Appendix:High Valyrian pronunciation

High Valyrian Language Navigation: Home, Phonology, Grammar, Vocabulary, Dictionary, Orthography, Dialogue

The High Valyrian language has 18 distinct consonant phonemes (not including two that only occur in loanwords), 6 vowels (each of which may be long or short) and 2 glides.

Standard Romanization

Letter	IPA	English approximation	Notes
a	a	US bot, UK bath
ā	aː	father
b	b	bother
d	d	dog
e	e	bait
ē	eː	bade
g	g	good
gh	ɣ ~ ʁ	—	Pronounced like the "r" in French "rouge" or the "g" in Dutch "goed" (never like the "g" in "ghost"). It's a rough, throaty sound—kind of like a hard "h".
h	h	ham	This grapheme is always pronounced, even if it comes after another consonant. The only cases in which it is not pronounced is when it occurs in the digraphs gh, kh and th.
i	i	beet
ī	iː	bead
j	ɟ ~ d͡ʒ ~ ʒ ~ j	gules, judge, azure, or yes	Pronounced like the "j" in "judge" or approximately like the "g" in "gules" (specifically when the vowel is pronounced like the letter U) in isolation, but often pronounced like the "z" in "azure" or the "y" in "yes" when occurring in consonant clusters.
k	k	sky	This sound features no aspiration. Aspiration is the puff of air that occurs in the "k" in "kill". Compare the "k" in "kill" and the "k" in "skill" (try holding your hand in front of your face when pronouncing both). The High Valyrian "k" should always be pronounced like the "k" in "skill"; never like the "k" in "kill".
kh	x ~ χ	Bach, or Chanukkah	Only found in loanwords.
l	l	left
lj	ʎ	million
m	m	man
n	n	no	Assimilates to following velar or uvular consonant.
ñ	ɲ	onion	Pronounced, and usually written, as n before i, or any consonant except for j.
o	o	moat
ō	oː	mode
p	p	span	This sound features no aspiration. Aspiration is the puff of air that occurs in the "p" in "pine". Compare the "p" in "pine" and the "p" in "spine" (try holding your hand in front of your face when pronouncing both). The High Valyrian "p" should always be pronounced like the "p" in "spine"; never like the "p" in "pine".
q	q	—
r	r ~ ɾ	—	A tap when following a vowel, except at the end of a word. Trilled elsewhere.
rh	r̥	—	Pronounced as r above, but without voicing. It will sound kind of like pronouncing h and r at the same time.
s	s	see
t	t	stop	This sound features no aspiration. Aspiration is the puff of air that occurs in the "t" in "take". Compare the "t" in "take" and the "t" in "stake" (try holding your hand in front of your face when pronouncing both). The High Valyrian "t" should always be pronounced like the "t" in "stake"; never like the "t" in "take".
th	θ	think	Only found in loanwords.
u	u	crouton
ū	uː	food
v	v ~ w	voice or wave
y	y	—	A high front rounded vowel, as in French "tu" or German "tschüss". Outside of the standard romanization, it can be pronounced like the "y" in English "yak" when occurring before vowels, such as in Targaryen (Targārien).
ȳ	yː	—	A long high front rounded vowel, as in German "Zürich".
z	z	zoo

Phonetics

Because High Valyrian was once the language of a wide empire, and because it is now a learned language (that is, it is no longer anyone's native language, with the possible exception of the Targaryens), the pronunciation varies a good deal from region to region. It is likely that many of the inhabitants of the Free Cities and Slaver's Bay pronounce High Valyrian very similarly to their native form of Low Valyrian. As a result, the pronunciations given below are only ideals, not absolutes, and even then they are often quite broad (e.g. the pronunciation given for j).

In particular, note that most of the speakers we have heard on the show pronounce y as [i], and do not carefully distinguish vowel quantities.

Consonants

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal		m [m]		n [n]	ñ [ɲ]	(n [ŋ ~ ɴ])
Plosive	voiceless	p [p]		t [t]		k [k]	q [q]
	voiced	b [b]		d [d]		g [ɡ]
Fricative	voiceless		(th [θ])	s [s]		(kh [x ~ χ])		h [h]
	voiced	v [v ~ w]		z [z]	j [ɟ ~ d͡ʒ ~ ʒ ~ j]	gh [ɣ ~ ʁ]
Approximant
Lateral				l [l]	lj [ʎ]
Rhotic	voiceless			rh [r̥]
	voiced			r [r ~ ɾ]

Pronunciation of v

It has been often noted by DJP, that the letter v varies in pronunciation depending on era and place in a word:

• In modern times, v in High Valyrian (ignoring daughter languages) is pronounced always like the v in English [v].
• However, in antiquity, its pronunciation varies in a great grade depending on what precedes and follows "v". So:
  • Pronounced as [v] when preceding the vowels i and e.
  • Pronounced as [w] when preceding the vowels o and u.
  • If before a or y, its pronunciation is not certain. Probaly not as [v] or [w], realized as [ɥ] (= jw). Also it's mentioned that it was perhaps pronounced [ʋ], when before a.
  • When after a vowel and behind a consonant, functioning as the second part of a diphthong, it was most likely expressed as [u], maybe [w].

The pronunciation of v changed quite a lot throughout time and it is difficult to pinpoint a specific pronunciation for a particular case in any given time point. In this regard, it is up to the speakers themselves.

Borrowed Sounds

Like all languages, High Valyrian contains loan words from other languages that might not fit into the language properly if not altered to do so. A word might not fit into the declension patterns of High Valyrian and are declined according to a special declension for foreign words and it usually contains some sounds not native to Valyrian speakers that are reduced to ones native if the speaker is unable to pronounce them or doesn't want to for reasons of not creating phonological inconcistencies. So digraphs to express foreign sounds and their rendered pronunciation:

• KH

High Valyrian uses the digraph to express the "kh" sound found in eg. German (Buch) or Dothraki (arakh). The sound /x/ is most commonly rendered into a /k/ by a Valyrian speaker but depeding on the speaker it could also be turned into /h/ or even /ɣ~ʁ/.

For example arakh , borrowed [aˈɾax], would be pronounced as [aˈɾak],[aˈɾah] or by some even as [aˈɾaɣ] or [aˈɾaʁ].

• TH

This digraph is used to express the "th" (/θ/) sound as in "think" and Valyrians will most likely render it as a regular Valyrian /t/.

For example dothraki, borrowed [do'θraki], would be pronounced as [do'traki].

• SH

This digraph expresses the thick "sh" (/ʃ/) sound found in words like "shell" and Valyrians will most likely render it as a regular Valyrian /s/, albeit some dialects feature this sound especially for the cluster "sr" (instead of regular rendering as j).

• VH~PH~F

The "f" (/f/) sound found in words like English "father" is transcribed in various ways. The older is with the digraph "vh". Its pronunciation is most usually rendered as Valyrian /p/ or /v/.

For example: "Winterfell(i)" » /vinter'pelli/ .

Notes:

• In antiquity, /j/ could be pronounced [j] or [ɟ]: always [ɟ] before [i] or [y]; often before [e]; sometimes elsewhere. Modern speakers' pronunciation varies between [j], [ʒ] and [dʒ], depending largely on region, and native language.
• [ŋ] and [ɴ] are in parentheses because they are not phonemes, but allophones of /n/. The phoneme /n/ assimilates to a following velar or uvular consonant, e.g. ēngos /ˈeːngos/ "tongue" is pronounced [ˈeːŋgos], valonqar /vaˈlonqar/ "little brother" is [vaˈloɴqar].
• [θ] and [x ~ χ] are in parentheses because they occur only in words of foreign origin. As foreign sounds, they may not always be pronounced as they ideally should be. For instance, some speakers might pronounce Thoros as [ˈθoros], but others might just say [ˈtoros] or possibly even [ˈsoros]. Likewise, some might pronounce arakh [aˈɾax] or [aˈɾaχ], some [aˈɾah], some might even say [aˈɾaɣ] or [aˈɾaʁ].
• /r/ is generally a trill ([r]), but is a tap ([ɾ]) when following a vowel medially.
• In antiquity, /v/ could be pronounced [w] or [v]: always [v] before [u]; often before [o]; sometimes elsewhere. Modern speakers' pronunciation varies between [w], and [v], depending largely on region, and native language.

Vowels

High Valyrian has 6 phonetically distinct vowel qualities, each of which can be either long or short:

	Short				Long
	Front		Back		Front		Back
	unrounded	rounded			unrounded	rounded
Close	i [i]	y [y]*	u [u]		ī [iː]	ȳ [yː]*	ū [uː]
Mid	e [e]		o [o]		ē [eː]		ō [oː]
Open	a [a]				ā [aː]

* Many modern speakers do not distinguish y from i and pronounce both as [i].

Diphthongs

High Valyrian diphthongs can divided into two categories: "falling" diphthongs (which end with e or o), and "rising" or "on-glide" diphthongs (which begin with i or u). Falling diphthongs have a more official status in the language: when the word "diphthong" is used without qualification, it usually refers to falling diphthongs. The on-glides in rising diphthongs never count as consonants.

While falling diphthongs are always considered "long vowels" for prosodic purposes, rising diphthongs count as short or long depending on the length of their last vowel.

Coda		-a	-ā	-e	-ē	-o	-ō
Falling	a-			ae [ae̯]		ao [ao̯]
	ā-			āe [aːe̯]		āo [aːo̯]
Rising	i-	ia [i͡a]	iā [i͡aː]	ie [i͡e]	iē [i͡eː]	io [i͡o]	iō [i͡oː]
	u-	ua [u͡a]	uā [u͡aː]	ue [u͡e]	uē [u͡eː]	uo [u͡o]	uō [u͡oː]

Hiatus

Occasionally, two vowels will occur in a row, without forming a diphthong. These should be pronounced as two separate vowels. The most common of these are aē [a.eː] and aō [a.oː], which are never pronounced as diphthongs. It is also possible, but very rare, for two vowels that could have formed a diphthongs are pronounced as two separate vowels instead. The only known example of this, so far, is daor "not," which may be pronounced either as one syllable ([dao̯r]) or two ([da.ˈor]).

Prosody & accent

A High Valyrian syllable may be "heavy" or "light."

Heavy and light syllables

A syllable is light if:

• It ends with a short vowel (e.g. vă-). This inclueds rising diphthongs that ends in a short vowel (e.g. luĕ-)

A syllable is heavy if:

• It contains with a long vowel (e.g. zō-)
• It contains a falling diphthong (e.g. glae-, rāe-)
• It contains a long rising diphthong (e.g. jiō-)
• It ends with a consonant (e.g. lok-).

For syllable boundaries at the middle of a word, a good rule of thumb is that if a vowel is followed by two consonants, the first consonant is at the end of a syllable and thus the syllable is heavy. For this purpose:

• Digraphs, such as rh, gh, lj count as a single consonant.
• A plosive (p, t, k, b, d, g) followed by a liquid (r, l, rh) or a sibilant (s, z) counts as a single consonant.
• A double consonant (e.g. rr, ss) counts as two consonants.

Placing the accent

All imperative verbs are accented on the last syllable, no matter the composition of the syllables (e.g. kelītī́s "halt!"). The same is true of words in which the final vowel is lengthened for coordination (e.g. pérzys ānogā́r "fire and blood"). For all other native words, the accent is based on the "weight" (heavy or light) of the second-to-last syllable (which is called the "penult"), and the third-to-last syllable (called the "antepenult"):

• If the penult and the antepenult are both light, then the accent falls on the penult: valaro = va·lá·ro
• If the penult is heavy, then the accent falls on the penult: valarra = va·lár·ra
• If the penult is light, and the antepenult is heavy, then the accent falls on the antepenult: valzyro = vál·zy·ro

In other words:

1. Place the accent on the last syllable if the word is a verb in the imperative, e.g. vestrás "say!," kelītī́s "halt! (pl)" or in coordination, e.g. pérzys ānogā́r "fire and blood"
2. Place the accent on the antepenult (third-to-last syllable) if it is heavy, and the penult is light, e.g. póntalo (pon·ta·lo) "of themselves," morghū́ljagon (mor·ghū·lja·gon) "to die," obū́ljarion (o·bū·lja·rion) "surrender"
3. Place the accent on the penult (second-to-last syllable) in all other cases: valáro (va·la·ro) "of all men," undéssin (un·des·sin) "I always see," iprádis (i·pra·dis) "always eats" (remember that pr counts as one consonant!)

Loanwords

Words and names borrowed from another language will often keep their original stress. The accent tends to stay on the same syllable, regardless of any endings that may be added. Thus:

• Arákh (a type of sword), from Doth. arakh.
• Buzdári "slave," from AV buzdár.
• Rullór, gen. Rullóro, "R'hllor," possibly from Asshai'i.

Phonotactics

Syllable structure

The maximum possible syllable structure in High Valyrian is CCCVːCC, where C stands for consonant and V for vowel.

Permitted onsets

A syllable may begin with a single consonant, or a permitted cluster. Known permitted clusters consist of an oral stop (plosive) followed by either a liquid or a sibilant. As detailed below, such a cluster may additionally be preceded by a sibilant (s or z) at the beginning of words, which then partakes in the onset. Such a sibilant does not, however, form onsets with a following stop, stop-liquid cluster or stop-sibilant cluster within words.

Permitted word-initial onsets

A word may begin with a vowel, a single consonant, an oral stop followed by a liquid, or either of those preceded by a sibilant. That is, I word may begin with three consonants provided they occur in the following configuration:

1st	2nd	3rd
s	p t k q	r l
z	b d g

Permitted nuclei

A nucleus may be a short vowel, a long vowel, or a permitted diphtong.

Permitted codas

It seems to be the case that the palatals (ñ, lj, and j) as well as h and rh are not allowed in the coda position, except for the marginal case of ñj [ɲɟ] (written as nj), as in onjapos and in superlatives of nasal-final class II verbs, such as bāne ~ bānje.

An underlying coda h can be deleted with lengthening of the preceding vowel as a result in order to resolve the disallowed coda. This occurs in the present active subjunctive stem of verbs ending in -hugon, where h would otherwise precede v, for example *nehvon → nēvon in the case of nehugon. However, at least historically, the h could also be deleted without resultant vowel lengthening, such as in *jaohos → *jaohs → jaos.

Permitted complex codas

The only possible example of a complex coda word-internally so far is rs in kyrstenka and related terms in kyrst-, which is presumably complex given that s followed by another consonant usually does not partake in onsets. As seen below, ks is the only cluster that can appear as a word-final coda, however it is not known if this ever occurs word-internally or if rules for consonant clusters always change it.

Permitted word-final codas

A word may end with a vowel, s, n, t, z, or r. The only permissible consonant cluster word-finally is ks.

Palatal resonants

The palatal resonants, ñ and lj, have a particularly limited distribution:

• They may not double.
• They depalatalize before i, or any consonant except for j.
  • When this happens, lj [ʎ] becomes l [l].
  • Likewise, ñ [ɲ] becomes [n], however this is not consistently reflected in the transcription system: the sound may be written either n or ñ, but either way it is pronounced [n].

Disallowed consonant clusters

The palatals (ñ, lj, and possibly also j) may not appear as a geminate. It also appears to be the case that h, v, gh and rh are not allowed as geminates. Thus, the following consonant clusters are known or thought to be disallowed:

• *ññ
• *ljlj
• *jj?
• *hh?
• *vv?
• *ghgh*?
• *rhrh*?

In fact, the only examples found of geminates in High Valyrian to date are alveolar consonants: t, d, n, s, z (no example), l, r, rh (no example and uncertain if it actually occurs as a geminate). It is not known whether this is a strict rule against geminates of consonants with other points of articulation, or simply a result of the language's internal history. Other geminates may well be allowed in loan words, for example.

Additionally, restrictions apply to laterals and nasals adjacent to one another:

• *ln becomes nn

This is most frequently seen in the first person singular of the future active indicative, where *-il·na becomes -inna

It is also common with the suffix -non: *qrin·rhol·no·r → qrīdronnor. Compare also the hypothetical *obūlj·non → *obūnnon

• Conversely, *nl appears to become ll, based on qrin·laodagon → qrillaodagon

Cr clusters

A number of common soundchanges occur when a consonant is followed by r. These are particularly important for the declension of aquatic nouns and adjectives:

• *hr becomes rh [r̥], e.g. *ñuhro → ñurho
• *zr becomes j

Often seen in words of the aquatic gender whose stem ends in z, e.g. vestriarzir → pl. vestriarja

Also with the prefix oz-, e.g. *oz·rughagon → ojughagon.

(Presumably examples of this change will also occur with the prefix maz-, or type I adjectives with stems ending in z, but no examples of either are known so far.)

• *sr may also become j, but it does not always do so. Thus, either kesrio or kejo (kejio) are acceptable. Here, the sporadic change of ji to j before a vowel, as seen in palatal-final class II adjectives, occurs.

• Additionally, in clusters with voiceless plosives followed by sr (*ksr, *psr, *tsr), this change always occurs, and the plosive becomes voiced in assimilation (producing gj, bj, dj, respectively). In the case of *psr → bj, the b can further also be deleted with lengthening of the preceding vowel as a result. It is not known whether the clusters *qs and *qsr ever occur, and what phonotactic rules, if any, apply to them.

• *lr occurs in words such as molry and remains unchanged in the oblique forms of aquatic nouns, such as pelar ~ pelro, but produces ldr in zaldrīzes.

For the nasals, n, m, and ñ, see the section on nasal deletion below.

Nasal Deletion

• *nr or ñr become dr, with lengthening of the preceding vowel:

This is frequently seen with the prefix qrin-, e.g. *qrin·rughagon → qrīdrughagon

It is also common in nouns and adjectives of the aquatic gender whose stem ends in n, e.g. bianor → pl. biādra

Cf. also the word hēdrȳ, derived from *hen·rȳ.

• By the same process, *mr produces br. Presumably this includes lengthening of the previous vowel as well, but in all examples we know so far, the vowel is already long, e.g. sūmar → pl. sūbri.
• A similar soundchange occurs when n or m (and presumably ñ as well) come before s: the nasal is deleted, with the preceding vowel lengthened, and the s becomes z

This is most commonly seen in emagon and derived words, where *em·za → ēza. This apparently is also an option for regular verbs whose stems end in a nasal.

It is also seen in the word hēzir, derived from *hen·sīr.