Gender and Nouns
High Valyrian 1
Course 1 · Chapter 3 · Gender and Nouns
High Valyrian nouns carry two pieces of built-in information: a gender and a number. Dothraki 1 (Chapter 3) had two noun classes and two numbers; High Valyrian has four of each. This chapter sets out the four genders, shows how the noun classes (declensions) are organised, and introduces the four numbers in their basic forms. The eight cases come in Chapter 4.
The Four Genders
The genders are named after the heavens and the earth, and each tends to hold certain kinds of noun. The grammar wiki gives these tendencies, with a note that there are "a significant number of exceptions":
| Gender | Usual ending | Typical nouns and examples |
|---|---|---|
| Lunar | a vowel | humans (vala "man", ābra "woman", muña "mother"), nocturnal animals, fruit, tools, military equipment |
| Solar | -s | humans, diurnal animals (zaldrīzes "dragon"), occupations (loktys "sailor"), body parts |
| Terrestrial | -n | foodstuffs (havon), plants (parmon), metals |
| Aquatic | -r | liquids (iēdar), bodies of water (embar "water"), gases (paghar) |
- Humans can be lunar or solar. Words for people appear in both; occupations lean solar.
- The labels are only labels. A "solar" noun is not especially sunny. Learn the gender as a property of each noun.
- Pronouns have no gender of their own. The speaker picks the gender that fits the person talked about, and lunar is the default for humans (Chapter 5 returns to this).
The Four Numbers
Dothraki has a singular and a plural. High Valyrian has four numbers. The two new ones are the paucal, for a small group ("a few", "some"), and the collective, for a group taken as a whole. Whatever the gender, every paucal ends in -n and every collective ends in -r.
| Number | vala "man" (lunar) | embar "water" (aquatic) | loktys "sailor" (solar) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | vala | embar | loktys |
| Plural | vali | embri | loktyssy |
| Paucal | valun | embrun | loktyn |
| Collective | valar | embrar | loktyr |
- Paucal: valun is "a few men". It takes plural agreement (a few things are still several).
- Collective: valar is "men" as a whole, "all men" (the first word of valar morghulis and valar dohaeris from Chapter 1). A collective takes singular agreement, because the group is one unit.
- Meanings can shift. The collective of muña "mother" is muñar, which means "parents".
- The gender stays. A paucal or collective keeps the gender of its singular.
The Six Declensions
Nouns fall into classes called declensions, named by the vowel the stem ends in. You do not need the details yet; they matter when you learn the case endings in Chapter 4. The overview:
| Declension | Stem vowel | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| First | -a | vala (lunar), dāria "queen" (subtype), embar (aquatic) |
| Second | -y | trēsy (lunar), loktys (solar) |
| Third | -o | pēko (lunar), ēngos (solar), belmon (terrestrial), lentor (aquatic) |
| Fourth | -e | gelte (lunar), zaldrīzes (solar), Targārien (terrestrial) |
| Fifth | -i | brōzi (lunar), tubis (solar), rōbir (aquatic) |
| Sixth | miscellaneous | foreign words and reanalysed collectives and paucals |
Look at the pattern: the first declension has lunar and aquatic nouns but, the wiki says, no attested solar or terrestrial types, while the second has no terrestrial or aquatic types. So the declension narrows down which genders are possible.
Hands-On Exercises
Say which gender each noun is most likely to have, from its meaning and ending: havon (a foodstuff), embar (water), loktys (sailor), vala (man), parmon (a plant).
📄 View solutionWrite the paucal and the collective of vala, embar and loktys from the table. Then say what is always true of a paucal and of a collective, whatever the gender.
📄 View solutionExplain the difference between vali, valun and valar, and what the collective muñar shows about the way collectives behave. Why is High Valyrian gender not like French gender?
📄 View solutionChapter 3 Quick Reference
- Genders: lunar (usually a vowel), solar (-s), terrestrial (-n), aquatic (-r); many exceptions
- Numbers: singular, plural, paucal (always -n, "a few"), collective (always -r, "all of them")
- Agreement: a collective takes singular agreement, a paucal takes plural agreement
- Declensions: six, named by stem vowel (-a, -y, -o, -e, -i, miscellaneous)
- Examples: vala / vali / valun / valar; embar / embri / embrun / embrar; loktys / loktyssy / loktyn / loktyr