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9:52 AM

Q: Is the origin of the words 'valar' and 'Valyrian' the same?

In the series A Song of Ice and Fire, we know the phrases 'valar morghulis' and 'valar dohaeris' mean 'all men must die' and 'all men must serve', respectively. It immediately follows that 'valar' means 'all men' and seems to be a nod towards Tolkien's Valar and looks/sounds similar to the Old No...

Mithrandir24601

Woo! My second question on SE and it only took about 3 years! :P

(for the 2 questions)

TheLethalCarrot

10:20 AM

Lol

@Mithrandir24601 FWIW with Valyrian only being ~8 words in the books evidence points to valar coming from Valyrian because "it sounds right"

We then know he was influenced by Tolkien and likes to hide the odd reference in here and there so both could come from Valar

Apart from that I can't find anything explicit

Dunno if that's the sort of answer you want though

Mithrandir24601

@TheLethalCarrot It's not really the sort of answer I want, but having spent several months learning Valyrian, I expect the answer I want doesn't actually exist, so it's the sort of answer I'll take if the one I want doesn't exist

TheLethalCarrot

The problem is canon Valyrian (GRRM's one) is only 8 words last I heard (+ nouns) so the answer is pretty much highly likely the same but who knows cos there's s little information on it

He appears to pick names cos they sound right and valar sounding like Valyrian is gonna make it sound right

Mithrandir24601

@TheLethalCarrot Yeah, ideally I'd like a source from GRRM explicitly saying (or denying) this though. He mightn't have a lot of words or anything but I'm hoping he has something somewhere that links those 2

TheLethalCarrot

Not that I've ever seen but I'll keep having a look

Whenever questioned about languages he pretty much says the same thing "I haven't developed it at all, is only N words, if I need another I'll just make it up"

Also spoken about liking languages where the words sound great i.e. Tolkien

Beyond that I haven't seen much in the way of how he develops the words

Mithrandir24601

10:35 AM

@TheLethalCarrot Yeah, I've seen a couple of these

But this should be such a clear cut feature - if asked 'are these two words related?' it should be possible for him to go, 'yeah, I like the sound of that' or 'no, I don't like the sound of that'

Even on the spot

TheLethalCarrot

Well the known words are: dracarys, valar, morghulis, dohaeris, valonqar

Of those two have the val start

Then looking at names you have things like Valyria, Valarr, Valerion, Vaelor, Vaegon etc.

FWIW I have tweeted his account but I highly doubt I'll get a response

Mithrandir24601

@TheLethalCarrot Oooh :)

nice

hopefully you'll get a response

TheLethalCarrot

Hopefully but I wouldn't hold out hope on it