Oh, tommy.

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.

Huh. Learn something new every day....

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.

Yeah, but are they cannon?

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?

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.

Yeah, but are they cannon?

Maybe if you stuffed them into an artillery shell.

Let's not forget the two written alien languages on Futurama which the show teaches you how to read over the course of its run so you can get extra jokes.

JRRT's day job was a linguistics professor. Don't try this at home.

Tolkien learned Latin, French and German from his mother, and while at school he learned Middle English, Old English, Finnish, Gothic, Greek, Italian, Old Norse, Spanish, Welsh, and Medieval Welsh. He was also familiar with Danish, Dutch, Lombardic, Norwegian, Russian, Swedish, Middle Dutch, Middle High German, Middle Low German, Old High German, Old Slavonic, and Lithuanian.

[link]

It is not. It may affect your geek cred in general, it won't hurt the novel you are writing.

I wasn't being entirely serious. Ironically, I don't read a lot of fantasy. I do have a made up language, but I just have a very few words and a couple of very simple rules. I'm not attempting to really make up something. Hmmm... faking a language, I think I might have a blog post subject.

Hello, my bitches. I speak neither Quenya nor Sindarin nor Vulcan nor... well, you get the point. I do speak passable French and Romanian, though. Buna ziua, tutoror, mi-e dor de voi ceva strasnic.

So, um, I tried to Rip Off the Bandaid, and ended up even more stuck. As in, I had my hand ON THE DOORKNOB and my bag o' stuff, but ended up talking it out. Again. There were Mitigating Factors on both sides, and so I'm really going to give it a go. ::shrugs:: I know, don't give me that face, but I'm good with it.

I've decided that I want to wear a corset to Kristin and ND's shindig, and that means I must buy one. I love the Louise Black peacock corset I linked to earlier, but it sounds like she's even further behind than usual and from what Jilli's said I may not want to count on her for a specific event. Sooo... buy another one as a backup, right? I get to buy two corsets? C'mon, Bitches, enable me!