fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2781 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2781 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Game of Thrones]

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[Kevin Sorbo/Hercules: The Legendary Journeys]

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[Transformers: Prime]

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[Darkchylde]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 022 secrets from Secret Submission Post #397.
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Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yup! It's called conlanging, a very of conlang, which is short for "constructed language". I've been making language since was 10. Well, 8 really, but at 8 I was just replacing vocabulary or making codes, they weren't really languages until I was 10.

The most well-known conlangs are probably Tolkein's languages (he actually wrote Lord of the Rings as a way of showing off his conlangs), Klingon from Star Trek (there is, in fact, a Klingon Language Institute), and Dothraki from Game of Thrones tied with Na'vi from Avatar. (The maker of Dothraki can be found on Tumblr as dedlavs - he also made the Dark Elf language in Thor). Esperanto - a widely spoken language, and even a native language for some people - is also a conlang.

Conlanging is a thriving community. The Facebook group alone is big and friendly. ^_^

Dothraki is ahead of Volapük, Esperanto, and Loglan? That surprises me.

In terms of the average layman knowing about its existence, yes. Once you get into anything remotely linguistics or cultural related, then Esperanto and Loglan will start to come ahead. Until then, pop culture tends to take precedence over, well, linguistics, linguistic experiments, or just languages in general.

The other three conlangs could probably best be seen as "obscure languages", and the vast majority of people don't know the existence of the vast majority of languages. If you asked random people on the street to just start listing languages, how many of them will say Bengali, or Basque, or Xhosa? I'm betting Klingon will be more well-known as a language than Bengali, at least in America - even though Bengali is the 7th most spoken language in the world.

If you're talking about people who actually know the language itself, then no, Dothraki is still way behind those. I have no idea if anyone really speaks Dothraki, or if there is even enough Dothraki to be spoken.

I see what you mean. Dothraki is something people would have heard of because of the tv series. (I know several fans of the books, but it seems like the tv series dramatically increased GRRM's profile.)

It just surprised me. I know Klingon speakers (well, they know some phrases anyway), and I've actually used lexicons of the Tolkienian languages to name...things. And those "fictional" languages have been around for decades. I didn't even suspect Dothraki was even a thing on that level, as opposed to just a writer's system of making new words for his imaginary culture.

I'm relieved by your last sentence. The idea that anything GRRM created would pass Loglan in linguistics use just bugs me somehow, and I don't even speak Loglan.

Well, like I said above, he didn't make Dothraki. It was made by a professional conlanger, David Thompson I think? Not sure, I mostly know him by his online handle (dedlavs). From what I know, GRRM originally just wrote "translations" from POV characters (i.e. "Drogo said XYZ, Iain Glen said it meant this, etc.") and/or he made up some phrases, but then the show needed an actual language, so dedlavs made Dothraki, and since then GRRM has been using it in his books, and/or more recent printings of the earlier books include that. I know that it doesn't always work when he tries to use it, though (as dedlavs pointed out/commented on on his Tumblr, which is under that handle).

Meanwhile, at my behest on Facebook, he made an entire post on Tumblr about the language he developed for the Dark Elves in Thor 2. It was only a few phrases, but he had it very well developed (including its origins in/parallels with real life Finnic-Urgalic languages - historically, the Finns and the Norse didn't always get along). :) I honestly wouldn't be surprised to find out more Americans know about this obscure language than Bengali or Basque or Xhosa.

But yay for pop culture promoting recreational linguistics, at least? :P

[ SECRET POST #2781 ]

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Ah, so.

Re: Ah, so.