The popular Netflix series The Witcher has been using a language that was created in other stories outside of the show and its books, the elvish tongue of Elder Speech, so now fans have been shocked at the way it has been developed, generating great curiosity among the followers of these strange languages. But, this is what is known about her and her creation.
As is known from past stories, the original Elder Speech vocabulary, also called Hen Linge, was created by the Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski for his novels. In creating Elder Speech, he based much of the vocabulary on actual European languages, including German, Italian, Latin, Swedish, Welsh, and Irish. Reason why people who live in Europe become a little more familiar with this strange language.
However, what Sapkowski wrote could only be used as a basis for what the TV show featured. After all, the actors on the show actually have to speak this language. In fact, The Witcher’s producer, Lauren Schmidt Hissrich, revealed during an interview that it was important that cast members were able to make dialogue scenes more realistic, rather than limiting themselves to the lines Sapkowski used in his books.
On top of that, these main iterations that The Witcher uses employ that universe’s conlang, the Elvish language of Elder Speech, to varying degrees. However, it wasn’t until the Netflix series that fans were able to see it as a fully-fledged spoken language. This also allowed other fans like the Lord of the Rings books to start seeing this amazing story.
In fact, the Netflix platform hired language creator David J. Peterson, the man who developed the Dothraki language for the HBO series Game of Thrones, to expand on Sapkowski’s work, making it more intriguing and fascinating for all viewers. who expected to see this language. To what extent he had to do this is unknown, but the end results of his efforts have been quite successful.
“Peterson explained how to say ‘winter is coming’ from GOT in The Witcher’s Elder Speech.”
According to the information that has been revealed so far, the changes and extensions that Peterson has made to the Elder Speech, is the romanization of the script of the language. Basically, Peterson changed the way certain words are spelled so that English speakers can read them as they would sound when pronounced.
Interestingly, Peterson assured that the peculiarity and the way in which the Elder Speech was created, is thanks to the fact that it used the original Sapkowski spelling system, so they are preserved in the spelling with only minor adjustments where necessary, explained the creator. of language. The reality is that fans of The Witcher series find themselves grateful for the incredible work that he has put into the show to create this amazing story.
