Episode 158

Interview with Language Creator David Peterson (Game of Thrones, Dune, The 100, Doctor Strange)

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November 11th, 2019

56 mins 35 secs

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About this Episode

"Polyglots and language creators...that Venn diagram is almost a circle."

In this episode, language creator David Peterson sat down with me to talk about language creation, language ownership, and the joy of it all. No other interview has had such an impact on me, the level of mastery in language creation was completely unclear to me.

Every single choice that you're making is an active choice. Nothing in a language has to be that way.

Here are just a few of the questions we discussed on this show.

  • If a language is created, why is its grammar not easy?
  • How do Hollywood actors react when they have to deliver dialogue in an invented language?
  • How many languages do you need to speak in order to create a language? (spoiler: I have too many!)
  • After creating a language, do you want the world to learn this new language?

And David also explained the phases language creators go through.

  1. You create the language...at least you think that's what you're doing
  2. You realise you actually had lots of choices and you start making copy-languages
  3. You realise you don't need to create your language like another one, you start making the language you actually want

If you're fascinated by language invention and created languages after listening to this interview, I recommend David's own book "The Art of Language Invention". (see links below)

Thank you to David Peterson for this episode introduction.

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