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alt title(s): Fictive Language "Don't go putting any bits of your 'Eressėan', or 'Elf-latin', or whatever you call it, into your verses at Oxford. It might scan, but it wouldn't pass."
—Oswin Errol, The Lost Road, J.R.R. Tolkien
When authors or producers create intricate fictional worlds, they may go so far as to invent a fictional language, or conlang, for the full experience. This is most common in fantasy or science fiction works. Hardcore fans will often learn this language to show off their sheer geekdom.
In most cases, the fictional language shown will go no further than a few easily translated words, but the most fleshed-out worlds can receive an entire functional language, complete with included glossary of tenses and word order. However, writers who haven't studied linguistics (which is almost all of them) seldom do the research on even well-known human languages, and most such languages simply tend to follow English sentence mechanics. Rarely will one find alien languages with adjectives following nouns (like Spanish or French), objects preceding subjects (like Malagasy), or other grammatical structures not normally seen in modern English.
Note that not all fictional "languages" belong on this page. If only the alphabet is fictional and the alien-looking text is actually hidden messages in English (or some other real language), it's a Cypher Language. If the characters' dialog is total gobbledygook that sounds foreign but has no structure or translatable vocabulary, they're Speaking Simlish. On the other hand, if the characters are using a well-defined — but alien — structure, then they're Strange Syntax Speakers. A new dialect of a real language probably falls under Future Slang or Unusual Euphemism.
Not to be confused with Personal Dictionary.
Examples
Anime and Manga
- In Crest of the Stars the Abh speak Baronh
 , a language created by the author. It follows Japanese rather than English structure.
- Super Dimension Fortress Macross Do You Remember Love does this as well, giving the Zentradi a fictional language that actually has a rudimentary grammar and a vocabulary.
Films
- The language spoken by Leeloo in The Fifth Element was invented by director Luc Besson and actress Milla Jovovich (who played Leeloo). It was so thoroughly worked out that reportedly by the end of filming, Besson and Jovovich were regularly holding entire conversations in it.
- The vampires in the film adaption of 30 Days Of Night speak all of their lines in a fictional language. Subtitles are used so viewers can tell what they're saying.
- In Quest For Fire, the Neanderthal tribe speaks a language invented by Anthony Burgess for the film.
Gamebooks
- Lone Wolf had a Giak language, which wasn't as developed as Tolkien's, but this is understandable, because Giaks aren't quite as sophisticated as Elves. It did have some fun grammar, though.
Literature
- J.R.R. Tolkien came up with numerous languages used by the peoples of Middle-earth. He was a linguistics professor, and Middle-Earth was basically created so that his languages would have somewhere to exist. The scope ranges from usable langages with a detailed grammar and vocabulary (notably the Elven languages Quenya and Sindarin), to languages of which only a few names and words are known. He also invented several scripts (Tengwar, Sarati, and Cirth) used to write them. And both the languages and the scripts also have an internal history: the development and history of the languages inside his fictional world, creating different dialects and usage for different time periods and regions. Many of his books included appendices that explained the pronunciation, sentence structure and much of the vocabulary of the languages, as well as the scripts used to write them.
- The Old Tongue in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time novels is an example of the more fragmentary style.
- The Old Tongue is interesting from a philological standpoint. Almost all formal names and many place names are in it, yet almost all Old Tongue words are actually obvious variations on or mutations of real words from the real world, often very unrelated to what they are describing in the book. For example, the name for the gypsy-like, pacifistic Traveling People, Tuatha'an, is suspiciously like "Tuatha Dé Danann", an Irish mythological group which are known for their skill in battle.
- The Discworld novels have mentioned a few words from the languages of trolls and dwarfs. Most of these are humorously concise, such as the Troll word "aagragaah" (which means "forebodings", but more literally translates as "the moment you see the little pebbles that indicate an avalanche is coming, and realize it's too late to run away") and the Dwarf word "drudak'ak" (a word for more traditional dwarfs that literally means "those who do not get out in the fresh air much", possibly idiomatically "homebodies").
- It's mentioned that for a human to speak the dwarven language you should preferably have a severe throat infection.
- Edgar Rice Burroughs made up numerous languages for his different novel series, often accompanying them with alphabets which were little more than artistic substitution ciphers.
- The Lapine language from Watership Down.
- HP Lovecraft would often sprinkle his Cosmic Horror narratives with non-human languages: "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn", and such. Fans have developed a rudimentary language based on it.
- Diane Duane's Star Trek novels feature a Romulan language ("Rihannsu") that is clearly difficult if not impossible for humans to speak, mainly because — as Duane admitted once — it was generated entirely at random by a program she wrote for her computer.
- Contrasting this is the other Klingon language, "klingonaase", from John M. Ford's novel The Final Reflection, and subsequently used in the Klingon supplement for the FASA Star Trek roleplaying game. Predating the language created for the movies ("tlhIngan Hol"), klingonaase was meticulously thought out and structured as part of a masterful creation of Klingon culture from the ground up, the first attempt at such for Trek. Unlike "tlhIngan Hol", klingonaase was designed to be consistent with what little snippets of Klingon language — personal names, mainly — were heard in Star Trek The Original Series.
- Diane Duane's Feline Wizards books feature Ailurin, the language of cats. It is also slightly unpronounceable, but justifiably so, since the words are intended to sound like the meows and hisses of cats.
- In Robert A Heinlein's The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, the narrator (along with most other Lunar inhabitants) speaks "Loonie" (although he can also speak standard English quite well when it suits him to do so). "Loonie" appears to be a mixture of English, Russian, tech-ese, and probably words from several other Earth languages.
- Christopher Paolini, in his quest to very badly rip off the whole genre of fantasy in his Inheritance Cycle, manages to rip off Old Norse as well but arranging using English grammar.
- Karen Traviss took the rhythmic chanting over the Star Wars Republic Commando game menu and developed (indeed, is still developing) it into Mando'a, the Mandalorian language, for use in her Republic Commando novels. Close attention is being paid to etymologies and the connections between words... on the other hand, grammar has been quite deliberately tossed out the window, under the reasoning that the Mando'ade are soldiers and don't give an osik how you speak as long as you get it across.
- Author J.R. Ward's Brotherhood of the Black Dagger series includes a short dictionary in the front of each book. However, most of the words are just an English word with an 'h' added in somewhere.
- Similarly Dune has a lot of Fremen words, most of which are derived from Arabic.
- Suzette Haden Elgin's Native Tongue series (Native Tongue, Judas Rose, and Earthsong) featured a "women's language", Lįadan. Elgin is a linguist, and the language was an attempt to test the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis—she actually made up the language, and there are online lessons.
- The Simon Necronomicon is a hoax masquerading as the true source of H.P. Lovecraft's fictional Necronomicon. It includes many spells and incantations in what is allegedly ancient Sumerian, but really mostly gibberish.
- Jennifer Roberson's Chronicles of the Cheysuli series relies on the Cheysuli language for multiple cultural terms, and usually has a glossary in the back of the books.
- The Dark Tower series by Stephen King uses the Low Speech and High Speech of Gilead, which the "America-side" characters can understand as English but which uses a slightly different alphabet and pseudo Ancient Egyptian words such as Khef the water of life, and "Ka" the ancient Egyptian word for the life force of the soul which takes on its own complex meaning in the story.
- The Encyclopedia Exposita in Harry Harrison's West Of Eden has glossaries of the book's various fictional languages.
Live Action TV
- "tlhIngan Hol" — the official Klingon language in Star Trek, which even uses a different word order: Object Verb Subject (English is Subject Verb Object). Entire courses in "tlhIngan Hol" are sold, as well as works translated into the language.
- Stargate SG-1 came up with several words in Goa'uld over the course of the show. No official dictionary, but there is a fan-collected site of words, matched with what they were explicitly established to mean or extrapolated from context.
- The Pakuni of the original Land Of The Lost had a unique language with its own consistent grammar and vocabulary, designed for the show by a linguist, and all their dialogue was written in it.
- Twins Emily and Katie in Skins have their own personal language, although it's said that they stopped using it when they were younger (until Katie uses it again to try and defuse an argument, not entirely successfully — even the tiny snippets of Twin we get in the show speak volumes about the dynamics of their relationship). Kathryn and Megan Prescott have this in real life, too — Kathryn says something in untranslated Twin in one of the behind-the-scenes thingies.
Music
- Drummer/composer/singer Christian Vander created the language Kobaļan for his band, Magma. The lyrics deal primarily with an interplanetary war between Earth (Ļtah, in Kobaļan) and Kobaļa.
- Similarly, Enya employs a fictional language called Loxian, created for the purpose, in several of the songs on her 2005 CD Amarantine.
- Yoko Kanno uses an invented French-like language for some of her songs.
- Ditto Yuki Kajiura, whose language has been dubbed "Kajiuran" by her fans.
- The recent relaxation of the language restrictions in the Eurovision Song Contest has led to several entries in fictional languages, including "Sanomi" by Urban Trad (Belgium 2003) and "Amambanda" by Treble (Netherlands 2005). Belgium tried it again in 2008 with 'O Julissi'(by Ishtar). The first finished in second place, just two points behind the winner, while the other two didn't get past the semifinal.
- Icelandic band Sigur Rós sing in 'Vonlenska' (normally translated as 'Hopelandic') on many of their songs. Rather than having any specific meaning, it is meant to mean whatever the listener thinks it should.
- The Argentine comedy band Les Luthiers has Cardoso En Gulevandia; a bilingual opera spoken in Spanish and the Romance-based fictional language Gulevache.
- The music of many Cirque du Soleil soundtracks use made-up language, often sounding French, Italian, or based on another Romance language. The sound of the language used seems to differ between each show.
- Occasionally songs have straightforward foreign-language lyrics; "Alegria" is probably the best-known example. The 1993 retrospective book explains the made-up language this way: "Gibberish is universal. Gibberish is direct. Gibberish cuts through cultural divides." Fans call this "Cirquish," and it has no literal meaning. (Mystere lampshades this when the emcee tries to announce the theatre rules in Cirquish and his puppet warns him "They don't understand you, stupid!")
- Extreme metal band Bal-Sagoth have many lyric lines in mystic languages. Some of it is taken from Lovecraft or other sources, while the rest is incomprehensible and presumably just evil-sounding gibberish.
- What are they singing on the Coraline soundtrack? Not sure, but it sounds pretty.
- Presumably, it's supposed to represent the rats singing, like they did in the book.
- Songs by Caramba. If you think Hubba Hubba Zoot Zoot is a Spanish song about the Vietnam War, Charlies and Mecha, you're sadly mistaken.
New Media
- Bionicle uses a substitution cipher for its in-universe texts, named Matoran.
Tabletop Games
- M.A.R. Barker, also a linguistics professor, created Tsolyani and many other languages in great detail for his Tabletop Games Empire of the Petal Throne, set on the world of Tekumel. They are notably unlike European languages.
- This editor has dabbled in creating languages to flesh out his fantasy role-playing campaign world, resulting in Sidhaisin, the language of his campaign's elves, which has been described as sounding like a cross between Welsh and Hebrew (and which was used in the editor's wedding ceremony), and Kazandar, a still-embryonic dwarven language based on Semitic language structures.
- Traveller's culture supplements contain syllable tables for constructing words in alien and other foreign languages by roll of dice.
- Warhammer 40000 has partial Lexicons for the Eldar, one for the Tau and even a fan-made one for Kroot (Krootish or Krootic?.
Video Games
- D'ni in Myst.
- Daedric script in The Elder Scrolls games is a substitution cipher for English, but Oblivion's Ayleid language, and its parent language Aldmeris, involve actual non-english words. Translating Ayleid is part of one of the quests for the Mages Guild, and similar words in parent languages translate the Morrowind city of Balmora to "stone forest" (which is a stylistic way of saying "city"), the assassins' guild Morag Tong as the "foresters guild" (most assuredly a metaphor which may or may not involve hacking with an axe), and one of the Daedra, Molag Bal, being translated as ...fire... ...stone... Probably the least appropriate title, seeing as Mehrunes Dagon is the destructive god with all the fire, and Molag Bal is more for general unpleasantness (attributed to creating vampires, and is sometimes called the "king of rape"...).
- The entirety of the dialogue in the Panzer Dragoon games is in a fictional language that is, apparently, somewhat based off of Latin. It has no official name and so is known solely as Panzerese among the fandom.
- A few games in the Tales series feature invented languages.
- Tales of Eternia features Melnics, the language of Celestia, which is based on a substitution cipher that replaces letters in English words — good English, too! — with Japanese or Japanese-ish sounds; it also has its own alphabet in which Melnics words and phrases are always written in-game.
- Tales of Legendia features Relares, which is based on ideographs, and whose words are composed of a base representing a general idea or concept (i.e. "ke-" for "fire/red/hot", or "ire-" for "ice/white/cold"), followed by either "-s" for a noun related to the concept ("kes" = "fire/flame"), "-n" for a verb related to the concept ("ken" = "to burn"), and "-l" for an adjective related to the concept ("kel" = "red/hot/blazing").
- Tales of the Abyss features Ancient Ispanian, in which, for instance, Yulia's fonic hymns are written and sung. (Abyss also uses "fonic script" in some places, but that's apparently just the alphabet that the people of Auldrant use.)
- The Fonic Language, which the Fonic Script is the alphabet for, is the modern tongue in Auldrant, and pretty much just English in pretty symbols. However, as Ispania is taken to be another word for Spain, a theory exists that Ancient Ispanian is Spanish, Latin, or some Latin derived language. Of course, since you don't... actually see or hear Ancient Ispanian...
- In Tales of Symphonia, "angelic language" and "elvish" are both mentioned, but neither of the languages actually appear or are used in-game.
- Tho Fan in Jade Empire.
- The Sims games have Simlish, a completely nonsense language with no actual meanings. However, for The Sims 2: University, they had a number of bands compose Simlish versions of existing songs for the new College Rock in-game radio station. Some of the bands simply came up with gibberish, others somehow laboriously 'translated' their songs into Simlish. Simlish is one of the most euphonious languages for music, and some of the songs are arguably improvments over the original.
- The language spoken in Shadow of the Colossus is said to be composed by some amalgam of Japanese, English and Latin... quite a unique mix.
- In the Ar Tonelico series, the usually-sung Hymmnos language is a strange mix of English, German, and Sanskrit — and a little binary.
- Outcast has the Talan language. The manual has a partial lexicon and the in-game lexicon updates everytime a player hears a new word.
- Every character in Klonoa: Door to Phantomile and the sequels speaks in a (subtitled) language based on Japanese, but with its own vocabulary and syntax, to a certain extent (for example, the words "Rupuru" for "to go", "Rakuru" for "to help", etc. and the ending -du which means "I" or "me" - "Rakurudu" means "Help me", for instance). The song that plays in the Mts. Of Mira-Mira level in Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil (Wahoo Stomp in English, Stepping Wind in Japanese) is entirely in that language, but the lyrics have an actual translation. There's also "beruyo" for "bell", "rengu" for "ring" and maybe one or two other words.
Web Comics
Western Animation
- Futurama has two alien languages visible in signs and other background text, one a simple substitution cypher, the other a more complicated code. They were included as a puzzle for fans.
- Futurama also parodied the trope with the "Becktionary", a dictionary of words made up by singer-songwriter Beck Hansen and appearing in his music.
Bender: Hey, yeah! I could write a song! But with real words — I won't use fake words like odelay.
Beck: Odelay is a word; just look it up in the Becktionary.
Bender: Get me the Becktionary! No, the Rhyming Becktionary!
- Hold on, I'll try the Universal Greeting: "Bah Weep Granah Weep Nini Bong!"
- The Universal Greeting is real, not fictional. Also, it's spelled "ninny bon".
- The Amazing Adrenalini Brothers has Rendoosian, the language spoken by the title characters. While it's possible to figure out some of what they say through context, the only actual lexicon appears on the series' website.
Comics
- The fictive country of Sylvania in Tintin comes with snippets of Sylvanian language, which appears to be a Germanic language heavily influenced by Slavic languages (most roots are Germanic, but inflections Slavic, and it uses the Cyrillic alphabet).
Real Life
- There are entire websites devoted to making your own language. Some are for roleplaying games, some are for novels, some are for coded use between friends, and some are just for fun. It's called "conlanging" (from "constructed language").
- Not just individual websites. Zompist, linked above, runs a forum with a fairly lively community of conlangers.
- Twins are also known to invent languages, or at least dialects, for themselves.
- For that matter, so are other close siblings, or any other groups growing up and learning a language together, from pidgins to teenaged slang.
- In fact, some times ago, a lot of peoples created new languages (Tolkien was just one of them). Some were so good at it some of theses languages were even taught in schools as real languages.
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