WTF Fun Fact 12949 – 200 Invented Languages

Writers and linguists have created over 200 entirely new languages over the millennia for use in literature, films, games, comic books, television shows, etc.

According to TranslationDirectory.com (cited below), here is a list:

Literature

  • Adunaic from J. R. R. Tolkien’s works
  • Aklo, Tsath-yo, and R’lyehian are ancient and obscure languages in the works of H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, and others. Aklo is considered by some writers to be the written language of the Serpent People
  • Amtorian, spoken in some cultures on the planet Venus in Pirates of Venus by Edgar Rice Burroughs and several sequels. Judged by critic Fredrik Ekman to have “a highly inventive morphology but a far less interesting syntax.”
  • Ancient Language in the Inheritance Trilogy by Christopher Paolini (although this is considered to be a cipher of English by many)
  • Angley, Unglish and Ingliss – three languages spoken respectively at Western Europe, North America and the Pacific in the 29th Century world of Poul Anderson’s “Orion Shall Rise”. All derived from present-day English, the three are mutually unintelligible, following 800 years of separate development after a 21st century nuclear war and the extensive absorption of words and grammatical forms from French in the first case, Russian, Chinese and Mongolian in the second, and Polynesian in the third.
  • Anglic, the dominant languague of the declining Galactic empire depicted in Poul Anderson’s Dominic Flandry series, is descended from present-day English but so changed that only professional historians or linguists can understand English texts.
  • Anglo-French, in the alternate history world of the Lord Darcy stories by Randall Garrett – where England and France were permanently united into a single kingdom by Richard the Lionheart and their languages consequently merged.
  • asa’pili (“world language”), in bolo’bolo, by Swiss author P.M..
  • Atreides battle, in Dune by Frank Herbert
  • Babel-17, in Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany
  • Baronh, language of Abh in Seikai no Monsho (Crest of the Stars) and others, by Morioka Hiroyuki
  • Black Speech – language of Mordor in The Lord of the Rings
  • Bokonon – language of the Bokononism religion in Kurt Vonnegut’s “Cat’s Cradle”
  • Chakobsa, a language used in the Dune novels by Frank Herbert
  • Codex Seraphinianus by Luigi Serafini appears to be written in a constructed language which is presumably the language of the alien civilization the book describes
  • Common The language spoken in a wide variety of fantasy fiction, particularly Dungeons and Dragons.
  • D’Haran The ancient, dead language of pre-Great War New World (D’Hara, Midlands, and Westland) in Terry Goodkind’s “Sword of Truth” series.
  • Drac, language of the alien species in Barry B. Longyear’s Enemy Mine and The Enemy Papers
  • Kad’k, the language of the Dwarfs in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld
  • Earthsea books (by Ursula K. Le Guin)
  • Language of the Making – the basis of all magic, spoken by Dragons as their native tongue and learned with considerable effort by human mages
  • Hardic – linguistically descended from the above
  • Osskilian, and Kargish – a different family of languages, distantly related
  • Elemeno, language of two sisters in Caucasia by Danzy Senna.
  • Fremen, language of the native people of Arrakis, in Dune and other novels by Frank Herbert
  • Galactic Standard Speech in Asimov’ “Foundation series”. Inhabitants of the planet Fomalhaut speak “an extreme dialect” of it.
  • Galacticspeak from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
  • Gobbledygook, the language of goblins, in the Harry Potter series. Noted speakers include Albus Dumbledore and Barty Crouch.
  • Glide, created by Diana Reed Slattery, used by the Death Dancers of The Maze Game
  • Groilish, spoken by giants in Giants and the Joneses by Julia Donaldson.
  • High Speech of Gilead from Stephen King’s The Dark Tower (series)
  • Ilythiiri, the language of drow elves in Forgotten Realms setting. [2]
  • Kesh, in Ursula K. Le Guin’s novel Always Coming Home
  • Krakish, in Guardians of Ga’Hoole by Kathryn Lasky
  • Láadan (ldn), in Suzette Haden Elgin’s science fiction novel Native Tongue and sequels
  • Lapine, in Watership Down by Richard Adams
  • Lilliputian from Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. Further samples of the language are provided in T. H. White’s Mistress Masham’s Repose. In Gulliver’s Travels, other fictional languages, spoken in other places Gulliver visits, are also presented, e.g. Brobdingnagian, Laputan, Balbinarbian and Houyhnhnm languages.
  • Mando’a, created by Karen Traviss, used by the Mandalorians in the Star Wars Republic Commando novels Hard Contact and Triple Zero
  • Mangani in the Tarzan novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs
  • Marain, in The Culture novels of Iain M. Banks
  • The languages of Middle-earth (most notably Sindarin (sjn), Quenya (qya) and Khuzdul) by J. R. R. Tolkien, partly published in The Lord of the Rings, and posthumously discussed in The History of Middle-earth and other publications.
  • Molvanian from Molvania, A Land Untouched By Modern Dentistry
  • Nadsat slang, in A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
  • Newspeak, in Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (fictional constructed language)
  • The “Nautilus Language”, spoken on board Jules Verne’s famous fictional submarine, in token of crew members having completely renounced their former homelands and backgrounds. Every morning, after scanning the horizon with his binoculars, Nemo’s second-in-command says: “Nautron respoc lorni virch”. The meaning of these words is never clarified, but their construction seems to indicate that the “Nautilus Language” (its actual name is not given) is based on European languages.
  • Old Solar, in Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis
  • The Old Tongue from Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series
  • Paluldonian in a Tarzan novel, Tarzan the Terrible, by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Used by the inhabitants of the realm of Pal-ul-don in Africa, separated from the outside world by impenetrable marshes.
  • Parseltongue, the language of snakes, in the Harry Potter series. The ability of humans to speak it is considered a magic ability.
  • Pennsylvanisch, from Michael Flynn’s The Forest of Time
  • Pravic and Iotic, in The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
  • Ptydepe, from Václav Havel’s play The Memorandum
  • Quintaglio from Robert J. Sawyer’s Quintaglio Ascension Trilogy
  • Quenya from J. R. R. Tolkien’s works.
  • Qwghlmian from Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle
  • Rihannsu, spoken by the Rihannsu (Romulans) in the Star Trek novels of Diane Duane
  • Spocanian, in Rolandt Tweehuysen’s fictional country Spocania
  • Stark (short for Star Common), a common interstellar English-based language from Orson Scott Card’s Ender series
  • Starsza Mowa from Andrzej Sapkowski’s Hexer saga
  • Troll language from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld
  • Utopian language, appearing in a poem by Petrus Gilles accompanying Thomas More’s Utopia
  • Whitmanite, spoken by members of a radical Anarchist-Pacifist cult of the same name in Robert Heinlein’ The Puppet Masters. “Allucquere” is a female given name in Whitmanite.
  • Zaum, poetic tongue elaborated by Velimir Khlebnikov, Aleksei Kruchonykh, and other Russian Futurists as a “transrational” and “most universal” language “of songs, incantations, and curses”.

Comic books

  • Bordurian in some of Hergé’s The Adventures of Tintin, mostly in The Calculus Affair
  • Interlac, the universal language spoken in the 30th century in the Legion of Super Heroes comics
  • Kryptonese, or Kryptonian, the language of Superman’s home planet of Krypton
  • Syldavian, in some of Hergé’s The Adventures of Tintin, mostly in King Ottokar’s Sceptre
  • Movies and television
  • Two kinds of alien language, termed “Alienese” and “Beta Crypt 3” appear quite frequently in background sight gags in Futurama.
  • Ancient in the Stargate universe (i.e. Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis) is the language of the Ancients, the builders of the Stargates; it is similar in pronunciation to Medieval Latin. The Athosians say prayers in Ancient.
  • Atlantean created by Marc Okrand for the film Atlantis: The Lost Empire
  • Cityspeak, a “mishmash of Japanese, Spanish, German,” plus Hungarian and French, spoken on the street of overcrowded and multi-lingual Los Angeles of 2019 in Blade Runner. Similarly, used in many cyberpunk genre role playing games.
  • The Divine Language is a language invented by director Luc Besson and actress Milla Jovovich for the 1997 movie The Fifth Element.
  • Enchanta, in the Encantadia and Etheria television series in the Philippines, created by the head writer Suzette Doctolero
  • Gelfling, spoken in Jim Henson’s fantasy epic The Dark Crystal
  • Goa’uld, the galactic lingua franca from Stargate SG-1, supposedly influenced Ancient Egyptian
  • Huttese, language of both alien species and people in some of George Lucas’s Star Wars films
  • Irken, in Invader Zim, by Jhonen Vasquez, et al.
  • Klingon (tlh), in the Star Trek movie and television series, created by Marc Okrand
  • Krakozhian from The Terminal
  • Ku, a fictional African language in the movie The Interpreter (2005)
  • Linguacode, a universal language code sometimes used by the United Federation of Planets in the Star Trek television series.
  • Marklar, spoken by the people of Marklar in a South Park episode.
  • Minbari from Babylon 5, three related languages used together, corresponding to the areas of expertise of the three societal castes.
  • Nadsat, the fictional language spoken by Alex and his friends in Clockwork Orange
  • Nellish, a personal language from the main character of Nell
  • Paku from Land of the Lost
  • PortuGreek, the trade language featured in Waterworld
  • The pseudo-Spanish/Greek/Arabic language of Republica, as used in the fictional Chanel 9 program within the British comedy sketch show the The Fast Show
  • Quenya (qya) and Sindarin (sjn), the two Elven languages, spoken in the Lord of the Rings movies.
  • Slovetzian, the fictional Slavic language of Slovetzia in the movie The Beautician and the Beast
  • The Star Wars series features several fictional languages.
  • Tenctonese from the Alien Nation movie and television series, created by Van Ling and Kenneth Johnson
  • Unas in Stargate SG-1, supposedly the first hosts of the Goa’uld
  • Ulam, language spoken by the prehistoric humans in Anthony Burgess’ movie Quest for Fire, created by melting roots of European languages.
  • Vampire language used in the movie Blade.
  • Vulcan language from Star Trek
  • Unnamed languages
  • In the Janissaries series of science-fiction novels by Jerry Pournelle, the human natives of the planet Tran speak a language apparently derived from Mycenaean. A form of Latin is also spoken in an empire resembling ancient Rome’s, but only by scholars.
  • Riddley Walker, a 1980 novel by Russell Hoban, set in a post-apocalyptic future, is written entirely in a “devolved” form of English.
  • Writer/director Luc Besson invented a Divine Language for Milla Jovovich’s character “Leeloo” to speak in the film The Fifth Element.
  • Music
  • Gulevache: fictional Romance Language of the kingdom of Gulevandia on the bilingual opera Cardoso en Gulevandia by the comedy group Les Luthiers
  • Kobaian, the language used by 70’s French rock group Magma.
  • Vonlenska, sometimes known as “Hopelandic”, the language sung by Jón Þór Birgisson of the Icelandic band “Sigur Rós” on many of their songs.
  • Loxian, featured on the Enya album Amarantine.
  • Unnamed language by Yves Barbieux, used in his song “Sanomi” and performed by the Belgian group Urban Trad in the Eurovision Song contest in 2003.
  • Mohelmot, a forbidden language used by The Residents on the album The Big Bubble: Part Four of the Mole Trilogy.
  • Unnamed language by Emmanuelle Orange, used in her song Pialoushka and performed by Montreal band Eden106.
  • Unnamed language featured in the chorus of 2NU’s 1991 track This is Ponderous.
  • Unnamed language featured in the soundtrack to the film 1492: Conquest of Paradise by Vangelis.

— WTF fun facts

Source: “List of constructed languages” — TranslationDirectory.com


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