Welcome to Learn Dothraki and Valyrian!
We are an
unofficial fan-site for the
Dothraki and
Valyrian (and perhaps more to come) languages, used in
HBO's
Game of Thrones series, and derived from words used in the original
A Song of Ice and Fire book series by George R.R. Martin
.
David Peterson of the
Language Creation Society (LCS) was hired to create full languages out of the small snippets used in the books. This site is dedicated to the languages and learners or the language. We hope to be the fan base for these languages, allowing fans to learn, document, and speak them together.
Tongues of Ice and Fire is hosted by another well-known constructed language site,
LearnNavi.org who graciously provides us with server space and many other things. This site would not exist without LearnNavi's help! We are frequently in contact with the LCS and David Peterson, but we're not officially a part of them - everything here is for fans, by fans.
Learning Dothraki?
Dothraki is the language of the nomadic horse warriors who populate the Dothraki Sea: a vast grass plain in the center of the continent of Essos, which lies to the east of Westeros, across the Narrow Sea. Their language differs greatly from the Common Tongue of Westeros and the languages of the Free Cities, which descend from High Valyrian. For more, check the wiki, or watch our YouTube channel, or better yet, read the books. For a description of the language itself, you'll find no better place to start looking than here.
If you are interested in learning to speak Dothraki, check out the dictionary, the wiki and our forum:
Learning Valyrian?
Valyrian is actually a family of languages, stemming from High Valyrian, a language spoken in the ancient Valyrian Freehold. As they conquered various cities on the Continent of Essos, they would require the people there to at least speak a little High Valyrian. After the doom of Valyria, about 400 years before the time of the War of the Five Kings (the time of the books), High Valyrian ceased to be widely spoken. it became a dead language, much like our Latin is a dead language today. Although spoken by a few families, scholars, and priests, it is not in common use.
Instead, High Valyrian was assimilated into the local languages of the people who were once under the subjugation of the Freehold of Valyria. The result was a wide range of 'bastard Valyrian' languages which were more or less incomprehensible from town to town. In the area of Astapor, High Valyrian mixed with the old Ghiscari language, plus the local language to create Astapori Valyrian, another language featured in this site. Although the High Valyrian influence can cleary be seen in Astapori Valyrian, it is very much a different language.
We sincerely hope you enjoy exploring all three of these languages (and likely, more to come in the future)!