Describing

High Valyrian 1

Course 1 · Chapter 8 · Describing: Adjectives, Numbers, Colours

Nouns and verbs are in place; this chapter adds the words that describe them. Adjectives agree with their nouns, which makes them more work than English adjectives, but the numbers and colours are short lists, and adverbs are formed from adjectives with a simple ending. The examples come from the High Valyrian course notes on the Language Invention wiki (the Duolingo tips).

The idea in a box

An adjective agrees with its noun in gender, number and case. It usually comes before the noun, but can follow it. The numbers 1 to 9 are adjectives too, and so are the five colour words.

Adjectives

Agreement. An adjective takes the same gender, number and case as the noun it describes. The notes say plainly: "an adjective agrees with the noun it modifies in gender, number, and case".
Placement. They usually come first, but they can follow the noun, for style or to avoid crowding a sentence. sȳz vala and vala sȳz both mean "good man".
Three classes. The notes sort adjectives into Class I, II and III by their stem ending, and give separate endings for each in each gender. The numerals 1 to 9 are Class I or Class II.
Two shapes. A preposed adjective (before the noun) is shorter than a postposed one (after it): the notes say "those that follow the noun are fuller in form than those that precede it". The dative of a Class I adjective for a lunar, solar or terrestrial noun shows it: kasto before the noun, kastot after it.

Examples from the notes

# before the noun, and after it
ñuhyz jentyssy   "my leaders"
jentyssy ñuhyzy   "my leaders"  # a vowel that is dropped before the noun returns
ñuhys tubissa    "my days"     # z becomes s before k, p, s, t

# an adjective on a possessor takes the genitive
Sȳro taobo muña ēdrus.   "The good boy's mother is sleeping."
# "Sȳz taobo" would be wrong here

Watch out: "good" for quality, not taste

The notes say sȳz means good in quality, "how well made". For food that tastes good they use ēngenka, as in ēngenkor averilla "good wine", where averilla "wine" is an aquatic noun and so the adjective ends in -or.

Numbers

One is always singular, and two to nine are always plural. A number comes before its noun and agrees with it in gender and case. The forms below are the lunar nominative singular, as the notes give them:

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
mēre	lanta	hāre	izula	tōma	bȳre	sīkuda	jēnqa	vōre	ampa

With a noun. mēre zaldrīzes "one dragon", lantyz zaldrīzesse "two dragons", hāri zaldrīzesse "three dragons", ampa zaldrīzesse "ten dragons". The number takes plural forms for 2 to 9.
11 to 19. The unit number, then ampā: mēri ampā zaldrīzesse "eleven dragons", lantyz ampā zaldrīzesse "twelve dragons".
The tens never change: 20 lantēpsa, 30 hārēpsa, 40 izulēpsa, 50 tōmēpsa, 60 bȳrēpsa, 70 sīkudēpsa, 80 jēnqēpsa, 90 vōrēpsa. Each is the unit number plus -ēpsa.
21 to 29. The unit number, then the ten with a long final vowel: 22 is lanta lantēpsā, 29 is vōre lantēpsā. The other tens follow the same pattern.

Colours

High Valyrian has only five basic colour words, each covering a range, so one word serves for several English colours:

Word	Covers
timpa	white, pink, light gray
zōbrie	black, purple, dark gray
qeldlie	yellow, light orange, light brown
mele	red, dark orange, dark brown
kasta	blue, green

Adverbs

Time and place. They usually begin the sentence. Pre-verbal is the next best place. Ēlī vala taobe ūndas "First the man saw the boy" and Vala taobe ēlī ūndas "The man saw the boy first".
Manner adverbs are made from an adjective stem by an ending that depends on the class: Class I adds -irī (lyk- "quiet" gives lykirī "quietly"), Class II adds -ī (ader- "quick" gives aderī "quickly"), Class III adds -ī (arl- "new" gives arlī "again").
Placement of manner adverbs is flexible: Taoba aderī havon iprattas "The boy ate the bread quickly". Aderī can also mean "soon".
"Now". Sīr means "now", and with the perfect it translates "already".

Watch out: only some forms are taught here

The notes give long tables of adjective endings (dative, locative, instrumental and comitative for each class and gender). This chapter teaches the principle of agreement and the examples above, not the full tables; the nominative and accusative tables did not appear in the part of the notes that was checked.

Hands-On Exercises

Exercise 1

Write in High Valyrian: "one dragon", "three dragons", "ten dragons", "twelve dragons", and the numbers 20 and 30.

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Exercise 2

Which colour word would you use for "red", "green", "white" and "black"? Then explain why timpa can mean both "white" and "pink".

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Exercise 3

Make the adverb for "quickly", "quietly" and "again" from the stems ader-, lyk- and arl-. Then say where ēlī "first" goes in Ēlī vala taobe ūndas and how the meaning shifts if it moves.

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Chapter 8 Quick Reference

Adjectives: agree in gender, number and case; usually before the noun, fuller form after it
1 to 10: mēre, lanta, hāre, izula, tōma, bȳre, sīkuda, jēnqa, vōre, ampa
Tens: unit + -ēpsa; 11 to 19 with ampā
Colours: timpa, zōbrie, qeldlie, mele, kasta
Adverbs: -irī (Class I), -ī (Class II, III); time words come first

Coming next

High Valyrian 1, Chapter 9 puts the pieces together: word order, questions, greetings and sample sentences.