A Small Connection Between Game of Thrones and Estonia

Posted on May 7, 2013 by Thomas Mets

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According to a piece in the Economist, the fantasy genre owes a bit to the Estonians, specifically the Estonian Language.

Some borrow features from natural languages: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Elvish languages, Quenya and Sindarin, were influenced by Finnish and Welsh, two languages that Tolkien loved. Navi includes popping-like sounds found in Georgian and Amharic, but few English ones, to enhance its foreignness. Estonian’s negative verb system inspired Dothraki’s.

If Tolkien loved Finnish, he probably would have liked Estonian. The two languages are quite similar. To my ears, Finns sound like drunken Estonians, and the Finns feel the same way about the Estonian language.

H/T Daily Dish

About Thomas Mets

I’m a comic book fan, wannabe writer, politics buff and New Yorker. I don’t actually follow baseball. In the Estonian language, “Mets” simply means forest, or lousy sports team. You can email me at mistermets@gmail.com
This entry was posted in Eesti, Literature, Television, Writing and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink.

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