Ask the Author: David J. Peterson
Answered Questions (11)
David J. Peterson
The best place to go is my Tumblr account, at the moment. Search through my posts tagged "Castithan" or "Irathient" or "Indojisnen" or "Kinuk'aaz", and you'll be able to find all the various posts I've done on the grammar and phonology of those languages. I do have plans to eventually do more with the languages (put them online, etc.), but at the moment I swamped. I absolutely WILL return to them, though. It warms my heart to meet people who are still interested in Defiance. :)
David J. Peterson
This is the incantation from episode 201:
Itsi sist. Eksleebire. Ye non hun wesrat horri. Emi non khur uu reshtoeth muirepmi terprai Yesun Khriiston.
"Stop. Go away. You have no power over me. I serve no god just Jesus Christ."
And this is the incantation from episode 210:
Etsi wesrat khedekareb emi. Emi nebratronak nüllaan. Maa’. Etsi an nat ashgagna non dünasse. Itsi maa’ ebdee nüllaan! Emi nebratronak!
"I have the power to kill. I am your master now. Die. You cannot fight. You must die now! I am your master!"
Itsi sist. Eksleebire. Ye non hun wesrat horri. Emi non khur uu reshtoeth muirepmi terprai Yesun Khriiston.
"Stop. Go away. You have no power over me. I serve no god just Jesus Christ."
And this is the incantation from episode 210:
Etsi wesrat khedekareb emi. Emi nebratronak nüllaan. Maa’. Etsi an nat ashgagna non dünasse. Itsi maa’ ebdee nüllaan! Emi nebratronak!
"I have the power to kill. I am your master now. Die. You cannot fight. You must die now! I am your master!"
David J. Peterson
She simply says this over and over again:
Ye wosseri. Etsoo an esee uumezhdesi. Itsi Sataan weragnis uumezhdes ekse ebdee.
The translation is, "You are my slave. You must obey me. You must obey great Satan."
Have fun with the finale! More coming!
Ye wosseri. Etsoo an esee uumezhdesi. Itsi Sataan weragnis uumezhdes ekse ebdee.
The translation is, "You are my slave. You must obey me. You must obey great Satan."
Have fun with the finale! More coming!
David J. Peterson
There was quite a bit of enchantment. I'm not sure how much of it made it into the show. Here are three of the lines:
Itsi paskheni em menkaak saddas ‘amüs. Esmai kogituhhuk paskhen. Ye hun uu wesrat tahi.
"Feel me stab deep into your mind. I will feel your thoughts. You are powerless before me."
Etsi an tu gildust eni immesak. Etsi an tu trish en bianhkita immesak. Etsi an sha’am tu zendaamu ye balahee.
"This skin brings you to me. This hair brings you to life. This blood makes you live."
Nüllaan esee menyaalu uuratsni lakwe eetsa roidakh. Esee orra’aabu vimaaru.
"Now you will feel pain unlike any you have known. You will see horrors."
Sleep tight! ;)
Itsi paskheni em menkaak saddas ‘amüs. Esmai kogituhhuk paskhen. Ye hun uu wesrat tahi.
"Feel me stab deep into your mind. I will feel your thoughts. You are powerless before me."
Etsi an tu gildust eni immesak. Etsi an tu trish en bianhkita immesak. Etsi an sha’am tu zendaamu ye balahee.
"This skin brings you to me. This hair brings you to life. This blood makes you live."
Nüllaan esee menyaalu uuratsni lakwe eetsa roidakh. Esee orra’aabu vimaaru.
"Now you will feel pain unlike any you have known. You will see horrors."
Sleep tight! ;)
David J. Peterson
Honestly, having pre-existing vocabulary and phrases has the potential to make my job easier or harder. In this case, I'd say it was easier, because everything George R. R. Martin had created cohered really well and gave a very clear picture of what the language would end up looking like. I was grateful for that!
As to your second question, I'm not sure I understand what you mean...? If you're talking about writing systems, yes, I certainly have created those. It's a different thing, because writing is an artificial invention, unlike spoken/signed language, but it's the part of the job I find the most fun. I love writing systems, and love creating them. I've gotten the opportunity to create four different writing systems for the show Defiance I work on, and I also created one for the Sondiv language in the CW's Star-Crossed. You can learn a lot about these systems on my Tumblr, if you're curious.
Thanks for the questions!
As to your second question, I'm not sure I understand what you mean...? If you're talking about writing systems, yes, I certainly have created those. It's a different thing, because writing is an artificial invention, unlike spoken/signed language, but it's the part of the job I find the most fun. I love writing systems, and love creating them. I've gotten the opportunity to create four different writing systems for the show Defiance I work on, and I also created one for the Sondiv language in the CW's Star-Crossed. You can learn a lot about these systems on my Tumblr, if you're curious.
Thanks for the questions!
David J. Peterson
That was really different, actually, I absolutely loved Nicholas Boulton as the announcer in the arena. I never could have imagined Low Valyrian sounding like that. So theatrical! It was brilliant. It was a lot of fun to see, and I greatly appreciate the performance. One thing I'm a little sad we didn't see a lot of (but, of course, it didn't make sense with the way the scene worked) is every single fighter said the same thing in High Valyrian (they would have all learned the phrase by rote), but we specifically gave them an appropriate accent depending on who they were and where they came from. I loved the Dothraki-accented High Valyrian for the Dothraki lajak, but we cut away right before he said his line. Too bad! But yeah, overall, that scene was killer. Loved it!
David J. Peterson
She just said "fly" in English. If she were using High Valyrian, she would've said sōvēs. Generally Dany has only used High Valyrian with the dragons, but this was an exception. I guess it just didn't work out on set. (Update: I figured out what happened with the dubbing. She did say "fly" during the actual filming, but they added a Dothraki word over the top to match her mouth movements. For a full discussion, please see my blog post here.)
David J. Peterson
Funny you should ask: I wasn't really told how little dialogue there was going to be! They said "not much", but, you know, that could be a "not much; just five pages", or "not much; just one short line and that's it". I think if I'd know it was going to be just one line, it would've saved me quite a bit of time. As it was, though, I prepared just the way I would with any language request and did the whole bit. Perhaps we'll see some more giant action in future seasons (Wun Wun escaped!). I hope so. It's a fun language—and Wun Wun was awesome. What a beast! Love him!
David J. Peterson
I was already familiar with Enochian prior to my involvement with Penny Dreadful. While I like the idea of tying John Dee fictionally to VD, the quality of his work is such that it just didn't make sense to make any reference to it. It's basically coded English; an amateurish effort. It didn't make sense to take his actual material and try to fit it into VD.
David J. Peterson
Verbis Diabolo is different from anything I've ever done. First, it's a posteriori, which means that all the words and grammar come from other—in this case, real world—sources. Specifically, the sources were Arabic, Akkadian, Middle Egyptian, Attic Greek, Latin, Farsi and Turkish. Second, VD was not intended to be a language proper. I looked at the language as an art piece. VD is supposed to be a language twisted in form; wrenched from Earth's languages. Many words that meant something in a given language are taken and reversed phonetically to produce the equivalent VD word. Sometimes the reversal came with a reversal in meaning, as with justa, from Latin, which becomes atsüü, "vile". Also pieces of words from many different languages will often be combined to produce portmanteaux which may have nothing to do with the original meanings of any of the parts.
In addition, though there are patterns in the language, sometimes the patterns are broken for no reason. A word which has meant the same thing every time one has heard it will suddenly have a new meaning in a new sentence for no discernible reason. Words will change orders to subvert previously attested patterns; words will be pronounced differently for no reason at all; the auxiliary, one of the few bits of predictability in the language, will move or drop out entirely.
All of this combines to produce something that doesn't sound an awful lot like a language, and I think that's true. It defies attempts to learn it, meaning that the only way to actually speak it is to be touched by the devil. In effect, that was the point.
So yeah, I had a lot of fun with it! It's far different from anything I've ever done in the past. It sounds really weird. I've been pleased with the performances thus far. I'll get to your second question tomorrow. :)
In addition, though there are patterns in the language, sometimes the patterns are broken for no reason. A word which has meant the same thing every time one has heard it will suddenly have a new meaning in a new sentence for no discernible reason. Words will change orders to subvert previously attested patterns; words will be pronounced differently for no reason at all; the auxiliary, one of the few bits of predictability in the language, will move or drop out entirely.
All of this combines to produce something that doesn't sound an awful lot like a language, and I think that's true. It defies attempts to learn it, meaning that the only way to actually speak it is to be touched by the devil. In effect, that was the point.
So yeah, I had a lot of fun with it! It's far different from anything I've ever done in the past. It sounds really weird. I've been pleased with the performances thus far. I'll get to your second question tomorrow. :)
David J. Peterson
Music! I've got a personal collection of over 18,000 songs, and I'm constantly to music of all kinds. There are a couple of bands/albums in particular I like to listen to, though, to get myself focused. Ozric Tentacles is great, as it's rhythmically and melodically interesting instrumental music. I love Pink Floyd's Animals and Dark Side of the Moon. Listening to my entire collection of Dream Theater on random is another favorite of mine. The Cocteau Twins are another go to band. For modern stuff, Tycho, M83, Phantogram and Washed Out are stellar. The point is to help me tune out everything else and focus on the project at hand.
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