Wait... Quenya or Sindarin?
Suddenly I feel a certain geek inadequacy. I'm writing a fantasy novel and this is meaningless to me. That seems wrong.
They should film that story and show it every Christmas.
Xander ,'Same Time, Same Place'
Spike's Bitches 44: It's about the rules having changed.
[NAFDA] Spike-centric discussion. Lusty, lewd (only occasionally crude), risqué (and frisqué), bawdy (Oh, lawdy!), flirty ('cuz we're purty), raunchy talk inside. Caveat lector.
Gudanov - Jul 13, 2009 5:48:27 am PDT #16345 of 30000
Coding and Sleeping
amych - Jul 13, 2009 5:54:36 am PDT #16346 of 30000
Now let us crush something soft and watch it fountain blood. That is a girlish thing to want to do, yes?
Basically, Sindarin is your common or garden-variety elvish, and Quenya is the EVEN MORE MARY SUE elvish spoken by the even more elfy elves who are too snooty for Middle Earth.
tommyrot - Jul 13, 2009 5:57:22 am PDT #16347 of 30000
Sir, it's not an offence to let your cat eat your bacon. Okay? And we don't arrest cats, I'm very sorry.
OK, speaking as a mostly-non-fanboy... WTF? They already have one made-up language but that's not good enough for them?
OK, Trek just has Klingon, right? Star Wars has no made up languages, right? (I mean, no one's tried to figure out the language Chewey or RD-D2 speaks, right?)
Tom Scola - Jul 13, 2009 6:01:17 am PDT #16348 of 30000
hwæt
Star Wars has plenty of made up languages. Return of the Jedi even had a song that was originally written in English and then translated: [link]
note: YouTube is blocked for me at work. I'm not 100% sure that link is correct.
Cashmere - Jul 13, 2009 6:01:52 am PDT #16349 of 30000
Now tagless for your comfort.
You have to remember Tolkien was a philologist. He spoke Old Icelandic, Old English, Middle English and Welsh. He was obsessed with how the languages developed. One might say that his books were just a reason to explain his invented languages.
tommyrot - Jul 13, 2009 6:03:53 am PDT #16350 of 30000
Sir, it's not an offence to let your cat eat your bacon. Okay? And we don't arrest cats, I'm very sorry.
Huh. Learn something new every day....
juliana - Jul 13, 2009 6:04:54 am PDT #16351 of 30000
I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I miss them all tonight…
OK, Trek just has Klingon, right?
Romulan and Vulcan, too.
Star Wars has no made up languages, right?
Chewbacca speaks Shyriiwook. [link] There's also Huttese, the Ewok language, and a whole bunch of other dialects.
Basically, tommy, if there's even a fragment to go by, some fanperson has tried to build a language from it.
tommyrot - Jul 13, 2009 6:06:34 am PDT #16352 of 30000
Sir, it's not an offence to let your cat eat your bacon. Okay? And we don't arrest cats, I'm very sorry.
Yeah, but are they cannon?
juliana - Jul 13, 2009 6:10:49 am PDT #16353 of 30000
I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I miss them all tonight…
Yeah, but are they canon?
As in, did Lucas build the entire language set? Or as in, did the languages appear in the movies and official novels and have a recognizable pattern, allowing for translation?
WindSparrow - Jul 13, 2009 6:11:52 am PDT #16354 of 30000
Love is stronger than death and harder than sorrow. Those who practice it are fierce like the light of stars traveling eons to pierce the night.
I'm writing a fantasy novel and this is meaningless to me. That seems wrong.
It is not. It may affect your geek cred in general, it won't hurt the novel you are writing. There are very few who have the linguistic skills to come up with a reasonable language such that they should even attempt to write a language into their world in imitation of JRRT, and fewer still who can manage all the rest of world-building and then write a decent story into the bargain. Poor imitations are no favor to any reader, so you might as well strike off on your own. Especially since there are a zillion ways to tell a good tale using different methods.