It’s well known that JRR Tolkien wrote the Lord of the Rings cycle to create people to speak the languages he had invented. But, in the television age, artificially created or invented languages – we call them “conlangs” – have been gaining increasing attention with the popularity of television series such as Star Trek and Game of Thrones, and films such as Avatar.
Fantasy and science fiction are the ideal vehicles for conlangs. Marc Okrand, an American linguist whose core research area is Native American languages, invented Klingon for Star Trek, while Paul Frommer of the University of Southern California created the Na’vi language for Avatar.
The fantasy series Game of Thrones involved several languages, including Dothraki and Valyrian, which were created by David J Peterson, a “conlanger” who has invented languages for several other shows. Most recently, fantasy thriller The City and The City featured the language Illitan, created by Alison Long of Keele University in the UK.
I teach how to construct languages and one question my students usually ask is: “How do I make a perfect language?” I need to warn that it’s impossible to make a language “perfect” – or even “complete”. Rather, an invented language is more likely to be appropriate for the context – convincing and developed just enough to work in the desired environment. But here are a few things to bear in mind.
With the current Big Data and Map reduce there are several online projects that constantly try to play with words Don’t forget the Natural Language processing (NLP) that is intended for even robots or AI to understand Language.
A perfect language can actually be a simple software filter that would scan large quantities of all the linguistic texts and identify the recurring patterns in different languages and use this with a new symbolism that can be both read by both human and machine would actually make the whole thing more Perfect and worth while. And don’t forget the amount of jobs and the literature that might get generated albeit be it only digital unless fully accepted by the larger sections of people after all it is something both human and machine can work with together. Instead of being forced onto or Influenced and oppressed upon? Maybe the Next Einstein could use this to influence the next generation for much larger good, peace and prosperity both locally and globally. This could provide a different angle or perspective into the thought process of creating a language even for machine only!
Who will speak this language and why?
It is very important to be clear about the aims of the language and its (fictional or real) speakers. When conlangs are created for a specific fictional character, the aims and speakers are determined by the story, the author or producer.
In some cases, fragments or descriptions of the language do exist. This was the case for Illitan, which was described as having “jarring” sounds in the novel The City and The City and there were a few Dothraki expressions in the first Game of Thrones novel. But what if there are no instructions? In a survey I ran a few years ago, many language creators pointed out that a sense of aesthetics and beauty guided them, along with the need to make the conlangs sound natural and a very pragmatic sense of how easily the languages could be pronounced.
There is also a strong link between language and culture, where some languages attract a large fan base because of the culture and community this language represents. A good example is Na’vi, which attracts many learners because of its welcoming community of speakers. In some cases the language itself has developed a strong culture and community, as is the case for Esperanto, which aims to bring people together regardless of their background and supports a strong sense of solidarity.
Start with sounds
The sound system is typically the starting point for language creators. This makes sense, given that sound is usually the first thing that we encounter in a new language. Do we want our conlang to sound harsh, alien or even aggressive? In the Klingon sound system this effect is achieved as follows:
Fricative consonants – like the initial sounds in the words “chair”, “show” and “jump” or the final sound in the Scottish word “loch”.
Plosive consonants – such as “t”, “p” and “k” – ideally produced with a stronger puff of air than is customary in spoken English.
Sounds that are unusual – at least to the ears of English speakers, who are typically the primary target audience. So imagine a consonant that sounds like a “k” that is produced far back in the throat (a sound which exists in Modern Standard Arabic) or a “g” that is produced more like a “gargle” and exists, for example, in Modern Greek and Icelandic.
These sounds all contribute to Klingon’s alien quality. On the other hand, Tolkien’s Elvish languages of Sindarin and Quenya were developed to sound aesthetically pleasing and – according to Tolkien himself – are intended to sound “of a European kind”. So Tolkien’s Elvish languages have systems which are much closer to those of European languages such as Welsh, Finnish and Old English, all of which influenced Tolkien when creating these languages.
Words and customs
Once we know how our language sounds, we can develop words. Here, the link to the culture of the speakers is important in establishing the most important words and expressions. For example, the Na’vi are deeply connected to nature and this connection is ingrained in their words, metaphors and customs. For example, when the Na’vi kill an animal they speak a prayer to show respect, gratitude and humility.
In contrast, the Dothraki – nomadic warriors relying on horses – literally say: “Do you ride well?” when asking: “Are you well?”
Grammar
Now we need to put our words together in a sensible way, including expressing tenses and plural forms. We can do this by adding different endings – so, for example, Esperanto uses the verb ending -as to express present tense, -os for past and -is for future, as in amas (love), amos (loved) and amis (will love).
We also need to decide on the word order and sentence structure. English has a typical structure of Subject-Verb-Object, but an alien-sounding conlang like Klingon may use a more unusual structure like Object-Subject-Verb – for example, the book (Object) – my friend (Subject) – reads (Verb).
Writing systems
Writing systems are bound to the culture of the speakers – and not all languages are written. Cultures with purely oral traditions, like the Dothraki, do not write. However, where such writing systems appear, they are often an artistic endeavour in themselves. The most famous example is Tengwar, one of the scripts Tolkien developed for the Elvish languages.
Klingon maintains its alien quality through very spiky characters and Esperanto, developed to be learned easily, contained some symbols which have subsequently been changed as they were too cumbersome.
So, like natural languages, conlangs change and develop (for example, all conlangs regularly acquire new words). What is important, though, is to keep the speaker community active, otherwise only fragments of your conlang may remain, as is the case for Sauron’s Black Speech in the Lord of the Rings. But given what we know about the evil Sauron, perhaps that is just as well.
2.Creating My Own Language: Understanding the Journey
Recently I applied for a position at a company that involved language dissection and lingual understanding. I just qualified for most of the position and thus I attempted to do something outlandish to grab their attention (something that would possibly put me above other applicants): I created my own language for the cover letter. It would either catch their attention and have them contact me, or it would be skipped over as a foolhardy attempt at landing a job.
Irrelevant of the still ongoing outcome of the job search, I have always wanted to create my own language ever since I learned about conlangs (short for “constructed languages”) in the first place. Whether I learned of Elvish, Klingon, or even Esperanto, I still wanted to create a language.
In my earlier years during my Star Wars obsession, I attempted to do so with the Sith language. I attempted to create words out of randomness that would mean things. “Vaaraa-Soro” and “Vaaraa-Dono” have occupied my mind since (in my fake Sith language, they mean “hello” and “goodbye” respectively). They are all that I remember of that language.
In high school I got in trouble for writing things down in my school diary that the administration did not like. In response, I attempted to create my own writing system that mimicked the English language but had different letters. They were fairly simple, but I slowly copied all the handouts in high school into this writing, started writing notes to myself in it, and even occasionally copied writing assignments in this written language. For the most part, nobody could read it, and I still keep it to this day (although I haven’t used it recently).
Up to this point I had taken French during elementary school and in kindergarten in Canada, six years of Afrikaans, and a semester of Northern Sotho. For me, it was time to get serious about the languages I wanted to continue with. Not that those languages were unimportant. Rather my time taking those languages was during school, which I normally disliked.
I studied German in high school and became fairly decent with it. I got to the point where when I helped other people with their homework they got more superior grades than I did because my fellow classmates “had improved so drastically since the beginning of the year” (according to our teacher).
I soon gave up German for Mandarin Chinese. Studying it in university was difficult, but it helped that I embedded myself in Chinese cultures. I read books on Chinese Communism, I read books on Chinese social and business culture, I participated in cultural events, and even started searching for and listening to Chinese punk rock.
However, upon going into the Peace Corps Albanian took up the spot that Mandarin had once occupied and became the language I was most fluent in. I got to levels in Albanian that I had only dreamed about in Chinese.
Over the course of these language learning years, I took in what the languages had to offer. German cases, conjugations, and gendered words threw me for a loop. I hated them and wanted them out of my life. Luckily, Mandarin Chinese has no cases, no conjugations, and no gendered words. In fact, spoken Mandarin has the same word for both “he” and “she” (with no “it”). More so, Mandarin grammar is probably the easiest grammar I’ve ever known. Albanian brought back gender, cases, and conjugation, but it also brought suffixes that changed the meanings and articles of words. Most of them were easy to memorize (especially if you knew the pattern). Albanian, like English, has a lot of loanwords from other languages, making it easy to use as well.
Yet I still dreamed of creating a language.
So I attempted to take what I knew and move forward. I also knew what I wanted out of a language. So no genders at all involved in my language. The same word for he, she, and it were used: “Taj”. The singular of I, You, and He/She/It became respectively “Yaj”, “Maj”, and “Taj”. The plural of each simply added a suffix (as would all plural words). We became “Yajme”, you became “Majme”, and they became “Tajme”. Similarly, “Dod” is person, whereas “Dodme” is people. “Vistajlek” is university, whereas “Vistajlekme” are universities.
Further, there is a separation between two types of “we”; we as in “all of us together” and we as in “all of us minus the person who is being spoken to” (Tajme and Kajme respectively). This is shown easily in the sentence “We live together.” We don’t know if this means everyone in the conversation, or simply a few people who do not include others in the room. My language (as well as many other languages around the world) distinguish that.
In fact, suffixes are used in many languages to distinguish the state of a word. In my language “lek” means to study. “Lekloc” means studied. Adding “loc” at the end of a verb makes it past tense. Adding “dhot” makes it continuous”. Similarly for adjectives “Gal” means power, whereas “Galgor” means powerful. The noun can have “gor” or “kor” added to the end of it to make it an adjective. This is heavily used throughout my language.
In English, every letter has different sounds. Not so in my language. Every consonant has an individual sound. However, “c” is ch, “x” is sh, “j” is “zh”, and there are other consonants that replace the sounds of blended consonants in English. Vowels also have individual sounds, with vowels that have a “:” added to the end of it sounding different.
This is only the base of my language. I haven’t even thought of a name yet. I have wanted to do this for awhile, and many of the ideas I might not have thought of without Mandarin or Albanian. In fact, going over the difficulties in some languages influenced me more than the simple or easier parts of the languages.
It was this weird idea that vaulted me into using it as a language on a job application. Whether it works or not, I’ll find out.
The battle between keeping complex language and simplifying unnecessary language seems easy to think about. My language attempts to simplify language in order to make it easier to understand. However, should we cater language to that? English itself is undergoing a mass evolution which some would say simplifies the language itself. New words are discovered and used in multiples of cultures daily. Language creation, even in English, is going on at this very moment.
3.Your Guide to Creating a New Language
If you’re a fantasy or science fiction fan, chances are you’ve definitely heard Valyrian or Dothraki on HBO’s Game of Thrones! David J. Peterson, the man behind the languages in Game of Thrones is also the creator of the languages used in The Dark World, Thor, Star Crossed and many more. His name is also one of the most recognizable ones in the constructed languages or Conlang community. Peterson has not only been raising awareness about constructed languages, but also about their quality. Here’s our guide on creating your own language:
Name your language:
The most important property in all languages is its name. You can make your own name for it by combining names of other artificial languages like Klingon and Valyrian or something completely new.
Come up with grammar rules:
For example, in the Dothraki language, the word ‘horde’ is ‘Khalasar’ and ‘hordes’ is Khalasari, making it easier to remember the plural, as the only difference is an added ‘i’ in the end. If you want to make it more complicated, you can add genders like German and French. For example, if it’s a male horse, Mat Fereder, and if it’s a female cat, Fet Kamaow.
But it’s also worth noting that certain languages, for example, Japanese have no plural words at all, so languages work differently, hence, it is important to experiment with grammar rules.
Consider basing your artificial language on an existing language:
For example, the Na’avi ( the language used in the movie Avatar) word ‘Rrta’ means earth, ‘toktor’ means a doctor, which means these words have been derived from the English language words earth and doctor, respectively. Basing your new language on an already existing one can make the process easier and help when remembering words as well.
Consider basing some words from other words you have invented:
For instance, if you invented the word ‘chocolate’ as chico, ‘drink’ as dkirk, and the word water as wterir, why not make the word ‘milk’ as dkerir, or cherir or even wtico, the options are endless!
Get inspiration from existing alphabets and words:
Also consider adding some non-Latin characters or even create the whole language based on non-Latin alphabets such as Arabic, Greek, Chinese, Armenian etc.
You may even take some words of certain languages, with alternation or none at all. For instance, the word ‘pen’ can be made into ‘penn’ or just ‘pen’. Using the dictionary or googling other languages can not only ensure that you aren’t missing a single word, but also that you come to know other new words that you can use.
Remember to keep track:
Make sure to keep track of all the new words in your language, preferably by writing or online.
Use your language:
Now that you’ve created your own language, start using it yourself before spreading it to others! Once you feel confident enough, experiment and expand:
– Teach your friends and family this new language; like linguist Dr. d’Armond Speers who spoke only Klingon to his son for 3 years. As soon as your friends and family understand your new language, communicate with them in it and be fluent yourself.
– Write a poem/story/novel in your own new language, like some of the fans of GOT have posted their poems in Dothraki.
– Translating a novel into your new language could be a lot of fun. It may even surprise you to know that Shakespeare’s hamlet has been translated into Klingon; a Conlang that appeared in Star Trek.
– And if you’re really ambitious, start setting the goal of helping those around you in becoming fluent in your new language. It may even become an official language of a country someday! If that seems too ambitious, it may help to know that Peterson participated in a competition held by the language creation society and ended up winning it with his 180-page proposal, which was later presented to the producers of, you guessed it right, Game of Thrones!
So next time you play around with words, just know that it may find its way to a world-famous series if you play your words right!
How to Invent a Language, From the Guy Who Made Dothraki
If you’re a science fiction or fantasy fan, chances are you’ve heard a language constructed by David J. Peterson. He created both Dothraki and Valyrian for HBO’s Game Of Thrones, as well as written or spoken languages for Thor: The Dark World, SyFy’s Defiance and Dominion, and The CW’s The 100 and Star-Crossed. And in becoming the most recognizable name in the conlang (constructed language) community, he’s been instrumental in raising not just awareness of constructed languages, but their quality as well. By now, viewers expect their alien or foreign tongues to sound like they have syntax and grammar. No longer would a scene like this one from Return of the Jedi—Princess Leia/bounty hunter Boushh speaking fictional language Ubese to Jabba—pass muster.
Peterson has already written a guide to Dothraki, but his new book has even larger ambitions. The Art of Language Invention, out tomorrow, is a combination knowledge base and history lesson for those interested in constructing languages. It’s a distillation of the knowledge Peterson gained from the original email listserv that popularized the term “conlang,” blended with some of what he studied as a linguistics Ph.D. student at UC San Diego. But while it’s presented as an introduction for anyone interested in learning more about conlangs, it’s still incredibly dense. Unless you’ve taken a fair amount of linguistics, or are innately familiar with phonetic inventories and symbols, there’s a high barrier to entry for the average pop culture fan curious about how Dothraki came to be. The best parts of the book come at the end of the four main sections, where Peterson presents case studies on issues he face in creating languages for Game Of Thrones and Defiance, and how the knowledge he gained from the online community and his university training assisted in construction.
So rather than trying to explicate the book for you, we talked to Peterson himself—focusing on the community at large and its changing place in popular culture. Not surprisingly, he’s got some bold ideas for how the conlang community is dealing with being under a spotlight, and how innovative language creation can aid humanity’s future. Here are the most important things we learned from him.
There’s a Difference Between Learning and Creating a Language
Peterson has studied nearly 20 languages, from Spanish to Swahili and from Esperanto to Middle Egyptian to American Sign Language. But there’s a different between learning to speak a language, and building one from scratch that sounds like it has evolved over time. “Learning a language is definitely not the same thing as creating a language,” he says. “I know that intuitively because I feel way more comfortable picking up and speaking Arabic than I do Dothraki, even though I would say I know Dothraki better.”
Viewers Expect More
That scene from Jedi where Leia speaks Ubese is something of a touchstone in Peterson’s memory. “From the point of view of a language creator, I wouldn’t even call that language creation,” he says of Star Wars. “You’re making the sounds to make up the dialogue. It’s gotta have some thought that went into how the thing works.” However, Peterson points out “that doesn’t mean the fan community can’t step up and fill in the blanks,” as he does in the book’s introduction, exerting herculean effort to find a reason that Jedi scene that so enraptured him as a child could be an entire language. Nowadays, pop culture consumers want “authenticity behind [the language], not just the sound of it.”
He Wants the Conlang Community to Expand Beyond Pop Culture.
The popularity of shows like Game Of Thrones and the Marvel films have raised the profile of constructed languages (and their creators) considerably. But Peterson doesn’t want the community to appeal only to science fiction and fantasy fans looking to immerse themselves more fully in created worlds. He has a bigger vision for conlangs. “The next step is finding people who aren’t working on television shows, who aren’t working on films,” he says, and to get them to engage with constructed language “even though it’s not attached to a franchise.” That way they can build a bigger connection between the earlier conlang community and the people who are invested in pop culture properties.
Some Conlangers Want to Keep Their Hobby Arcane
Peterson recognizes there are “definitely some negative aspects” to the growth in conlang popularity. He cites linguistic pioneer J.R.R. Tolkein’s The Lord Of The Rings as an example of the community’s instinct toward self-protection. “There were some people who reacted negatively [when LOTR was published] because they knew conlang would start to get more attention, and they didn’t want that,” he says. Until recently, the community has been a supportive niche for people with a very specific interest. But as television shows and films with created languages continue to pop up in more places, it’s no longer as heavily guarded.
His Book Aims to Codify Conlang Knowledge For Posterity
Constructed languages have existed for centuries, but the advent of the internet brought with it the listserv that created a true community of peers. Since then, the community has grown hugely—but as the internet has changed, a new generation of conlangers on various social networks has become more spread out and unaware of each other. “I’ve met dozens of conlangers on Tumblr, all new, all young, who have no idea that each other exist,” he says, “because they’re with the mass kind of shouting into the wind.” None of them know about the old conlang listserv, and now it’s an antiquated form of digital communication, so “they don’t want to bother with that.” Peterson worries about redundancies that would arise from the lack of connection. “They’re inheriting a kingdom they really don’t know the history of, and know nothing about,” he says. They’re reinventing every single wheel we already perfected.” The Art Of Language Invention is a way of bridging the gap between the old and new conlangers by becoming a codex of sorts, preserving knowledge of constructed language much in the same way ancient languages have been preserved throughout history.
Conlangers Could Help Us Communicate With Aliens
Most fascinatingly, Peterson theorizes how a larger conlang community could help humanity expand its understanding of the potential for written and spoken communication. Doing so might just assist us in the event Earth makes contact with an alien species. (And in some ways it ties back to Peterson’s thought experiment attempting to make sense of Ubese in Star Wars.) “Someday in the future we may encounter aliens, and they may have a communication system that doesn’t even qualify as a language to us, that we wouldn’t think of as language,” he says. But the more we’ve seen, the more we know about, the more we postulate, the better we are going to be able to tackle something like that. Whereas if we’re all speaking English at that point in time, and have kind of forgotten all the other language, we’re really going to be fucked.”
