We’ve got personal tips from the languages creator, David J Peterson, on how to speak High Valyrian.
Game of Thrones is at last back on TV for its eighth and final season.
Incase you’ve been hiding under a rock for the last eight years, all you need to know is that this medieval-fantasy epic is based on George R.R. Martin’s best-selling book series A Song of Ice and Fire. It follows the stories of two powerful families fighting for control of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros.
Filming locations included Northern Ireland, Malta, Croatia and Spain. They offered ample opportunities for the cast and crew to practise different languages – including, of course, High Valyrian, the fictional language and native tongue of Westeros.
Created by academic linguist David J Peterson, High Valyrian and its sister language, Dothraki, are based on word fragments in the novels and described by The Economist as ‘the most convincing fictional tongues since Elvish’.
Let’s learn how to speak High Valyrian
Arguably it’s easier than Klingon, another fictional and formally recognised language that Voquent offers as part of its genuine and authentic multilingual voice over services.
Whether you’re an accomplished linguist, an indulgent GoT fan having some fun, or a commissioned voice actor preparing for a dubbing job, where does one start and what are the techniques a voice artist would need to adopt to speak Valyrian well?
What better way to find out than to ask the creator of High Valyrian himself for some hints and tips?
David J Peterson is the movie world’s go-to language creator and writer of constructed languages (‘conlangs’ for those in the know; think Esperanto or Klingon), has also created languages for Syfy’s Defiance, Netflix’s Bright, NBC’s Emerald City and Marvel’s Thor: The Dark World.
We spoke to David for some advice, he commented, “An actor doesn’t actually have to learn the language to pronounce it.
Pronouncing High Valyrian isn’t especially difficult. I think the rhythm makes sense, and you can hear it if you listen to Emilia Clarke pronouncing it on Game of Thrones.
It can be tricky to learn to trill one’s r’s, and especially to learn to do it everywhere – unlike a language like Spanish, where the distribution of alveolar trills (rolling your Rs) is either predictable or infrequent. All instances of ‘r’ are trilled in High Valyrian, when spoken properly.
I haven’t had a lot of luck teaching others to do an alveolar trill, unlike many other non-English sounds, so this may prove quite challenging. Otherwise, it shouldn’t be too bad.”
Any other tips?
David goes on to explain that the other odd sounds are somewhat rare – like a ‘voiced velar fricative’ (constricting airflow at the back of the tongue) and a ‘voiceless uvular stop’ (tongue touches the uvula, not the soft palate) – but, he says, these need to be practiced.
“You need to practice trilling, try [q] (the International Phonetic Alphabet symbol for a voiceless uvular stop) so it doesn’t trip one up. Practice lengthening vowels in places where they’re not usually lengthened. It takes practice to get just the right rhythm.”
Fictional languages are a subset of constructed languages, developed to give credibility to the fictional worlds they’re associated with, as with Elvish in Tolkein’s The Lord of the Rings, one of the most famous. They don’t usually have a large vocabulary and rarely contain more words or grammar than is necessary.
So how do you go about learning High Valyrian?
Of course, in recent years there are websites and apps springing up all over the place to help you learn High Valyrian in as little as five minutes a day. One of the most popular is Duolingo – to which David is a major contributor. The site offers more than 2,000 words in the official High Valyrian vocabulary.
So does he have a favourite?
“I don’t have favourite words. When I create a language, I enjoy creating every word, so when I go back through my lexicon, I remember what it was like to create that word, and the joy I felt. It’s like looking through photographs. I don’t have any special attachment to any particular word: I’m attached to all of them.”
So now there’s really no excuse not to expand your repertoire with some High Valyrian. Once you’ve perfected it, you can upload the demo to your Voquent profile to show off your skills!
We’ve created a page dedicated to High Valyrian voice actors to give everyone an opportunity to stand out to creators of Game of Thrones content for games, animations and more.
High Valyrian Words and Phrases for you to take away:
In the meantime, here’s a useful list of common phrases to get you started:
Skoriot ñuhyz zaldrīzesse ilzi? – Where are my dragons?
Bantis zōbrie issa se ossȳngnoti lēdys – The night is dark and full of terrors.
Tolī rhūqo lōtinti, kostilus – More pigeon pie, please.
Daoruni gīmī, Ionos Sōnaro – You know nothing, Jon Snow.
Ok, these phrases are probably not that helpful every day, but cool nonetheless! Jokes aside, below we have compiled a shortlist of 10 phrases and words that might come in a bit more handy in everyday life.
10 Everyday Phrases and Words in High Valyrian
For pronunciation guidance, listen to David’s samples here.
Kessa/Issa – Yes. Note from David: “Kessa is used in future contexts; issa is used otherwise.”
Daor – No.
Rytsas – Hello.
Geros ilas – Goodbye.
Kostilus se Kirimvose – Please and Thank you.
Avy jorrāelan – I love you.
Sīkudi nopāzmi! – Seven hells! (Who doesn’t love expressing their anger in another language?)
[Name] brōziks – I am called [Name], Ñuha brōzi [name] issa = My name is [your name].
Sȳz iksan, kirimvose – I am good, thank you.
Biarvose – You’re welcome
Listen to High Valyrian Voice Actors
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