Conlang Dialogue: House of the Dragon (HBO)

Series Metadata

Creator:
Series Begun:
2022-08-22
Series Updated:
2024-08-05
Description:

This is the various conlang dialogue I translated for HBO's House of the Dragon. The main language featured in the show is High Valyrian. The High Valyrian language is technically an a posteriori artlang based on words and ideas that come from George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, but the language is probably better understood as a priori with some input from a second author.

Notes:

High Valyrian uses Standard American Romanization, with some minor variations. There are both geminates and long vowels, the latter of which are written with macrons (so a is [a] and ā is [aː]). There is a front rounded tense vowel [y] which is written with its IPA value y (long version ȳ), and there is a voiced palatal stop [ɟ] that is written j. The r is always a trill [r], with a voiceless version [r̥] written rh. There are two other palatal sounds: a palatal nasal [ɲ] written ñ, and a palatal lateral [ʎ] written lj. Finally, there is a voiced velar fricative [ɣ] written gh, and a uvular stop written with its IPA value q.

One small extra note. During the initial run of Game of Thrones, I never marked long vowels in High Valyrian because the program I used for translation, Final Draft, didn't allow the character ȳ. That was a disaster, though, and caused endless problems afterwards as I had to guess where all the long vowels were. This time I decided to use ŷ for long [y], which Final Draft does allow, rather than ȳ, and then I wrote the rest of the long vowels per usual. As a result, a stray ŷ may sneak into a translation here or there in case I forget to change it before publication. Eventually I'll get them all. Much less work than figuring out where all the long vowels are and re-adding them.

Stats:
Words:
2,828
Works:
2
Complete:
No
Bookmarks:
81

Listing Series