Entry 5 : Constructed Language in Films and Video Games

For this entry, I will be talking about the constructed languages for films and video games. We have been making up languages for communication for a very long time, and now in film industry, we are coming up with languages that we do not use it in the real world. Constructed languages, also known as conlangs, is "a language that has a phonology, morphology, syntax, and sometimes alphabet attributed to an individual human inventor" (Adelman, 2014). The are quite a lot of films that uses conlangs, like for example: Star Wars, Star Trek, The Lord Of The Ring, Avatar and more.

For these science-fiction and fantasy films, new languages are constructed for characters and races in their own fictional world. To further creating an even more believable fictional world, various conlangs are spoken by different races and they often cannot understand each other without their very own translation. Linguists, or the conlangers are actually hired to construct a language for video games and movie production. From the articles and videos, I understand that creating a new language are not simple as translating one language to another. The language has to be relevant to the time period of which the characters are living in. It also needs to be pronounceable and learnable for the actors.

From the interview of David Peterson, he had this to say about creating a language for a fictional race, "Who is speaking this language? Who are the people? Where are they from?"(Academy Originals, 2016). By understanding the backstory of the race, linguist can  create believable Conlangs that does not seem out of character.

Conlangs did not just used in films, it applies to video game industry as well. Like films, if the game setting is in a fantasy/science-fiction world, like they would different languages for different races. Most notably are games like Mass Effect and The Elder Scroll V: Skyrim. It would immerse the player into their lore-rich world in the game. 

However, not all the video game languages can be translated. Take The Sims series for example, the language ( Simlish ) that they used, it does not have any define meaning. According to the creator of The Sims, "using real life languages such as English would cause the dialogue to be repetitive and would be expensive translating the entire dialog Sims may say"(The Sims Wiki, n.d.). They did tried using Native American language, but at the end they decided to use nonsense language so that whatever that is spoken by the Sims could be left to the player's imagination. From it, they achieved something interesting, which is to prevent the dialogue to be repetitive as the language does not have a specific meaning. You can check out the video about the Simlish below.

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References & Resources:

Academy Originals, (2016). Credited As: ConLangers (How to Create a Language). [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0knxW76bDuI [Accessed 21 Jun. 2016].

CNN. (2012). A history of Hollywood's invented languages. [online] Available at: http://edition.cnn.com/2012/04/06/tech/the-history-of-created-languages-in-pop-culture/index.html [Accessed 21 Jun. 2016].

The Sims, (2009). Simlish Behind the Scenes. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW4nfveKW5s [Accessed 22 Jun. 2016].

The Sims Wiki. (n.d.). Simlish. [online] Available at: http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Simlish [Accessed 22 Jun. 2016].