Thrones fans becoming fluent in series’ languages

More people are trying to learn the Game of Thrones language High Valyrian than the number who understand Scottish Gaelic, which stands at 87,056, according to the last Census.

In the United Kingdom more than 100,000 people have signed up to a course on Duolingo, while globally that figure is 830,000 — more than those who understand and speak Welsh. The course promises to allow the user to learn enough High Valyrian to have a full conversation.

David Peterson, the creator of the Game of Thrones language, wrote and voiced the course which has more than 2000 words.

The linguist has been creating languages for TV for more than a decade and was also behind other languages in the series, including Dothraki.

To teach the cast, he recorded himself saying their lines in the languages on his iPhone and sent it to them so they could perfect the pronunciation.

A few words of the language were written in the Song of Ice and Fire books by George R. R. Martin, but Peterson has had to expand it from 56 words.

“There was a little of the language in the books created by George R. R. Martin,” the linguist told CBS.

“It was just valar morghulis which means all men must die, and valar dohaeris, meaning all men must serve.

“So basically I used those as a template, fleshed out the rest of the verbal system, the rest of the noun system, and then built on from there so you can basically have a full language you can translate.”

The language-learning app also lets users learn Klingonese, the fictional language from Star Trek, but High Valyrian is already twice as popular.