Interviews: Ask David Peterson About Inventing Languages

samzenpus writes: David J. Peterson is a language creator and author. He created the Dothraki and Valyrian languages for HBO's Game of Thrones, and more recently has created languages for the CW's The 100 and MTV's The Shannara Chronicles. His new book, The Art of Language Invention, details how to create a new language from scratch, and goes over some of the specific choices he made in creating the languages for Game of Thrones and Syfy's Defiance. David has agreed to give us some of his time to answer any questions you may have. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one question per post.

Comments

Re:What's the point of grammar and syntax?

[gstoddart]

I offer a counter example of just how many speak Klingon.

I should think it's better because it sounds more authentic than someone standing there going "booga booga", and because if you plan on sub-titling things, people might notice if you don't make an effort. Especially if a phrase will be used more than once.

I've watched a bunch of special features/making of for various movies, and the ones which do this can build in much more complex layers and nuance, and sell it as a believable thing ... from Tolkien to the latest Superman, the added depth of creating your own languages makes it seem more plausible and real than "booga booga".

My favorite example of this came from the movie Ultraviolet, which admittedly isn't the best piece of cinema ever. There is a spot in which someone, ostensibly a Chinese speaker, says "xin loi" to say "sorry", which through a Vietnamese friend I recognized as not Chinese but Vietnamese.

If you just have actors say any old gibberish, or pass off one language as another ... someone WILL notice. In that case someone must have decided any Asian language would suffice, because it all sounds the same anyway.

If I spotted it, and I know no more than about 3-4 words of Vietnamese, every Chinese and Vietnamese speaker heard it and went "WTF was that about?".