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- Fictional languages are the subset of constructed languages (conlangs) that have been created as part of a fictional setting (e.g. for use in a book, movie, television show, or video game).
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Feb 19, 2021 · What Are Fictional Languages? Fictional languages are humans creations, but not in a natural way. Unlike natural languages, fictional languages only exist within an imaginary world. As fictional languages have a unique, alien-sounding grammar, lexicon, and phonology. Fictional languages are present in literature and movies.
- Overview
- Alienese: Futurama
- Lapine: Watership Down
- Na’vi: Avatar
- Dothraki: Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire
- Klingon: Star Trek
- Elvish: The works of J.R.R. Tolkien
Many of the languages that are made up for television and books are just gibberish. However, a rare few have been developed into fully functioning living languages, some even by linguistic professionals and professors. If learning French and Spanish at school wasn’t quite your cup of tea, you may want to try one of these on for size. Who knows when...
Alienese (also just called “Alien Language”) is perhaps one of the easiest languages on this list to learn—if you’re a mathematician, that is. The language, intended to be used for hidden in-jokes on the animated show Futurama, began as a simple substitution alphabet, with 26 characters that directly corresponded to the English alphabet. However, t...
Richard Adams’s Watership Down is the tale of a colony of rabbits looking for a new home. The rabbits speak a language known as Lapine, which is meant to sound “fluffy.” While only a few dozen words of Lapine appear in the text, fans have since developed the language into a functional one with distinct grammar and vocabulary.
Os e layth Frithyeer hyaones, on layth zayn yayn dahloil. - If it’s sunny today, we’ll go and find dandelions
For his 2009 blockbuster film Avatar, director James Cameron wanted his alien race, the Na’vi, to be a fully developed concept, complete with their own working language. He enlisted the help of linguist Paul Frommer, who created an extensive vocabulary and grammar for the giant blue beings. Fans quickly caught on and, with help from Frommer, continued to develop the language.
Fayvrrtep fìtsenge lu kxanì. Fìpoti oel tspìyang, fte tìkenong liyevu aylaru. - These demons are forbidden here. I will kill this one as a lesson to the others.
George R.R. Martin, in his A Song of Ice and Fire book series, established the nomadic horse-rearing Dothraki people. In the books Martin included very few words of the Dothraki language, but for the HBO television series David Peterson of the Language Creation Society was hired to turn those words into a complete lexicon. As the Dothraki people’s lives depend first and foremost on their horses, Peterson created the language to reflect this close relationship with horse riding and rearing. Dothraki is frequently spoken by actors on the show, and many fans are learning, too.
Hash yer dothrae chek asshekh? - How are you today? (Do you ride well today?)
Klingon is one of the most well-known fictional languages. It was created by linguist Marc Okrand as the language of the warrior Klingon race on the television show Star Trek. Okrand published several books about the language, and an organization known as the Klingon Language Institute has a quarterly journal dedicated to it. Fans use the language to conduct marriage ceremonies and to write songs, and there has even been an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet published in Klingon. While Klingon does have its own alphabet, the language is usually transliterated into English.
nuqDaq ’oH puchpa’’e’ – Where is the bathroom?
J.R.R. Tolkien, a philologist and lexicographer, began creating his Elvish languages before he started on any of his well-known works, such as The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. There are actually two forms of Elvish commonly learned by fans: Quenya, or high Elvish, and Sindarin, both based loosely on Finnish and Welsh, two languages Tolkien himself studied. And these can be subdivided into different dialects. There are even different forms of Elvish script—one of which you may have seen on the One Ring featured in The Lord of the Rings films.
Elen síla lumenn’ omentielvo – A star shines on the hour of our meeting.
- Alison Eldridge
Fictional languages are the subset of constructed languages (conlangs) that have been created as part of a fictional setting (e.g. for use in a book, movie, television show, or video game).
- Elvish from The Lord of the Rings. J.R.R. Tolkien did much more than pen the iconic Lord of the Rings books. Before he even began writing the series, he first developed entire languages, including the Elvish Quenya and Sindarin.
- Dothraki from the Game of Thrones. George R.R. Martin, the author of A Game of Thrones and the other A Song of Ice and Fire books, included few Dothraki words in the books.
- Na’vi from Avatar. For his 2009 blockbuster Avatar, director James Cameron teamed up with renowned linguist Dr. Paul Frommer to develop a complete language.
- Klingon from Star Trek. Klingon, the language of the Klingon warrior race in Star Trek, was first mentioned in the 1967 episode “The Trouble with Tribbles,” but it was not heard until the release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979.
- KLINGON FROM STAR TREK. Arguably, there’s no more famous fictional language than that of those bumpy-headed beings from Star Trek, Klingon. One of the stereotypical references for the ultimate in geekery is the ability to speak the harsh guttural language of these warlike aliens.
- ELVISH FROM THE LORD OF THE RINGS. J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings series, was himself also a linguist, so he rejoiced in creating fully-fleshed languages for his fantasy world of Middle Earth.
- VULCAN FROM STAR TREK. There may be a more famous fictional language in Star Trek lore (more on that one later), but Vulcan was the first to be heard on the original series.
- NA’VI FROM AVATAR. One of the newer fictional languages, we first heard the language of the alien species Na’vi in Avatar back in 2009. And we’ll probably hear much more of it in the four new sequels that were recently announced.
Jan 9, 2017 · 1. NADSAT. In the 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange, author Anthony Burgess created the language Nadsat for his teenage characters who used it as slang throughout the book and later in the 1971 movie...
Jul 8, 2022 · You may ask, how many complete fictional (and learnable) languages are there in the world? The answer: more than you think but less than there should be. It’s not an easy task to create a whole new language for the sake of your book. But I’m here to argue that the pay-off is always worth it.
