Languages in the Series

[Ninepenny]

From WIC: "Illyrio translates for Drogo. There is no Dothraki words in the script, so I'm assuming it will just be gibberish".

[Aoede]

There are, however, Dothraki words in the book. Besides the names, there's stuff like khal, khaleesi, khalasar, arakh, maegi, et cetera. This rules out or makes inconvenient the "backward language" option.

Illyrio has to be back in Westeros in time for his scheming to be overheard by Arya, and in any case it would be rather mood-breaking to have a fat colorful merchant-man hovering and translating in the background if it's a private scene or something. If gibberish is being used, I don't see why a translating character would be better than subtitles - the latter is far less intrusive than the former.

And for believable gibberish - once the pronunciations of the given Dothraki words are decided, then any phonemes absent from English must be included in the gibberish, or the given words will be really obvious.

It seems to me that in order to maximize believability and efficiency, a highly limited "Dothraki" vocabulary and grammar must be created for the times where audible/distinguishable Dothraki is being spoken. Background murmur doesn't need to have a language - phonetically appropriate gibberish is good enough for most such scenes, perhaps with a few showcase fragments from the Dothraki conlang when somebody in the crowd raises their voice. An earlier poster had the right of it - Drogo isn't exactly talkative, and he's the closest/most important character in relation to the Dany POV.

[Peter Irving]

Dothraki do appear based off Turkic and Mongolian peoples so why not just use either of those languages, with of course some modification. I mean they've got linguists all over the industry should be easy to find someone who can teach them either of those.

[Venardhi]

Because there will be people who can understand it in the audience and wonder why the Dothraki are speaking in their native tongue.

Plus, it just generally feels like a cheat, and a lame one at that.

[Peter Irving]

[quote name='Venardhi' post='1624736' date='Dec 18 2008, 15.52']Because there will be people who can understand it in the audience and wonder why the Dothraki are speaking in their native tongue.

Plus, it just generally feels like a cheat, and a lame one at that.[/quote]
its better then having them speak gibberish.

[red snow]

[quote name='Venardhi' post='1621281' date='Dec 16 2008, 17.05']For the english major who knows Latin, or the Chinese immigrant who knows mongolian or whatever other language you pick; someone is going to recognize it being used in place of something that is supposed to be of a fictional culture and that would immediately break their suspension of disbelief. You don't have Klingons come down and start speaking Swahili just because it sounds different enough to the average American. Once the free peoples start breaking out Hungarian and Farsi you immediately remind us that these are just actors on Earth.

Fake languages or nothing. If Star Trek and just about every other sci-fi series can do a fake language, so can these guys.[/quote]

I don't see the logic in your argument. Based on that assumption, why on earth should any of the cultures be speaking English? Surely that's as far fetched as the Dothraki speaking spanish?

[Tywin's bastard]

[quote name='red snow' post='1625380' date='Dec 19 2008, 13.25']I don't see the logic in your argument. Based on that assumption, why on earth should any of the cultures be speaking English? Surely that's as far fetched as the Dothraki speaking spanish?[/quote]
I agree with you. If they can't use non-English languages they shouldn't be able to use English either, especially since English have borrowed words from other languages. One's suspension of disbelief should thus be broken even when reading the book since we can find words that came to English from French, for example.

[Myrddin]

[quote name='Auburn Dragon' post='1618272' date='Dec 13 2008, 11.34']The fifth element has a good example of an un-subtitled made up language... if what was said was important someone who understands both languages seems to be around to translate, or you can figure out the meaning by the gesture.[/quote]
I agree. The Dothraki should only use variations of the word: Multipass.

It'll function much like Hodor, or the subtly risque language of Smurf.

[Turamarth]

[quote name='red snow' post='1625380' date='Dec 19 2008, 04.25']I don't see the logic in your argument. Based on that assumption, why on earth should any of the cultures be speaking English? Surely that's as far fetched as the Dothraki speaking spanish?[/quote]

Decades of books, movies, etc have used english (or whatever is spoken where it's made) in place of a supposedly alien language. I'd assume by now that people are used to it, to the point where it doesn't register as strange to them. Hearing a foreign "earth" language being used in such a way, though, would strike me at least as strange.

I support the idea of hiring a linguist to expand on what little can be known of the languages from the books for use in the series. Dothraki and Valyrian are the only languages that see much use, if I remember correctly, discounting different variations of Valyrian and the common tongue.

[Venardhi]

English is necessary due to the constraints of not having an audience willing to sit through an hour a week of made up language by actors who don't know what they're saying. We're talking about a few lines here and there throughout the series, lots of sci-fi and fantasy does this. LOTR did it with Elven and so what if Elven was actually a practical language, it is still essentially gibberish to all but the .001% of the population who has actually studied elvish, and even they studied it AS ELVISH not as Spanish or Maori.

I'd say we'll have a total of a couple dozen non-english/westerosi phrases in the first season or two, it is really not that big of a deal to make up a few more Dothraki or Valyrian words for the script.

[Shooting Star]

[quote name='El-ahrairah' post='1621604' date='Dec 16 2008, 21.31']Drothraki: This is a much larger tongue, and would be hard to make from scratch, unless you are a Tolkien. Later in the series, when Dany becomes fluent, it can be shown with a simple accent. But in the beginning, to emphasize that she is in a alien environment, it should be subtitled. Perhaps a real world language played backwards, as was done in Star Wars, would be suitable for this.[/quote]


I'm agree with this idea: when the protagonist that is the point-of-view can uderstand the language, that must be english, when it is impossible (for example when Dany meet for the first time Drogo), it should be subtitled.

Sorry for my bad english :blush: :/ :blush:

[red snow]

For me, this is really low on my list of things the creators need to do. It's a pilot - why invest all that time and money on inventing a language (when the author never has, except for a few choice phrases) for a pilot. When watching a show, be it sci-fi or fantasy, I'm far more concerned about whether the acting, script, SFX or music is right.
It's just one of those things that I imagine most fans of the books dont care about and I'm sure the general audience won't even register (and the general audience needs to be the majority for this show to stay alive).
By all means invent some useful phrases and if the writers can use it sparingly without us noticing then fine. Otherwise I'm happy with gibberish + subtitles or foreign language plus subtitles. I'd rather have believable direwolves because if they don't work it will be pulling a lot more people out of the show than noticing a made-up language isn't "genuine".

[Tywin's bastard]

[quote name='red snow' post='1626427' date='Dec 20 2008, 10.09']For me, this is really low on my list of things the creators need to do. It's a pilot - why invest all that time and money on inventing a language (when the author never has, except for a few choice phrases) for a pilot. When watching a show, be it sci-fi or fantasy, I'm far more concerned about whether the acting, script, SFX or music is right.
It's just one of those things that I imagine most fans of the books dont care about and I'm sure the general audience won't even register (and the general audience needs to be the majority for this show to stay alive).
By all means invent some useful phrases and if the writers can use it sparingly without us noticing then fine. Otherwise I'm happy with gibberish + subtitles or foreign language plus subtitles. I'd rather have believable direwolves because if they don't work it will be pulling a lot more people out of the show than noticing a made-up language isn't "genuine".[/quote]
The thread is about the series as a whole, not just the pilot. Investing money into making the foreign languages sound legit is important imo since it certainly lends credibility to the scenes. That doesn't mean inventing a new language but it certainly helps to create a context to put the used phrases in. I doubt it will come to a decision where they have to skip doing good direwolves in order to pay someone to create consistent wording for the foreign language scenes.

[palaeologos]

[quote name='SergioCQH' post='1615144' date='Dec 10 2008, 13.24']How are they going to handle the languages? The easy solution is for everyone to speak the same language, but that will make certain scenes and characters obsolete. Missandei won't have a role or the same role, and the exchange between Dany and the slavers would lose its meaning. Also, Dany's early relationship with Drogo would be fundamentally changed.

If they keep the different languages, then they'll have to go through the trouble of inventing whole languages. That'll probably mean a bit of work that George would have to do. And we'd have to deal with subtitles, which could turn off television audiences.[/quote]

I think it's work that GRRM isn't up to doing. I remember reading a comment of his that he has only invented 8 words of Valyrian, and when he needs another one he'll invent it. He was pretty frank about not being able to do what Tolkien did.

Seeing that he has taken so long to finish the eternally forthcoming 5th book in the sequence, I shudder to think how long it would take him to give birth to two entire languages. The easy solution may be the best; or perhaps the Dothraki can speak Turkish, the Valyrians can speak Greek, and we can just pretend?

[Fat Belwas]

The problem with using real-world languages is, what if the show gets translated to that language for a foreign audience?

[palaeologos]

[quote name='Fat Belwas' post='1629090' date='Dec 23 2008, 12.30']The problem with using real-world languages is, what if the show gets translated to that language for a foreign audience?[/quote]

I think that's a problem most people could live with as long as they got to see the show before the end of the century. :)

[Horza]

Inventing a language is not expensive, especially since this is only a few pages of dialogue and no one's going to give a shit so long as it's authentic-sounding. We're not talking Quenya and Sindarin here.

Sets, props, horses, costumes, filming on location = expensive.

Getting a linguist to bang out a few lines of pseudo-Mongolian and pseudo-Latin pales in comparison.

Shit, find an linguist who's an aSoIaF nerd and you could probably get it for free.

[Fate's Bitch]

[quote name='Horza' post='1629310' date='Dec 24 2008, 03.09']Shit, find an linguist who's an aSoIaF nerd and you could probably get it for free.[/quote]
Well, we already have a sword-fighting/jousting expert and a host of actors on this board who are willing to offer their services. Surely there's a linguist hanging about somewhere here?

Anyone? Bueller?

[Aoede]

Would it be unwise to open a linguist-seeking thread?

[psim]

[quote name='Fat Belwas' post='1629090' date='Dec 23 2008, 15.30']The problem with using real-world languages is, what if the show gets translated to that language for a foreign audience?[/quote]
They can always use a different language in the foreign adaptation then, because it's not relevant to the plot which language is used (it just has to sound foreign).

A fun example of this is Lost, where the castaways receive signals from a French woman who supposedly shipwrecked on the island 16 years ago. When the series came to France they made her character German (at least that's what I heard, maybe somebody could confirm this?). So far her origin hasn't been a plot point on the show so I guess they got lucky, but things might have gotten fishy if they had showed her in Paris in some kind of flashback. This being Lost however that still might happen :D

Err back on topic, to summarize, that's not such a big problem .P