io9: conlang

Get Ready to Hear Some Romulan Pirate Smack Talk

Annalee Newitz — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 15:32:34 PDT

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.

According to E! Online:

Collins said his and Bana's Romulan look could have been somewhat inspired by Pirates of the Caribbean. “We’re space pirates,” Collins explained. “Think of Johnny Depp as a Romulan.”
And get ready for some surprise appearances in the movie. "There is, but I better not say," Collins said of possible big-star cameos. "There are certain things that as kids growing up, whether it's Star Trek or other shows at the time, all you got to do is really just hear their voice and your heart warms."

Asked if he was referring to characters and actors from the original television series, Collins simply smiled and said, "Maybe."

I still want to know who that mysterious linguist is who came on set. Could it have been Marc Okrand, we wonder? He's the guy who invented Klingon back in the 1970s, and has spawned a tiny empire of Klingon speakers affiliated with the Klingon Language Institute.

A Romulan Speaks! [E! Online]

Want to Invent an Alien Language?

Annalee Newitz — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 12:22:27 PDT

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.

Conlangers include everyone from Marc Okrand, the linguist who wrote Klingon, to the nerds who invented the most perfectly logical language in the world, known as Lojban. Anthony Burgess invented a little conlang for his characters in Clockwork Orange, and Suzette Haden Elgin's Native Tongue trilogy is all about a group of rebel women linguists who create their own language to subvert their ultra-sexist society. Sometimes Hollywood employs conlangers to make alien talk seem more realistic, and sometimes conlangers wind up going into computer programming, where they can invent computer languages to their heart's content. Larry Wall, inventor of scripting language Perl, is a conlanger, for example. And nobody who has ever used Perl will be surprised to hear that. Chart via Bartleby.