# Alien/made-up languages **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 12, 2004, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-made-up-languages/264166 "2004-09-12T20:10:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Kizarvexius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/da6949/32.png) [@Kizarvexius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kizarvexius)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2004, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-made-up-languages/264166/21 "2004-09-13T22:24:35Z")
> [@Terminus Est](#): > > You are wrong because I speak Tagalog and I couldn’t understand a word. I don’t speak Tagalog myself, but a friend of mine from college who was Phillipino said she could make out a couple of words. For what it’s worth, this bit of information has been making the circuit for years. Try Googling “Return of the Jedi”+Tagalog and you’ll see what I mean. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2004, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-made-up-languages/264166/22 "2004-09-13T23:27:38Z")
I saw Jedi when it was first released in Manila. Believe me, if the Ewoks had been speaking Tagalog, the theater would have gone nuts. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2004, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-made-up-languages/264166/23 "2004-09-13T23:39:31Z")
Of course, it can be said with absolute certainty that the three LOTR films were the finest films ever made where the Sindarin dialogue was accompanied by English subtitles! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2004, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-made-up-languages/264166/24 "2004-09-13T23:54:16Z")
I’ve come back from Google, and it seems that the Tagalog-speaking Ewoks originated from a list of trivia published without attribution. The list includes this single reference: > [@](#): > > Several Ewok lines are in the Filipino (Tagalog) language. but doesn’t say what those lines are. Many other sites appear to simply repeat this information without confirming it to be true. Other simply say “I heard from a Filipino-speaking friend…” Classic hallmarks of an urban legend. Then there are the claims that the Ewoks speak Tibetan or Nepalese. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2004, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-made-up-languages/264166/25 "2004-09-13T23:57:25Z")
Aha! Straight from the horse’s mouth: [http://www.starwars.com/episode-vi/classic/2000/11/classic20001113.html](http://www.starwars.com/episode-vi/classic/2000/11/classic20001113.html) > [@](#): > > For the Ewoks, I was inspired by a recording on a BBC documentary of an elderly woman speaking Tibetan. It was very high-pitched and sounded like a good basis for Ewokese to me. Eventually then, what evolved was a pidgin, or double talk version of words from Tibetan, Nepali and other Mongolian languages. Huttese was created by the same process. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2004, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-made-up-languages/264166/26 "2004-09-14T00:20:50Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > Of course, it can be said with absolute certainty that the three LOTR films were the finest films ever made where the Sindarin dialogue was accompanied by English subtitles! 😃 IMHO, ROTK should really have won an oscar for best foreign language film too! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![emekthian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecae2f/32.png) [@emekthian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emekthian)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2004, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-made-up-languages/264166/27 "2004-09-14T00:52:15Z")
The Egyptian in Stargate is actually Finnish, or so I’ve heard. ---
**Author:** ![Call\_me\_Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Call\_me\_Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Call_me_Frank)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2004, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-made-up-languages/264166/28 "2004-09-14T02:15:18Z")
> [@Aesiron](#): > > [http://www.geocities.com/Athens/8853/curse.html](http://www.geocities.com/Athens/8853/curse.html) Thank you ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2004, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-made-up-languages/264166/29 "2004-09-14T02:17:45Z")
Here are a few sites about conlangs – constructed or artificial languages – including some that were designed in hopes they would actually be used, like Esperanto and Volapuk, as well as fictional exercises like Klingon and Elvish: [http://www.langmaker.com/](http://www.langmaker.com/) [http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/9219/conlangfaq.html](http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/9219/conlangfaq.html) [http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/9219/conlib.html](http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/9219/conlib.html) [http://www2.cmp.uea.ac.uk/~jrk/conlang.html](http://www2.cmp.uea.ac.uk/~jrk/conlang.html) [http://www.kli.org/](http://www.kli.org/) (The Klingon Language Institute) [http://www.quetzal.com/conlang.html](http://www.quetzal.com/conlang.html) [http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Crete/5555/conlang.htm](http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Crete/5555/conlang.htm) (The Conlang Yellow Pages) [http://dmoz.org/Science/Social\_Sciences/Linguistics/Languages/Constructed/](http://dmoz.org/Science/Social_Sciences/Linguistics/Languages/Constructed/) ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2004, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-made-up-languages/264166/30 "2004-09-14T03:04:50Z")
> [@emekthian](#): > > The Egyptian in Stargate is actually Finnish, or so I’ve heard. Could be. According to the IMDB entry for Stargate, the archeologists who find the gate are speaking Swedish. It doesn’t say what the Egyptian/Abydosian language really is, but it does sound like a real language and not just gibberish. Perhaps there are some Finns on the board who can confirm or deny this? ---
**Author:** ![wheelie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b4bc9f/32.png) [@wheelie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wheelie)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2004, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-made-up-languages/264166/31 "2004-09-14T03:32:32Z")
In _Footfall_ by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, the invading aliens make captive humans learn their language, and their math is base eight. ---
**Author:** ![emekthian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecae2f/32.png) [@emekthian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emekthian)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2004, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-made-up-languages/264166/32 "2004-09-14T04:13:49Z")
While on the subject of conlangs, [here](http://www.angelfire.com/ultra/fnuh/arzhana.html) are some of mine. Saimiar is currently the only one that I’ve developed to any degree of complexity. ---
**Author:** ![Fiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e274bd/32.png) [@Fiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiver)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2004, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-made-up-languages/264166/33 "2004-09-14T15:13:50Z")
For the movie _Quest For Fire_ Anthony Burgess created the language used by the Ice Age characters; it was an interpolation (is that the right word?) backward to what Indo-European might have been like at the time. Linguist Victoria Fromkin created the ape-people’s language in the original _Land of the Lost_ and the vampire language in the movie _Blade._ Many different science fiction worlds (those in the comic books _Nexus_ and _Legion of Super-Heroes_ come immediately to mind) refer to an interstellar _lingua franca_ called Interlac, but I don’t know if it’s ever been more than just a name in any of them. And while he didn’t create it (obviously) for his Riverworld books, Philip Jose Farmer does establish that Esperanto becomes its _lingua franca._ ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2004, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-made-up-languages/264166/34 "2004-09-14T21:31:47Z")
> [@](#): > > it was an interpolation (is that the right word?) backward to what Indo-European might have been like at the time. Extrapolation. Interpolation is for when the point of interest is within the range you know; extrapolation is for when the point is outside the known range. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2004, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-made-up-languages/264166/35 "2004-09-14T22:13:04Z")
> [@](#): > > Many different science fiction worlds (those in the comic books Nexus and Legion of Super-Heroes come immediately to mind) refer to an interstellar lingua franca called Interlac, but I don’t know if it’s ever been more than just a name in any of them. The Legion of Super-Heroes’ Interlac has been shown in the comics as an symbol cipher for English [here’s a link](http://www.geocities.com/jared999legion/Omni-Interlac.html), but no words (unless the expletives “Sprock” and “Grife” count) in the spoken Interlac language have ever been printed untranslated. ---
**Author:** ![Fiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e274bd/32.png) [@Fiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiver)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2004, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-made-up-languages/264166/36 "2004-09-15T04:10:33Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Extrapolation. Interpolation is for when the point of interest is within the range you know; extrapolation is for when the point is outside the known range. Iffen I was talking about something that might happen in the future based on current data, that would be an extrapolation. But if I’m making inferences about the past based on current data, wouldn’t that be something else? ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2004, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-made-up-languages/264166/37 "2004-09-15T04:48:06Z")
> [@Fiver](#): > > Iffen I was talking about something that might happen in the future based on current data, that would be an extrapolation. > > But if I’m making inferences about the past based on current data, wouldn’t that be something else? Extrapolation is used for both directions. If you insist that it be a different word, I hereby invent the word “retropolation”. ---
**Author:** ![Dragonblink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Dragonblink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dragonblink)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2004, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-made-up-languages/264166/38 "2004-09-15T05:22:46Z")
Man, I gotta study harder so I can get those kinds of gigs someday. – Dragonblink, grad student in linguistics ---
**Author:** ![Fiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e274bd/32.png) [@Fiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiver)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2004, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-made-up-languages/264166/39 "2004-09-15T15:36:11Z")
> [@Terminus Est](#): > > Extrapolation is used for both directions. > > If you insist that it be a different word, I hereby invent the word “retropolation”. Yes! I’ll take it! ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2004, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-made-up-languages/264166/40 "2004-09-15T17:09:45Z")
> [@Fiver](#): > > For the movie _Quest For Fire_ Anthony Burgess created the language used by the Ice Age characters; it was an interpolation (is that the right word?) backward to what Indo-European might have been like at the time. Which led to the story about the anthropologist and glottochronologist who cadged use of the world’s first time machine to investigate the mound-building culture in the Ukraine about 2000 BC that is thought to have been the speakers of Proto-Indo-European (PIE for short). His colleagues all told him, “When come back…” 😉 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-made-up-languages/264166.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-made-up-languages/264166.md?page=3)