If you’ve ever said the word “khaleesi,” you’ve spoken a word from a created language. Constructed languages—better known in their portmanteau form, conlangs—are more visible now than ever in shows like HBO’s Game of Thrones. But people have been twisting word convention into invention for centuries.
Though Dothraki is his first professional language, David J. Peterson has been creating languages for over 15 years. In his new book, The Art of Language Invention, he deftly navigates the labyrinth of phonetics, physiology and each thread that comprises prose as we know it.
But “khaleesi,” which means “queen,” wasn’t an invention of his own. It was actually one of the 50-something Dothraki words George R.R. Martin sprinkled throughout his first three books of A Song of Ice and Fire, and it was up to Peterson to create the rest of the linguistic fibers—and weave them together into a complete tapestry.
Creating a language wasn’t, and still isn’t, always viewed favorably as a creative outlet. Friends can find it frivolous, and parents whose kids toy with their own vocabulary might worry it’s abnormal. It wasn’t until Peterson joined the online language creation community that he even knew about the pushback. “It was all over the world,” he said. “People were experiencing the same resistance.”
Conlanging dates all the way back to the 12th century, when an abbess named Hildegard von Bingen developed a constructed vocabulary to use in songs. Word experimentation continued in waves, through philosophical phases as well as attempts to establish an international auxiliary language (IAL) that was simple enough to use worldwide. (You may have heard of Esperanto, which is an IAL.)
Despite these tides, it wasn’t until the emergence of the internet in the 1990s that the hidden community congealed. The newfound support emboldened language creators to talk about their work, and conlangers who pursued academic linguistics, like Peterson, further promoted the art to lift its reputation. Peterson also helped co-found the Language Creation Society (LCS), a non-profit dedicated to conlanging.
The idea of being paid for conlanging, as the LCS president writes in a recent newsletter, was a “laughable fantasy” just a couple of decades ago. When the Game of Thrones gig was announced through the online language creation grapevines, stripped of key words like “HBO” and “George R.R. Martin,” everybody heard about it, but not many took it seriously, said Peterson.
Now conlanging’s visibility is at an all-time high, and high-level productions proudly trumpet their conlangs, like Avatar’s Na’vi, created by Paul Frommer. “It’s definitely a different world today,” said Peterson, whose work has also been featured in SyFy’s Defiance as well as Marvel’s Thor: The Dark World.
As of this season, Dothraki is at about 4,000 words and still growing. The most frustrating aspect of creating a language? For Peterson, it’s translation. “Translating songs—that’s the worst part of the job, far and away, like a million times over,” he said, lamenting English’s compactness. “I have to go to all lengths to translate these really short, little quippy lines into my language and have them rhyme.”
But the satisfaction of sitting back to admire your new language system is bliss, especially the linguistic surprises that occur during your creation. And not having all of your curses subtitled or bleeped—alert, Easter egg lovers—is part of the fun, too.
His advice to new conlangers: Just start. Don’t worry about making mistakes. Study as many languages as you possibly can, especially ones that are from different language families. “You need to know precisely what tools you’re working with before you can create something that is really satisfying.”
And forget J.R.R. Tolkien’s notion that “cellar door” is one of the most beautiful phrases in English. “Hogwash,” said Peterson, laughing. His favorite? “Maybe ‘the check cleared.’”
