Did you have a secret diary as a kid? Perhaps written in a language no one but you understood? Now you’re all grown up, why not spice up a boring day at the office by communicating with your colleagues using a fictional alphabet? If you’re all Lord of the Rings fans, there’s a couple alphabets(…)

Stephen Colbert has perhaps reached the pinnacle of his career – he’s inspired a language. Researchers at Northwestern University in Illinois needed to invent a new language for a study, and chose Colbert as the language’s inspiration. “Stephen Colbert has brought new words like ‘truthiness’ and ‘Lincolnish’ into the lexicon,” Marian said. “We had to(…)

A fascinating article in the New York Times describes the rise of invented languages (conlangs) in Hollywood. The most famous conlangs are probably Klingon (from Star Trek) and Esperanto but more recently languages have been invented for the film Avatar (Na’vi) and the television show Game of Thrones (Dothraki). Who is behind these new languages?(…)

Big Harry Potter fan? Can’t wait for the release of the final instalment of the movie? Then this is for you! Warner Bros. has developed a Parseltongue translator – put in a message and it will be converted into Parseltongue! For non-Potter fans, Parseltongue is the snake language that both Harry and his nemesis, Voldemort,(…)

The first production performed entirely in Klingon has premiered in the Netherlands. Called u, the production was conceived by the Klingon Terran Research Ensemble (KTRE), based in the Hague. The title translates as ‘universe’ or ‘universal’. Klingon was invented by linguist Marc Okrand as the language of the fictional Star Trek warrior race. Fans have(…)