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Talk like a Dothraki
[February 05, 2012]

Talk like a Dothraki


Feb 05, 2012 (Albuquerque Journal - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- How do you create a new language in two months? Ask David Peterson, creator of the Dothraki language for "Game of Thrones," HBO's adaptation of Santa Fe author George R.R. Martin's best-selling fantasy books.



He started with a passion for how language works. Then, he spent 14 hours a day, seven days a week, creating 85 percent of the grammar and 1,700 new words.

On Friday in Albuquerque, Peterson will share his experience creating the language spoken by Martin's nomadic warrior people.


His talk at the annual conference of the Southwest Texas Popular/American Culture Association should draw an eclectic audience of linguists and fantasy fans, says Ken Dvorak, secretarytreasurer for the association.

Peterson, 31, president of the nonprofit Language Creation Society, has created constructed languages, or "conlangs," since college.

"I just kind of fell in love with language in high school," he says in a telephone conversation from his home in Santa Ana, Calif.

So far, he's made about a dozen just for fun, but Dothraki is his first paid creation. HBO chose his proposal after a competitive process organized by the Language Creation Society.

After his first attempts, Peterson realized that thousands of people create languages. One of the bestknown is J.R.R. Tolkien, who created languages first, then characters to speak them, he says.

"Conlangs" come in many forms. Some, like Esperanto, a language created by a Polish physician in the 1880s, were made to ease communication between cultures. Others take an artificial constraint and craft a language around it. Others, like Peterson's languages, are created for artistic fun.

"They look like they could exist in our world, they just don't happen to," he says.

Honoring the author But with Dothraki, the pressure was on -- he had to do justice to Martin's work.

When he started, Peterson had a list of only about 30 Dothraki words, names, phrases and their context in the books. From that, he had to flesh out a whole language. He looked at each to analyze existing word structures.

"It was an interesting constraint," he says. "It was kind of like jumping into a chess game at move four. It was fun. It was a challenge." Once he generated a sound system for existing words, he looked at which sounds were missing. He noticed that in the books, no "u" was used as a vowel, only after "q." He ran with that. "I thought it would be a lot of fun to have a language with no "u" at all," he says.

After his work on grammar and vocabulary, the translations began. He translated scenes into Dothraki for Seasons 1 and 2 of "Game of Thrones" and helped with subtitles. He says he can't talk about any future HBO work.

One of his favorite words is "vezhven," meaning perfect. He created the word by adding a suffix to the Dothraki word he created for stallion. Perfect means stallion-like -- apt for the horse-loving Dothraki.

While creating Dothraki, Peterson did not speak with Martin, but they have since spoken several times. In his blog, Martin has said he is not a language person and that he uses a few words for flavor but mostly writes, "They were speaking Dothraki." On television that wouldn't work and a "world-class expert" like Peterson needed to flesh out the language.

"He's such a pleasant person," Peterson says, about Martin. "He's always been supportive." Fans also seem to approve -- several websites are devoted to learning Dothraki.

Peterson, who has bachelor's in English and Linguistics from UC Berkeley and a master's in linguistics from UC San Diego, knows Spanish, German, Arabic, Russian, Esperanto, French, Middle Egyptian and American Sign Language.

Dothraki has bits of grammar and syntax from Estonian, Arabic, Spanish and Russian, but it is not simply an amalgam, Peterson says.

A new standard? With this project, Peterson wanted to set a high standard for created language. In the past, languages created for television and movies have often resorted to simple or computer-generated words.

With Dothraki, he says, "I was trying to show what it is that language creators have been doing for years and what we're capable of." A Dothraki primer: "mahrazh" = man "chiori" = woman "lajak" = warrior "M'athchomaroon!" = Hello! "Fonas chek!" = Goodbye! "Hash yer dothrae chek?"= Are you doing well? "sek" = yes "vos" = no "vosecchi!" = no way! For more, see conlang. org or dothraki.com. 'Thinking Dothraki' A talk by David Peterson, creator of the Dothraki language for HBO's "Game of Thrones." Peterson will speak at the Southwest Texas Popular/American Culture Association's annual conference.

WHEN: 7-9 p.m. Friday. Questionand-answer session and showing of "Game of Thrones" Episode 6 to follow.

WHERE: Hyatt Regency Hotel and Conference Center, 330 Tijeras Ave NW.

HOW MUCH: $5. Proceeds go to the American Cancer Society. Limited seating, reservations requested. Contact Ken Dvorak at [email protected].

___ (c)2012 the Albuquerque Journal (Albuquerque, N.M.) Visit the Albuquerque Journal (Albuquerque, N.M.) at www.abqjournal.com Distributed by MCT Information Services

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