Every time Daenerys Targaryen spoke in ‘Dothraki’ in Game of Thrones, I was mesmerised, a language that sounded incredibly badass; it spoke to my action-loving soul. Turns out there are apparently 3,000 ‘Dothraki’ words, and you can learn the language online. But why would you want to learn a language that is not real?
The lord of the languages
Unsurprisingly, most languages are made for fictional worlds. The earliest instance could be found in Thomas More’s Utopia, which was published in 1516. The members of the communist utopian society speak ‘Utopian,’ a universal language with its own writing system, something that would go on to inspire Esperanto, but more on that later.
The world of fictional languages and, widely, fantasy fiction, would be revolutionised by J.R.R. Tolkien. The author of The Lord of the Rings would incorporate the ‘Elvish’ languages, Quenya and Sindarin, into the book. These languages were masterfully made up by Tolkien in such a way that they mimicked the way our natural languages evolved.
In Tolkien’s world, you’ll also find the Dwarf language Khuzdul, the tree language Entish, the language of Rohan Rohirric, the language of Numenor Adunaic, and Black Speech, the made-up language of Sauron.
Yes, Tolkien created a world for his made-up languages where the main villain created his own language. Some would say that is more Inception than Inception itself. Tolkien himself said, “Nobody believes me when I say that my long book is an attempt to create a world in which a form of language agreeable to my personal aesthetic might seem real. But it is true.”
Tolkien’s influence can be seen in the world of Star Trek. The Vulcan and Klingon languages rose in popularity so much so that even Duolingo offers courses in Klingon. Moreover, the aforementioned ‘Dothraki’ language created by David J. Peterson, along with Skyrim’s Dragon language and, surprisingly, Despicable Me’s Minionese, are some of the most famous artlangs.
Interconnecting the world
But going back to Utopia, the concept of a worldwide language spoken by everyone sounds very interesting, doesn’t it? No more needing subtitles to watch anime or K-drama. Everything would be spoken in the language that you can understand. It would globalise the world even more and bring people together, opening the era for peace and cooperation. That is the thought that came into the mind of L. L. Zamenhof who created ‘Esperanto’ in 1887.
Esperanto was made to be a global second language that would promote peace and understanding between cultures. Well, more than a century later, Esperanto has not managed to become the world’s main auxiliary language, but it is the most widely spoken conlang, with approximately 2 million speakers, which is more than Irish, Welsh, Maori, and Sami.
Sapir and Whorf’s day out
Did you know the Finnish language has 40 words for snow? Why? Because their culture has been exposed to snowy conditions for centuries, the Finnish language developed in such a way that they distinguish snow and see the snow better. This is called linguistic relativity, and the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis backs it up.
“When something is important to a society, their language will have many words to describe it. And the language spoken by someone changes their worldview and shapes the way they make sense of the world.”
Dr. James Cooke Brown theorised that humanity will never be able to understand the fundamentals of the universe unless they break the shackles imposed upon them by the language they speak. Keeping this in mind, he created ‘loglan’ or ‘logical language’ to create a language so different from other languages that it would make the speakers think more logically.
Loglan’s incredible complexity has stopped it from getting into the mainstream. Another language was created on the same principles named Lojban by the Logical Language Group, which was less complex and has the goal of being a freely available and real language.
Languages are fascinating. It is the waypoint of our beings. How you think, how you behave, what you want to do, and your goals—all of them are driven by the language that we speak. It is a time machine to the past to see how our ancestors behaved and what they believed in.
Languages, both natural and manufactured, are fascinating. It shows who you really are. It is the only curtain behind which you can truly hide.