... sometimes marvel at is the brilliancy of linguists.

Well, linguists and people with awesome imagination.

So now you are probably thinking about what the hell will this post be about.

I'm pretty sure that most of you guys (who pick up a book once in a while) know about a couple of fictional languages that the different characters in them talk. Most of the times these languages are only mentioned, but not really developed - and then there are those writers who go to great lengths when publishing a book.

They are those people who absolutely want to develop a highly functional fantasy world, with every aspect we now have. Be it that it's a futuristic world or one where people fight with sticks and stones, they somehow manage to not only come up with their own laws and geography and all kinds of science, but they also can make up whole languages with real dictionaries and grammar.

So let's see which are the most popular languages of this kind - ones you can actually learn right now.

1. Tolkien's languages.

We all know there are a bunch of people out there who actually learned to talk in one of the elvish dialects (Primitive Quendian, Common Eldarin, Quenya and Goldogrin, Noldorin, Telerin, Ilkorin, Doriathrin, Avarin and Sindarin), but besides these there are a bunch of other languages that Tolkien worked at. For instance there are at least three other languages that the people of Middle Earth used - these were the actually developed ones, but there are a lot more that were just hinted at. These three languages are Taliska, Adunaic, and Soval Phare - and there were also the ones that weren't so very well formed, like the Dalish, Rohirric, Rhovanion, Haladin, Dunlendish, Drug, Haradrim, and Easterling. And then, there are all the other different races in his stories, who in turn talk in their own languages too, like Khuzdul and Iglishmek for the Dwarves, Entish for the Ents, Valarin, the Black Speech created by Sauron, and the Orc language which doesn't seem to have a name, but of which there are also more dialects and they seem to have developed from the Black language.

Can you imagine how much work could this take?

There are three other languages that Tolkien worked at. The first one he tried out was Naffarin, which seemed to resemble Spanish, Gautisk that took after some Germanic languages and Mágo, which was supposed to shadow the Hungarian language a little bit.

This last bit made me exceptionally happy for some reason...

2. Klingon

Of course that I had to add this - but just for the sake of the geeks out there who actually took it upon themselves to develop a whole language out of the few weird words that the Star Trek show used. These people actually made up an institute where you can go and learn the language as if it were something real - and I'm guessing all you nerds actually use it in that way too.

Klingon is so popular in fact, that there are countless of books and dictionaries made for it, and even tapes that will teach you how to pronounce the words.

I'm still not as impressed by this as I am with Tolkien's genius, but hey - I don't particularly like Star Trek either, so... 



3. The Voinich Manuscript, and Codex Seraphinianus

Now these two different works weren't exactly written to make a fictional world all the more plausible for the readers. In fact, the reason for their existence is actually unknown, but there is the fact that nothing like them exist to these days. 

They are more than likely just a hoax, but somehow they stirred up quite some dust between cryptographers and linguists who try to translate them. 

The Manuscript was named after the guy who found it, and it appears to be a book filled with different medicinal plants and symbols that were usually used in chemistry. 

The Codex was made much later by some kind of mad guy, which is also full with creepy animals and people and plants, as if depicting a wholly different planet. The guy who made it up doesn't (or didn't?) offer any help with solving this whole thing, but since there are a lot of people obsessing over it, who think that it is actually a real fictional language I had to add it. 

My personal opinion on these are that someone was just fucking with our minds, and they just threw different letters in there as if they meant anything. I bet that both of the authors are laughing their asses down at us. 



4. Simlish

And yes, while we are at it, why not add some fictional languages made up for actual video games? 

Simlish is one of the funniest languages out there, and just as with the Klingon one, there are people who actually teach it. Apparently the gibberish language the sims talk in your favorite simulation game was turned into something that has a meaning. 

And since people took it upon themselves to turn the gibberish language and written symbols for this language into something real - a bunch of real life superstars joined in the fun too. 

If you do a little search in Youtube, you shall see that there are a whole lot of popular songs on it that were translated into Simlish. For example, here's Katy Perry singing in Simlish. 


5. Esperanto

And now, let's get to the language that was intended to become an internationally used one. 

Esperanto was made to be learned really fast, and because it doesn't have a huge vocabulary or complicated grammar, it's also fun to use. 

For example, you don't have to waste your time with learning exceptions to every rule. There are usually a few word bases, to which you only have to add different ending, that will tell you if it''s singular or plural, if it's a verb or adverb or whatever, the sex and the time. 

For example, if you want to turn a single object into a plural one, you just have to add the letter j to the end of the word. That's it, there are no exceptions. 

If you want to say something in the present you will add -as, in the the past you will add -is, and if the future, you will add -os. 

There is also the fun part where you can express the total opposite of a word just by adding mal- to the start of it. For example, the word "long" in Esperanto is longa. If you want to say something is short, you will transform the word by adding mal- to it, so it will become mallonga. If you want to say open, you will say fermas - while close will be made once again with the word mal added to it, so... malfermas. Neat, eh? 

It is said that you can learn this language in about 200 hours. So... if you put your ass down and spend some real time with it, you can actually speak it within a month from you starting it. 

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