Dothraki language

The Dothraki language is a fictional constructed language used by the nomadic Dothraki people in George R. R. Martin's *A Song of Ice and Fire* novels and the *Game of Thrones* television adaptation. For the show, language creator David J. Peterson developed it based on the Dothraki words and phrases found in Martin's books.

By September 2011, the language had 3,163 words, though not all were publicly available. In 2012, 146 newborn girls in the United States were named "Khaleesi," the Dothraki term for a khal's wife and the title adopted by Daenerys Targaryen in the series. *The Economist* described Dothraki and Valyrian as "the most convincing fictional tongues since Elvish."

Peterson created the Dothraki vocabulary well before filming. HBO hired the Language Creation Society, and after over 30 conlangers applied, Peterson was chosen. He delivered more than 1,700 words to HBO before initial shooting. He drew inspiration from Martin's descriptions and from languages including Estonian, Inuktitut, Turkish, Russian, and Swahili. Peterson's work was featured on CNN's *The Next List* in April 2012 and on *To Tell the Truth* in January 2017. He later created the Valyrian languages for season 3 of *Game of Thrones*.

The language was developed under two constraints: it had to match the uses already in the books, and it had to be easily pronounceable or learnable by actors. This influenced its grammar and phonology—for example, like English, it has no contrast between aspirated and unaspirated stops.

Peterson noted that to an untrained ear, Dothraki might sound like Arabic, but to someone who knows Arabic, it does not. He described it as a mix between Arabic (minus distinctive pharyngeals) and Spanish, due to its dental consonants. The Dothraki themselves have no writing system, nor do many neighboring peoples. Any written Dothraki in the universe would use a script from the Free Cities or from places like Ghis or Qarth.

The language has 23 consonant phonemes. The letters ⟨c⟩ and ⟨x⟩ do not appear, though ⟨c⟩ appears in the digraph ⟨ch⟩. ⟨p⟩ and ⟨b⟩ appear only in names like Pono and Bharbo; these consonants were used historically but have since softened to [f] and [v]. Voiceless stops may be aspirated without changing meaning. Geminates of digraphs have reduced orthography, such as ⟨kkh⟩ for /xː/.

Dothraki has four vowels: /i, e, o, a/.