DAVID J. PETERSON: THE LANGUAGE OF “GAME OF THRONES”
No, they left that to me. It was partly because of the unique situation and how that job got started. Like, when I’ve worked on other shows, there has been back and forth. I’ve given them some samples and they’ve said, “Well, it sounds a little too this, a little too that.” So I go back and tweak it. In the case of “Game of Thrones,” and Dothraki in particular, there were a ton of people that were competing. And so we all just approached it like, “Oh, well, this is going to be my version.” And then it was just up to them to decide which one best matched their notion of what Dothraki should sound like. So for that reason, after I was selected, I just hit the ground running. PCC: Did you know early on that you might be creating other languages for the show? PETERSON: Oh, I suspected. Of course, at that time, only a pilot was guaranteed. We weren’t even sure if the show was going to go to series. [Laughs] But everybody figured it would. And I thought, “Well, if the show is going to be successful at all...” and since it was on HBO, HBO comes with that history behind it. So I had a good idea that it probably would be successful. Anyway, I figured if that happened, there was a high probability that I was going to get to do High Valyrian at some point. And I actually started, just on my own, sketching ideas for High Valyrian, way back in 2009 even. And then, for season three, I was actually given the go-ahead to do it. PCC: And were you then immediately thinking - this has to be something totally different from the Dothraki? PETERSON: Yeah. I mean, there are precedents for it. Even though there are a few Dothraki words in the books, even though there’s only like three High Valyrian words in the books, there are a ton of names. And names often give you an impression of what the language is supposed to sound like. And so the High Valyrian names that are in there - and there are so many - Aemon, Aerys, Daenerys, Jaehaerys, Baelor and so on - they give you an idea of what the language should sound like. And it was a sound that was very different from Dothraki. So I kind of aimed to make the language look as if these names came naturally from it. And the natural result was a language that sounded very different from Dothraki. PCC: Even as you’re creating it and you have all this in your head, was it a special thrill to hear the words you’ve invented being spoken by the actors? PETERSON: Oh, yeah. That was a fun experience. Dothraki was kind of a different thing, because there were so many different versions you were hearing, because two of the people that speak Dothraki the most are actually not native speakers - Daenerys and Jorah. And the first speaker you hear is a non-native speaker, that fellow Illyrio Mopatis. He just has a small role. So you hear all these versions of Dothraki before you get the actual Dothraki and hear like Drogo and Irri and Rakharo. So that was really, really interesting. Because like the first thing I was hearing, was like, “Oh, gosh, they’re making mistakes!” And I was like, ”No, they’re not making mistakes. They’re speaking incorrectly, in an appropriate way. That’s the way it’s supposed to sound.” And then, you know, Jason Momoa [Khal Drogo] was just incredible. Valyrian was a different experience for me, because I was really curious how Emilia [Emilia Clarke, who portrays Daenerys Targaryen] would do with it. She was really approaching Dothraki as, “I’m new to this language.” So she wasn’t concerned with getting it precisely right. And I think if you go back now, especially now that I’ve had a lot of time with this, and I go back and look at the scenes with Drogo and Daenerys, where they’re both speaking Dothraki, it’s actually strikingly different - Drogo’s native Dothraki and Daenerys’ non-native fluent Dothraki, and it’s really cool. Really cool. I like that. But yeah, I was curious what she would do with High Valyrian. And she got it. And it’s just totally amazing. Her delivery is just incredible. I absolutely adore it. PCC: At the outset, would they give you dialogue in English and then you would translate it? PETERSON: Yeah, I think that’s the way it’s worked for all the shows I’ve worked on. I get the English dialogue and they just tag the ones that are supposed to be translated. And I translate them. PCC: And do you record it for them, as well, so they know exactly how you intend it to be pronounced? PETERSON: Yeah, every single line. And it’s a wonderful world we live in, where everybody can just load up MP3s on their phone and listen to them whenever they want. PCC: It must be great for you to be part of this whole world that has been created through the show. PETERSON: Yeah. And it seems to keep getting bigger. And that’s really incredible. At the very beginning, I was thinking, “Well, maybe ‘Game of Thrones’ will be big enough that it will be kind of popular like “True Blood.’“ But I think it’s far surpassed that. Now, you think, wherever the show ends up, it’s going to be like a world and franchise that’s constantly referred to, like “Star Trek” or “Star Wars.” And that’s really exciting. PCC: Why do you think “Game of Thrones” has gone beyond just hit show status to become such a cultural phenomenon?
I’ve been wondering about that. I don’t know. I think part of it is just the fact that it’s the first type of show or idea like this where it’s a fantasy world that is filmed that has ultra-violence and lots of nudity and sexuality, which is something that a “Star Trek” or a “Star Wars” could never ever do. So this is really the first one of those franchises where we get to see that. It gives it - I don’t want to say shock value - but it makes it more immediately interesting to the casual fan. And then, in addition to that, just the fact that it’s really well written. These are based on books. These are George R.R. Martin’s stories. And really, the source material is just outstanding. The fact that the stories have been put into TV form and done very, very well, and made in such a way that’s more accessible, I think, than longer fantasy novels, that combined with the fact that the source material is so outstanding, all that combined is what has produced the phenomenon. PCC: Have you always been enthralled by the worlds of science-fiction and fantasy? PETERSON: More in films. I was a big fan of “Star Wars.” When I was very young, that was when “Return of the Jedi” came out. That was the biggest thing. And I was always a fan of “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” I was never really much of a reader of science-fiction/fantasy. But I’ve been coming to that a little bit of late. PCC: Were you curious, even at a young age, about the invented languages in projects like “Star Trek” and “Star Wars”? PETERSON: I was actually not. I didn’t get interested in language until late in high school. But I did notice, though, in “Return of the Jedi,” specifically, that there’s this bizarre scene at the beginning, where Leia is dressing up as a bounty hunter, like she’s going to sell Chewbacca to Jabba. And there’s this bizarre scene, where she says the same thing like three different times. And it means something different every time. I always thought that was weird. But I never gave it much thought beyond that. And I actually have no good answer for that - why I wasn’t more interested in language as a kid - but I just wasn’t. And I didn’t pay it that much attention, until the switch flipped in my junior year in high school. And I became fascinated. PCC: And that was the result of a nightmare? PETERSON: I don’t know if I’d call it a nightmare. It was just a real vivid dream, one of those ones where I woke straight up and I was very awake, which doesn’t usually happen. It takes me three hours to wake up, usually. I don’t know, I was just suddenly struck by it. It came out of the middle of nowhere. And I wanted to learn every language on the planet. PCC: What was your goal, when you first got into it and studied at college? PETERSON: Oh, when I first got in there, it was like, “Oh, wow, there are all these languages available, let’s see if I can take them all.” [Laughs] That was the goal. PCC: Did you plan to teach? PETERSON: Well, yes, but not languages. My goal, going to college, was to come back and teach English in high school. PCC: What’s the greatest satisfaction you get from your involvement in creating languages? PETERSON: Well, I’ll say this - when I started creating languages in college, I did it just for the sheer joy of it. And frankly, I love doing that now. I love expanding the languages, like I’ve been working with High Valyrian recently - just because. And I love the fact that the work that you do, that you put so much time and effort into is actually paid attention to by others, and appreciated as outstanding... because, as a language creator, it’s often that the work you put in gets overlooked. And there have been language creators that have been creating languages for years and decades. And there are some I know personally who have been creating languages since like the 60s. And some that died, who never really got the recognition that they deserved, because of the work that they put in and the care that went into their construction. So, for me, it’s outstanding that people pay attention to my work. So that’s good, but then the goal is, now I need to use this in order to bring more attention to language creation in general and the work that others have done. And I think we’re getting there. PCC: What are the most important aspects of language creation, outside of the entertainment field? PETERSON: Oh, I don’t know about important, but basically, it’s just an art form. Neither more nor less than that. Or at least for the majority of people that create languages. Would it be important to paint? I don’t how important painting is. But it’s an art form. It’s there. It exists. Some people devote a lot of their lives to it. And sometimes the work that they produce really evokes strong emotions in those that view them. Any art form is pretty much the same in that regard. And I think language creation is not different. PCC: Do you think, when viewers and readers become fascinated with your invented languages, it may give them a heightened interest and appreciation for our array of real world languages? PETERSON: I certainly hope so. And again, I think that my goal or idea there is small, but profound, which is, especially in America, there is a profound not just ignorance, but lack of interest in language, in general - any language. And an almost distrust of languages other than English. And that is based on absolutely nothing. It’s just prejudice and ignorance. And so, if somebody will find one of the languages in the show interesting and think that’s really cool, it’s a little bit of a gateway. If a language other than English can be interesting, whatever it is, then hopefully they just go to the next step and say, “Well, maybe language in general can be interesting. And it’s not so bad if somebody down the street speaks Vietnamese. Actually, that could be pretty cool.” PCC: I read that you’ve found a way of working your wife’s name, Erin, into each language you construct [In Dothraki, it means “good, kind.”] Is that true? PETERSON: Oh, yeah. Provided the language has no connection to our real world, then you can draw on whatever references you want. So I always work her name in. She has words in Dothraki and Valyrian and all the “Defiance” languages. But like she doesn’t have a word in the new language I did for CW’s “100,” because it’s basically an evolved form of English, and it’s set in our world. So it’s like, “Nah, that wouldn’t make much sense.” [Laughs] There’s still a connection. PCC: Do you and your wife converse in your invented languages? PETERSON: Nah, she picks up a word or phrase here and there from a language. She’s also a linguist. She has the same educational background as I do. But I was the type of linguist who was really interested in learning languages. She was the type of linguist who was really interested in the science behind it. So it’s like she was always interested in language in the abstract. She was never one to go to language classes, when she didn’t have to. PCC: Do you have friends or peers that you can go back and forth with, in some of these languages? PETERSON: Well, I’ll tell you, one of my good friends, Doug Ball, he is a language creator. He’s also a linguist at Truman State University. He’s a fantastic language creator. And I would actually bounce ideas back and forth off of him, when I was building up Dothraki, when I was building up Valyrian. And, of course, my languages before that, that were just my own, I would seek his input and he would give me extremely useful advice. But language creators, we really don’t spend time learning each other’s languages. Instead we focus on the structure and say, “Oh, this is the choice that you made here for how to do verb conjugation. You might consider doing this. It’s similar to this other constructed language that somebody else did.” Or “Here’s some data that you might consider.” That’s kind of what we do. PCC: Have you gone back and looked at those invented languages in “Star Trek” and “Star Wars,” that you ignored during childhood? PETERSON: Oh, yeah. They did next to nothing. They just made it up on the spot. For “Star Trek,” Mark Okrand did create a Klingon language. But it’s not something that is - I don’t want to say sophisticated - but it’s not something that a seasoned language creator would produce. But it is a full language that works. But like for the “Star Wars” movies, they literally just made up stuff on the spot. PCC: in general, for you, what are the most fun and most challenging aspects of creating a language? PETERSON: The most challenging aspect is translation, actually. That’s going to sound weird. I love the creation part of it, creating the grammar. I love creating words and working on the lexicon. But doing that actual translation is the toughest part. It’s kind of a different thing. It’s like the difference between learning about Spanish versus actually being asked to translate something into Spanish. It’s a different set of skills. That’s always the toughest part. When you’re translating, you have to make sure that everything is grammatically correct. That’s easier to do when you’re fluent in the language. And I’m not actually fluent in any of these languages. So it can be difficult, especially with the verbs in High Valyrian. Good Lord! I have to go back and think, “Which tense is this?” It’s a pain in the butt [laughs]. I wish I was truly fluent in these languages. It would make it a lot easier. The fun part is just doing what I used to do on my own, going through and creating words, working on the grammar, creating new ideas. That and also recording, pronouncing stuff. That’s fun, depending on the language. I have a lot of fun with certain of them. Like Valyrian is always fun to record. PCC: Is it sometimes confusing, working on so many different languages for all these different projects? PETERSON: It’s actually not too difficult to switch among them, because you have different parts of your brain devoted to different languages. PCC: You’ve been working on so many series and movies, do the horizons seem limitless for you? Or is this the result of a current, temporary craze for sci-fi and fantasy? PETERSON: Well, we’re definitely at the crest of the wave here. So it’s going to subside at some point in time. But even so, even if it were to keep becoming more and more successful, there are really only so many projects where there’s a call for a created language. It’s not like being a costumer. Every production needs a costume. Not every show needs a created language. So the possibilities are quite limited. But at the moment, this is definitely the golden age for language creation. PCC: What are you working on next? PETERSON: I have a book coming out next year called, “The Art of Language Invention.” “Living Language Dothraki,” is really like a teacher’s help manual, for if you want to learn to learn Dothraki. “The Art of Language Invention” is going to be a simplified how-to, giving you an idea about how to create a language. It will also provide some behind-the-scenes details on the specific work I’ve done, in this case, focusing more on “Defiance” than “Game of Thrones.” PCC: So that should spark increased interest in the field, generally. PETERSON: That’s the hope. For more information, visit www.dothraki.com. |
