High Valyrian goals: impress Daenerys Targaryen
Bigger high Valyrian goals: impress Missandei
I’m so glad linguists out here making fake languages. I’m actually enjoying learning a fictional language, the stakes are much lower and I’m doing it for the PURE JOY OF GRAMMAR AND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
I’m a fan of Anthony Burgess, not only because he spoke 14 languages, but because he wrote A Clockwork Orange. If you’ve ever read A Clockwork Orange, you may have noticed that Alex DeLarge and his friends speak a dialect called Nadsat (-надцать, an ending on many of the numbers from 11-19 in Russian, I suppose this was implying that this language was an adolescent language) with many made-up sounding words. Burgess based Alex’s street slang off of Russian. Here are some of my favorite examples:
- Horrorshow, from Russian хорошо (horosho), which means “good.”
“Long time is right, I don’t remember them days too horrorshow. Don’t call me Dim no more either, Officer call me.”
- Droog, from Russian друг (droog) which just means “friend.”
“There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim.”
- Viddy, from Russian видеть (videt’), which means “to see.”
“Suddenly, I viddied what I had to do, and what I had wanted to do, and that was to do myself in; to snuff it, to blast off for ever out of this wicked, cruel world. One moment of pain perhaps and, then, sleep forever, and ever and ever.”
- Soomka, from Russian сумка (soomka), which actually means “bag.” The slang is from English when referring to an old woman as a bag.
“Naughty, naughty, naughty! You filthy old soomka!”
When you’re a language nerd, overworked, under-rested, confused about the political climate, full of existential dread and your friends ask if you’re doing alright:
anyone on HBO wanna hire me to make their fake TV language? I will add a complex case system that’s even bigger than Finnish as revenge for what you did to game of thrones
Don’t forget to make some unnecessarily complex verbal morphology
Also:
- pointless vowel shifts that happen randomly, without any explanation
- more tones than Vietnamese
It will have the four horsemen of the linguistic apocalypse
Give me a project and I guarantee I’m adding phonation contrasts, ejectives and massive verb complexes so help me God.
anyone on HBO wanna hire me to make their fake TV language? I will add a complex case system that’s even bigger than Finnish as revenge for what you did to game of thrones
Don’t forget to make some unnecessarily complex verbal morphology
Also:
- pointless vowel shifts that happen randomly, without any explanation
- more tones than Vietnamese
It will have the four horsemen of the linguistic apocalypse
My sister found a set of Hindi flash cards I made when I was like 11 in her old room, cuz I’ve always been a real one
anyone on HBO wanna hire me to make their fake TV language? I will add a complex case system that’s even bigger than Finnish as revenge for what you did to game of thrones
how do you say “season 8 ruined my life” in high valyrian??
Ya girl bout to find out, Duolingo bless 🙏
how do you say “season 8 ruined my life” in high valyrian??
if you’re irish and you complain about britain “erasing culture” but can’t even speak the language/ don’t know shit about ireland before 1910 then just shut your cakehole nobody cares
Them being Irish and not being able to speak the language/not knowing shit about Ireland before 1910 is a direct result of Britain erasing culture, you goddamn Vitamin D-deficient circus clown
hey guys after like a 10 year hiatus I just got back from living in China for six months (i got kicked out, long story) but in other news you can absolutely live in China for six months using only the phrase 不要 ( búyào) and be completely fine
不要 ( búyào) – DO NOT WANT
to those of you asking me to explain details lmao búyào !!! 不要 !!!
I always thought it was extreme that the Dutch sometimes swear with infectious diseases, but living here means learning to get around by bike. This has really forced me into this angry defensive mentality. When there’s always a threat of being hit by a car, knocked over by…
In Russian we like to say “холера вазми!” Which basically translates to “May cholera take you” and it’s such a loose curse that my grandmother says it and no one bats an eye.
hey guys after like a 10 year hiatus I just got back from living in China for six months (i got kicked out, long story) but in other news you can absolutely live in China for six months using only the phrase 不要 ( búyào) and be completely fine
不要 ( búyào) -- DO NOT WANT