Hello,



I am trying to say "Where are you?" in dragon but I cannot! I have gotten as far as "Kolos los hi?" but I am pretty sure it is wrong. Can anyone help me?



Thanks,

Borf

Hello, You are actually correct. The way to say it is just as you said, "Kolos los hi?", if you're talking to a singular person, that is. If you are talking to a group of people, though, you'd use "Kolos los hei?".

Just to point out: Hei is a fan-made word and is not canon. Kolos is purely a conjunction and not an adverb. From the notes of the dictionary entry of Kolos:



Conjunction only, not to be confused for the adverb "where" as in "Where is Whiterun?".



Unfortunately, I don't know how to say "Where is ___?" with only canon vocabulary. Hopefully someone who has figured out a way will make a post here.

Thinking about Japanese, I sorta have an idea as to how one could express the concept, but it would sorta be context heavy, and I don?t know if a lot of speakers would be able to immediately know what you mean.



In Japanese, to ask “Where am I?” you would say ”koko wa doko(desuka)? or, literally “Here (is) where?” With that in mind, maybe one could ask ?Til los?” which would literally be “There is?” as in “There is (where)?? since ?til” translates to “there” strictly in terms of a location, but I could see that potentially leading to some confusion.



Probably not a real solution, but it just came to mind and I thought I?d suggest it. Best I could think off the top of my head, hah.



Edit: Sorry for the random question marks, the forums aren’t too great on mobile.

I might say "golt hi los?" "Ground\place you are?" Or maybe "golt hi los nau?" Groud\place you are on?"

There's always the direct literal fun goltiil wah zu'u, "tell your place to me".

Those are some great examples.

Even though "kolos los hi?" doesn't directly mean "Where are you?" in an interrogative sense (according to the official sources we know of), it does mean "Kolos hi los?" or "(About the topic "Where you are" ... ?) which can still infer the question you're looking for.

I would say, it is pretty easy. I love vo-, it's the best prefix ever invented. Til means there (declarative meaning), so votil means where (interrogative meaning). In an analogous manner we can transform tol (that) into votol (what). That might also be possible with daar/vodaar.

Thus I have two translations:

1. Votil los hi? (Where are you?)

2. Ko/Ahst votol golt los hi? (In/At what place are you?)



Ps. By the way, the dragons think very English. I can see that easily, because I am not English. There are many phrases and word by word translations, which do not work in other languages, like "keep at bay". So maybe votil and votol might also be used as relative pronouns for the English "where" and "what" are both relative and interrogative pronoun.

@Vokriid,



I really don't think that "where" and "what" are opposites of "there" and "that", which is what the prefix Vo- implies.



You can write the relative pronoun "what" as daar tol. Example: Zu'u hind wah piraak daar tol rok piraak (I wish to have what he has).

@Liis



I know that vo- implies the opposite and, yes, a question is the opposite of a statement. Consequently a questioning (interrogative) pronoun is the opposite of a stating (usual) pronoun.

By the way: I really don't think that we need a relative pronoun here.

@Vokriid,



The difference between "where" and "there" is that one has an antecedent in main clauses.



If you use "votil" as a relative pronoun as you suggested, then it's no longer obligated to be a part of a question rather than a statement, thus it's then not the opposite by your logic.

@Liis



I was not completely serious when I said that they could also be used as relative pronouns. I just meant that Dovahzul is such an English language with such an amount of word by word translations, which do not make any sense in other languages that one may also consider to use where and what as word by word translations. Anyway, it was just a PS and you are right: That does not work, if we will use international logic instead of English logic.

But I would still use them as interrogative pronouns. "He is there!" and "Where is he?" are two parts of the same context, which definitely belong together and complement one another. It is not even necessary to add or omit words of the sentence. Just exchange the words, change the syntax and the sentences are opposed.

But I concede that this is a more complex situation than black and white or high and low and even the word opposite itself is not defined very well. Additionally I couldn't give you any reason, which explains, why high and low are opposites, except that it is just true. The only definitions of opposite, which I could find (which do not try to replace the word by a synonym with a few featureless adjectives) is that an opposite of something is "on the other side" (either concrete or abstract). Although that is not very precise, it is still logical to say "opposite = opposed side". In my opinion an answer is on the other side of a question, but I guess that's, well, a matter of opinion.