Duolingo offers lessons in Valyrian

Source: Camp Des Recrues
Story flagged by: Jared Tabor

Trailers for season 7 of Game of Thrones have supporters of the various in-universe character factions on tenterhooks. Meanwhile, more dedicated and geeky fans of Game of Thrones might be able to appreciate a new option being offered by language translating app Duolingo: learning Valyrian.

Unlike English, High Valyrian uses an aorist tense, similar to Ancient Greek and Sanskrit. David J. Peterson, the linguist who created the Dothraki and Valyrian languages for the TV series, worked on the Duolingo course, so you can be assured any dragon-training commands you learn will be effective.

Peterson created the language mostly from scratch, constructing the grammar around the two key phrases used in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire books: “Valar Morghulis” (“All men must die”) and “Valar Dohaeris” (“All men must serve”).

The language, which has been in Duolingo’s “Incubator” for the last several months, has now been released in beta.

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