Education
University of California, Berkeley.
University of California, Berkeley.
Studying at University of California, Berkeley (1999-2003), he received Bachelor of Arts degrees in English and in Linguistics. He received an Master of Arts in Linguistics from University of California, San Diego (2003-2006). According to an interview given to the publication Conlangs Monthly, he had his first contact with constructed languages while still in Berkeley, after attending an Esperanto class in 2000.
In 2009, the television network Home Box Office needed a fictional language for a new television series and turned to the Language Creation Society for help.
Peterson is best known for creating the Dothraki and Valyrian languages for the Home Box Office series Game of Thrones (since 2009) and the Castithan, Irathient and Omec languages for Syfy"s Defiance (since 2011). But he has been creating languages since 2000.
He also created the language used by the Dark Elves in the movie Thor: The Dark World. In 2007, he co-founded the Language Creation Society, with nine other language creators and served as its president (2012–2014).
When creating the two full and two smaller languages for Defiance, Peterson also developed a number system.