This book caught my eye when it was mentioned in an issue of Babel magazine, after
a fascinating article on ‘how to speak Venusian’. This article posed questions
such as, do aliens speak languages? If so, what would their languages be like?
And, how do humans invent languages? I hoped that this book would answer these
and the many other queries that I had.
From elvish
to Klingon, by Michael Adams, not only addressed many of these questions but it
went further than that and not only talked about invented languages, like
Klingon, but also reinvented languages. Chapter 8 was particularly informative
about this as it did not discuss nerd culture, but instead considered whether
reinvented languages should be classed the same way as completely constructed
languages. For example, Hebrew was classed as a ‘dead’ language because it had
no mother tongue speakers between 1000 and 1800, although it was used in
religion and literature. Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, a lexicographer, established the
Academy of the Hebrew Language and re-vernacularized the language, adding thousands
of new words to modernise the language and created Modern Hebrew. Although Modern Hebrew is based heavily on ancient Hebrew and other natural languages, do you think that it should be classified as an invented language?
Modern
Hebrew, and other revitalized languages, was the subject of chapter 8, however
each chapter is very different. Each is written by a different academic,
allowing each chapter to be very different and detailed. Adams also wrote a
detailed appendices including a translation of hamlet in Klingon (see below) and some
additional information about gaming languages.
To
conclude, I am very surprised that such a popular book is so detailed about
sociolinguistics and the languages themselves, it may be because this book does
have a section for everybody. However, I see this book as more of a collection
of academic essays, but I definitely would recommend it to anyone who is interested in 'exploring invented languages'.
This is the
famous ‘to be or not to be’ soliloquy translated into Klingon:
taH pagh
taHbe’. DaH mu’tlheghvam vIqelnIS.
quv’a', yabDaq San vaQ cha, pu’ je SIQDI’?
pagh, Seng bIQ’a'Hey SuvmeH nuHmey SuqDI’,
‘ej, Suvmo’, rInmoHDI’? Hegh. Qong — Qong neH –
‘ej QongDI’, tIq ‘oy’, wa’SanID Daw”e’ je
cho’nISbogh porghDaj rInmoHlaH net Har.
yIn mevbogh mIwvam’e’ wIruchqangbej.
Hegh. Qong. QongDI’ chaq naj. toH, waQlaw’ ghu’vam!
HeghDaq maQongtaHvIS, tugh nuq wInajlaH,
volchaHmajvo’ jubbe’wI’ bep wIwoDDI’;
‘e’ wIqelDI’, maHeDnIS. Qugh DISIQnIS,
SIQmoHmo’ qechvam. Qugh yIn nI’moH ‘oH
quv’a', yabDaq San vaQ cha, pu’ je SIQDI’?
pagh, Seng bIQ’a'Hey SuvmeH nuHmey SuqDI’,
‘ej, Suvmo’, rInmoHDI’? Hegh. Qong — Qong neH –
‘ej QongDI’, tIq ‘oy’, wa’SanID Daw”e’ je
cho’nISbogh porghDaj rInmoHlaH net Har.
yIn mevbogh mIwvam’e’ wIruchqangbej.
Hegh. Qong. QongDI’ chaq naj. toH, waQlaw’ ghu’vam!
HeghDaq maQongtaHvIS, tugh nuq wInajlaH,
volchaHmajvo’ jubbe’wI’ bep wIwoDDI’;
‘e’ wIqelDI’, maHeDnIS. Qugh DISIQnIS,
SIQmoHmo’ qechvam. Qugh yIn nI’moH ‘oH
Here is an
article, written by Michael Adams, on a similar topic to his book. It is
entitled: From Elvish To Klingon: What's The Point Of A Fictional Language?
