Valyrian | |
---|---|
Created by | David J. Peterson, George R. R. Martin |
Date | From 2012 |
Setting and usage |
|
Purpose | |
Sources | A priori language |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | – |
Glottolog | None |
IETF | art-x-valyrian |
The Valyrian languages are a fictional language family in the A Song of Ice and Fire series of fantasy novels by George R. R. Martin, and in their television adaptation Game of Thrones and later House of the Dragon .
In the novels, High Valyrian and its descendant languages are often mentioned but not developed beyond a few words. For the TV series, language creator David J. Peterson created the High Valyrian language, as well as the derivative languages Astapori and Meereenese Valyrian, based on fragments from the novels. [1] Valyrian and Dothraki have been described as "the most convincing fictional tongues since Elvish". [2]
To create the Dothraki and Valyrian languages to be spoken in Game of Thrones , HBO selected the language creator David J. Peterson through a competition among conlangers. The producers gave Peterson a largely free hand in developing the languages, as, according to Peterson, George R. R. Martin himself was not very interested in the linguistic aspect of his works. [3] The already published novels include only a few words of High Valyrian, including valar morghulis ("all men must die"), valar dohaeris ("all men must serve") and dracarys ("dragonfire"). For the forthcoming novel The Winds of Winter , Peterson has supplied Martin with additional Valyrian translations. [3]
Peterson commented that he considered Martin's choice of dracarys unfortunate because of its (presumably intended) similarity to the Latin word for dragon, draco. Because the Latin language does not exist in the fictional world of A Song of Ice and Fire, Peterson chose to treat the similarity as coincidental and made dracarys an independent lexeme; [4] his High Valyrian term for dragon is zaldrīzes. The phrases valar morghulis and valar dohaeris, on the other hand, became the foundation of the language's conjugation system. [3] Another word, trēsy, meaning "son", was coined in honour of Peterson's 3000th Twitter follower. [5]
At the start of June 2013, there were 667 High Valyrian words. [6]
Peterson expanded the languages for the successor series House of the Dragon . [7]
Since 2019, Peterson has been documenting the Valyrian languages (along with his other conlangs) in a Wiktionary-style repository on the website The Languages of David J. Peterson, with assistance from curators. [8] [9]
Nyke Daenerys Jelmāzmo hen Targārio Lentrot, hen Valyrio Uēpo ānogār iksan. Valyrio muño ēngos ñuhys issa.
"I am Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen, of the blood of Old Valyria. Valyrian is my mother tongue."
In the world of A Song of Ice and Fire, High Valyrian occupies a cultural niche similar to that of Classical Latin in medieval Europe. [3] The novels describe it as no longer being used as a language of everyday communication, but rather as a language of learning and education among the nobility of Essos and Westeros, with much literature and song composed in Valyrian.
Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m ⟨m⟩ | n ⟨n⟩ | ɲ ⟨ñ⟩ | |||||||||
Plosive | p ⟨p⟩ | b ⟨b⟩ | t ⟨t⟩ | d ⟨d⟩ | dʒ ~ ʒ ~ j ⟨j⟩ | k ⟨k⟩ | ɡ ⟨g⟩ | q ⟨q⟩ | ||||
Fricative | v ~ w ⟨v⟩ | s ⟨s⟩ | z ⟨z⟩ | ɣ ~ ʁ ⟨gh⟩ | h ⟨h⟩ | |||||||
Approximant | ||||||||||||
Trill | r̥ ⟨rh⟩ | r ⟨r⟩ | ||||||||||
Lateral | l ⟨l⟩ | ʎ ⟨lj⟩ |
Notes: [12]
Front | Central | Back | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Close / High | short | i ⟨i⟩ | y ⟨y⟩ | u ⟨u⟩ | |
long | iː ⟨ī⟩ | yː ⟨ȳ⟩ | uː ⟨ū⟩ | ||
Mid | short | e ⟨e⟩ | o ⟨o⟩ | ||
long | eː ⟨ē⟩ | oː ⟨ō⟩ | |||
Open / Low | short | a ⟨a⟩ | |||
long | aː ⟨ā⟩ |
Vowels with a macron over them (ī, ȳ, ū, ē, ō and ā) are long, held for twice as long as short vowels. Some words are distinguished simply by their vowel length in High Valyrian.
The rounded vowels ⟨ȳ⟩ and ⟨y⟩ lost their rounding in the descendant languages. Accordingly, when High Valyrian is used non-natively as prestige language, they are pronounced as unrounded front vowels /iː,i/. While Daenerys Targaryen's first name may generally be pronounced [də.ˈnɛː.ɹɪs] by characters in Game of Thrones , in High Valyrian it would have been closer to [ˈdae.ne.ɾys], with a diphthong in the first syllable and a rounded vowel in the last.
Contrastive vowel length has also been lost in some derived languages; in season 3 of Game of Thrones, Astapori Valyrian is heard, in which long vowels are pronounced exactly like short vowels. [12]
Syllable stress is penultimate unless the penultimate syllable is light and the antepenultimate syllable is heavy, in which case stress is on the antepenultimate. [14] As a highly inflected language, word order is flexible (a feature lost in derived languages), [12] but sentences with relative clauses are head-final. [10]
There are four grammatical numbers in High Valyrian—singular, plural, paucal and collective. For example:
The collective can itself be modified by number as a new noun declension, for example:
azantys
NOM.SG
"knight, soldier"
→
azantyr
NOM.COL
"army"
Nouns have eight cases—nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, locative, instrumental, comitative and vocative, though the instrumental and comitative are not distinguished in all declensions, [16] nor are the genitive, dative and locative always distinguished in the plural. [5] Both prepositions and postpositions are used to form other cases; for example, the ablative is formed with the preposition hen + the locative (e.g. hen lentot, "from a house") while the superessive is formed with the postposition bē following the genitive (e.g. lento bē, "on top of a house"). [18]
There are four grammatical genders, which do not align with biological sex. [19] The Valyrian names for the genders are: [20]
Animate and individuatable nouns are generally in the lunar or solar classes, while other nouns are generally classified as terrestrial or aquatic. The names of the classes derive from the nouns themselves, which are prototypical members of each gender. [20] Peterson describes Valyrian gender as being inherent but more predictable from phonology than gender in French, with some of the derivational properties of the noun classes of Bantu languages. [20] As a result of the phonological predictability, many words for humans (which tend to end -a or -ys) are lunar or solar; many foods and plants (often ending -on) are terrestrial. [21]
According to Peterson, "what defines declension classes in High Valyrian" can be divined by paying "close attention to the singular and plural numbers" and noting "where cases are conflated and where they aren't". [22]
Verbs conjugate for seven tenses (present, aorist, future, imperfect, perfect, pluperfect and past habitual), two voices (active and passive) and three moods (indicative, subjunctive and imperative). Tenses in High Valyrian often convey information about both time and aspect. [23]
Nouns have four grammatical numbers, but verb conjugations have only been described in the singular and the plural; [22] paucals trigger plural agreement, and collectives trigger singular agreement. [24]
Adjectives have three declension classes. [25] Like verbs, adjectives only have two number forms—a singular, which is also used for the collective, and a plural, also used for paucal numbers. [25] Adjectives may be both prepositive (e.g. "the white shoe") or post-positive (e.g. "the body politic"); when prepositive some further rules apply. [25]
Several forms of elision and consonant assimilation occur with prepositive adjectives:
Class I adjectives decline differently for each of the four noun classes. [25] Adjective classes II and III both conflate rather more forms, failing to distinguish between solar and lunar nouns and failing to distinguish between terrestrial and aquatic nouns. [25]
On October 31, 2016, a course in High Valyrian for English speakers began to be constructed in the Duolingo Language Incubator. David J. Peterson is one of the contributors to the course. [26] [27] The beta version was released on July 12, 2017. [26] [27] In April 2019, the course was updated in anticipation of Game of Thrones ' eighth and final season. [28] As a part of this update, Peterson created audio for the course's lessons and exercises.[ citation needed ]
In the world of the novel and TV series, the Nine Free Cities of Essos speak locally evolved variants of Valyrian known as Bastard Valyrian, described by the character Tyrion in A Dance with Dragons as "not so much a dialect as nine dialects on the way to becoming separate tongues". [29]
Peterson described the relationship between High Valyrian and Bastard Valyrian as being similar to that between Classical Latin and the Romance languages evolved from Vulgar Latin, or more accurately between Classical Arabic and the modern varieties of Arabic, in that High Valyrian is intelligible, with some difficulty, to a speaker of a local Essosi language. [10]
The slave cities of Slaver's Bay are lands of the ancient Ghiscari Empire that was conquered and annexed by Valyria, so they speak related languages descended from High Valyrian with the substrate of the local Ghiscari languages. [30] Peterson noted that with regard to the vocabulary of the derived languages, "If it’s got a 'j' in an odd place, it’s probably Ghiscari in origin." [31]
Si kizy vasko v’uvar ez zya gundja yn hilas.
"And this because I like the curve of her ass."
The first derivative Valyrian language to be featured in the series was Astapori Valyrian, a variety from the city of Astapor in Slaver's Bay. It appeared in the third-season premiere episode "Valar Dohaeris". Peterson created the Astapori dialogue by first writing the text in High Valyrian, then applying a series of regular grammar and sound changes to simulate the changes in natural languages over a long period of time. [34]
For example, Astapori Valyrian has lost all long vowels (designated with a macron) and most diphthongs. [12] Between vowels, [b, d, g] have become [v, ð, ɣ]; subsequently, [p, t, k] have become [b, d, g] in the same environment. [35] As a result, an "Unsullied" is rendered as Dovaogēdy[do.vao.ˈɡeː.dy] in High Valyrian, but as Dovoghedhy[do.vo.ˈɣe.ði] in Astapori. [12]
Similarly, Astapori Valyrian has lost the case system of High Valyrian, so the word order is more reliably subject–verb–object (SVO) and the four genders of High Valyrian have been reduced to two, with three definite articles: ji[ˈʒi] (animate singular, derived from High Valyrian ziry[ˈzi.ry] "him/her (accusative)"), vi[ˈvi] (inanimate singular, derived from High Valyrian ūī[ˈuː.iː] "it (accusative)"), and po[ˈpo] (plural, derived from High Valyrian pōnte[ˈpoːn.te] "them (accusative)"). [12] [36] There is also an indefinite article, me[ˈme], derived from High Valyrian mēre[ˈmeː.re] ("one"). [36] Word stress is less predictable than in High Valyrian, but commands are stressed word-finally (for example: ivetrá). [37]
Ev shka moz avrelya fej wal thosh? Pa wal yel wazghesh shing pa nesh esh yelwa mish she yel lerch ej rovnya sha nofel?
"You want to drink wine with these men? The men who tore us from our mothers’ arms and sold us at auction, like cattle?"
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (May 2017) |
Meereenese Valyrian appears in Seasons 4 and 6 of Game of Thrones. [38]
Like Astapori Valyrian, it lacked long vowels as well as the sound /y/. [40] However, its phonology departs considerably more from High Valyrian. This decision was a response to the request that it not be mutually intelligible with High Valyrian, unlike Astapori Valyrian, which is. For example, the word "Unsullied": [41]
Peterson did not create a High Valyrian writing system for Game of Thrones , but he commented that he "was thinking something more like Egyptian's system of hieroglyphs—not in style, necessarily, but in their functionality. Egyptians had an alphabet, of sorts, a couple of phonetically based systems, and a logography all layered on top of one another." [42] In the third season's episode "The Bear and the Maiden Fair", Talisa is seen writing a Valyrian letter in the Latin alphabet, because according to Peterson, "it didn't seem worthwhile to create an entire writing system for what ultimately is kind of a throwaway shot". [43]
A writing system was eventually created for House of the Dragon . It is a mixed script, consisting of three types of glyphs: [44]
High Valyrian was featured in detail in Game of Thrones only from season 3 onwards, spoken mostly by Daenerys Targaryen (played by Emilia Clarke) on occasions with her scribe Missandei (played by Nathalie Emmanuel) and lieutenant Grey Worm (played by Jacob Anderson). The language has more prominence in the prequel House of the Dragon , mainly between the lead character Rhaenyra Targaryen (played by Milly Alcock as teenager and Emma D'Arcy as adult) and her uncle Daemon Targaryen (played by Matt Smith).
Emma D'Arcy, who played the adult Rhaenyra in House of the Dragon, reports enjoying learning it, saying, "I actually really enjoyed the process. It's like a fully functioning language — it's fully operational and so it's really gratifying to unpick." [45] Their co-star Matt Smith, who played Daemon, initially found it daunting, saying, "I had pages of it. Reams. At first, I dreaded it. But when I got to it, I quite enjoyed learning it and quite enjoyed performing it." [45]
In grammar, the vocative case is a grammatical case which is used for a noun that identifies a person being addressed or occasionally for the noun modifiers of that noun. A vocative expression is an expression of direct address by which the identity of the party spoken to is set forth expressly within a sentence. For example, in the sentence "I don't know, John," John is a vocative expression that indicates the party being addressed, as opposed to the sentence "I don't know John", in which "John" is the direct object of the verb "know".
The Finnish language is spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns elsewhere. Unlike the Indo-European languages spoken in neighbouring countries, such as Swedish and Norwegian, which are North Germanic languages, or Russian, which is a Slavic language, Finnish is a Uralic language of the Finnic languages group. Typologically, Finnish is agglutinative. As in some other Uralic languages, Finnish has vowel harmony, and like other Finnic languages, it has consonant gradation.
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Someone who engages in this study is called a linguist. See also the Outline of linguistics, the List of phonetics topics, the List of linguists, and the List of cognitive science topics. Articles related to linguistics include:
Oromo, historically also called Galla, which is regarded by the Oromo as pejorative, is an Afroasiatic language that belongs to the Cushitic branch. It is native to the Ethiopian state of Oromia and northern Kenya and is spoken predominantly by the Oromo people and neighboring ethnic groups in the Horn of Africa. It is used as a lingua franca particularly in the Oromia Region and northeastern Kenya.
Southern or South Sámi is the southwesternmost of the Sámi languages, and is spoken in Norway and Sweden. It is an endangered language. The strongholds of Southern Sámi in Norway are Aarborten Municipality (Hattfjelldal) in Nordlaante County (Nordland) and also in Raarvihken Municipality (Røyrvik), Snåasen Municipality (Snåsa), and Rossen Municipality (Røros), all of which are in Trööndelage County (Trøndelag). Out of an ethnic population of approximately 2000, only about 500 still speak the language fluently. Southern Sámi belongs to the Saamic group within the Uralic language family.
Alyutor or Alutor is a language of Russia that belongs to the Chukotkan branch of the Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages, by the Alyutors. It is moribund, as only 25 speakers were reported in the 2010 Russian census.
The Elgeyo language, or Kalenjin proper, are a dialect cluster of the Kalenjin branch of the Nilotic language family.
Eastern Pomo, also known as Clear Lake Pomo, is a nearly extinct Pomoan language spoken around Clear Lake in Lake County, California by one of the Pomo peoples.
In the Latvian language, nouns, adjectives, pronouns and numerals are inflected in six declensions. There are seven cases:
Lithuanian has a declension system that is similar to declension systems in ancient Indo-European languages, such as Sanskrit, Latin or Ancient Greek. It is one of the most complicated declension systems among modern Indo-European and modern European languages.
Brokpa is a Tibetic language spoken by around 5,000 people. It is spoken by descendants of pastoral yakherd communities.
Mekéns (Mekem), or Amniapé, is a nearly extinct Tupian language of the state of Rondônia, in the Amazon region of Brazil.
Nuaulu is a language indigenous to the island of Seram Island in Indonesia, and it is spoken by the Nuaulu people. The language is split into two dialects, a northern and a southern dialect, between which there a communication barrier. The dialect of Nuaulu referred to on this page is the southern dialect, as described in Bolton 1991.
"Valar Dohaeris" is the third season premiere episode of the HBO fantasy television series Game of Thrones. Written by executive producers David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, and directed by Daniel Minahan, it aired on March 31, 2013.
"And Now His Watch Is Ended" is the fourth episode of the third season of HBO's fantasy television series Game of Thrones, and the 24th episode of the series. It was written by showrunners and executive producers David Benioff and D. B. Weiss and directed by Alex Graves, his directorial debut for the series. The episode's title comes from a chant made by the Night's Watch at the funeral of a fallen brother while at Craster's Keep.
David Joshua Peterson is an American language creator. He came to prominence after creating the Dothraki and Valyrian languages for the television series Game of Thrones. He has subsequently worked on a number of other projects, including the films Dune and Dune: Part Two, for which he created the Chakobsa language. He has written a book on language construction entitled The Art of Language Invention.
Daenerys Targaryen is a fictional character in the series of epic fantasy novels A Song of Ice and Fire by American author George R. R. Martin. She is a prominent point-of-view character, and is one of the series' most popular characters. The New York Times cites her as one of the author's finest creations.
The Dothraki language is a constructed fictional language in George R. R. Martin's fantasy novel series A Song of Ice and Fire and its television adaptation Game of Thrones. It is spoken by the Dothraki, a nomadic people in the series's fictional world. The language was developed for the TV series by the language creator David J. Peterson, working off the Dothraki words and phrases in Martin's novels.
Daario Naharis is a fictional character in the A Song of Ice and Fire series of fantasy novels by American author George R. R. Martin and its television adaptation Game of Thrones.
This article describes the grammar of the Old Irish language. The grammar of the language has been described with exhaustive detail by various authors, including Thurneysen, Binchy and Bergin, McCone, O'Connell, Stifter, among many others.