Introduction
I’ve seen a bit of debate on the topic of constructing languages to support a story or fictional world. Is creating a language worth the effort? Or does it simply bog down the story? When I read Lord of the Rings, I admit that I didn’t spend a lot of time digesting the linguistics Tolkien built into his world…and he spent decades doing just that. However, once I’d read and become a fan of the story and the characters, I must admit that it’s an aspect of Middle-Earth that enriches the overall experience of the novels. As a result, I hold a deep admiration for the art and science around language construction and how it impacts a culture. For this reason, I’d argue that it IS worth the effort assuming that you have a passion for the topic and it’s how you wish to make your work come to life.
As I’ve matured and traveled over the years, I have become a fan of language and its connection to culture. For me, if an author can use aspects of language to further develop a culture in the fictional world, it really makes that group come to life. Also, if you think about how the language in 1984 contributes to the theme of oppression within the novel, Newspeak becomes critical to the story itself.
I want to be a language creator when I grow up!
Had I known the breadth of linguistics and how it reflects culture earlier in my life, it very well may have become my profession. Who knows though? Maybe there is still room for a second career in this area.
Familiar Constructed Languages (Conlangs)
From what I’ve been able to glean, a spoken constructed language likely comes more from television and movies than from novels. I’m certain this has to do with the audio-visual aspect of the medium, but there are still a number of strictly literary conlangs. Below is
- Klingon (Star Trek) Invented by Marc Okrand, this is probably the world’s most widely spoken fictional language (6).
- Dothraki & Valyrian (Game of Thrones, David J. Peterson) Given the popularity of HBO’s GoT, I’d argue that Dothraki might one day keep pace with Klingon (5, 7).
- Sindarin & Quenya (Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien)
- Nadsat (Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess)
- Na’vi (Avatar, Paul Frommer)
- Paku (Land of the Lost) Victoria Fromkin was the first person to hold the profession of language creator with Paku for TV’s Land of the Lost.
- Newspeak (1984, George Orwell)
- Multiple languages of Star Wars – I’m not diving into this space (pun intended), but the construction of languages in these movies was approached as sound design rather than through a standard language development model.
Languages are patterned based
If you’re creating a language, one good tip to keep in mind is that there are patterns within language. In most common languages, there’s a sentence structure:
subject – verb – object
Okrand (6) noted that when he created Klingon, he also used a pattern, but one that would be foreign to most known languages, but borrowed from some obscure languages used in the Americas. The pattern:
object – verb – subject
The first thing that comes to mind is Yoda-speak, but that’s not quite the pattern either. Yoda’s pattern is actually:
object – subject – verb
Imagine trying to speak regularly in the Klingon pattern.
| English | Klingon* | Yoda |
| I ate an apple. | An apple ate I. | An apple I ate. |
| I rode a horse | A horse rode I. | A horse I rode. |
*Although in Klingon, it would use the Klingon words rather than English. I write in English only to make the point.
Systems of grammar are logical, so once you understand the mechanics, it makes filling in the blanks easier. This fact alone makes it worthwhile to invest time in learning a fictional language. If Dothraki is of interest to you, you’re more likely to invest the time required to learn that than Spanish (assuming you see no purpose in learning Spanish). The benefit of learning Dothraki would be that if you find yourself in a situation where you needed to learn Spanish at a later date, gaining that knowledge would likely be easier as a result of your efforts to learn the fictional language.
I’ve experienced this myself. I studied French for three years in high school, and when I went to learn Italian, I readily picked it up. Granted, these are both romance languages, but many of the patterns are different between the two.
How far do you really need to go?
In a CNN article on Klingon (6), Marc Okrand drew a really nice analogy. He said that he treated the language creation like set design.
I find it interesting that George R. R. Martin didn’t fully flesh out the Dothraki language, but he gave enough information in his work that allowed David J. Peterson to further develop it. It borrows the q from Arabic and the dental consonants from Spanish.
Furthermore, if you’re into creating languages to support your literary worlds and settings, you might do best by borrowing patterns from known languages. When your reader dives in, it will help them to be able to pick out some familiar patterns. For example, In my work with the Suebhian tongue in The
Join the conversation on language creation and worldbuilding below! Leave me a comment!
And stay tuned for my next post on the Process of Language Creation.
References
- 5 Tips for Creating Believable Fictional Languages
- International Phonetic Alphabet
- A Beginner’s Course in Modern Siwa
- The Language Construction Kit – If you are really into the full process of creating your own language in full.
- How to Invent a Language, From the Guy Who Made Dothraki
- How do you design a language from scratch? Ask a Klingon
- Living Language: Dothraki
- Star Wars Languages (Wikipedia as a starting point)