David J. Peterson

This article is about the fantasy language creator. For other people named David Peterson, see David Peterson (disambiguation).

David J. Peterson
Peterson in June 2019
Born	(1981-01-20) January 20, 1981 Long Beach, California
Nationality	American
Alma mater	UC Berkeley (BA) UC San Diego (MA)
Occupation	Writer, language creator
Known for	Language creation for Game of Thrones, Defiance, Dune and The 100
Spouse	Erin Peterson (divorced)
Children	1

David Joshua Peterson (born January 20, 1981) is an American conlanger who has constructed languages for television series such as Game of Thrones and The 100 and movies such as Thor: The Dark World and Dune.

Life

Peterson was born to a father of German descent and a mother of Mexican descent. Studying at University of California, Berkeley (1999–2003), Peterson received BA degrees in English and in linguistics. He received an MA in linguistics from University of California, San Diego (2003–2006). He had his first contact with constructed languages while still at Berkeley, after attending an Esperanto class in 2000. In 2007, he co-founded the Language Creation Society with nine other language creators and served as its president (2011–2014).

In 2009, the television network HBO needed a fictional language for the Game of Thrones television series and turned to the Language Creation Society for help. This resulted in a contest, which Peterson won.

He produced a number of videos on YouTube, in a series called The Art of Language Invention, and published a book of the same title in 2015. Peterson also worked as an executive producer on the 2017 documentary film, Conlanging: The Art of Crafting Tongues.

In 2019, Peterson created a free High Valyrian course on the Duolingo website/app and expanded the course in conjunction with the House of the Dragon series premiere in August 2022.

Filmography

Television

Year	Title	Language(s)
2011–2019	Game of Thrones	Dothraki (Lekh Dothraki), the language of the eponymous people. It lacks labial stops but has circumfixes, inalienable possession, noun incorporation and 5 grammatical cases, including a marked nominative for most inanimate nouns. High Valyrian (Valyrio Udrir), a literary language once spoken in Valyria. It has 4 grammatical numbers, including a paucal and a collective, 8 grammatical cases, 4 noun classes, an Iroquois kinship system, applicatives and voiceless sonorants. Astapori Valyrian, a descendant of High Valyrian spoken in Astapor. Meereenese Valyrian, a descendant of High Valyrian spoken in Meereen. Mag Nuk ("great tongue"), an isolating, monosyllabic descendant of the Old Tongue spoken by giants and only used for one line. It has resumptive pronouns. Skroth ("ice"), an unused language that was meant to be the White Walkers'. It has lateral fricatives, clusivity and a speculative mood, and its nouns inflect for definiteness. Asshai, an unused isolating language that was meant to be the Asshai'i's. It has lateral fricatives, nasal vowels, tongue root vowel harmony, syllabic consonants, clusivity and octal numbers. Lhazareen, an unused sister language of Dothraki that was meant to be the eponymous people's. It has aspirated consonants and lateral fricatives and affricates. Gerna Mohr (or Gerna Moussha), an unused polypersonal language with voiceless sonorants that was meant to be the Children of the Forest's.
2013–2015	Defiance	Castithan (Kastíthanu), the topic-prominent language of the eponymous species. It has pronoun avoidance, a complex politeness system with many honorifics, vigesimal numbers, a cessative aspect and its own very deep abugida called Fajizwalino. Irathient (Thwelu l'Irathi), the head-marking, verb-object-subject language of the eponymous species. It has vowel harmony, 18 noun classes, Afrihili-inspired plurals, vigesimal numbers, light verbs, inalienable possession, a pertensive and its own abugida called Izra. Indojisnen, the polysynthetic language of Indogenes. It uses septenary numbers and has its own featural syllabary, called Hazugimari. Kinuk'aaz ("our language"), the language of the Omec. It lacks palatal consonants but has ejective consonants, consonant mutation, internally-headed relative clauses, infixes and circumfixes, 11 classifiers and its own alphabet called Zaduusel. Yanga Kayang, an unused language that was meant to be the Liberata's. It has 5 noun classes, obligatory possession, only distinguishes two vowel qualities and completely lacks roundedness, labial and coronal consonants.
2014	Star-Crossed	Sondiv, the mostly object–verb–subject language of the Atrians. It has a nonconcatenative morphology, broken plurals, nominal TAM (pronouns and object-marking affixes change depending on the verb's aspect), nasal vowels, a construct state, a negative verb and its own abjad called Kwandon.
2014–2015	Dominion	Lishepus, a polypersonal verb–subject–object language invented by the angels to prevent humans from understanding them. It is based on Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Afroasiatic roots and has pharyngeal consonants, inflected prepositions and a construct state.
2015–2020	The 100	Trigedasleng ("forest language") or Trig, a descendant of an American English cryptolect spoken by Grounders. It has become an isolating language and developed clusivity.
2015	Penny Dreadful	Verbis Diablo, the language of witches and demons. Due to its supernatural nature, its grammar is unstable and its words change meaning randomly. Though intentionally heavily distorted (sometimes through anagrams or phonetic reversal), its vocabulary is based on Classical Arabic, Akkadian, Middle Egyptian, Attic Greek, Latin, Persian and Turkish. It has pharyngeal consonants and inflected prepositions.
2016–2017	The Shannara Chronicles	Noalath, the verb-subject-object language of Druids. It has consonant mutation, reduplication, 5 noun classes, a singulative number for some nouns, circumfixes and vowel reduction.
2017	Emerald City	Inha ("we"), the language of witches. It has four varieties (referencing the four countries of the Land of Oz), called Water (West), Fire (North), Wind (East) and Stone (South). Witches use Stone when speaking to each other and may use the other varieties for their own spells. Inha also has sound symbolism, triphthongs and 24 grammatical cases (20 in Fire and Water, which merge the adessive with the inessive, the essive with the translative, the "converse adessive" with the "converse inessive" and the "converse essive" with the "converse translative"), including an exessive and an aversive. Munja'kin, the verb-subject-object language of the eponymous people. It has a switch-reference system, consonant mutation, reduplication, resumptive pronouns, inalienable possession, a negative verb, differential object marking and clusivity.
2018	Into the Badlands	Azrán, a tonal, polypersonal descendant of Mexican Spanish spoken in Azra.
2019	Another Life	Achaian, Tala and Decuma, three asemic syllabaries.
2019	The Witcher	Hen Linge ("elder speech"), the language of elves and mages. It has 5 noun classes, a negative verb and its own very deep runiform alphabet.
2019	Euphoria	Dothraki lines.
2020	Motherland: Fort Salem	Méníshè ("mother tongue"), the tonal, polypersonal language of witches. It has ejective consonants, 6 noun classes, evidentiality, reduplication and inflected postpositions. A language derived from Méníshè and spoken by Camarilla members was also used for one line, and an ancient form of Méníshè appears in season 3. Peterson created all three languages with Jessie Sams.
2020	Lovecraft Country	Language of Adam.
2021	Shadow and Bone	Old Ravkan, the ancestor of the current language of Ravka (which is rendered as English). It has palatalized consonants, a partitive case and its own alphabet. Fjerdan, the V2 language of Fjerda. It has 3 noun classes and voiceless sonorants, and its nouns inflect for definiteness. Peterson created this language with Christian Thalmann. Kerch, the abugida of Kerch. It doesn't have an associated conlang, instances of written Kerch are actually coded English texts. Kerch sign language.
2022	Halo	Sangheili, the ergative language of the Covenant. It has ejective and velarized consonants, reduplication, clusivity and instrumental prefixes akin to the ones found in the Siouan or Uto-Aztecan languages. Peterson created this language with Carl Buck.
2022	House of the Dragon	High Valyrian (Valyrio Udrir) lines, as well as a new logoconsonantal script for this language.
2022	Paper Girls	Kezhwa, a creole language spoken by time travelers. It has a nonpresent tense and was only used for 6 seconds.
2022	Vampire Academy	Aazh Naamori ("Old Moroi"), the language of vampires. It has nasal vowels and its own abugida.

Films

Year	Title	Language(s) / Role
2013	Thor: The Dark World	Shiväisith ("soft speech"), the language of the Dark Elves. It has a Finnish-inspired vowel harmony system as well as consonant harmony, 15 grammatical cases, a negative verb, a hodiernal tense and its own runiform alphabet called Todjydheenil.
2016	Warcraft: The Beginning	Orcish, the head-marking language of orcs. It has breathy consonants. Draenei, the language of the eponymous species. It was only used for one line. Common, an unused language that was meant to be the humans'.
2016	Doctor Strange	Nelvayu, a polypersonal language the Zealots use for incantations.
2017	Conlanging: The Art of Crafting Tongues	Executive Producer.
2017	Bright	Övüsi (Övüsi Kieru, "Elvish tongue"), the language of elves. It contrasts roundedness both in its front and back vowels and has 13 grammatical cases, including an aversive, as well as a potential mood and its own abugida. An older version of Övüsi was also used for one line. Bodzvokhan (Bodzvokhan Dǝzhn, "farmer's language"), the polypersonal language of orcs. It has a zero-dimensional vertical vowel system, Moro-inspired vowel harmony, pharyngeal and syllabic consonants, applicative and antipassive voices, a potential mood, many Russian loanwords and its own abjad called Vukht as well as a Cyrillic alphabet.
2018, 2020	The Christmas Chronicles The Christmas Chronicles 2	Yulish, the language of Santa Claus and the Christmas elves. It has a nonpast tense, its nouns inflect for definiteness and its main stress is associated with a dip in intonation.
2021	Raya and the Last Dragon	Kumandran, the language of Kumandra. It was only used for one line and a few untranslated words in English lines.
2021	Dune	Chakobsa, the polypersonal verb-subject-object language of the Fremen, as well as the corresponding sign language. It has a nonconcatenative morphology, broken plurals, 6 grammatical cases including a marked nominative, inflected prepositions and its own abugida. Sardaukar, the language of the eponymous force. It has ejective consonants and completely lacks unrounded vowels. It was only used for meaningless chants. House Atreides' sign language.

Video games

Year	Title	Language(s)
2018	Arena of Valor	Veda, the isolating language of the inhabitants of Veda. It has a zero-dimensional vertical vowel system, serial verb constructions, circumpositions and its own abjad called Welqor ("stack-mark"). Afata, a polypersonal descendant of Veda spoken by the eponymous people. It has consonant mutation, circumfixes, 3 noun classes, 18 grammatical cases including an apudessive, a superessive, a superlative, a delative, a perlative and an aversive, and its own abugida called Thala ("vine"). Gandal ("impure language"), a descendant of Veda spoken by humans. It has a nonpast tense, 4 noun classes, animacy-based split ergativity, circumfixes, and its own alphabet called Shul ("pure"). G'vunna (Zudǝllǝ g’Vunnǝ, "language from the abyss"), a polypersonal descendant of Veda spoken by Lokheim. It has vowel harmony, 8 noun classes and its own alphabet called Oz ("blade").

Operas

Year	Title	Language(s)
2019	Lampedusa (Eduardo Reck Miranda)	Vōv ("love"), a language spoken on Ariel's island. It has serial verb constructions, a negative verb and reduplication.

Books

Year	Title	Language(s)
2014, 2017	The Zaanics Deceit The Zaanics Pursuit	Væyne Zaanics ("God's gift" or "God's curse"), a polypersonal language invented by the Lyrs and the Severns. It has 7 grammatical cases, 2 noun classes, circumfixes and its own alphabet called Yesuþoh, a cipher with a variety of allographs. Peterson created this language with Nina Post.

Bibliography

• Johnston, Susan; Battis, Jes (2015). Mastering the Game of Thrones: Essays on George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. McFarland & Company. ISBN 978-0-7864-9631-0.
• Peterson, David J. (2014). Dothraki. Living Language. ISBN 978-0-8041-6086-5.
• —— (2015). The Art of Language Invention. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-312646-1.
• —— (2020). Create Your Own Secret Language: Invent Codes, Ciphers, Hidden Messages, and More. Odd Dot. ISBN 978-1250222329.
• Post, Nina; Peterson, David J. (2014). The Zaanics Deceit (Cate Lyr) (Volume 1). Nina Post, LLC. ISBN 978-1-4954-6134-7.
• Post, Nina; Peterson, David J. (2017). The Zaanics Pursuit (Cate Lyr) (Volume 2). Nina Post, LLC. ISBN 978-1-5376-4745-6.

External links

• Media related to David J. Peterson at Wikimedia Commons
• David J. Peterson at IMDb