High Valyrian Phrases in House of the Dragon — Complete Guide

High Valyrian Phrases in House of the Dragon — Complete Season-by-Season Guide

Quick Answer: House of the Dragon features more High Valyrian dialogue per episode than Game of Thrones ever did. Key phrases include Sōvēs (fly — the dragon command), Dracarys (dragonfire), Lykirī (calm/easy, said to soothe dragons), Muña (mother) and Kepa (father) for family address, and political declarations like Bantis zābrie issa ("the kingdom is hers"). Every word was created and approved by linguist David J. Peterson, who added over 150 new items to the language for the production.

When House of the Dragon premiered on HBO in August 2022, something linguistically significant happened that most casual viewers may have missed: High Valyrian stopped being an exotic ceremonial flourish and became a living family language. In Game of Thrones, High Valyrian appeared in throne-room speeches and dragon commands. In House of the Dragon, set 172 years earlier at the height of Targaryen power, characters reach for it in private moments — a mother soothing a child, a prince losing his temper, a queen asserting her claim. The shift is deliberate, and it changes how the language feels entirely.

This guide covers every significant High Valyrian phrase from both seasons, with word-by-word breakdowns, grammar notes, pronunciation guidance, and the dramatic context that gives each line its weight.

---

The Linguistic Context — High Valyrian as a Family Language

To understand why House of the Dragon uses High Valyrian so differently from its predecessor, you need to understand where the Targaryens sit in history.

By the time of Game of Thrones, the Valyrian Freehold has been gone for roughly 400 years. High Valyrian survives as a learned language — the Latin of Westeros, studied by maesters and spoken by the educated elite of the Free Cities, but nobody's mother tongue. Daenerys speaks it with studied precision because she was trained in it, not raised in it.

House of the Dragon takes place in 101–133 AC (After the Conquest), approximately 170–200 years before Game of Thrones. The Doom of Valyria is only about a century in the past. The Targaryens, who left Valyria before the Doom, are still actively preserving the language as part of their identity and their claim to dragonlord heritage. For them, High Valyrian is not a dead language — it is the language of their household, their religion, their bond with dragons.

David J. Peterson has explained this distinction in interviews: for the HotD production, he created vocabulary around domestic and political use — terms for family relationships, intimacy, authority, and grief — that simply had no prior occasion to appear in GoT. The Targaryens of HotD code-switch between Common Tongue and High Valyrian the way bilingual families do: English for public life, the heritage language for moments that matter.

This is also why the dragon commands feel different in HotD. When Rhaenyra shouts Sōvēs at Syrax, she is not performing a ritual. She is telling her dragon what to do the way you would tell a horse. The language and the creature are both extensions of who she is.

---

Season 1 — Phrases by Episode

Dragon Commands

Dragon-riding commands form the most immediately recognizable category of High Valyrian in the show. They are short, emphatic, and designed by Peterson to feel natural when spoken at altitude, in wind, under pressure.

---

Dracarys — dragonfire

Pronunciation: DRAK-a-ris (stress on the first syllable; the final -s is pronounced clearly)

Dracarys is the oldest High Valyrian word in the franchise, present since Game of Thrones Season 2. In House of the Dragon, it carries even more weight because we see it used matter-of-factly, not just in climactic moments. The word itself is the noun for dragonfire — it is simultaneously the substance, the command, and the concept.

Grammatically, dracarys functions as an imperative when addressed to a dragon — "breathe fire" — but its underlying form is a noun. The command collapses description and instruction into a single word, which reflects how Valyrian compound concepts often work: the thing you are calling for and the act of calling for it share the same form.

In Season 1 Episode 5, Rhaenyra uses dracarys in a scene that underscores how casually the Targaryens wield this power. It is not a battle cry here. It is simply an instruction.

---

Sōvēs — fly / soar (imperative of sōvegon)

Pronunciation: SOH-vays (the long ō is held; the final -s is voiced but light)

Sōvēs is one of the most important new additions to the attested High Valyrian vocabulary that House of the Dragon introduced. It is the imperative form of sōvegon, the verb meaning "to fly" or "to soar." The verb belongs to the class of motion verbs in Peterson's grammar, and the imperative drops the infinitive suffix -gon and adds the emphatic -ēs ending used for commands directed at non-human entities.

This ending pattern is significant: when Valyrians command dragons, they use a grammatical register that is neither the formal register for addressing social superiors nor the intimate register for addressing family. It is a third register — one that treats the dragon as a powerful entity deserving a specific grammatical relationship. The command is direct but not dismissive.

Sōvēs appears in multiple flight sequences across Season 1, most memorably in the Dragonstone arrival scenes with Rhaenyra aboard Syrax. It has become one of the most learned phrases from the show among High Valyrian students.

---

Gaomagon — to come / to go; move

Pronunciation: gao-MAH-gon (stress on the second syllable; the -on ending is the infinitive marker)

Gaomagon is the infinitive form of the verb "to come" or "to go" — one of those verbs whose directionality shifts based on context, much like Latin ire. In dragon-riding contexts, it appears in imperative constructions meaning "come" or "move" — directing the dragon toward a position or target. Peterson has noted that directional verbs in High Valyrian are highly context-dependent; the same root can express motion toward or away depending on the surrounding grammar.

The word is also heard in non-dragon contexts, where it carries the ordinary meaning of movement or approach. Hearing gaomagon in a political scene versus a riding sequence is a good illustration of how High Valyrian vocabulary does double duty across registers.

---

Lykirī — calm / easy / be still

Pronunciation: li-KI-ree (stress on the second syllable; the final -ī is a long vowel, held)

Lykirī is used to soothe dragons rather than command them — and the distinction matters. While dracarys and sōvēs are direct imperatives, lykirī has a softer, more coaxing quality. Peterson derived it from a root connected to ideas of peace, gentleness, and stillness. It is the word a rider uses when a dragon is agitated or spooked, not when issuing a tactical order.

In Season 1, lykirī appears in scenes where dragons are unsettled by crowds, by other dragons, or by emotional turmoil in their riders — a reminder that in High Valyrian lore, dragons are responsive to the emotional states of those bonded to them. The word functions almost like a reassurance as much as a command.

The long final vowel (-ī) is characteristic of the calming register in Peterson's design. Compare it to the sharp consonants and short syllables of dracarys or sōvēs — the sonic difference is not accidental.

---

Targaryen Family Terms

One of the most significant linguistic expansions Peterson made for House of the Dragon was developing the kinship vocabulary — the words Targaryens use for one another within the family. These appear throughout Season 1 in intimate scenes and carry weight precisely because the Targaryens are using their heritage language to navigate a family at war with itself.

---

Muña — mother

Pronunciation: MOO-nya (the -ña is a palatalized n, similar to Spanish ñ)

Muña is the standard High Valyrian word for mother. It appears when children address Rhaenyra directly in High Valyrian — a choice that signals both intimacy and the deliberate preservation of the family's linguistic heritage. The fact that Targaryen children use muña rather than a Common Tongue equivalent is a characterization detail: these children are being raised to think of themselves as Valyrian first.

The word belongs to the lunar noun class in Peterson's gender system — one of four genders (lunar, solar, terrestrial, aquatic) that High Valyrian assigns to all nouns. Family terms for female relatives tend to fall in the lunar class, which tracks with Peterson's design of the language's gender logic.

---

Kepa — father

Pronunciation: KEH-pa (stress on the first syllable; clean and short)

The counterpart to muña, kepa is "father." It appears throughout the show in scenes between children and Viserys, and later in more charged moments involving Daemon. The emotional valence of kepa shifts dramatically across the series depending on who is speaking it and to whom — which is exactly the kind of dramatic work a prestige family language can do.

Kepa belongs to the solar noun class, the masculine counterpart to lunar. Peterson's gender assignments in High Valyrian track biological sex for human kinship terms, which makes the system intuitive for learners in this particular vocabulary area even though noun gender elsewhere in the language is unpredictable.

---

Tubī — dear / beloved (term of endearment)

Pronunciation: TOO-bee (long ū; the final -ī marks endearment or vocative intimacy)

Tubī is a term of address within the Targaryen family — used between intimates to signal affection and closeness. It is not a title or a kinship term but a modifier of address, functioning somewhat like "dear" in English: "yes, dear," "come, beloved." In High Valyrian, the long final vowel is a marker of what Peterson calls the "intimate vocative" — a grammatical form for directly addressing someone you love.

The word appears in quieter domestic scenes rather than political confrontations, and its presence marks a character's emotional state. When a Targaryen reaches for tubī, they are signaling that this is a private moment, not a public performance.

---

Political Phrases and Declarations

Beyond dragon commands and family address, House of the Dragon features High Valyrian in political declarations — moments where characters assert legitimacy, heritage, or authority in the language of their ancestors.

---

Bantis zābrie issa — the kingdom is hers

Pronunciation: BAN-tis ZAB-rye IS-sa

This phrase, used by supporters of Rhaenyra's claim during the succession crisis, is a political declaration in the most literal sense. Breaking it down:

• Bantis — kingdom, realm (nominative case, terrestrial gender)
• zābrie — hers, of her (possessive/genitive form; the -rie suffix marks genitive in this noun class)
• issa — is (third-person singular present of sagon, the copula verb "to be")

The phrase follows High Valyrian's standard Subject-Object-Verb word order, which differs from English and from Common Tongue. The copula comes last — a pattern that gives High Valyrian declarative sentences a sense of finality, of the predicate arriving after a pause. "The kingdom — hers — is." The grammatical structure enacts the assertion's certainty.

This phrase and variations of it appear in scenes involving the Black Council and in conversations between Rhaenyra's allies who use High Valyrian to speak privately in mixed company.

---

Kostōba iksan — I am powerful / strength is mine

Pronunciation: kos-TOH-ba IK-san

A warrior's assertion rather than a courtly declaration. Breaking down the grammar:

• Kostōba — powerful, strong (an adjective in the predicate position)
• iksan — I am (first-person singular of sagon)

High Valyrian places the first-person copula at the end of the predicate phrase — "powerful I-am" rather than "I am powerful." The inverted structure reads as more assertive in Valyrian rhetorical tradition, where the predicate adjective leads and the subject-verb follows as confirmation.

The word kostōba shares a root with kostys (power, strength), which appears across attested High Valyrian in several compound forms. It is part of the vocabulary cluster around Valyrian concepts of might and legitimacy — the idea that power and rightfulness are linked.

---

Ondosos qrinuntoso — of blood and fire

Pronunciation: on-DOH-sos kri-NUN-to-so

This epithet appears in ceremonial and formal registers. Both words are in the genitive case — the "of" form — which is how High Valyrian constructs attributive phrases. Ondosos is the genitive of ondos (blood); qrinuntoso is the genitive of qrinuntos (fire, in the sense of elemental fire rather than dragonfire specifically).

The phrase functions as a descriptor or epithet attached to a noun — "the dynasty of blood and fire," "the lineage of blood and fire." It captures the Targaryen self-conception: they are the people forged from the Valyrian tradition of blood bonds and dragonfire, and they use this language to remind themselves and others of that origin.

---

Āeksio and Āeksion Ondos — lord / master; Lord of the Flames

Pronunciation: AYK-see-oh; AYK-see-on ON-dos

Āeksio is the basic High Valyrian word for lord or master. It appears in formal address and in titles. Āeksion Ondos — Lord of the Flames — is an epithet, appearing in religious or semi-religious contexts related to fire worship and Valyrian spiritual traditions. Ondos here is the solar-genitive form of "fire/flames" in the proper-noun sense, distinct from the qrinuntos form used for elemental fire.

The title evokes the R'hllor tradition (the Red God, Lord of Light) without being directly synonymous with it — the Valyrian fire-deity concept predates and runs parallel to the R'hllor religion as depicted in the show.

---

Season 2 — Expanded Usage

Season 2 of House of the Dragon (2024) continues and deepens the linguistic work, with High Valyrian appearing in increasingly charged contexts as the Dance of the Dragons begins in earnest.

The war between the Blacks (Rhaenyra's faction) and the Greens (Aegon II's faction) creates a new linguistic dynamic: High Valyrian becomes a language of faction identity. Rhaenyra's court at Dragonstone uses it fluently; the Greens, who present themselves as more Westerosi in culture and political style, use it less. The language itself becomes a political signal.

Several patterns intensify in Season 2:

Dragon-rider commands become more varied. As multiple characters bond with new dragons through the dragonseeds storyline, we hear dragon commands from speakers who are less fluent than Rhaenyra — which Peterson used as an opportunity to show variation in register and confidence. A seasoned rider's sōvēs sounds different from a novice's first attempt at the same word. The hesitation, the imperfect vowel length, the slightly wrong stress — these are characterization through linguistics.

Grief and loss vocabulary. The deaths of major characters in Season 2 bring High Valyrian into mourning scenes. Peterson developed vocabulary around Valyrian funeral tradition and grief expression for these moments. The language of loss has its own register in High Valyrian — more archaic, more formal, drawing on vocabulary that connects to the old Freehold traditions.

Political debate in council scenes. Rhaenyra's Black Council scenes in Season 2 feature more extended High Valyrian than the Season 1 equivalents, as advisors argue strategy in the family language when they want to exclude servants from the conversation. This is realistic code-switching behavior: use the language others cannot understand when the stakes are highest.

---

New Vocabulary HotD Added vs. Game of Thrones

The linguistic expansion Peterson undertook for House of the Dragon is substantial. Here is how the vocabulary categories compare:

In GoT, High Valyrian appeared mainly in:

• Dragon commands (primarily dracarys)
• Philosophical idioms (valar morghulis, valar dohaeris)
• Daenerys's political speeches (mostly translated on-screen)
• Formal greetings in the Free Cities

HotD added attested vocabulary in:

• Dragon-riding commands: sōvēs, gaomagon, lykirī, and additional directional and positional commands not yet fully catalogued in public sources
• Kinship terms: muña, kepa, tubī, and terms for sibling (valonqar — younger sibling, originally from GoT — and its counterparts)
• Political declarations: claim assertions, council language, succession terminology
• Emotional register: grief vocabulary, endearment, intimate address
• Religious/ceremonial: fire-deity epithets, Valyrian ancestral invocations

This expansion reflects a deliberate creative decision: HotD is a show about a family, a dynasty, and a civil war over succession. The language needed to carry all of that weight, not just the dragon-riding spectacle.

---

Pronunciation Notes for Key Phrases

High Valyrian pronunciation follows consistent rules that Peterson established for Game of Thrones and maintained through HotD. The key principles:

Vowel length matters. High Valyrian distinguishes short and long vowels (marked with a macron: ō vs. o). Long vowels are held approximately twice as long as short ones. Getting this wrong does not make the word unrecognizable, but it does mark you as a non-native speaker in-universe. Sōvēs has two long vowels; both should be distinctly lengthened.

Stress is predictable. Stress falls on the penultimate (second-to-last) syllable if that syllable is "heavy" (contains a long vowel or ends in a consonant cluster), and on the antepenultimate (third-to-last) if the penultimate is "light." This rule, borrowed from Latin's stress system, gives High Valyrian its characteristic cadence.

Consonants are crisp. There is no schwa in High Valyrian — unstressed vowels do not reduce to a neutral sound the way they do in English. Every vowel is pronounced with its full quality. This is one of the things that makes High Valyrian sound so precise and formal: every sound is fully articulated.

The rolled R. Peterson designed High Valyrian with a trilled or tapped r, similar to Italian or Spanish. It is not the back-of-throat French r and not the English retroflex r. In practice, the actors are coached toward a light tap rather than a full trill, but the r should always be clear and front-of-mouth.

Quick pronunciation guide for the key phrases:

Phrase	Approximate pronunciation
Dracarys	DRAK-a-ris
Sōvēs	SOH-vays
Lykirī	li-KI-ree
Gaomagon	gao-MAH-gon
Muña	MOO-nya
Kepa	KEH-pa
Tubī	TOO-bee
Bantis zābrie issa	BAN-tis ZAB-rye IS-sa
Kostōba iksan	kos-TOH-ba IK-san

---

Actor Coaching — HotD vs. GoT

The process of teaching actors High Valyrian evolved significantly between Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon, and it shows in the performances.

For Game of Thrones, David J. Peterson worked primarily with Emilia Clarke (Daenerys) and a handful of other actors who had substantial High Valyrian dialogue. His method was to provide written scripts alongside audio recordings — himself speaking the lines at performance speed, then slowly, then at speed again. The dialect coaches on set worked from those recordings.

For House of the Dragon, the cast of fluent High Valyrian speakers was larger from the start, and the production integrated linguistic coaching earlier in the rehearsal process. Paddy Considine (Viserys), Emma D'Arcy (Rhaenyra), Matt Smith (Daemon), and Milly Alcock (young Rhaenyra) all had substantial High Valyrian dialogue to learn before filming began.

Matt Smith, who plays Daemon Targaryen, has spoken in press interviews about finding the language the most demanding technical aspect of the role. Daemon speaks High Valyrian more than any other character in Season 1, and the register he uses shifts across scenes — he is formal and commanding with his dragon, intimate and pointed with Rhaenyra, dismissive and contemptuous in court. Smith had to learn not just the words but how the character's personality inflects the same language differently in different contexts.

Emma D'Arcy, who plays the adult Rhaenyra, approached the language from a different angle — they found that learning the grammar structure (not just the words) allowed them to understand what the lines were doing dramatically, which made the emotional delivery more reliable than pure phonetic memorization.

The coaching difference between the two productions is audible. GoT High Valyrian sounds studied and precise — appropriately so for a character like Daenerys, who is performing a learned prestige language. HotD High Valyrian, at its best, sounds inhabited. The Targaryens are not performing their ancestral tongue; they are using it.

---

What Future Seasons Might Add Linguistically

House of the Dragon was renewed for a third season, and if the show follows the source material — George R.R. Martin's Fire and Blood — several narrative developments have obvious linguistic implications.

The dragonseeds arc is not over. More riders bonding with riderless dragons means more characters encountering High Valyrian dragon commands for the first time. Peterson has potentially developed vocabulary around the bonding experience itself — the first moment of connection between a human and a dragon is a significant event in Valyrian culture, and it seems likely to have ceremonial language attached to it.

Valyrian religious traditions. As the war deepens and the human cost rises, Fire and Blood includes references to Targaryen religious practice — prayers, rituals, and invocations that draw on Valyrian tradition. If the show depicts these, it will require Peterson to develop liturgical High Valyrian, a register that has been only lightly touched in the existing corpus.

The children of the Dance. Several of the next generation of Targaryen children — who will grow up during or after the civil war — feature in the later sections of Fire and Blood. Their relationship to High Valyrian will likely differ from their parents', given the damage the Dance does to the dragonlord tradition. A Targaryen child born after the last dragon dies may speak High Valyrian as a purely ceremonial language — echoing, ironically, how Daenerys speaks it in Game of Thrones 170 years later.

The arc from living family language to prestige relic to learned curiosity is the arc of High Valyrian across the entire franchise — and the most remarkable thing about Peterson's work is that the language carries that arc linguistically as well as dramatically. The words exist; the grammar holds. You can learn it, and what you learn is real.

---

People Also Ask

Is High Valyrian the same in House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones?

Yes — it is the same language, built and maintained by the same linguist (David J. Peterson). HotD does not reboot or contradict the GoT vocabulary; it expands it. Any word that appeared in GoT is valid in HotD, and the new HotD vocabulary is canonical for both productions.

Why do the Targaryens speak High Valyrian instead of Common Tongue?

Code-switching — the practice of alternating between two languages depending on context — is realistic bilingual behavior. The Targaryens use Common Tongue for public political life and High Valyrian for family intimacy, dragon commands, and moments when they want to exclude others from a conversation. It also signals their identity: they are not simply Westerosi kings. They are dragonlords, heirs to Valyria.

Can I learn the High Valyrian words from House of the Dragon?

Yes. The attested vocabulary from HotD is incorporated into the fan-maintained High Valyrian resources, and David J. Peterson has published much of the grammar through the Language Creation Society. The Duolingo High Valyrian course draws on Peterson's work and has been updated to include HotD vocabulary.

What is the hardest High Valyrian phrase to pronounce from HotD?

Lykirī catches most learners because the long final vowel (-ī) is easy to shorten under the influence of English phonology, which reduces unstressed vowels. The word should end with a held, fully voiced "ee" — not a reduced schwa. The second-syllable stress (li-KI-ree) also runs against English speakers' instinct to stress the first syllable.

---

Further Reading

• House of the Dragon Language Guide — Overview of all constructed language in the show
• 50+ High Valyrian Words and Phrases — The complete vocabulary reference
• How to Learn High Valyrian — Best resources and study methods
• Daenerys's High Valyrian Quotes — Translated and Explained — GoT comparison reference
• High Valyrian Pronunciation Guide — Full phonology and sound system
• High Valyrian Tattoo Phrases — Best lines for permanent ink
• High Valyrian vs. Klingon — Two Great Conlangs Compared — Head-to-head linguistic comparison

---

All High Valyrian vocabulary in this guide is attested — drawn from on-screen usage in House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones, or from David J. Peterson's publicly available language documentation. No phrases have been invented for this article. Phrases marked as "new HotD vocabulary" appear in the show but were not part of the attested GoT corpus.