The Languages of 'Game of Thrones'

This week marks the first episode in the final season of “Game of Thrones." There’s so much excitement about the finale that we just had to include a segment about on it this week’s show. Not just because we love dragons and swords—we do! — but because a core part of the series has been the languages the characters speak. 

If you don’t watch “Game of Thrones,” don’t worry. This segment is also for people who might be curious about how a language gets created from absolute scratch. That’s what happened for this series.

George R. R. Martin Created the Bones of the Languages

There are at least 11 languages spoken in the “Game of Thrones” world. The bare bones of all of these languages were created by George R. R. Martin, the author of “A Song of Ice and Fire,” on which the TV series is based. But Martin’s skeleton was pretty skimpy. In the books, he created only a handful of words for most of the languages.

So when it came time for an actual language to be created for the show—a usable one that could be spoken extensively by actors—somebody had to flesh out those bones.

Here Are All the Languages That Had To Be Tackled

And there were a lot of them! The show includes several languages spoken by humans, a rudimentary one spoken by giants, and a creepy one spoken by White Walkers—zombie-like creatures who have magical powers of ice and cold.

Here’s a rundown.

• The most common language we hear in “Game of Thrones” is—well — the Common Tongue! It’s spoken throughout Westeros, one of the two large continents in the “Game of Thrones” world. It’s also spoken by the wildlings who live north of the Wall, a great barrier in the north of Westeros that protects humans from the White Walkers. The Common Tongue is represented in the book series and the TV series by English. 
• The Old Tongue is spoken by wildlings who live far north of the Wall—those who have little exposure to the Common Tongue. It’s an ancient, rune-based language that was spoken by the First Men, the original human inhabitants of Westeros. A rough version of it — one that lacks verb tenses, plurals, and words of more than one syllable—is spoken by the giants north of the Wall. Their version is called “Mag Nuk,” the Great Tongue.
• The True Tongue is the melodic language of the children of the forest, elf-like creatures who were said to be the original inhabitants of Westeros. Humans can’t speak the language, but ravens can—including the mysterious three-eyed raven that appears in the show. The children of the forest say...

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