki. Kingdoms of the forrest victorious dosen't make much sense, nor does Kingdoms of the forespeoplewhomakeyouwalk.

Conclusions: Some sort of forest race is going on north of the Mother of Mountains. They don't use Dothraki riding skills, are viewed as foreigners, and don't seem to be viewed as 'Aresak' (Cowards) like the people of Ib. It is possible they are CoTF, and it is possible they are something else.

Awesome. Thank you very much, that was great, as a Spanish speaker I could get what you mean, but even if English was my mother tongue it would have been just as easy. Great explanation.

Now I really want to know who/what they are.

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Great hypothesis indeed! Being a place inhabited by Children of the Forest would make it special enough for Ifeqevron to be noteworthy, and it would also explain why something so close to Vaes Dothrak is apparently still standing, while cities hundreds of miles away have been devastated, it being magical in nature (enough to scare any khalazar from going too deep inside it).

Kudos to you, Kushluk.

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A possibilty that hasn't been mentioned yet what if: Ifeqevron = foreigners from the seven Kingdoms. Maybe the descendants of the Northmen who went on an expedition with Brandon the Shipwright? I mean they never returned so maybe they got stranded in Essos and made a new home for themselves there? It would be awesome if they still followed the Old Gods.

Brandon went West, not East.

And it would be quite difficult to believe not a single braavosi, lorathian or Ib trading in White Harbour would have not heard of the Ifeqvron and their legends, not heard of Brandon the Shipwright and put 2 and 2 together and would have said no word to any northmen he met.

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A related note regarding the etymology of IFEQUEVRON:

The difference between -on and -oon endings led me to do some more investigation. I was uncomfortable with the mere assumption that they were the same. I found that in a pdf dated in early 2011, -oon was said to be the ablative form of a noun (from or of the noun XXX). IFEQUEVRON therefore could be a lapsus form of IFEQUEVROON (which makes sense if we believe these are Maester's maps) or Dothrkai just shortens words that are too long. (I actually explored other possibilities, such as quevir (forest) taking a stress (tilde) in different places causing the -oon ending to change - but I don't have enough info really to make this pan out). In any event, if IFEQUEVRON the ablative declension, the resulting translation is something like "THE WALKERS FROM THE FOREST" making the whole title "KINGDOMS OF THE WALKERS OF/FROM THE FOREST"

The difference in translation between my last attempt and this one is grammatical rather than lexical, that is to say, both translations say the same thing using a different aspect of grammar. The case is somewhat stronger that they are some sort of Forest race, possibly CoTF. On a related note, my computer recently broke, so my notes I made for this are lost.

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You can find a dictionary of Dothraki here: http://www.dothraki.org/

From what I gather there are a couple of possible translations. One is that Ifeqevron means "the land of the walkers" meaning that the people who live there aren't horsemen (the area seems essentially a large forest, so quite possible). The second one is that it mean "the land of the foreigners", possible referring to the Others. I think this is unlikely because it isn't far enough North imo to really be the land of the Others.

If there are Others anywhere in Essos, I'd say they're beyond Asshai, in the area called "the Grey Waste" or possibly in the unexplored continent of Ulthos.

The translations themselves derive from the following words:

1) Ifat=to walk

2) Ifak=foreigner

Other words that might come in handy when trying to translate "Ifeqevron":

3) Qevir=forest

I suppose a third way to translate Ifeqevron would be "walking forest", maybe there are ents there. :cool4:

Awsome catch.Very intriguing. Don't tell anyone but I speak Dothraki to the Direweinerdog oh yes I do.

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I still think we need to consider the possibility of seven (fekh) playing a part in the translation when taking into account that the the Andals, before migrating to Westeros, may have inhabited Essos as far east as this area on the map...

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I still think we need to consider the possibility of seven (fekh) playing a part in the translation when taking into account that the the Andals, before migrating to Westeros, may have inhabited Essos as far east as this area on the map...

They are from Andalos, aren't they ? Somewhere around in Braavosi Coastlands and Pentos.

And I think they are non-Dothraki and the people who live there aren't horsemen. So that's it. Maybe they live in tree houses.

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The forest walkers/CoTF/whatever possibility is very intriguing, but according to the world map there's cities right on the coast north of that forest. Wouldn't the people of those cities know what exists in the forest, and get word out?

Then again, abandoned/destroyed cities seem to have a white logo, whereas current cities have a brown logo. Vaes Leisi and Aresak (Ibbish) have been abandoned/destroyed. New Ibbish, the only other city north of the forest, was presumably built by the Ibbenese, who don't have to trek through the forest (then again so was 'Old Ibbish' and it's now abandoned). So what caused the abandonment/destruction of these cities? I'm not sure the Dothraki did, because it appears they haven't gone through the forest (otherwise there may have been a story or two about it). If it is the CotF, then my guess is the establishments began to encroach on the children's 'kingdom', and they fought back fiercely and laid waste to said establishments. New Ibben may be next...

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  • 2 weeks later...

Brandon went West, not East.

Yeah... That's the point genius :dunno: They went farther west than anyone before and because

planetos is a sphere they went around the globe and they got stranded at

Ifeqevron.

And it would be quite difficult to believe not a single braavosi, lorathian or Ib trading in White Harbour would have not heard of the Ifeqvron and their legends, not heard of Brandon the Shipwright and put 2 and 2 together and would have said no word to any northmen he met.

We don’t even know if the Ifeqevron have contact with the rest of the Essos. The only thing we know is that they have a Dothraki name. Also, it does appear that that side of Essos isn’t a major trade route. Most if not all trade either goes overland or passes through quarth.

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Yeah... That's the point genius :dunno: They went farther west than anyone before and because

planetos is a sphere they went around the globe and they got stranded at

Ifeqevron.

We don’t even know if the Ifeqevron have contact with the rest of the Essos. The only thing we know is that they have a Dothraki name. Also, it does appear that that side of Essos isn’t a major trade route. Most if not all trade either goes overland or passes through quarth.

Wait...do you mean to tell me that the world of ASOIAF is not flat??

Fekh can be discarded for a variety of reasons. It's not part of the meaning of this word.

Can you elaborate on this?

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Yeah... That's the point genius :dunno: They went farther west than anyone before and because

planetos is a sphere they went around the globe and they got stranded at

Ifeqevron.

We don’t even know if the Ifeqevron have contact with the rest of the Essos. The only thing we know is that they have a Dothraki name. Also, it does appear that that side of Essos isn’t a major trade route. Most if not all trade either goes overland or passes through quarth.

It doesn't make sense for Brandon the Shipwright's party to sail around most of the world only to stop so close to home. And besides, the Ifeqevron lands are right next to Ibben. In fact, there's a town or city called New Ibben right on its coast. Ibbenese trade with White Harbor all the time.

It's therefore a certainty that these guys aren't the remnants of Brandon the Shipwright's party. They could have gotten home very easily from there, or at the very least news would have spread through the Ibbenese.

Nope, it's something else.

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I find it curious that, being so close to Ib, we never hear anything about it. If there were a strange and exotic species of quasi-humans living in their backyards, the ibbenese would have certainly spread the tale, and upon reaching Westeros, I'm sure someone would have been bound to make the connection to the Children.

Maybe we're overthinking this, and Ifeqevron isn't really special in any way.

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