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Apparently the new JJ Abrams Star Trek flick is going for linguistic realism. A linguist actually came on set to create a Romulan language, according to Clifton Collins, Jr., who plays an evil Romulan along with Eric Bana in the film. But wait, there's more: Not only did Collins spill the beans about the Romulan conlang but he talked about how the Romulans will look and which old characters might be returning. More »
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So you want to invent a cool alien race, complete with a fleshed-out language, for your game, book, movie, or personal benefit. There are others like you out there: they're called conlangers, and they construct elaborate languages for fun or to make the portrait of an alien race more believable. Rule number one of conlanging, however, is know the history of human languages. That way, you know the range of what's already been done — and you can deviate from it accordingly. And this beautiful chart of the history of Indo-European languages is just the thing to get your brain zooming. More »
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