Sounds and Spelling

High Valyrian 1

Course 1 · Chapter 2 · Sounds and Spelling

High Valyrian is written in the Latin alphabet with a few extra marks, and its spelling is regular: one letter or letter pair, one sound. This chapter follows David J. Peterson's own pronunciation guide (written in November 2020), so you can read the examples in the rest of the course aloud. Its comparison words are English or other familiar languages; they are guides, not exact matches.

The idea in a box

Six vowels, each short or long (long ones carry a macron and are held twice as long); consonants p t k without a puff of air; a trilled r; a back-of-the-mouth q; and a stress rule that usually puts the stress on the second-to-last syllable.

The Vowels

High Valyrian has six vowel letters. The long version of each is written with a macron (a bar over the letter) and is held for about twice as long. The length can change the meaning of a word, so do not skip the marks.

Short	Long	Sound (Peterson's comparison)
a	ā	"a" in "father"
e	ē	"a" in "gate" (always this sound)
i	ī	"i" in "machine"
o	ō	"o" in "tote"
u	ū	"u" in "ruminate"
y	ȳ	"u" in French "rue" or "ü" in German "für"

Watch out: e is not "eh" and y is not "why"

The vowel e is always like the "a" in "gate", never like "bed". The letter y is a vowel in its own right, the rounded sound of French "rue": say "ee" with your lips rounded.

The Consonants

Letter	Sound (Peterson's comparison)
b, m, n, s, z	as in "bad", "matter", "never", "sad", "zebra"
d	"d" in Spanish "diente" (with the tongue against the teeth)
g	"g" in "goat", never as in "genius"
gh	"r" in French "rouge", never as in "ghost"
h	"h" in "hop"; always pronounced, even after another consonant or at the end of a word
j	"j" in "jam" on its own, but often "g" in "genre" or "y" in "yellow" inside a cluster; a variable sound
k, p, t	as in "sky", "spike", "stake": no puff of air
kh	"ch" in German "Buch"
l	"l" in "love"
lj	"lli" in "million"
ñ	"ni" in "onion"; ñj is "nj" in "ninja" (also written nj)
q	a "k" made further back, with the back of the tongue against the uvula
r	the trilled "rr" of Spanish "perro"; rh is the same sound without voicing
th	"th" in "thin", never as in "that"
v	"v" in "van" on its own, but often "w" in "wagon" inside a cluster; a variable sound

Watch out: no puff of air on p, t, k

English p t k usually come with a puff ("pike", "take", "kite"). In High Valyrian they never do, as in "spike", "stake" and "sky". Hold a hand in front of your mouth to check.

Long Vowels and Doubled Consonants

A long vowel is held twice as long: compare English "bat" and "bad". A doubled consonant is pronounced by lingering on it, like the "s" in "Miss Sally" compared with "Miss Ally". When a digraph is doubled, only the first letter is doubled in the spelling, so it is kkh, not khkh, but it is still pronounced as one long sound.

# long vowels in the sample sentences from Chapter 1
māzigon     ā is held twice as long as a
ābre        ā long
ūndas       ū long

# letters to watch
dracarys    y is the rounded vowel of French "rue"
valonqar    q is a back-of-the-mouth "k"
dohaeris    h is always pronounced

Where the Stress Falls

Peterson's guide gives the stress rule in a few lines:

A word-final consonant does not count when working out stress.
Stress usually falls on the penultimate (second-to-last) syllable.
If the penultimate syllable is short, stress falls on the antepenultimate (third-to-last) syllable if that one is heavy.
Some forms, such as the imperative, have word-final stress, but otherwise final stress is unusual.
A vowel cluster that begins with i (ia, ie, io) counts as a single vowel for stress.

The guide does not define "heavy" on that page. A common meaning in other languages is a syllable with a long vowel or one that ends in a consonant, and a Language Invention page uses a similar idea (a syllable is light only if it ends in a short vowel). Treat that as the working definition here.

Watch out: the macron changes the stress

Because long vowels make a syllable heavy, a macron can move the stress. In Peterson's spelling the famous phrase is written valar morghūlis, with a long ū; the novels print it with no macron. With the long ū, the penultimate syllable is heavy, so the stress falls there: mor-GHŪ-lis.

Hands-On Exercises

Exercise 1

Say each word aloud and name the special letters in it: dracarys, valonqar, dohaeris, māzigon, ūndas.

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Exercise 2

Explain how to pronounce k in "sky" versus "kite", and which of the two High Valyrian k matches. Then say what kkh means and why it is not written khkh.

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Exercise 3

Apply the stress rule to valar morghūlis: for each of the two words, split it into syllables, say which syllable is stressed and why. Treat a syllable with a long vowel or a final consonant as heavy.

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Chapter 2 Quick Reference

Vowels: a e i o u y, each long with a macron (ā ē ī ō ū ȳ), held twice as long; e is "gate", y is French "rue"
Consonants: p t k without a puff; kh "Buch"; gh French "rouge"; q back-of-mouth k; r trilled; th "thin"; h always pronounced
Doubling: linger on a doubled consonant; a doubled digraph is written kkh, ggh...
Stress: usually the second-to-last syllable; third-to-last if the second-to-last is short and the third is heavy; the imperative is stressed on the last

Coming next

High Valyrian 1, Chapter 3 turns to nouns and their four genders: lunar, solar, terrestrial and aquatic.