r/HighValyrian • u/SpiffyShindigs • 4d ago
Valar vs ābrar
If you check the Valyrian dictionary, you'll see that humanity is translated as ābrar, not valar. This strikes me as interesting, because George came up with very few Valyrian words himself (morghulis, dohaeris, dracarys and valar). Why not use valar as the word for mankind/humanity?
It's always a bit wonky trying to fit pure language stuff back onto the story, but given how much we've seen dārilaros come into play, that really makes me wonder about the definition we're given for ābrar.
Is valar morghulis actually MORE gendered than we expect, to contrast with how it's actually "the prince(ss) who was promised"?
2
u/Traditional-Ad-2336 3d ago
It’s similar to like writing an old English or Latin words that is a more than a thousand years old even ancients old. So create a language, he has to do something similar what his favourite or GG Martin inspired by, Tolkien himself. So to create a language and change the language meaning, it’s all come to the author or the fans and readers like ourselves to understand the meaning
2
u/Trick-Scallion7175 1d ago
It's because, in High Valyrian, the collective of a feminine gender noun is used as a general rule to produce an noun referring to the whole kind. For instance: trēsy = son; tala = daughter; talar = (someone's) children, offspring. Kekepa = paternal grandfather, mumuña = paternal grandmother; mumuñar = paternal grandparents.
Also, you have to consider one of the great subtilities of High Valyrian grammar. Every noun comes in four numbers. In English, there are only two numbers: singular and plural. In High Valyrian, there are four numbers: singular, plural, collective and paucal. The collective is used to refer to all instances of something, or the thing in general. For instance, zaldrīzes: one dragon; zaldrīzesse: dragons (plural); zaldrīzer (collective: all dragons, or dragon as a kind, as species); zaldrīzin (paucal: a few dragons). So: every noun has a collective form, including vala (man): valar = all men and ābra (woman): ābrar = all women.
BUT (here comes the subtility), the collective form of a given noun may in some cases give rise to a noun of its own, with its own meaning. This is called "re-analyzed collective" (there are also "re-analyzed paucals"). It is really another word, not only with a more or less strongly derived meaning, but also grammatical singularity. These "re-analysed collectives" have only two numbers (not four): singular and plural. The morphologically collective declension pattern is the singular one, and there is a special plural declension pattern for these nouns.
"Ābrar" with meaning "humanity, human kind / all people / life, fertility" is NOT just the collective form of "ābra" (woman), it is a re-analyzed collective derived from "ābrar" the collective form of "ābra" (can you follow me?). It implies for instance that you can say "ābraroti vējes ruartys issa" (the fate of humanitIES is mysterious).
As far as we know, there is no re-analyzed collective "valar", so that if you say "valar" it is necessarily the collective of "vala" = all men (= all adult individuals of masculine gender). Whereas the re-analyzed collective "ābrar" has a much broader meaning.
The most recently created of these re-analyzed collectives (yesterday, on Discord by DJP) is "dubyr", meaning "brotherhood" (derived from the collective form of "dubys": sibling, brother/sister or parallel cousin).
1
u/SpiffyShindigs 1d ago
Man, I miss having units and Peterson's notes and stuff in Duo. The gamification helps so much, but fuck it's a shallow experience.
16
u/Atharaphelun 4d ago
As per David Peterson, valar and ābrar can essentially mean the same thing when used in that context (as in Valar morghūlis/Valar dohaeris). However, the collective of the female noun is the more "proper" word to use for those general terms, as in riñar (children) and muñar (parents).