What Is High Valyrian? The Language of Dragons, Explained

Quick Answer: High Valyrian is the constructed language David J. Peterson created for HBO's Game of Thrones, expanding a few invented words from George R.R. Martin's novels into a full language with 4 noun genders, 8 grammatical cases, and a vocabulary in the thousands of attested words. Daenerys Targaryen speaks it to command her dragons; in the show's world it functions like Latin — a dead prestige language still used by scholars, priests, and the Targaryen family.

If you searched "high valyrian" because you heard Daenerys say Dracarys and wanted to know what you were actually hearing — this page is for you. Here is the short version, then the detail.

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Who Created High Valyrian, and When

High Valyrian was created by David J. Peterson, a linguist who won a commission from HBO through a competition run by the Language Creation Society. Peterson had never planned to become "the Game of Thrones language guy" — he built the language essentially from scratch for the show's first season, which premiered in 2012.

He didn't start from nothing, though. George R.R. Martin's novels contain a handful of invented Valyrian words and names — Valyria itself, Dracarys, names like Daenerys and Rhaegar — scattered through the text for flavor, without any underlying grammar. Peterson's job was to reverse-engineer a consistent, complete linguistic system out of those fragments: a sound system, a grammar, and eventually thousands of words, all designed to sound like they plausibly produced the handful of words Martin had already written.

Peterson also created Dothraki for the same show, and he deliberately designed High Valyrian to feel like its opposite — where Dothraki is meant to sound rough, direct, and nomadic, High Valyrian was built to sound aristocratic, formal, and precise: the language of a fallen empire, not a horse clan.

The language expanded substantially again for House of the Dragon (2022), where Peterson returned to write new dialogue and grow the vocabulary further — the show is set roughly 200 years before the events of the original series, when High Valyrian was still a living household language for House Targaryen rather than a mostly dead ceremonial one.

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High Valyrian's Place in the World of Game of Thrones

Inside the story, High Valyrian is the language of the Valyrian Freehold — the empire destroyed in the cataclysm known as the Doom of Valyria, centuries before the events of the show. By the time of Game of Thrones, High Valyrian functions the way Latin functioned in medieval Europe: a prestige language, no longer anyone's native tongue in Westeros, but still used by maesters, scholars, priests of R'hllor, and the Targaryen family, who trace their ancestry to Valyria and never fully let the language go.

Daenerys Targaryen is the character most associated with it — she uses High Valyrian to command her dragons (Dracarys, "dragonfire"), to negotiate with slavers in Astapor and Yunkai, and to address the Unsullied. In House of the Dragon, set closer to Valyria's fall, the Targaryens speak it more casually and fluently among themselves, since the language hadn't yet fully faded from daily use within the family.

"Low Valyrian" is a related but distinct concept. In the show's world, Low Valyrian isn't a single language — it's a family of everyday, evolved dialects spoken across the Free Cities (Braavos, Pentos, Meereen, and others), descended from High Valyrian the way modern Romance languages descended from Latin. Each city's dialect has drifted differently. High Valyrian is the "classical," grammatically conservative ancestor form; the Low Valyrian dialects are its regional, evolved descendants. Dothraki, by contrast, is a completely separate language family in-world — spoken by the horse-riding Dothraki khalasar, unrelated to the Valyrian language tree, even though Peterson built both.

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How High Valyrian Actually Works, Linguistically

Unlike a language invented purely for atmosphere, High Valyrian has a complete, internally consistent grammar. A few structural features define it:

• Four noun genders — but not arbitrary ones like French or German. High Valyrian genders follow a semantic logic: lunar (animate, noble/powerful — dragons, Targaryens, gods), solar (animate, common — most people, animals), terrestrial (inanimate, large/significant — cities, ships, mountains), and aquatic (inanimate, small or fluid — water, fire, and most abstract concepts).
• Eight grammatical cases — nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, locative, instrumental, comitative, and vocative — each marking a noun's grammatical role directly on the word ending, rather than relying purely on word order the way English does.
• A phonemic vowel-length system — short and long vowels (marked with macrons: ā, ē, ī, ō, ȳ) are genuinely different sounds that can change a word's meaning, not just a stress difference.
• Latin as the closest real-world analogue — Peterson has spoken openly about drawing on Latin for High Valyrian's case system, its stress rules, and its narrative role as a "dead prestige language." It is not a disguised or relexified version of Latin, but the design philosophy — and the difficulty curve for an English speaker — will feel familiar to anyone who has studied it.

For the full breakdown of the case and gender system with worked examples, see the High Valyrian grammar guide. For the sound system specifically — vowel length, stress placement, and the consonants that trip up English speakers — see the High Valyrian pronunciation guide.

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Is High Valyrian Hard to Learn? An Honest Answer

Yes, moderately — and it's worth being upfront about scope here, since that's the whole point of this page.

High Valyrian sits at medium-to-hard difficulty for English speakers: harder than Dothraki, comparable to Latin in grammatical weight, but with pronunciation that's genuinely friendly (no clicks, no tones, nothing English speakers structurally lack). The case and gender system is the real challenge — every noun you learn comes bundled with a gender and a set of endings to memorize, and adjectives have to agree with both.

The bigger honesty point is about how much material exists. High Valyrian has well over a thousand attested words — a real, usable vocabulary — but it is meaningfully smaller than a language like Klingon, which has been actively developed and documented since 1985, or the site's own Elvish content, which draws on decades of Tolkien's published linguistic writing. High Valyrian's canon comes almost entirely from two HBO shows' worth of scripted dialogue plus Peterson's own supplementary releases. That means fewer example sentences, a smaller fan-translated corpus, and more gaps you'll bump into once you get past the first few hundred words — gaps that the community (Reddit's r/HighValyrian, the fan wiki) fills in, but that a learner should know about going in. We'd rather tell you that directly than let you discover it three months in.

For a full roadmap — phase by phase, from first words to reading scene transcripts without subtitles — see How to Learn High Valyrian.

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High Valyrian vs. the Languages You Can Actually Learn on Tengwar

Tengwar doesn't currently offer a structured High Valyrian course — the content on this site is a research and reference resource for it, not a lesson platform for it. What Tengwar does teach, with full structured lessons, spaced repetition, and an AI tutor, are three other real-world-attested conlangs:

• Elvish (Quenya & Sindarin) — J.R.R. Tolkien's languages for Middle-earth, with 25 lessons and by far the deepest published linguistic record of any conlang on this list.
• Klingon (tlhIngan Hol) — Marc Okrand's language for Star Trek, with 21 lessons and the longest continuously developed fan/canon community of any constructed language.
• Dothraki — David J. Peterson's other Game of Thrones language, with 21 lessons. If you want to learn a Peterson-built conlang on Tengwar today, this is the one — and studying its verbal morphology is genuinely useful preparation for tackling High Valyrian's own conjugation system later.

Want to actually start learning a conlang today, with structured lessons and an AI tutor? Start Dothraki free at /learn/200 → — or explore all three languages on the Tengwar AI conlang tutor.

If you're deciding which pop-culture language deserves your time, our Elvish vs Klingon vs Dothraki comparison and High Valyrian vs Dothraki breakdown both cover the tradeoffs directly.

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Where to Go Next

This page is meant to be a starting point, not the whole story. Depending on what you're after:

• Want to hear it correctly? Start with the High Valyrian pronunciation guide.
• Want a study plan? Read How to Learn High Valyrian for the full phase-by-phase roadmap.
• Want vocabulary fast? Try 50 Common High Valyrian Words or the High Valyrian Dictionary by category.
• Want the grammar in depth? Go to the High Valyrian grammar guide.
• Want to know exactly what Daenerys is saying, line by line? See Daenerys High Valyrian Quotes — Every Line Translated.
• Curious how it compares to Peterson's other Game of Thrones language? Read High Valyrian vs Dothraki.

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People Also Ask

What is High Valyrian? High Valyrian is a constructed language created by linguist David J. Peterson for HBO's Game of Thrones. It began from a handful of invented words and names in George R.R. Martin's novels and was expanded by Peterson into a full language with its own grammar, sound system, and vocabulary, first built out for spoken dialogue in Season 3 (2013) and significantly expanded for House of the Dragon in 2022.

Who speaks High Valyrian in Game of Thrones? Daenerys Targaryen is the character most associated with High Valyrian — she uses it to command her dragons (Dracarys) and to address the Unsullied and the slavers of Astapor and Yunkai. It's treated as a prestige, mostly dead language, comparable to Latin in medieval Europe, spoken fluently by only a few — mainly maesters, priests of R'hllor, and Targaryens. In House of the Dragon, set roughly 200 years earlier, it is still a living household language for the Targaryen family.

Is High Valyrian a real language? No — High Valyrian is a constructed language ("conlang"), meaning it was deliberately invented rather than evolving naturally among a community of speakers. It is not a real historical or living language, but it is a genuine, fully engineered one: it has real grammar rules, a documented sound system, and a vocabulary in the thousands of attested words.

Is High Valyrian based on a real language? Not directly, but Peterson drew heavily on Latin for inspiration — High Valyrian's case system, its stress rules, and its role as a "dead prestige language" within the story all echo how Latin functioned in medieval Europe. It is not a disguised version of Latin; the vocabulary and specific grammatical forms are Peterson's own invention.

Related Reading

• High Valyrian Pronunciation Guide — Sound Like a Targaryen
• How to Learn High Valyrian: Complete 2026 Guide
• High Valyrian Grammar Guide — Complete Case System
• 50 Common High Valyrian Words
• High Valyrian Dictionary: Common Words by Category
• Daenerys High Valyrian Quotes — Every Line Translated
• High Valyrian vs Dothraki — Which Should You Learn?
• David J. Peterson and the Dothraki Language
• Elvish vs Klingon vs Dothraki — The Ultimate Comparison

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Ready to actually start learning a constructed language today? Tengwar offers structured lessons, spaced repetition, and an AI tutor for Elvish, Klingon, and Dothraki — start free at /learn →.