Fictional language
Encyclopedia
Artistic language
An artistic language is a constructed language designed for aesthetic pleasure. Unlike engineered languages or auxiliary languages, artistic languages usually have irregular grammar systems, much like natural languages. Many are designed within the context of fictional worlds, such as J. R. R....
s. Fictional languages are intended to be the languages of a fictional world and are often designed with the intent of giving more depth and an appearance of plausibility to the fictional worlds with which they are associated, and to have their characters communicate in a fashion which is both alien and dislocated.
Some of these languages, e.g., in worlds of fantasy fiction, alternative universe
Alternative universe (fan fiction)
An alternative universe , commonly abbreviated as AU, is a type or form of in which canonical facts of setting or characterization in the universe being explored or written about are deliberately changed.Stories that fall into this definition are usually what-ifs, where possibilities arising from...
s, Earth's future, or alternate history, are presented as distorted versions or dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
s of modern English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
or other natural language, while others are independently designed conlangs.
Purpose
Fictional languages are separated from artistic languages by both purpose and relative completion: a fictional language often has the least amount of grammar and vocabulary possible, and rarely extends beyond the absolutely necessary. At the same time, some others have developed languages in detail for their own sake, such as J. R. R. TolkienJ. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
's Quenya
Quenya
Quenya is a fictional language devised by J. R. R. Tolkien, and used in his Secondary world, often called Middle-earth.Quenya is one of the many Elvish languages spoken by the immortal Elves, called Quendi in Quenya. The tongue actually called Quenya was in origin the speech of two clans of Elves...
and Sindarin
Sindarin
Sindarin is a fictional language devised by J. R. R. Tolkien, and used in his secondary world, often called Middle-earth.Sindarin is one of the many languages spoken by the immortal Elves, called the Eledhrim or Edhellim in Sindarin....
and Star Trek
Star Trek
Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...
's Klingon language
Klingon language
The Klingon language is the constructed language spoken by the fictional Klingons in the Star Trek universe....
which exist as functioning, usable languages. Here "fictional" can be a misnomer
Misnomer
A misnomer is a term which suggests an interpretation that is known to be untrue. Such incorrect terms sometimes derive their names because of the form, action, or origin of the subject becoming named popularly or widely referenced—long before their true natures were known.- Sources of misnomers...
.
By analogy with the word "conlang", the term conworld is used to describe these fictional worlds, inhabited by fictional constructed culture
Constructed culture
A constructed culture or conculture is a fictional culture, created as part of a constructed world and usually associated with constructed languages. Countless constructed cultures exist, spanning many genres of fiction, as most world-constructors, unlike Tolkien, find it much easier to create a...
s. The conworld influences vocabulary (what words the language will have for flora and fauna, articles of clothing, objects of technology, religious concepts, names of places and tribes, etc.), as well as influencing other factors such as pronouns, or how their cultures view the break-off points between colors or the gender and age of family members.
Examples
Examples include:- J.R.R. Tolkien's languages of Middle-earth
- George OrwellGeorge OrwellEric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...
's NewspeakNewspeakNewspeak is a fictional language in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. In the novel, it refers to the deliberately impoverished language promoted by the state. Orwell included an essay about it in the form of an appendix in which the basic principles of the language are explained...
in Nineteen Eighty-FourNineteen Eighty-FourNineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is a dystopian novel about Oceania, a society ruled by the oligarchical dictatorship of the Party... - Václav HavelVáclav HavelVáclav Havel is a Czech playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and politician. He was the tenth and last President of Czechoslovakia and the first President of the Czech Republic . He has written over twenty plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally...
's PtydepePtydepePtydepe is a fictional artificial language featuring in Czech playwright Václav Havel's 1966 play The Memorandum. The play concerns the events that unfold when Ptydepe is introduced as the new official language of an unspecified organization...
in The MemorandumThe Memorandum-Plot:Josef Gross, a director of an unnamed organization, receives a memorandum written in Ptydepe, a constructed language, about an audit. He finds out that Ptydepe was created to get rid of similarities between words, such as fox and box, and emotional connexions. He tries to get someone to... - Iain M. Banks' Marain in his CultureThe CultureThe Culture is a fictional interstellar anarchist, socialist, and utopian society created by the Scottish writer Iain M. Banks which features in a number of science fiction novels and works of short fiction by him, collectively called the Culture series....
novels - Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le GuinUrsula Kroeber Le Guin is an American author. She has written novels, poetry, children's books, essays, and short stories, notably in fantasy and science fiction...
's PravicPravicPravic is a fictional language used and referred to in the science-fiction book The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. Le Guin. Pravic is a fictional constructed language: in the book, it is said to have been constructed by a person named Farigv...
in The DispossessedThe DispossessedThe Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia is a 1974 utopian science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin, set in the same fictional universe as that of The Left Hand of Darkness . The book won the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1974, both the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1975, and received a nomination for... - Richard Adams's Lapine languageLapine languageLapine is a fictional language created by author Richard Adams for his 1972 novel Watership Down, where it is spoken by fictional rabbit characters. The fragments of language presented by Adams consist of a few dozen distinct words, and are chiefly used for the naming of rabbits, their mythological...
in Watership DownWatership DownWatership Down is a classic heroic fantasy novel, written by English author Richard Adams, about a small group of rabbits. Although the animals in the story live in their natural environment, they are anthropomorphised, possessing their own culture, language , proverbs, poetry, and mythology... - Richard A. Watson's D'ni in the Myst franchiseMyst franchiseMyst is a franchise centered on a series of adventure video games. The first game in the series, Myst, was released in 1993 by brothers Rand and Robyn Miller and their video game company Cyan, Inc...
- Robert JordanRobert JordanRobert Jordan was the pen name of James Oliver Rigney, Jr. , under which he was best known as the author of the bestselling The Wheel of Time fantasy series. He also wrote under the pseudonyms Reagan O'Neal and Jackson O'Reilly.-Biography:Jordan was born in Charleston, South Carolina...
's Old TongueOld TongueThe Old Tongue is a fictional language from Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time fantasy series. It is depicted as a now-dead language, spoken only by scholars and certain nobles, but still plays a role in the plot of the books.-History:...
in The Wheel of TimeThe Wheel of TimeThe Wheel of Time is a series of epic fantasy novels written by American author James Oliver Rigney, Jr., under the pen name Robert Jordan. Originally planned as a six-book series, the length was increased by increments; at the time of Rigney's death, he expected it to be 12, but it will actually... - EnchantaEnchantaEnchanta is a constructed language spoken by the denizens of Encantadia, known as Encantado/Encantada or Diwata . It was initially created by Suzette Doctolero for the Philippine fantasy television drama saga Encantadia, which aired on GMA Network in 2005, and was later used in the show's sequels,...
of the Encantadia Saga - The SimlishSimlishSimlish is a fictional language featured in EA Games' Sim series of games. It debuted in SimCopter, and has been especially prominent in The Sims, The Sims 2 and The Sims 3. The Sims development team created the unique Simlish language by experimenting with fractured Ukrainian, French, Latin,...
in The SimsThe Sims (series)The Sims is a video game series developed by Maxis and later by The Sims Studio, and published by Electronic Arts. It is one of the most successful video games series of all time...
series of video games - The Klingon languageKlingon languageThe Klingon language is the constructed language spoken by the fictional Klingons in the Star Trek universe....
in Star TrekStar TrekStar Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise... - The Mandalorian language from Star WarsStar WarsStar Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
- DothrakiDothraki languageThe Dothraki language is the constructed language of the Dothraki, the indigenous inhabitants of the Dothraki Sea in the series A Song of Ice and Fire written by George R. R. Martin. It was created by David J. Peterson, a member of the Language Creation Society, for HBO's television series Game of...
in the TV series Game of ThronesGame of Thrones (TV series)Game of Thrones is an American medieval fantasy television series created for HBO by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss. Based on author George R. R. Martin's best-selling A Song of Ice and Fire series of fantasy novels, the first of which is called A Game of Thrones, the television series debuted in... - The Na'vi languageNa'vi languageThe Na’vi language is the constructed language of the Na’vi, the sapient humanoid indigenous inhabitants of the fictional moon Pandora in the 2009 film Avatar. It was created by Paul Frommer, a professor at the Marshall School of Business with a doctorate in linguistics...
in Avatar - The backwards Japanese/Latin used in IcoIcois an action-adventure game published by Sony Computer Entertainment and released for the PlayStation 2 video game console. It was designed and directed by Fumito Ueda, who wanted to create a minimalist game around a "boy meets girl" concept. Originally planned for the PlayStation, Ico took...
and Shadow of the ColossusShadow of the ColossusShadow of the Colossus, released in Japan as , is an action-adventure game published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 2. The game was released in North America and Japan in October 2005 and PAL territories in February 2006... - BaronhBaronhBaronh is a fictional language created by Japanese science fiction author Morioka Hiroyuki and used in Crest of the Stars and Banner of the Stars...
in Crest of the StarsCrest of the Starsis a three-volume space opera science fiction novel written by Hiroyuki Morioka with cover illustrations by Toshihiro Ono. Beginning in 1999, the novels were adapted into anime series, the first of which ran for 13 episodes on WOWOW...
Series - KuKu (language)Ku is a fictional language appearing in the 2005 drama/thriller film The Interpreter. In the film, Ku is a language spoken in the fictional African country of Matobo...
in The InterpreterThe InterpreterThe Interpreter is a 2005 political thriller film starring Nicole Kidman, Sean Penn, and Catherine Keener. It was the final film to be directed by Sydney Pollack.-Plot:... - NadsatNadsatNadsat is a fictional register or argot used by the teenagers in Anthony Burgess' novel A Clockwork Orange. In addition to being a novelist, Burgess was also a linguist and he used this background to depict his characters as speaking a form of Russian-influenced English...
in A Clockwork OrangeA Clockwork OrangeA Clockwork Orange is a 1962 dystopian novella by Anthony Burgess. The novel contains an experiment in language: the characters often use an argot called "Nadsat", derived from Russian.... - Galach in Frank HerbertFrank HerbertFranklin Patrick Herbert, Jr. was a critically acclaimed and commercially successful American science fiction author. Although a short story author, he is best known for his novels, most notably Dune and its five sequels...
's Dune series - Great Ape Language in the TarzanTarzanTarzan is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungles by the Mangani "great apes"; he later experiences civilization only to largely reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer...
series by Edgar Rice BurroughsEdgar Rice BurroughsEdgar Rice Burroughs was an American author, best known for his creation of the jungle hero Tarzan and the heroic Mars adventurer John Carter, although he produced works in many genres.-Biography:... - The Old Solar language or Hlab-Eribol-ef-Cordi in The Space TrilogyThe Space TrilogyThe Space Trilogy, Cosmic Trilogy or Ransom Trilogy is a trilogy of science fiction novels by C. S. Lewis, famous for his later series The Chronicles of Narnia. A philologist named Elwin Ransom is the hero of the first two novels and an important character in the third.The books in the trilogy...
by C. S. LewisC. S. LewisClive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland... - Panzerese (mixture of Russian, Greek and Latin) in Panzer DragoonPanzer Dragoon (series)Panzer Dragoon is a series of video games by Sega, created first by its internal Team Andromeda and later, the Smilebit development team. Aside from the RPG Panzer Dragoon Saga, the games are of the rail shooter genre...
- Parseltongue (Snake Language) in the Harry Potter (series)
- Marsaudian in Brian WoodBrian WoodBrian Wood is a writer, illustrator, and graphic designer living in Brooklyn, New York. He is known primarily as a comic book creator; Wood both writes and illustrates graphic novels and serialized monthly comic books for a variety of publishers.During his comics career, Wood held a day job for...
's Marsaud & Me - GnommishGnommishGnommish is the "fairy language" used in the Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer. It is not actually a language at all, but the English language encoded into a letter-substitution cipher where each symbol represents a letter. Lines of translatable Gnommish run along the bottoms of books one, two,...
in Eoin ColferEoin ColferEoin Colfer is an Irish author. He is most famous as the author of the Artemis Fowl series, but he has also written other successful books. His novels have been compared to the works of J. K. Rowling...
's Artemis Fowl (series)
Professional fictional languages
Professional fictional languages are those languages created for use in books, movies, television shows, video games, comics, toys, and musical albums (prominent examples of works featuring fictional languages include the Middle-earth and Star Trek universes and the game MystMyst
Myst is a graphic adventure video game designed and directed by the brothers Robyn and Rand Miller. It was developed by Cyan , a Spokane, Washington––based studio, and published and distributed by Brøderbund. The Millers began working on Myst in and released it for the Mac OS computer on September...
).
Note: The Al Bhed language used in the video game Final Fantasy X
Final Fantasy X
is a role-playing video game developed and published by Square as the tenth title in the Final Fantasy series. It was released in 2001 for Sony's PlayStation 2, and will be re-released for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita in 2012...
is not a language per se, as it is only a clever substitution cipher
Cipher
In cryptography, a cipher is an algorithm for performing encryption or decryption — a series of well-defined steps that can be followed as a procedure. An alternative, less common term is encipherment. In non-technical usage, a “cipher” is the same thing as a “code”; however, the concepts...
.
Alien languages
A notable subgenre of fictional languages are alien language
Alien language
Alien language is a generic term used to describe a possible language originating from a hypothetical alien species. The study of such a hypothetical language has been termed xenolinguistics, although alternative terminology such as exolinguistics has found its way into use through the medium of...
s, the ones that are used or might be used by putative extraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...
forms. Alien languages are subject of both science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
and scientific research.
Perhaps the most fully developed fictional alien language is the Klingon language
Klingon language
The Klingon language is the constructed language spoken by the fictional Klingons in the Star Trek universe....
of the Star Trek
Star Trek
Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...
universe - a fully developed constructed language
Constructed language
A planned or constructed language—known colloquially as a conlang—is a language whose phonology, grammar, and/or vocabulary has been consciously devised by an individual or group, instead of having evolved naturally...
.
The problem of alien language has confronted generations of science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
writers; some have created fictional languages for their characters to use, while others have circumvented the problem through translation devices or other fantastic technology.
Although this field remains largely confined to science fiction, the possibility of intelligent extraterrestrial life makes the question of alien language a credible topic for scientific
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
and philosophical
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
speculation.
While many cases an alien language is but an element of fictional reality, in a number of science fiction works the core of the plot are linguistic and psychological problems of communication between various alien races.
Internet-based fictional languages
Internet-based fictional languages are hosted along with their "conworlds" on the Internet, and based at these sites, becoming known to the world through the visitors to these sites; Verdurian, the language of Mark Rosenfelder's Verduria on the planet of Almea, is a flagship Internet-based fictional language. Many other fictional languages and their associated conworlds are created privately by their inventor, known only to the inventor and perhaps a few friends. In this context the term "professional" (used for the first category) as opposed to "amateur" (used for the second and third) refers only to the professionalism of the used medium, and not to the professionalism of the language itself or its creator. In fact, most professional languages are the work of non-linguists, while many amateur languages were in fact created by linguists, and in general the latter are better developed.See also
- Constructed languageConstructed languageA planned or constructed language—known colloquially as a conlang—is a language whose phonology, grammar, and/or vocabulary has been consciously devised by an individual or group, instead of having evolved naturally...
- SETISETIThe search for extraterrestrial intelligence is the collective name for a number of activities people undertake to search for intelligent extraterrestrial life. Some of the most well known projects are run by the SETI Institute. SETI projects use scientific methods to search for intelligent life...
- Communication with Extraterrestrial IntelligenceCommunication with Extraterrestrial IntelligenceCommunication with extraterrestrial intelligence is a branch of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence that focuses on composing and deciphering messages that could theoretically be understood by another technological civilization. The best-known CETI experiment was the 1974 Arecibo message...
External links
- A Primer In SF XENOLINGUISTICS, by Justin B. Rye
- Interstellar Communication, a collection of references
- Galactic Basic Standard from the Star WarsStar WarsStar Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
universe - The First Book of Haer'al A Primer for the Elder Tongue of Arborell including 2800 reference wordlist, grammar and pronunciation guide and Meta-history.