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Posts Tagged ‘invented language’

Inventing Languages for TV Shows

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on December 23, 2011| 2 Comments »

Some time ago, I blogged about the book In the Land of Invented Languages  and followed up with another post on Esperantists in the subway.

Among the invented languages that people actually speak is Klingon,  which came from a television series, Star Trek. Today television is inventing more languages.

As Amy Chozick notes in the NY Times, “Game of Thrones” needed the feeling of authenticity that language (and subtitles) can impart.

She writes, “At his best friend’s wedding reception on the California coast, David J. Peterson stood to deliver his toast as best man. He held his Champagne glass high and shouted ‘Hajas!’ The 50 guests raised their glasses and chanted ‘Hajas!’ in unison.

“The word, which means ‘be strong’ and is pronounced ‘hah-DZHAS,’ has great significance for Mr. Peterson. He invented it, along with 3,250 other words (and counting), in the language he created for the HBO fantasy series ‘Game of Thrones,’ called Dothraki”

More here.

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Esperantists in the Subway

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 29, 2011| 8 Comments »

When you have a doctor’s appointment in the morning and go to work late, you see a whole different crowd riding the subway. In the summer after rush hour, there are a lot of families on outings. A woman and a boy of about 11 got on and sat near me. The boy began to tell his mother that he had been reading about a made-up language called Esperanto. She said she had heard of it and thought it had been popular a long time ago but hadn’t worked out. An older kid they didn’t know chimed in to confirm the woman’s view. Esperanto was intended to be used as an international language, but nobody spoke it anymore.

That was too much for me. “Well,” I said, “hundreds of thousands of people speak it. I speak it.” If I may say so, the boy and his mother were delighted. Could I speak a few words, they asked?

“Mi parolas Esperanto,” I said. The boy repeated the “I Speak Esperanto” phrase several times. He then wanted to know “hello.” “Saluton,” I said. I told him and his mother why Ludwig Zamenhoff had felt a need for such a language more than 100 years ago in a war-torn part of Eastern Europe.

When the woman and the boy were leaving the train, they asked how to say “good-bye” and told me good-bye in Esperanto.

Now get this. Here is William Shatner, long before “Star Trek,” in a spooky black and white movie called “Incubus” — filmed in Esperanto!

That is so bizarre, I thought at first it must be a hoax. Maybe some Esperantists dubbed it for a joke on YouTube, I thought. But Wikipedia is very careful about such things, and it confirms that William Shatner performed in a movie in Esperanto that was thought to be lost. The recently rediscovered print had subtitles in French, which have now been converted to English. Read Wikipedia here. (Read my previous post on invented languages here.)

And just in case you are now inspired to learn the language, this little clip offers a pretty good lesson.

I hope the boy on the subway finds it. A terrifically curious and open-minded young man.

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The Urge to Invent a Language

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on June 6, 2011|

I’ve been thinking about a book I read earlier this year, In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and The Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build A Perfect Language, by Arika Okrent. I thought it was a hoot! Even though some parts were impenetrable to anyone not a linguist like the author, I really enjoyed it. Okrent is a very good writer and knows how to choose and lead up to the funniest aspect of a constructed language — or of the inventor. I learned a ton of random facts, and I thought I knew it all, having a decent knowledge of Esperanto. Turns out, there are more than 900 known invented languages. One that was invented to express a woman’s perspective is Laadan and has words like this: “radiidin, non-holiday, a time allegedly a holiday but actually so much a burden because of work and preparations that it is a dreaded occasion; especially when there are too many guests and none of them help.”

Okrent gets into the wildly varied reasons people invent a language and why natural languages are more flexible. She covers some languages in depth (like Star Trek’s Klingon, invented only for artistic fun). I loved the part about the U.S. Office of Nuclear Waste Isolation asking “semiotician” Thomas Sebeok in the 1980s how to post warnings that would last 10,000 years on waste-storage sites. Sebeok recommended posting signs in all known languages, plus pictures, icons, and all sorts of symbols, and having the keepers every 250 years rethink the warnings based on current messaging. He also recommended creating a spooky mythology around the site that would be passed on from “priest” to “priest” beyond the time they could be expected to know the reason for it. All they would know is the “curse.”

Too many great tidbits to describe here. I laughed all the way through.

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Asakiyume writes: Your mention of Thomas Sebeok’s foray into how to convey a warning about nuclear waste sites reminded me of this article, “This Place Is Not a Place of Honor,” by  Alan Bellows, which includes interesting images designed to convey horror and stay-away-itiveness.

The poetry of it–it horrifies viscerally.
This place is a message… and part of a system of messages… pay attention to it!

Sending this message was important to us. We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture.
This place is not a place of honor…no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here… nothing valued is here.
What is here is dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger.
The danger is in a particular location… it increases toward a center… the center of danger is here… of a particular size and shape, and below us.
The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours.
The danger is to the body, and it can kill.
The form of the danger is an emanation of energy.
The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place physically. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.

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