This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Here's a conventional description of the trope:
This trope is a character (or a group) who speaks in a way that others don't understand, but with a twist: while the words are understood, the syntax
or context for those words are not. Maybe each sentence contains exactly twenty syllables, or all words must be alliterative, for example. The result sounds like gibberish, even though it makes sense to the speaker.
A key to this trope is that the audience can understand the speaker, once (if) the syntax is known; learning the rules becomes part of the experience.
This can occur as a more extreme form of Future Slang, as Strange-Syntax Speaker changes syntactic rules, instead of merely substituting words. Sometimes, fictional and foreign words are also used for further obfuscation. And the words can be real, but obscure, further muddying the waters.
If the rules are sufficiently obtuse, the speaker might come across as a Cloud Cuckoo Lander. A common plot is to require the protagonists to learn the syntax to obtain some vital information.
Compare and contrast with Conlang (for fictional languages in general), Starfish Language and Verbal Tic. Pardon Me Stewardess, I Speak Iambic Pentameter is a popular example of this trope.
There seems to be a dispute on whether or not A Clockwork Orange and The Book of Dave should be included or not.
The entries in question are:
- The teens from A Clockwork Orange speak Nadsat, which is based on the rules for Cockney rhyming slang, combined with English, Russian and German words.
"These grahzny sodding veshches that come out of my gulliver... and my plott," I said, "that's what it is."
- The Book of Dave by Will Self has a futuristic language called Mokni, a phoneticized form of Cockney mixed with bastardized London cabbie slang.
Paul A thinks they should be removed, with the reasoning "This trope is when the words are normal, but the syntax is strange. New languages where words and syntax are both strange is something different."
However, the trope description says that fictional, foreign, and/or obscure words are sometimes used to further obfuscate the situation, so I think he is mistaken.
I have restored the examples for the time being, though I think a discussion might be needed to settle the issue.
Paul A: A bit of strange vocabulary to add flavour to the strange syntax is one thing, but in the Nadsat language it's closer to the other way around, strange vocabulary with a bit of strange syntax as flavour. (In fact, I can't at the moment bring to mind any examples of strange syntax in Nadsat at all. There's nothing strange about the syntax in the sample above, for a start.)
I admit I don't actually know about Mokni, not having read that book, but the description of it above is again all about the vocabulary, not the syntax.
rjung: I think you're interpreting the trope too closely. My interpretation is that it's a halfway point (in fictional languages) between swapping a few words of Future Slang and a full-blown Conlang. The gist of the matter is a language where the words are (for the most part) understood, but it sounds like gibberish (or merely odd) to the uninitiated. The examples for the Orz or the Junkions don't have any unusual (grammatical) syntax, but they, too, are in that area between Future Slang substitution and, say, Klingon. IMO, the use of Cockney rhyming slang and phoneticized Cockney is what pushes those examples beyond mere word substitution.
Poopskin: is it bad that i was able to read the untranslated description without any effort? such is the way of the grammar nerd.
