What are conlangs? I’ll be honest, I’d answer that in Klingon, Irathian, Quenya or Sindarin, but I don’t know how to speak any of them. I do know I enjoy marveling at listening to constructed languages, and science fiction and fantasy are full of them—everything from Tolkien’s fantasies to The Expanse (more about that below). I am no language expert. I know enough to discern Klingon from Belter and I recognize Newspeak when I see it.
The modern languages department at my old university once offered Klingon 101, but since I was responsible for paying the bulk of my college tuition, that was hard to justify. Nowadays conlang learning is all over the Internet, for those of us who wish to learn the difference between Quenya and Sindarin or want to speak Belter. A quick glance also reveals all kinds of online available tools for creating alien alphabets and conlangs, and perhaps I should not be surprised, but there are societies and groups whose focus is conlang creation.
For a short history of conlangs, I refer readers to this article, and this one, written by the fellow who created the Irathian language for SyFy’s Defiance. Below I write about some stories in which languages play a pivotal role, starting with the most famous (IMO).
“Newspeak,” George Orwell, 1984 (1949) and “The City of Silence,” Ma Boyong (2011, in Invisible Planets: Chinese Translated Science Fiction). I finally read 1984 last year and was surprised that Newspeak is one language I do know. Make sure to be a goodthinker; that way you won’t have to worry about the Miniluv sending you to joycamp—or worse, Room 101. It’s hard to get away from 1984; it’s required reading in high school or college. Some of us read it because we wanted to. And some of us were spurred to read it by the current political climate. There are many references to Newspeak outside of its original work; those of us who haven’t read it have probably encountered its vocabulary: “thoughtcrime,” “Big Brother,” “doublethink” and “doublespeak.” Newspeak is one of the many science fiction words that has made its way into the official dictionary. Orwell’s goal with Newspeak was simple: if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought (see Orwell’s Politics and the English Language if you dare). As language is restricted, so then is thought, expression, and free will, and therefore society is more easily controlled by its government.
Ma Boyong’s short fiction piece pays homage to 1984, updating it to a futuristic China in which authorities mete out appropriate “correct” or “healthy” vocabulary and delete words that are deemed no longer publicly good. The medium here is the web; every morning a new list of approved words appears for use in communication via web or speech. I can only imagine this may have been written in response to China’s censorship of the Internet, but the story has horrific implications for any society.
“Belter,” The Expanse, 2015 – current. If you’re not watching this gritty slam-bang of a show, I can’t be friends with you anymore. Adapted from the novels by James S.A. Corey (I’m working my way through the series), the people who bring The Expanse to life—from script to set to acting—all do an amazing job. It’s always messy translating book to film because they are vastly different mediums; but I really have very few quibbles with either books or show. There is so much to like—including the Belter language (aka Lang Belta). In 1984 and “City of Silence,” language is a tool of the state meant to keep order and suppress rebellion; in The Expanse, a unique yet common language signifies and unifies a dispossessed underclass–the residents and workers in the Asteroid Belt. Both Earth and Mars have used Belters for their own purposes and consider Belters a disposable workforce; sick of this treatment, Belters look for ways to establish independence from both. Lang Belta doesn’t seem to have a particular accent; Naomi (Dominique Tipper) for instance, speaks in a London accent, while Anderson Dawes (Jared Harris), Diogo, Camina Drummer, Detective Miller, and other members of the OPA/Belter populations all have wildly different accents and patterns of speech. For more I point you toward this cool Wired article (and more about that guy who plays Diogo). Inspired by Creole, Lang Belta is an amazing, diverse mix of dialects that reflects the diversity of Belt residents. Have a listen!
“Laádan,” Suzette Haden Elgin, Native Tongue (1984). I’m ashamed to say I haven’t read anything beyond Elgin’s short stories, although I have long wanted to start in on her Ozarks Trilogy, because science fiction set in one’s home state is always exciting. Elgin passed away in 2015 (her memorialized Livejournal covers various aspects of language, writing, and science fiction) and left behind a distinguished career in linguistics and several notable feminist science fiction works. As this article from Lithub explains, Elgin was a linguistics student who began writing science fiction to pay the tuition for her PhD. First in a trilogy, Native Tongue was compared to Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (the Wikipedia article gives the best brief summary of Native Tongue) despite having been published the year before. Laádan is supposed to be a kind of “sung Latin” and a kind of language that encompasses feminine thought and intuition—and like Lang Belta, is a language of resistance.
Honorable Mention:
Lexicon, Max Barry (2013). I discovered this book in the course of research for this post and got hooked on the dual timelines/viewpoints. The Goodreads blurb promises a good time! Secret schools of persuasion? Warring poets? Sign me up. If there is a name for the conlang, I haven’t got that far. Yet.
Have any favorite stories or shows with crazy, fun, or downright strange languages? Comment with them below.
No Comments