thursday 13: fictional languages in movies, tv, & books

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1. Na’vi

The language of the Avators was created by Paul Frommer, who is a professor at the USC Marshall School of Business. He has a doctorate in linguistics and used it to design language. The goal was to create a language that didn’t sound like any known human language but to be realistically learnable by humans. Frommer began with three sets of words and phrases, based on sounds: contrasting tones, varying vowel lengths, and ejective consonants. Cameron liked the latter, so Frommer based the linguistic structure around those types of sounds. When the movie released in 2009, the language had roughly 1000 words, with its grammar structure known only to Frommer. However, sine then, more than 2600 words have been added, he has published its grammar structure and rules. This makes the language a true language… complete, learnable, expandable, and usable.

2. Belter Creole, or Lang Belta

This is the language used by Belters, those who live in the asteroid belt and outer planets in the sci-fi show The Expanse. The language was developed by Nick Farmer, a linguist and polyglot. He modeled it on an English-based creole, and its vocabulary and structure is influenced by various languages within several linguistic groups, such Romance, Germanic, Slavic, as well as Middle Eastern, African, and Asian languages. Interestingly, the language in the books varies greatly from that developed by Farmer for the show, so much that the authors discouraged fans from learning it, favoring the television version of it. No subtitles were given for Lang Belta, the producers wanting viewers to really get the creole aspect of it. So during production, Farmer always produced three versions of any Lang Belta dialogue: one entirely in the language, one with medium use, and one with light use. All three would be shot, and the producers would choose which version to use in the final product.

3. Dothraki

Dothraki, of Game of Thrones fame, is spoken by the same-name people, a nomadic tribe. The language was developed for the TV series by David Peterson, who has created multiple languages, including Valyrian for the same show. The language is influenced by Estonian, Russian, Turkish, Swahili, and Inuktitut. There were two major constraints to the language creation. The first was that it had to incorporate the random usages George R.R. Martin included in the books. The second was that it had to be easily pronounceable and learnable for the actors.

4. Quenya, or High Elvish

This is the language of the Vanyar elves in the Lord of the Rings world. The language is largely based on Finnish, and it’s one of the two most complete languages created by J.R.R. Tolkien. According to Tolkien, the languages he created evolved from Primitive Quendian, as real languages naturally do. His language creation was born from a tree model, Quenya becoming one of several ancestors.

5. Klingon

Klingon is the language of the same-named race in the Star Trek Universe. It was designed by Marc Okrand, James Doohan (the actor who played OG Scotty), and Jon Povill, intended to sound entirely alien when compared to known human languages. Therefore, it has structural features that are incredibly uncommon. The language has become so popular among hobbyists, even appearing on Duolingo as a learnable language, that at least nine works of world literature have been translated into Klingon.

6. High Valyrian

High Valyrian is another Game of Thrones language. In the novels, the language does not exist beyond a few words. But the same creator of Dothraki developed it into a fully realized language, incorporating the snippets from the novels. In the novels, the language was noted as no longer being used daily. Instead, it was used as a language of learning among the nobility of Essos and Westeros. Fun note… you can learn it on Duolingo!

7. Sindarin

Sindarin is the second of the two most complete languages created by Tolkien for the Lord of the Rings world. It is the language of the Sindar, the Grey Elves, and is heavily influenced by Welsh. The language does not have grammatical gender, and it has a lexicon of over 25,000 words.

8. Trigedasleng

This language was created by the same man who developed Dothraki and High Valyrian, for the TV show The 100. Similar to Creole English, this was the language of the Grounders. It was developed to be a believable evolution of English, 97 post-apocalypse. In language development, that is an extremely short period of time, so it was explained as an accelerated evolution. In show lore, Grounders used it as a cant to differentiate between friend and foe.

9. Newspeak

Newspeak was born from 1984 by George Orwell, This, arguably, is simply a form of English, rather than a whole new language. However, its new structure and rules conceptually change it so much that it borders on becoming a new language. It is a controlled language that was created to limit a person’s ability to communicate abstract concepts, part of a measure to eliminate individuality and personal independence. Newspeak simplifies English to its most basic form, eliminating the gray areas of speech by reducing it largely to expressions of dichotomy. Like cold versus hot, happy versus sad, etc. The entire language is based on three classes of vocabulary: A, B, and C. A vocabulary concerns functional concepts of daily life. B vocabulary is constructed for the expression of complex ideas in simple forms. The words are are compound words and noun-verb words. The C vocabulary consists of science and tech term.

10. Huttese

This language was created by sound designer Ben Burtt for the Star Wars movies. Huttese was designed as a bridge language used by many species and groups within the greater Star Wars world. It was based on the Quechuan languages, languages originating in Peru before spreading throughout the Andes. There are various Huttese alphabets shown in the franchise, but the one considered canonical is the one found on promotional Pizza Hut boxes.

11. Chakobsa

This language comes from Dune by Frank Herbert, later expanded by David Peterson for the movies. It was used by the Fremen on Arrakis for rituals and other purposes. It was inspired by the Northwest Caucasian language of the same name. It was originally a secret language used by the nobility, and is still in use by descendants. However, while perhaps inspired by the real language, Herbert’s is a mixture of Arabic, Serbo-Croatian, and Romani.

12. Atlantean

This is another Marc Okrand language, created for Atlantis: The Lost Empire. It was inspired by North American indigenous languages and Sumerian. In the movie, the language was supposed to be the root dialect from which all languages descended. So Okrand looked for common characteristics among many world languages and used them as the foundation for this new language system. The written form of the language is based on the boustrophedon system, in which the first line is written from left to right, the second line from right to left, the third once again left to right, and so on.

13. Lapine

This is the language of the rabbits in Watership Down by Richard Adams. Originally, the language consisted only of a few dozen words in the books, created for the 1972 movie by the author. It was largely based on onomatopoeia, with the intent that it sound “wuffy, fluffy.” Many have ascribed the sound of it as inspired by Welsh, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Arabic. The latter is a language the author was exposed to during military service in the Middle East. Since its creation, fans have since developed it into a fully functional language with vocabulary and an established grammatical structure.