NEANDERTAL LANGUAGE AND SCRIPT

When I wanted to create a language for my Neandertals, I turned to David Peterson, author of the languages for the series, Game of Thrones. I devoured his textbook, The Art of Language Invention, then took his course on the same topic at U.C. Berkeley.
Over the next eight months I created a language that reflects the world and the culture of my Neandertals. I now have a dictionary of 5,000 interrelated words that mimic the evolution of a true language, plus a 150-page booklet on how the grammar works.
Last—and this part was so fun—I adapted the actual symbols found beside French cave paintings to create the glyphs of a syllable-based script that expresses my language in writing, as well as the geometric name tattoos blazoned across the upper arm of every Neandertal in A River through Stone.