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Hollywood Constructed Language Boom
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iguanamon
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Message 1 of 24

12 December 2011 at 9:21am | IP Logged

Conlang fans, I saw this in the NYT today: Hollywood is driving demand for constructed languages

Excerpt: "Some people build model railroads or re-enact Civil War battles; Mr. Peterson, a 30-year-old who studied linguistics at the University of California, San Diego, is a “conlanger,” a person who constructs new languages. Until recently, this mostly quixotic linguistic pursuit, born out of a passion for words and grammatical structures, lived on little-visited Web sites or in college dissertations.

Today, a desire in Hollywood to infuse fantasy and science-fiction movies, television series and video games with a sense of believability is driving demand for constructed languages, complete with grammatical rules, a written alphabet (hieroglyphics are acceptable) and enough vocabulary for basic conversations."...

"'The days of aliens spouting gibberish with no grammatical structure are over', said Paul R. Frommer, professor emeritus of clinical management communication at the University of Southern California who created Na’vi, the language spoken by the giant blue inhabitants of Pandora in 'Avatar.'"

I have no desire to learn a constructed language invented for Hollywood but I do like that sci-fi aliens have stopped speaking English all the time.

Edited by iguanamon on 12 December 2011 at 9:29am
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NickJS
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Message 2 of 24

12 December 2011 at 4:22pm | IP Logged

I've noticed this myself recently, if you saw my post about the game Skyrim too.

I really hope it doesn't get to the point where every film has its own constructed
language though - it was nice to see it in films such as Avatar and it did add to the
overall effect of the film, but as they usually do, they burn the idea out (like the
whole vampire thing at the moment).
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mrwarper
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Message 3 of 24

15 December 2011 at 6:30am | IP Logged

The whole vampire thing was burned out decades ago, with some notable exceptions being The vampire tapestry (novel by Suzy McKee Charnas) and, to a lesser extent, the Swedish movie Låt den rätte komma in (Let the right one in).

WRT to the Hollywood-inspired constructed language ridiculousness... exactly -- it's always fun to utter Klaatu barada nikto, but for God's sake, Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg beat us to it twenty years ago in Twilight (edit: it was Nightfall, thanks for quoting me guys ;):

I.A. & R.S. wrote:

TO THE READER

Kalgash is an alien world and it is not our intention to have you think that it is identical to Earth, even though we depict its people as speaking a language that you can understand, and using terms that are familiar to you.
[...]
The computers used on Kalgash are not necessarily compatible with the ones used in New York or London or Stockholm, and the "mile" that we use in this book is not necessarily the American unit of 5,280 feet. But it seemed simpler and more desirable to use these familiar terms in describing events on this wholly alien world than it would have been to invent a long series of wholly Kalgashian terms.

In other words, we could have told you that one of our characters paused to strap on his quonglishes before setting out on a walk of seven vorks along the main gleebish of his native znoob, and everything might have seemed ever so much more thoroughly alien. But it would also have been ever so much more difficult to make sense out of what we were saying, and that did not seem useful.
[...]
If you prefer, you can imagine that the text reads "vorks" wherever it says "miles," "gliizbiiz" wherever it says "hours," and "sleshtraps" where it says "eyes." Or you can make up your own terms. Vorks or miles, it will make no difference when the Stars come out.

Edited by mrwarper on 15 December 2011 at 9:23pm
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NickJS
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Message 4 of 24

15 December 2011 at 7:07am | IP Logged

mrwarper wrote:

The whole vampire thing was burned out decades ago, with some notable
exceptions being The vampire tapestry (novel by Suzy McKee Charnas) and, to a lesser
extent, the Swedish movie Låt den rätte komma
in (Let the right one in).

WRT to the Hollywood-inspired constructed language ridiculousness... exactly -- it's
always fun to utter Klaatu barada nikto, but for God's sake, Isaac Asimov and
Robert Silverberg beat us to it twenty years ago in Twilight:

I.A. & R.S. wrote:

TO THE
READER

Kalgash is an alien world and it is not our intention to have you think that it is
identical to Earth, even though we depict its people as speaking a language that you
can understand, and using terms that are familiar to you.
[...]
The computers used on Kalgash are not necessarily compatible with the ones used in New
York or London or Stockholm, and the "mile" that we use in this book is not necessarily
the American unit of 5,280 feet. But it seemed simpler and more desirable to use these
familiar terms in describing events on this wholly alien world than it would have been
to invent a long series of wholly Kalgashian terms.

In other words, we could have told you that one of our characters paused to strap on
his quonglishes before setting out on a walk of seven vorks along the main gleebish of
his native znoob, and everything might have seemed ever so much more thoroughly alien.
But it would also have been ever so much more difficult to make sense out of what we
were saying, and that did not seem useful.
[...]
If you prefer, you can imagine that the text reads "vorks" wherever it says "miles,"
"gliizbiiz" wherever it says "hours," and "sleshtraps" where it says "eyes." Or you can
make up your own terms. Vorks or miles, it will make no difference when the Stars come
out.

I think its been burnt out for more than decades too haha!

Come to think of it, they used a constructed language in the vampire film 30 Days of
Night (I'm not sure if it was used in the graphic novels though).

Edited by NickJS on 15 December 2011 at 7:08am
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Brun Ugle
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Message 5 of 24

15 December 2011 at 8:17am | IP Logged

On the other hand, Klingon is truly an international language.

Come to think of it, it's probably easier to learn than Finnish, though maybe a bit harder on the throat.
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Cainntear
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Message 6 of 24

15 December 2011 at 9:39am | IP Logged

mrwarper wrote:

WRT to the Hollywood-inspired constructed language ridiculousness... exactly -- it's always fun to utter Klaatu barada nikto, but for God's sake, Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg beat us to it twenty years ago in Twilight:

Books and moving pictures are different media. It's impossible to read an unknown language -- all you have is a meaningless string of letters. When you listen to an unknown language, you hear "unknown language", not just a string of meaningless sounds. Plus, they were talking about throwing in exotic words for particular cultural constructs, which is entirely different from using an entire languages.

Putting a conlang into a movie isn't about making everything seem reassuringly alien, it's about making it more real. Modern audiences are increasingly used to seeing "foreign" portrayed on TV with foreign languages and subtitles (or without subtitles, if we're not supposed to understand. Whether it's Jason Bourne or the woman from Alias using three different languages to escape enemy agents, the "other side" in a war film or even just Adolf Hitler ranting about Disney films on Youtube, we expect foreign languages to be foreign now, rather than "Eenlgeesh weeff a funny aczent" as earlier generations might.
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leosmith
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Message 7 of 24

15 December 2011 at 3:10pm | IP Logged

Bottom line - here's another language related profession. Go to it people - hollywood wants your fake languages!
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mrwarper
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Message 8 of 24

15 December 2011 at 11:19pm | IP Logged

Cainntear wrote:

That would imply that you couldn't recognize or understand the phrase I quoted above because it is written and not spoken, and you're more intelligent than that :) Letters are a highly convenient way to represent any language, and it doesn't make any difference that it may be 'alien'.

Quote:

Plus, they were talking about throwing in exotic words for particular cultural constructs, which is entirely different from using an entire languages.

Different, but not entirely, it's just a matter of degrees...

Quote:

Putting a conlang into a movie isn't about making everything seem reassuringly alien, it's about making it more real. Modern audiences are increasingly used to seeing "foreign" portrayed on TV with foreign languages and subtitles (or without subtitles, if we're not supposed to understand.

Key phrase: not supposed to understand. The question is, how much are you supposed not to understand?

Quote:

Whether it's [...] we expect foreign languages to be foreign now, rather than "Eenlgeesh weeff a funny aczent" as earlier generations might.

With movies, as well as video games, it is not about being real, it is all about feeling real. Entertainment that feels real is successful because it disregards the inconvenient/boring elements of reality and uses the rest along with its own fictitious ones to keep your interest. The 'other side' being unintelligible can aid or sink your story. That is a delicate matter because you have to find a balance, and we're all different, thus a perfect equilibrium can only be approximated. The difference with literature is that a different media imposes different tolerance points for the same intended effect(s).

Replacing the 'alien' dialogs from a film with something you don't understand (because you're supposed not to), is equally effective for me be it a conlang or random noises (I remember a hilarious moment with words being replaced with radio static noise in The IT Crowd 1x01); I'm not into learning fiction-spawn conlangs, so unless very obvious mistakes are made, I don't care if I'm hearing one. The thing is, I don't understand what is being said but I still can see everything else, so if the film is any good I still have a good chance to know or guess what's going on and keep my interest.

Now, a 'real' movie: Stanley Kramer's Judgment at Nuremberg. In the first minutes it is shown how things were done actually: everyone speaks their own language to their mics, with the interpreters translating through all the earphone system, etc. Interminable pauses, etc. 100% real, 100% boring. So we're told that instead we'll see the actors speaking like everyone understands everyone else, and the movie is magnificent.

So, in the end it's just a matter of finding out a suitably high amount of unintelligible stuff to make it feel real while it's still not too boring. The problem with literature is that, well, words are all you have, so you just can't have alien soliloquies. Your options are basically down to go the Tolkien way (extreme, but the guy was a linguist), or limit yourself to peppering the text with alien terms. If you do it right, most people can work the meanings out and you create a nice effect. If you don't have the patience or the skill, like many SF writers, you may have to include a glossary to leverage the suffering of poor souls that choose to read you.

Or, if you have a really good story, just don't do it and let people appreciate your story on its own merits :)

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