Game of Thrones' Dothraki and Valyrian language creator snuck Easter eggs into the script

The Meereenese challenger's insults were straight out of Monty Python

Daenerys speaking Valyrian (HBO)

David Peterson, the linguist behind Game of Thrones’ Dothraki and Valyrian languages, Defiance’s Castithan, Irathient, Indojisnen and Kinuk’aaz and Penny Dreadful’s Verbis Diablo, stopped into Reddit’s Books community this week for an AMA.

He offered many fascinating insights into the creation of entire languages, but one question was of particular interest to Game of Thrones fans, did he slip any Easter eggs into them?

'The Monty Python speech from GoT is a favorite of mine, but I don't get the credit for it: That was one of Dan Weiss's jokes (he throws in a lot of them). I just happily translated it; thought it was brilliant.'

Peterson was referring to a scene in Season 4, Episode 3, when Missandei translates the insults of a Meerenese challenger for Khaleesi. Missandei heavily-paraphrased for her queen, but directly translated the insults were lifted from Python’s “your father smelled of elderberries” speech.

‘Where it wouldn't be inappropriate, I always add my wife's name [Erin] and try to make sure it works in. I'm usually pretty successful with that.’

‘One that surprised me was a word I coined in honor of my mother-in-law. Her name is Jolyn, and I gave her the Dothraki root jolin in honor of her awesome cooking skills (jolinat, the verb, is "to cook"). A word built off this root is jolino, which refers to a large pot for cooking. I created it and didn't think anything of it. Then in the episode "A Golden Crown", they decided to add a line in ADR for Drogo: "Empty that pot!" This was awesome, because not only would I get to use her word, her name would be used exactly as it's pronounced (more or less) in English, because of the grammar (pot is the object, and the accusative form of jolino is jolin). Thus the line came out: Ammeni haz jolin! That was the best.

Peterson has been creating languages for 15 years, ever since his days at UC Berkeley. HBO advertised for the opportunity to create the languages on online language creation forums, with Peterson’s proposal eventually being chosen by show creators David Benioff and Dan Weiss.