How a single linguist built a complex language family for television
In short: While George R. R. Martin provided the seeds, the sprawling Valyrian language family is the work of David J. Peterson. From the prestige of High Valyary to the evolved dialects of Slaver's Bay, this is a masterclass in using linguistic evolution to build a believable fictional world.
The Valyrian languages began as mere fragments in the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, consisting of only a few phrases like "valar morghulis" (all men must die) and "dracarys" (dragonfire). When HBO began producing Game of Thrones, they selected conlanger David J. Peterson to expand these scraps into a functional linguistic system. Peterson's task was to create a hierarchy of languages: a prestigious, classical form and several descendant dialects that reflect centuries of natural phonetic drift.
High Valyrian functions much like Classical Latin in medieval Europe, serving as a language of nobility, literature, and education rather than daily street speech. It is a highly complex, inflected language featuring eight noun cases, four grammatical numbers—singular, plural, paucal, and collective—and four genders that are not based on biological sex, but rather on categories like solar, lunar, terrestrial, and aquatic. The language even utilizes macronized long vowels to distinguish meaning, a feature that is lost in its more 'bastardized' descendants.
To create the derivative languages, such as Astapori and Meereenese Valyrian, Peterson applied systematic sound changes to the parent tongue. For instance, Astapori Valyrian has lost its long vowels and underwent significant consonant shifts, such as the softening of [p, t, k] to [b, d, g]. While Astapori remains somewhat intelligible to a High Valyrian speaker, Meereenese Valyrian was intentionally designed to be much more divergent. This process mimics the real-world evolution of Vulgar Latin into the Romance languages, providing a sense of deep, lived-in history to the fictional continent of Essos.
Opens the Intellect+ feed with this card first. Swipe up for the next one.
Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Valyrian languages
To cite this card, link to https://intellectplus.co.uk/app/culture-valyrian-languages.
How we source, check and correct cards: Editorial standards.
General information, not professional advice. Spotted an error? Flag the card or see corrections and complaints.
Intellect Plus is a visual educational discovery platform for exploring fascinating facts and ideas. Brain Food, Not Brain Rot. What is Intellect Plus?
Related
More in Languages · More in Cultures · Latest · A–Z · All topics
