Humans invented language in order to communicate with each other. But did you know many renowned authors have constructed languages to make the imaginary worlds of their books seem more realistic?
From “Game of Thrones” and “Lord of the Rings” to “Harry Potter and “Star Trek”, constructed languages, popularly known as conlang, have featured in major works of fiction for centuries together.
A constructed language is a language that has been consciously devised by an individual or a group instead of having developed naturally. Constructed languages are often used by authors in world-building.
Popular conlangs
According to the Guinness Book of World Records (2006), the “world’s largest fictional language” is Klingon. It is the constructed language spoken by the Klingons in the “Star Trek” universe.
J.R.R. Tolkien coined over 15 Elvish languages for his “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings” series. Among them two – Quenya and Sindarin have enough words and grammar to be considered functional.
In more recent years, “Game of Thrones” famously created a fictional language of its own, Dothraki, for the television adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s fantasy series.
Interestingly, in the “Harry Potter” series, J.K. Rowling mentions that both Harry and Voldemort have the ability to speak in Parseltongue, the magical language of snakes. The language draws from Bantu and Uralic languages. But Rowling did not create entire grammar or lexicon for it. Cambridge professor Francis Nolan was commissioned to create phrases in Parseltongue for the films.
Picture Credit : Google