Ever wondered how creators come up with fictional languages? It would be interesting to look into some of the processes behind creating fictional languages and their popularity amongst fans. Some examples to think of: Elvish (Lord of the Rings/ Hobbit), Klingon (Star Trek), Valerian (A Song of Ice and Fire Series/Game of Thrones) and Na'vi (Avatar).
This is a very interesting concept. I know that Tolkien spent a lot of time in the development of his based both on the plethora of modern and ancient languages he knew as well as cryptographic codes he developed at college. – SaraiMW7 years ago
there is an interesting YouTube series produced by Wired about this very topic. Valyrian was pretty much gibberish until the show came along. Klingon was gibberish in the original series but then turned into a real language with TNG. – LFH7 years ago
Very cool topic! I have seen books in the film and television sections at Indigo that teach you how to speak fictional languages like Klingon, but it would be interesting to find out how these languages were actually created – Scalera187 years ago
David J. Peterson, a linguist who has recently written a book called "The Art of Language Invention," is the creator of the Dothraki and Valyrian languages as it is spoken in the TV version of Game of Thrones. He invents languages for a living. – Jos7 years ago
Twitter, Facebook, Texting- you name it. All forms of social media are used daily like breathing air. Since the majority of young adults write so many tweets and comments per second, acronyms, written slang, and jargon are created. There is LOL, omw, btw, and the list goes on and on. How will this transform the written English language? Are the transformations positive or negative? Or are these transformations creating something entirely new?
You can also mention how urbandictionary is sometimes used in court, because the witnesses talk in so much slang that they need someone to refer to it. Words like 'ratchet' and 'dope' have their own double meaning now, which can be hard for people trying to learn English. – YsabelGo9 years ago
I don't think this is only an English phenomenon. Would be interesting to have a look at other languages as well, maybe find some funny acronyms or changes of language that are particularly striking. – Rachel Elfassy Bitoun9 years ago
Anyone writing on this topic should probably start by reading some of the linguist David Crystal's work, such as his book called Txting: the Gr8 Db8. He carefully avoids and debunks the "end of civilization" approach to this topic and also looks at languages besides English. – laurajeffries9 years ago
This topic sounds interesting, but should definitely include a callback to how language has historically developed and evolved to become whole new ones, especially considering English's Mr. Shakespeare. English itself is a unique case of blended languages stealing from others, etc. – smartstooge9 years ago
The evolution of text based language: and believe me it does evolve. The abbreviations and terms used today, are not the same of yesterday. Language is always evolving and so we go from lol to lml, going ham to goat, web searching to googling. Language is affected on a larger spectrum than we sometimes realize. From the microcosm of adolescent fads to the larger picture of a world shaped by the... devolution of language? – george9 years ago
I thought it was interesting going from high school to college and seeing how my peers changed their text message writing. In high school, we all used shorthand, but as we aged (and texts no longer had word limits) we began to type in full sentences again. Does this have to do with phones that suggest words for you? Full keypads? No word limits? – cc3279 years ago
