The complex linguistic universe of
Game of Thrones
1.Game of Thrones has garnered 38 Emmy
2.awards for its portrayal of a world of sex,
3.violence and politics so real that some viewers
4.could imagine moving there. Part of that detail
5.has been the creation of the richest linguistic
6.universe since J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth.
7.In the field of language-creation for fictional
8.worlds, there is Tolkien, and there is everybody
9.else. But David Peterson, the language-smith
10.of Game of Thrones , comes a close second for
11.the amount of thought put into its two
12.languages, Dothraki and Valyrian. The interest
13.in these tongues is such that a textbook for
14.learning Dothraki has been published, while
15.Duolingo, a popular online language-learning
16.platform, now offers a course in High Valyrian.
17.Inspired by fictional languages such as those
18.in the Star Wars films and with a master’s
19.degree in linguistics, Peterson made Dothraki
20.and Valyrian as rich and realistic as possible.
21.Creating words is the easy part; anyone can
22.string together nonsense syllables. But
23.Peterson, like Tolkien, took the trouble to give
24his words etymologies and cousins, so that
25.the word for “feud” is related to the words
26.“blood” and “fight”. To make the languages
27.pronounceable but clearly foreign, he put
28.non-English sounds in high-frequency words
29.(like khaleesi , or queen), put the stress in
30.typically non-English places, and had words
31.begin with combinations of sounds that are
32.impossible in English, like hr .
33.Armed with a knowledge of common linguistic
34.sound changes, he gives his languages the
35kinds of irregularities and disorder that arise in
36.the real world: High Valyrian’s obar
37(“curve”) becomes Astapori Valyrian’s uvor .
38.Words’ meanings—as in real life—drift, too,
39.giving the system more realistic messiness.
40.Languages also play a prominent role in the
41.storyline. Dothraki is the guttural language of
42.a horse-borne warrior nation, but high-born
43.Daenerys Targaryen does not look down on it;
44.methodically learning it is key to her rise.
45.Tyrion Lannister is left to administer the city
46.of Mereen despite his ropy command of
47.Valyrian, leading to some comic moments.
48.And a prophecy of a future hero acquires new
49.meaning when an interpreter explains that the
50.word in question is ambiguous in Valyrian—it
51.could be “prince” or “princess”.
52.It might seem odd that a highly sexist society
53.like the one of Game of Thrones would have
54.languages where sex roles were not clearly
55.marked, but languages are not always perfect
56.vehicles for a culture. Random change can
57.leave them with too many words for one
58.concept, and not enough for another. In this
59.way, the flawed nature of language reflects
60.the foibles of flawed humans and the
61.imperfect worlds they strive to create.
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Acesso em: 21 nov. 2017.