Author Topic: David Peterson in Reno!  (Read 8264 times)

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Hrakkar

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David Peterson in Reno!
« on: August 14, 2011, 12:53:40 am »
David Peterson will be in Reno, Nevada this week for the World Science Fiction convention!

Although I haven't looked at the program yet, I have been told he is giving a number of presentations, most of them on Dothraki. One of these is supposedly a workshop on the Dothraki language! I plan to attend as many of these as I can, and I will report back here what I have learned.

So at Worldcon, I will be dabbling in Na`vi, Klingon and Dothraki (and who knows what else!). Looks like it is going to be an intense week!
Don't tell Khal Drogo I am here ;)

ingsve

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Re: David Peterson in Reno!
« Reply #1 on: August 14, 2011, 12:55:05 am »
David Peterson will be in Reno, Nevada this week for the World Science Fiction convention!

Although I haven't looked at the program yet, I have been told he is giving a number of presentations, most of them on Dothraki. One of these is supposedly a workshop on the Dothraki language! I plan to attend as many of these as I can, and I will report back here what I have learned.

So at Worldcon, I will be dabbling in Na`vi, Klingon and Dothraki (and who knows what else!). Looks like it is going to be an intense week!

Cool, didn't know anyone from here was attending.
"I just need to rest, that’s all, to rest and sleep some, and maybe die a little" – Samwell Tarly

Hrakkar

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Re: David Peterson in Reno!
« Reply #2 on: August 17, 2011, 09:05:17 am »
I  have learned that George R.R. Martin will be at Worldcon as well!

David's main talk on Dothraki is on Thursday at 3 PM, if any reading this are near/at Worldcon. David is appearing in quite a number of activities, all of which I am planning to attend.
Don't tell Khal Drogo I am here ;)

ingsve

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Re: David Peterson in Reno!
« Reply #3 on: August 17, 2011, 10:16:12 am »
I  have learned that George R.R. Martin will be at Worldcon as well!

David's main talk on Dothraki is on Thursday at 3 PM, if any reading this are near/at Worldcon. David is appearing in quite a number of activities, all of which I am planning to attend.

Cool. See if you can get a talk with him as well. Shouldn't be too hard during the work shop unless it gets really full.

Edit: I told David that you were going to be there and he said to come find him. He'll be on site starting tomorrow.
« Last Edit: August 17, 2011, 12:29:16 pm by ingsve »
"I just need to rest, that’s all, to rest and sleep some, and maybe die a little" – Samwell Tarly

Hrakkar

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Re: David Peterson in Reno!
« Reply #4 on: August 17, 2011, 11:33:04 pm »
Thank you for 'greasing the slides', Insgive!

I did indeed meet David today, who, as  a result of what you told him, knew about me. I also met a number of other active members of the Language Creation Society. We all ended up having a nice dinner together, and got to know each other better. In addition to an interest in constructed languages and linguistics, David share a common interest in baseball, and are fans of the Green Bay Packers!

Tomorrow is 'linguistics day' at the convention, with at least three panels on the subject. One of these is specifically about Dothraki. The one I am really looking forward to is a three hour workshop where you will actually construct a language!

George R.R. Martin has a book reading tomorrow as well, but I am not sure which of his many books he will be reading from. He is doing a book signing as well, but it is at the same time as the Dothraki program :-( (I'm sure there will be some other opportunity to get an autograph, and that isn't really that important, anyway.)

David also gave me a new word, with permission to share with the community, and that will be posted in 'Language updates'!
Don't tell Khal Drogo I am here ;)

Hrakkar

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Re: David Peterson in Reno!
« Reply #5 on: August 19, 2011, 12:54:25 am »
Today was 'linguistics day' at Worldcon!

The fun began with a very nuce presentation by David Peterson on the development of the Dothraki language. Hw showed us how the initial language development process worked, and how he maintained communication with HBO during production of the TV series. He then presented a number of Dothraki phrases, illustrating different features of the language, and gave the audience a chance to read them back. Then, an audience member was selected to participate in a dialogue with David in Dothraki. Besides his excellent work on creating the language, David's command of the spoken language is outstanding (he later told me that if you are really speaking a language correctly, the who sense of your presentation should reflect the language it is given in). Then there was question and answer time, and lots of interesting questions were asked. David kept careful track of the names of the people asking questions. When the program was done, David told those that had asked questions to look on the site in a few days, and they should see their names translated into Dothraki!

An hour later, David was one of 5 presenters giving a program on general linguistics. The other presenters were Michael Capobianco, Peadar Ó Guilín, Stanley Schmidt, and Lawrence M. Schoen (of Klingon Language Institute fame). They gave an excellent overall presentation at the problems facing people setting out to create a language for their book, film, etc. This talk was looong (ran well over its assigned time slot), informative and often humorous. It also set the stage for the language construction workshop to follow.

The highly anticipated language construction workshop was worth the wait, and a bit different than I had thought it would be like. First, David gave us a history of constructed languages that was fascination. (Did you know the first conlanger we have record of was Hildegard Von Bingen way back in the 12th century?) After this presentation, the room was broken up into four groups. An experienced conlanger (all from the Language Creation Society) was placed in charge of each group. Working from a series of sealed envelopes, each group worked through a progressive series of challenging scenarios, each describing the steps necessary to create a believable constructed language. Although there were seven evolutionary steps planned for working our mini-conlangs into a believable language, there was only time to work through four of them. In any case, this was a tremendous learning experience, and it helped illustrate that creating a language and making it believable is not a trivial process.

There are two more linguistic panels tomorrow, but these will be an anticlimax compared to what we learned today!
Don't tell Khal Drogo I am here ;)

Hrakkar

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Re: David Peterson in Reno!
« Reply #6 on: August 25, 2011, 12:51:00 am »
I am finally 'coming back down to earth' after the entire Worldcon experience. I learned so much that I am still trying to sort it all out!

The linguistic panels that followed 'super Thursday' were anticlimaxes perhaps, but were certainly very interesting and thought-provoking. They tended to look at the history and future of languages and languages, something I now know is near and dear to David's heart. Language is inextricably tied to culture, and like culture, living languages change and evolve. Still, there are some living languages that don't change much, and that is the nature of the culture they are used in. (Icelandic is an example of such a language.)

In closing, I offer this picture of David Peterson, giving his presentation on the Dothraki language on Thursday afternoon.


Here is a link to his presentation:
http://dedalvs.com/dothraki/dothrakireno.pdf
Hint: There a re quite a few new words in his presentation!
Pay special attention to useful conversational Dothraki on pages 12 and 13!
Don't tell Khal Drogo I am here ;)