Dothraki creator David J. Peterson to teach college course on the language of Game of Thrones

David J. Peterson is a conlanger, someone who constructs invented languages. He’s probably the most successful and famous conlanger on Earth. In addition to inventing the Dothraki and Valyrian languages for Game of Thrones, he’s also worked on Syfy’s Defiance, MTV’s The Shannara Chronicles, the CW’s The 100, Marvel’s Thor, NBC’s Emerald City, and Showtime’s Penny Dreadful. For most people interested in it, conlanging is a hobby, but for Peterson, “[l]anguage has become my entire life and my livelihood.”

According to The Sierra Times, he’s now going to point the way for other language enthusiasts with “The Linguistics of Game of Thrones and the Art of Language Invention,” a three-unit course he’ll teach this summer at UC Berkeley. “[S]tudents are going to be learning how to create a naturalistic language,” Peterson said. “These are languages that attempt as nearly as possible to replicate the quirks and idiosyncrasies of natural languages, those that have evolved naturally on Earth. It’s not going to focus on the creation of alien languages, or auxiliary languages, or parody languages, etcetera.”

Peterson is sensitive to the difference between what he does on Game of Thrones — building languages from the ground up — and shortcuts. “To the average TV viewer, there’s no difference between the work I’ve done for Game of Thrones and Gallifreyan from Doctor Who, which isn’t even a language, but a different way of writing the English alphabet.” The former kind of work is much more involved, and that’s what he’ll teach.

Also, don’t go in expecting to learn much about the mythology of Game of Thrones. While the show will act as “a framing device” for the course, it’ll be focused on the teaching students about the grammar, word meanings, and sounds that go into forming any natural language. Peterson says it’s “best understood as an art course, the same way a figure drawing course might include a fairly rigorous component on human anatomy.” I expect the term papers to be completely incomprehensible to anyone not in the class.

So what will students get out of the course?

There’s precisely as much value in creating a new language as there is in creating a new fictional story. If you see no value in something like As I Lay Dying or To the Lighthouse, then I probably can’t convince you there’s value in creating a new language. Otherwise, they’re both works of art, and have no value but what the valuer gives it, or the user/experience takes out of it. For some, that will be no value. For others, the value is tremendous, as the created language can not only be appreciated for what it is, but can also be used to generate new art, using words that are unique to some fictional context, or have immense personal value for the creator. It’s a bit like writing a song on an instrument the writer created.

That sounds like Peterson is encouraging students to enjoy the class for its own wake, which is valid. But with more studios interested in developing realistic-sounding languages for their properties, there may be room for a few more professional conlangers, as well.

The course will run from May 22-June 30 during UC Berkeley’s summer session.

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