{"id":149422,"date":"2016-04-07T09:34:35","date_gmt":"2016-04-07T13:34:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=149422"},"modified":"2016-04-07T13:21:01","modified_gmt":"2016-04-07T17:21:01","slug":"david-peterson-create-a-new-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/david-peterson-create-a-new-language\/","title":{"rendered":"Q&A: The man who invented Dothraki"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\nEvent: David Peterson, language inventor<\/strong> \nNew Media Linguistics: \nDeveloping Languages for Game of Thrones<\/em> \nWednesday, April 13, 6pm \nHawkins-Carlson Room, Rush Rhees Library \nFree and open to the public<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
David Peterson is a linguist, author, and language inventor. While best known for creating the Dothraki and Valyrian languages for the HBO series Game of Thrones<\/em>, Peterson has developed languages for a number of films and television series, including Defiance<\/em>, The Shannara Chronicles<\/em>, The 100<\/em>, and Emerald City<\/em>.<\/p>\n
Peterson earned his BA in English and linguistics from the University of California, Berkeley, and his MA in linguistics from the University of California, San Diego.<\/p>\n
\u00a01) Some people study languages, but you go a step further by actually creating them. What\u2019s the attraction for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n
For me, the draw is the same as what drew me to sketching as a child and fiction as a teen. Language creation is an art, and the drive to do it is the same drive that led me to engage in visual art and writing over the years. Art is about expression, and language creation is artistic expression in the form of a language.<\/p>\n
2) You\u2019re best known for creating the Dothraki and Valyrian languages for the HBO series Game of Thrones<\/em>. What were your criteria for those languages?<\/strong><\/p>\n
In that case, the primary criterion was matching the aesthetic, grammar, and phonological character of the material in George R. R. Martin\u2019s books, on which the television series was based. Beyond that, the people I was creating the languages for were human beings, and so I needed to create a language that was befitting of a group of human beings\u2014that is, a language that appears in every way possible, to resemble a natural language spoken on Earth, irregularities and all.<\/p>\n
Peterson’s visit is sponsored by the Neilly Lecture Series, the Humanities Project, the River Campus Libraries, and the Sara Nainzadeh fund granted to Professor of English Sarah Higley, who coordinated the event to coincide with her class on “Magic Language.”<\/em><\/div>\n
3) How popular is language creation and who\u2019s practicing it?<\/strong><\/p>\n
While language creation is more popular than ever, it will likely always remain an art form that lies outside the mainstream. Engaging with language is a difficult task, as is creating a language. It takes a lot of time, a lot of effort, and a lot of skill. Those that excel at it are those who have devoted a serious portion of their free time to studying language in the abstract and to perfecting their art. Those who engage in language creation come from every corner of the globe and every age group and gender. Since it\u2019s still a rare practice, most language creators find each other online, as has been the case since the early \u201890s. Unlike then, there are communities everywhere using every social media platform and every internet-based medium. I imagine these will only grow and expand with time.<\/p>\n