How to Create a Language: Dothraki Inventor Explains | WIRED
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- Опубликовано: 4 авг 2024
- David J. Peterson, the language creator for HBO's Game of Thrones, explains how to go about creating a fictional language. David breaks down how he constructed the Dothraki and Valyrian languages, and shows us what you need to think about when creating a language of your own.
Read about Game of Thrones on WIRED.com:
Calculating the Ecological Impact of Game of Thrones' Dragons
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What I Learned by Binge-Watching Game of Thrones Backward
www.wired.com/story/watching-...
Game of Thrones Recap: The Endings We Choose to Believe
www.wired.com/story/game-of-t...
David J Peterson created Duolingo's High Valyrian course which you can find here:
www.duolingo.com/course/hv/en...
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How to Create a Language: Dothraki Inventor Explains | WIRED - Развлечения
Meanwhile the guy making languages for guardians of the galaxy. " I am groot".
lmfao
Its purely tonal language
@@SubKoopa name one tonal language limited to one word.
@@kerovibe Game Theory did a video about this. There's a language with no words they posed as an example actially. It's made up of whistles.
@@kerovibe I posted that as a joke but sure lets get upset over a fake alien tree language
I have an applied linguistics exam in 5 days. watching this doesn’t feel like procrastinating
@El Vis i do too. thanks!
Sociolinguistics in 2 days for me :D
No not at all 👌😂
This is what I tell myself when I have a gynecology exam coming up and I'm stuck in a Pornhub™ loop.
Psicolinguistics next week. Good Luck!!!
Met this guy at a convention once, and basically learned he created at least two languages that never even got used. And one of them was for the White Walkers.
👀
they supposedly sound like cracking ice? did you ask?
I hope that David make the dothraki on duolingo. I can't believe that you can learn valyrian on duolingo is so amazing.
Ceci N OMG, you can learn valyrian on duolingo??!!! 😱
He did! Both Dothraki and High Valyrian courses on Duolingo were created and developed by him.
@@marissaurias5116 because it's only for English-speaking people
@@marissaurias5116 you were right, I've thought that I've seen it
Hey ok here’s a shock, some people might learn it for fun.
The only Dothraki language i know is:
_Alululululululu_
And A alululululululu to you to sir. Lets meet later at high tea.
Stop commenting everywhere
Lol
Lmao
He is totally right, most Western European can't pull off tone languages. It's awful how American actors speak Mandarin, even Chinese-Americans do it wrong...
Someone needs to teach the Dothraki how to say “I’m outta here this fight ain’t for me chief”. That’s my take
Dude where were you during the battle of winterfell
@@noonecares616 😂😂😂😂😂
@@anastasiyakozyrev9226 they hyped this dude for seven seasons and during the battle was nowhere to be found
@@noonecares616 True
@@anastasiyakozyrev9226 i was soo disappointed tbh
Some good conlang and linguistics channels for those that are interested:
- Artifexian
- Biblaridion
- Nativlang
- Langfocus
- jan Misali
- Agma Schwa
- Colin Gorrie
- Worldbuilding Notes
- Nakari Speardane
- Xidnaf
- Polymathy
- Simon Roper
- K Klein
- Dr. Geoff Lindsey
David Peterson also has his own channel, as well as the LangTime Studios channel; where he livestreams every Thursday creating conlangs with fellow conlanger Jessie Sams.
James Girven Xidnaf isn’t terrible, but saying he’s good is a stretch.
Thank you! I didn't know few of them. checking out soon
@@RedHair651 good as in a helpful resource
@@RedHair651 why?
Artificial is the best. He also teach how to create worlds
Wired definitely needs another channel just devoted to linguistics lol
ZHL242 check out langfocus and xifmod
yuh didnt expect to see my favorite transcription boi here
eskipotato same 😂
@@eskipotato he has his own channel too
Bring in Erik Singer. Please.
"and the object is the woman"
just like the Dothraki
lol
I was actively looking for this comment
Same
@@jamedlamed3982 for the dothraki, kind of
@@farahiccol3424 i dont know a single thing about got
Anyone notice how his thumbs look like normal fingers?
dude WHAAAAAAT
Cyrus Dastoor lmao he just has long, skinny thumbs. Good eye though.
latenitebored
NO WAY...he DEFINITELY has something wrong with his thumbs especially the left one. I think the position of the actual thumb is angled weird....like an ape
cannot unsee
Whoaaaaa wtffff
Butterfly in Afrikaans (my first language) is "skoenlapper", which directly translates to "shoe flapper".
bruuuuuuuuh
Okay , but why ? 😭
Beautiful
kumo narazi I mean, why is our butter flying?
@@holdenfunk7411 dude idk why you people do that . I speak Arabic & we just have a name for it like any other thing .
This guy spent twice the amount of time creating languages used in maybe a couple hundred lines of dialogue, than did Weiss and Benioff creating the whole of season 6.
season 8
And it shows.
How to say "lol you thought we were all gone pfft" in Dothraki?
Yer dirge kisha evoon gwe....
There you go buddy
@@noonecares616 w8 for real? Can people actually speak the language, that must be an awesome party trick lmao
Joao Sr1l -_- It’s not, people just think you’re weird. Anha vos vindelat dranekh maisi yeri, zhey ifaki.
@@Jacob-zc3ks yo for real i think thats awesome, that mustve taken some dedication, kudos to you, although i have no idea what u just said
You know there is like a dictionary thing for dothraki right
Even after watching I still dont get it how language is made
It's a guide to make a cookie cutter, then when he wants to make a word to fit the situation, he puts it into his table and tests out the way it interacts with the surrounding lexicon
Chenza at court, the court of silence
Darmok and Jalad on the ocean
Darmok on the ocean
Kadir beneath Mo Moteh
Kira at Bashi
Kiteo, his eyes closed
Rai and Jiri at Lungha
Shaka, when the walls fell
Sokath, his eyes uncovered/opened
Temba, at rest
you need to understand the rules of your own language first ( tenses, cases, vocabulary, grammar, etc...). Otherwise its like trying to write a song without even knowing what chords and rhythms are.
@@petrino Picard and Dathon at El-Adrel
@Eric Beller You okay there? Here, let me unscramble that for you.
"This is more about syntax and grammar rather than philosophical considerations except in specific examples."
"My largest language, Dothraki, has 4,000 words"
And yet there's no word for "thank you"
I love it 🤣
So not only did he create a made-up, realistic language, he injected it with made-up, realistic cultural context. Pretty impressive if you ask me.
English has, like, 100,000 words
@@LeReubzRic Yes, but most of that is jargon and very obscure stuff. 4000 words is around 95 percent of word we actually use day to day
@@tristensanz7058 ok
Here you go guys ♥
1. What is the point?
2. Is it written, spoken, or signed?
3. Sounds.
A. Consonants and Vowels
B. Syllables
C. Stress and Intonation
• Stress Language: English (You have to stress the word by the letters).
• Tone Language: Chinese (The actual pitch that you speak the Vallot is important).
4. Grammer.
- Adjectives
- Adverbs (thee main types)
* Manner, Time, Place
- Prepositions, Postpostitions
- Determiners, Demonstratives
Nouns:-
• Singular vs Plural
• dual or trail
• nothing
• Case
• Gender
• Masculine vs. Feminine
• Big vs. Large
• Living vs. Non-Living
• Natural vs. Non-natural
• Tool vs. Plant
• High Valyrian Nouns
• 4 Numbers
• 8 Cases
• 4 Genders
Verbs
5. Sentence Structure.
“The man [Subject] sees [Verb] the woman [Object].”
Subject + Verb + Object
6. Derivation.
Teach > Teacher
Jelmio [wind] > Jelmazma [big wind]
7. Miscellaneous.
- Writing Systems:-
• Alphabet: Characters for vowels and consonants. [English]
• Abjad: Charactes for consonants only. [Arabic]
• Abugida: Main glyph for a consonant and some sort of a little addition for a vowel. [Hindi]
• Logography: Glyphs that stand for entire word or parts of words or maybe more than one word
depending on how it works [Chinese]
8. Lexicon
The words of the language:-
“Think about riding a horse, starting a fire, and think about what goes into that scenario, what’s happening,
and what will speakers of this language have words for, with respect to that scenario.”
9. Create a reference.
• Grammer and dictionary.
Once you see his thumbs, you can't unsee them.
You mean his 2nd index finger?
Shut up !! LOLOL
😹😹😹 he has the e.t ouuuchhhhee’s 💀💀💀
As a linguistics student, I am loving all this language-related content lately. I've had the desire to create the basics of my own conlang for a while now, and this really motivated me to get started. I also loved hearing the basics of the subject explained to me again, but in terms of constructing a language rather than studying existing ones. Hoping to see more of David too!
How is it going with the conlang mate?
"I do syllable mostly because I am not convinced that actors will pull off a tone language correctly."
HAHAHAHA
He's right, for instance the actors of Firefly speak terrible Mandarin.
@@baptistefaussat Very true, and I find it funny every time someone acknowledges it.
in his book he mentions a bunch of other things like this... for example in English the p/t/k sounds are usually pronounced with a puff of air (the difference between the "t" in "talk" and the "t" in "stalk") - many languages don't do that, but native Engilsh speakers don't notice we're doing it & it's hard to stop doing it, so he had to make Dothraki allow it too
it was cool to see he recommended to study turkish along with japanese and french because i've realized that dothraki's grammar is similar to turkish. it was a great video!
I was expecting this to be a good primer for conlangs. This was actually a *great* primer for conlangs. Well done, guy!
This dude will help me pass my linguistics exam he made me review all the program in just 13 minutes
I envy this guy's brain. This was waaaay more interesting than I was expecting.
"He throat rip.
She throat rip.
They throat it."
Wtf
Ah, the Schrutean compound.
😆
FOTH AGGENDAK
FOTH AGGENDI
FOTH AGGENDA
....Tolkien: "Hold my beer"
Butterfly in Nepali is called 'putali'. And the female genitalia is called 'puti'. Now I'm no expert, but I think the elders were on to something here.
scikick in my language puti means white
Butterfly in Hungarian is "pillangó". The same word is used as a slang for hookers.
I once spontaneously used mariposa del carne (butterfly of flesh) talking to a Spanish native speaker. He totally got it . 🤣 nepali rocks.
We need a meeting of him and the vocal coach dude
Fascinating video describing a logical set of procedures for creating a language. The presentation was clear, logical (almost algorithmic), and informative. I hope you prepare and post sequels to this great video.
Butterfly in Icelandic is "Fiðrildi" which literally means "a Feathered Creature".....I think
DId he say, Dothraki suberts the expectations?.... this thing runs deep
Him: I never have a favorite word in any language.
Me: Schmetterling
Him: Look up the word for butterfly.
As a speech and language pathologist, this was very interesting to watch!
I could listen to this guy teach all day. Please have more videos with him.
I like the editing you do, too.
I can’t believe I got to meet this guy and get a picture and conversation with him when he came down to my college, UAB. He’s an absolute genius
this is absolutely the coolest video i have ever watched THANK YOU
The *r sound*
David: I’m sorry for that one
Spanish speakers: finally
And finnish speakers
And basically everyone else on the planet except native english speakers.
@@Ignisan_66 actually, mandarin chinese doesn't have a trilled r either, and english and mandarin account for around a third of the earth's population
Last year, Peterson was a speaker at an event in Belgium which I attended. His talk was so interesting and inspiring. Fascinating stuff, linguistics and conlanging!
Phonetics lesson by David J Peterson, I wish this was posted back when I was a 1st year student of English.
In my 4th year of linguisitics and you reignited my love for it! Thanks!
Yes! I was so fascinated finding out the Dothraki language that reminded me of persian and arabian was a constructed language, and immediately wanted to know more about David. So cool to see someone that like JRR created a language, but in modern time so I can actually get some tips 😂 Thanks for this video. I hope someday I can create a language aswell for my future stories.
I'm just as confused as I was after watching this video
I'd suggest Artifexian and biblaridion. They go into it a bit more
You need to have studied different sub disciplines in Linguistics to fully understand everything he mentions.
@@LauM he doesn't even make an exhaustive IPA consonants. He put approximant for everything else.
@@cogithefool4284 I'm still looking for someone to tell me how I can make a glottal stop at the start of a word, I don't think my glottis works that way 😭🤣 And at least he didn't scare anyone with cases in Finnish and Hungarian - that's something they need to find on their own :D
Well, your English sucks so you do not have much hope to begin with.
0:35 I once actually used a similar idea on my fanfic aliens. They were called Y'hmma and they spoke in sign languages. But not in a normal way, they could morph their fingers into strange symbols. Another thing about their sign language is that they are telepathic in nature. You would literally know what they meant to say if they morphed their fingers.
RUclips Algorithm: *Hey, I know you've never watched anything GOT related here on youtube, but hey! I'mma shove this in your recommended anyway :)*
You know it's not just based on things you watch, right?
@@YunisRajab It's geared towards recommending you things similar or in the same genre as what you've watched. I watched a cooking video and the next minute Gordon Ramsay, Babish, and a lot of other chefs were in my recommended.
this stuff is so interesting, I love when you guys make videos like this
I met this guy at UC Berkeley and he was amazing
That was really interesting. Good simple editing too.
I love this guy for creating the beautiful language for game of thrones ♥️
He actually made this a lot easier for me to understand rather than the other YT videos I’ve watched. I shall go and continue my artlang :D
This is sooo interesting!! I kinda wanna know more about languages and be friends with this man
it's cool to see someone so passionate about their profession
@@veggiesupreme3556 ive subscribed to his channel. It was real cool to learn some more about that and very jmpressive that he can tell apart different sounds when (for many people) our brains kinda go 'deaf' on sounds that are not part if our native language in our adult lives. I stan this man!
@@Yuni009 If you liked this you're gonna love their accent critique series that man is just as passionate and it also teaches you a lot about language.
@@kuro13wolf sweet! Ill defo check it out, thanks!! Bring on the smart side of me which wants to learn stuff instead of drinking.. yay!! 😂
@@Lightologyy haha not sure ho thatd go!
This really did help alot. I've been so confused on how to make a language but this cleared up so much for me :)
This is a really interesting video, you can tell the person knows there topic well and is passionate about it.
3:10 that's the sound you make when somebody asks you a question you don't know the answer to
When I saw the thumbnail I literally thought that that man was eating infinity stones... So yeah
😂😂😂😂
How else would a language be made?
Hahahahahah🤣🤣
This guy is also created the language of Valyrian
Evy stopppp omggggg😂😂😂😂
I understood so much about languages listening to this! Thank you:)
This guy took a hodgepodge of vocabulary and fabricated a rich and holistic conlang that remained true to the culture and tells a story of civilisation all on its own. Astounding dude.
That was utterly fascinating, explained really well too 👍
I’m starting my first year at university in a few months and I’ll be studying linguistics, so this video was particularly interesting and enjoyable for me. I especially liked the advice about studying unrelated languages since as a native speaker of Russian who is also studying English and Korean I can assure you that this recommendation is really good. Being immersed into these three completely different languages has definitely broadened my horizons!
How did your degree go? 🤔
@@bds8715 What a throwback! haha
I now have a bachelor’s degree in linguistics (with honours :P) and I’ve recently started my master’s degree - linguistics as well. Oh, and I’ve added Swedish to my roster of languages, so that's been fun!
@@외로운_무민 wow that’s awesome! Congrats 🥳 My curiosity got the best of me 😆 If I were to study linguistics I think I’d study how different languages approach word class/parts of speech
This is basically a crash course in functional linguistics which I *love.*
This video was really something. I loved it.
This is beautiful. Thanks for the video.
*gets casted in a Game of Thrones episode*
"Hey casting director, who am i gonna be on the show?"
"Oh, Head Dothraki ruler. Lots of speaking parts..."
"... greaaaaat...."
Ron: dothraki
Hermione: it's dothraki, not dothraki
irfan ma'ruf This gets into another aspect of language: social status as reflected by pronunciation. Is it possible to talk like a poor person or an academic in your language?
Speech-Language Pathologist, here! This was cool! 🥰 P.S. JUST found out about High Valyrian being on Duolingo! Off I go! 😁
Wow this is a lot more complicated than I thought it would be 😶
WOW. I was always wondering how did they created all of these languages e.g Avatar language or this Dothraki one. Amazingly creative process. No wonder why these sound so real.
I've see a few interviews with this guy I always find him fascinating I have absolutely no intentions of writing a language though
i like this guy's face , he looks like he gives great hugs
Thank you, I'd run out of lectures of his to watch. This is v helpful.
Omg He mentioned Hausa! I’m Nigerian we speak it here
In my D&D: goblins use a very basic Abjad, hobgoblins use a more comprehensive Abjad, and Bugbears have turned the goblin Abjad into an Abugida.
This is literally the coolest video I’ve ever seen
Oh my this was incredibly interesting. This guy is amazing.
How do you say “the writers for Game of Thrones are incompetent morons” in Dothraki?
Producers and became though.. 😔
Why did WIRED not use the IPA for the vowels?
this was fascinating, get this guy on again! 10/10
I recently read his book on creating a language. Didn't finish reading the book, but it was fascinating.
Even thought it's a very "you are your own worst critic" art, I believe that fictional lanugage construction doesn't get enough traction as a hobby or a job. You learn a lot of things about logic, human behavior, aestheticism and categorization, among other things.
I'm suspicious of anyone who's first example is tentacle monsters...... just sayin.
Well, they invented our languages, didn't they?
M. Ch. they didn’t
@@alexal8088 WAKE UP SHEEPLE!
Cthulu?
Very interesting subject, also an incredible job at that.
Wow, I REALLY loved this video.
ah uh eh ih aa (3:11)
That was my reaction to episode 5
12:46 "Japanese and Turkish... completely unrelated" ALTAICISM INTENSIFIES
Holy God! Incredible, I can’t even wrap my head around this
Thanks Wired, I love this.
05:10 When he said "Subverting expectations" I flinched hard
Me too
I got really sucked into this! So interesting! I really love learning the history of languages too and how they change and develop over time. Thanks for sharing! :-)
This is the coolest video on RUclips rn
This is helping me at keeping on with creating my own language :)
I can create a new language when I'm with my crush 🤷♂️
🤷♂️
🤷♂️
Jasjjsjsijsks
Crushian language
Ah I’m glad I’m welsh - got brought up being able to make a lot of weird sounds. Like the rolling rs and the ch sounds and the ll sounds.
It’s handy in that respect.
Kiri Suta i bet you cant pronounce Brötchen, it’s German
@@timmsattler3414 I bet you won't pronounce the word "ci" or "afan" right the first time (that's Welsh for "dog" and "raspberries", by the way). I don't even get me started with "cŵn" (dogs), "cwm" (valley), or "ysgol" (school). And those are all without the infamous LL.
LL is a thing of beauty, I tried learning a bit of Welsh on Duolingo once and everytime I listen to a Welsh speaker, it's one of the things I love the most :)
Dw in dysgi siarad Cymraeg. Still a beginner, but I hope to get better.
Arabic does most of these sounds, but some native African languages have really interesting sounds unlike anywhere else in the world. They use clicking and some tongue-snapping sounds as letters or words.
Never seen a vid like this, thank you!
love him! as a Japanese student I can tell his inspired by it very much これ それ あれ
The concepts in a society also shape the expression in the language ... or is it the other way around? Think of a society that has no concept of subjugation. Which of these sentences would fit that society?
1. "I rode the horse across the stream."
2. "The horse and I crossed the stream together."
Possibly the first one as it seems clear to me that when one rides a horse the "agency of the act", so to say, belongs to the rider - as he is the one controlling the horse.
The fact that their society has "no concept of subjugation" shouldn't really interfere with the fact that "riding a horse" essentially means that you, on the horse, command it to move in some direction. So saying "we moved together" would be ambiguous and transmit incomplete information as it is not specifying that you are actually riding the horse (it could mean for example that you found a friendly horse and you both went for a walk, using your own feet).
And if you consider that their society is simply unable to understand subjugation to the point where they aren't able to ride horses or express that someone is riding a horse, then I guess there aren't many good arguments one can make about one of the sentences over the other.
I'd love to hear this guy analyse amd explain Greenlandic language!!
I dont know when that clip thing got added to RUclips but that's madd smart
There's so much stuff that goes into this.
I find this so amazing. We at once point could never have understood one another. And now google can translate your language into another and you can send that in an email to your friend in China and have a conversation. Technology is incredible
He also created Trig, the language of the grounders in the CW series, The 100❤️
As a linguistic student and got fan, this is just fantastic.
I really like that proximal-medial-distal distinction you made in your demonstratives! I've only seen that in 1 other conlang (Tyryani by Shmili langs).