Game of Thrones language Dothraki to be taught at university

The language of Dothraki, which was specially created for Game of Thrones, will be taught in a new course at a US university.

UC Berkeley announced the class on its website last week, confirming that 'The Linguistics of Game of Thrones and the Art of Language Invention' will be taught by the language's creator, David J. Peterson. The course will run this coming summer for six weeks.

Peterson is an alum of UC Berkeley earning his Masters in Linguistics at UC San Diego in 2005. In 1009, he found himself creating the language of Dothraki for the HBO fantasy series based on extracts from George R.R. Martin's book series. It now features well over 3,000 words.

In Thrones, the Dothraki are a group of warriors, the leader of which - Khal Drogo - marries Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) in the show's first season.

Speaking to the university, he said: “From there, I’ve worked on about a dozen other shows and movies. Language has become my entire life and my livelihood.”

Peterson - who has since worked on shows including The 100 and Penny Dreadful - also created the show's High Valyrian language.

The course will focus on the art of creating a language as opposed to simply studying its vocabulary with Dothraki being the framing device chosen to help students discover what it's like to experience a new langauge.

The Dothraki language has previously been the subject of a conversational Living Language course in 2014

Game of Thrones season seven premieres exclusively on 17 July on Sky Atlantic and NOW TV at 2am, repeated at 9pm on the same day.