Episode 8: The Art of Invented Languages | Dormant Knowledge Sleep Podcast

Deb explores the art of constructed languages—from J.R.R. Tolkien's meticulously crafted Elvish tongues to the guttural warrior speech of Klingon, and from the elaborate precision of High Valyrian to languages created for alien civilizations in modern science fiction.

Episode 8: The Art of Invented Languages | Dormant Knowledge Sleep Podcast

Host: Deb
Duration: ~60 minutes
Release Date: October 6, 2025
Episode Topics: Constructed languages, J.R.R. Tolkien's Elvish languages, linguistic relativity


Episode Summary

Journey into the fascinating world of invented languages where brilliant minds have created entire linguistic systems from scratch. In this episode of Dormant Knowledge, the educational sleep podcast for curious minds, Deb explores the art of constructed languages—from J.R.R. Tolkien's meticulously crafted Elvish tongues to the guttural warrior speech of Klingon, and from the elaborate precision of High Valyrian to languages created for alien civilizations in modern science fiction.

Discover how Tolkien approached language creation as a philologist, building not just vocabularies but entire language families with historical sound changes and cultural embedding. Learn about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and how language might shape thought, explore how fan communities have expanded these fictional languages into living forms of communication, and understand what constructed languages reveal about the nature of human language itself. Whether you're a linguistics enthusiast, a fantasy fan, or simply curious about the outer boundaries of human creativity, this episode offers a gentle dive into one of humanity's most godlike creative acts: making language from nothing.


What You'll Learn

  • Discover how J.R.R. Tolkien created Quenya and Sindarin using principles from historical linguistics, tracing how sounds would evolve over thousands of years
  • Learn about the two main types of constructed languages—auxiliary languages like Esperanto designed for real-world use, and artistic languages created for fictional worlds
  • Explore the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity and how the language you speak might influence the way you think about reality
  • Understand Tolkien's unique approach of creating languages first and stories second, viewing Middle-earth as a world designed to give his languages a place to live
  • Learn how modern linguists like Marc Okrand and David J. Peterson create languages for film and television, balancing authenticity with actor learnability
  • Discover how fan communities have expanded fictional languages beyond their creators' original vocabularies, following established grammatical rules to create living linguistic systems
  • Explore experimental languages like Ithkuil (designed for mathematical precision) and toki pona (using only 120-137 words) that push the boundaries of what language can be
  • Understand how the most successful fictional languages follow natural linguistic principles, creating internal consistency that allows communities to form around them

Episode Transcript

Dormant Knowledge Episode: The Art of Invented Languages
[Soft ambient music fades in]
Deb: Welcome to Dormant Knowledge. I'm your host, Deb, and this is the podcast where you'll learn something fascinating while gently drifting off to sleep. Our goal is simple: to share interesting stories and ideas in a way that's engaging enough to capture your attention, but delivered at a pace that helps your mind relax and unwind. Whether you make it to the end or drift away somewhere in the middle, you'll hopefully absorb some knowledge along the way.
If you have found this project helpful and informative during those nights when you’re having a rough night of sleep, we hope you can spread the word. You can find us at dormantknowledge.com or follow us on social media @dormantknowledge on Instagram and Facebook, or @drmnt_knowledge—that's d-r-m-n-t-underscore-knowledge—on X. We would also be grateful if you’re able to contribute towards the production costs of this project by finding us on BuyMeACoffee.com @dormantknowledgepodcast. Any little bit helps!
Tonight, we're exploring the art of invented languages—those carefully crafted tongues that bring fictional worlds to life. From the Elvish languages that roll off tongues in Middle-earth to the guttural warrior speech of Klingons, we'll discover how brilliant minds have created entire linguistic systems from scratch. So settle in, get comfortable, and let's begin our journey into the realm of constructed languages.
[Music fades out]
You know, when you think about it, creating a language from nothing is perhaps one of the most godlike acts a human can attempt. [Sound of pages rustling] We're not just making up words—we're creating an entire system of thought, a way for minds to connect, a vehicle for culture and emotion. And yet, that's exactly what some extraordinary people have done, often spending decades perfecting languages that exist only in imagination.
The term linguists use is "constructed languages," or "conlangs" for short. Now, there are basically two types of these invented tongues. First, you have auxiliary languages—these are created with the hope that they might actually be used in the real world. Esperanto is probably the most famous example, created in 1887 by a Polish doctor named L.L. Zamenhof who dreamed of a universal language that might bring world peace. And you know what? It sort of worked—there are actually somewhere between 100,000 to 2 million Esperanto speakers today, though estimates vary wildly.
But tonight, we're focusing on the other type: fictional languages, created not for real-world communication but to bring imaginary worlds to life. And oh, the depths these creators have gone to... [Soft yawn]
Let me start with the man who basically invented the entire art form of modern fictional language creation: John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. Now, most people know Tolkien as the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, but what many don't realize is that he was a languages first, stories second kind of creator. In fact, he once said, "I cordially hate allegory in all its manifestations... I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author." But that's getting ahead of ourselves...
[Sound of chair creaking]
Tolkien was born in 1892 in South Africa, but moved to England as a small child after his father died. His mother, Mabel, was quite remarkable—she taught young Ronald Latin, French, and German before he was twelve. But it was her death when he was just twelve that shaped so much of his later work. He was raised by a Catholic priest, Father Francis Morgan, who recognized the boy's unusual gift for languages.
At King Edward's School in Birmingham, Tolkien didn't just learn languages—he devoured them. Classical Greek, Latin of course, but also Gothic, Old Norse, Welsh, and Finnish. And here's where it gets interesting: he wasn't just learning these languages to read literature or historical documents. He was falling in love with their sounds, their structures, their aesthetic qualities.
You see, Tolkien had what he called a "linguistic aesthetic"—certain combinations of sounds just pleased him more than others. Welsh, for instance, with its flowing consonants and melodic quality, struck him as inherently beautiful. Finnish, with its elaborate case system and vowel harmony, fascinated him structurally. And Gothic—well, Gothic was ancient and mysterious, a Germanic language preserved mainly in a fourth-century Bible translation.
Now, here's something that might surprise you: Tolkien started creating his own languages as a teenager, long before he had any stories to put them in. His first attempt was called Nevbosh—which is actually a brilliant pun meaning "new nonsense" in the language itself. But that was just practice. The real work began when he discovered Finnish properly and started creating what would eventually become Quenya, his High Elvish tongue.
[Sound of paper shuffling]
By the time Tolkien reached Oxford—first as a student, then as a professor—he was already deep into what would become a lifelong project. He studied comparative philology, which is essentially the science of how languages evolve and relate to each other. Imagine spending your days tracing how Latin became Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian, or how Proto-Germanic split into English, German, Dutch, and the Scandinavian languages. This wasn't just academic study for Tolkien—this was inspiration.
See, most people who create fictional languages start with vocabulary—they make up words that sound cool. But Tolkien approached it like a historical linguist working backwards. He imagined language families, proto-languages that split and evolved over thousands of years. Quenya and Sindarin, his two main Elvish languages, aren't just different vocabularies—they're meant to be related languages that diverged from a common ancestor, just like Spanish and Italian diverged from Latin.
And this is where his academic background becomes crucial. Tolkien was appointed Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford in 1925. Anglo-Saxon—or Old English—is this wonderfully complex language, full of compound words and alliterative poetry. You know "whale-road" for sea, or "bone-house" for body. Tolkien spent his professional life immersed in Beowulf, in the linguistic archaeology of English.
But he was also fascinated by what linguists call "linguistic death"—languages that were lost, that we only know fragments of. There's something haunting about reading the last inscription in a dead language, knowing you're seeing the final words of an entire way of thinking about the world. [Soft music begins to fade in]
And this brings us to perhaps Tolkien's most brilliant insight: he created his Elvish languages to feel ancient, to carry that same sense of linguistic nostalgia that he felt when reading Old English or Gothic manuscripts. Quenya, in particular, was designed to be the "Latin" of his world—an ancient, formal language that was no longer spoken in daily life, but preserved in ceremonies, poetry, and lore.
[Soft ambient music plays for transition]
Deb: I'm going to take a quick break here. When we come back, we'll dive deeper into exactly how Tolkien built these languages from the ground up, and explore his philosophy that "the language is the thing."
[Music plays for transition]
Deb: Welcome back to Dormant Knowledge...
[Music fades out]
Now, where were we? Ah yes, Tolkien's approach to creating ancient-feeling languages. You know, there's this wonderful quote from one of his letters where he says, "The 'stories' were made rather to provide a world for the languages than the reverse." Think about that for a moment—he created Middle-earth as a place for his languages to live and breathe.
[Sound of pages turning]
The process he used was really quite methodical. He would start with what linguists call "phonology"—the sound system. For Quenya, he wanted something that combined the flowing, melodic quality of Finnish with some of the structural elegance of Latin. So he chose his consonants and vowels carefully. Lots of liquids—l, r, n, m. Plenty of vowels, often in combinations. Very few harsh consonant clusters. The result is a language that sounds like singing even when you're just having a conversation.
But here's where it gets really interesting from a linguistic perspective. Tolkien didn't just want his languages to sound pretty—he wanted them to feel real, to have the kind of internal consistency that comes from thousands of years of natural evolution. So he created what linguists call "historical phonology"—he traced how sounds would have changed over time.
For example, he decided that in the ancient proto-language that gave rise to both Quenya and Sindarin, there was a sound that he wrote as "kw." In Quenya, this sound stayed as "qu," giving you words like "Quenya" itself, which means "speech." But in Sindarin, that same ancient "kw" sound became just "p." So the Sindarin word for speech is "peth." See how that works? It's the same root word, but it's evolved differently in the two languages, just like Latin "aqua" became Italian "acqua" but Spanish "agua."
This kind of detail work is absolutely extraordinary when you think about it. Tolkien was essentially playing the role of thousands of years of linguistic evolution, making conscious decisions about how sounds would shift and merge and disappear. And he did this not for one language, but for multiple related languages, all with their own consistent sound changes and grammatical developments.
[Soft yawn]
The grammar systems he created are equally sophisticated. Quenya has fifteen different cases—ways of showing how nouns relate to the action in a sentence. English basically has just two: "I" versus "me," "he" versus "him." But Quenya has separate cases for "moving toward," "moving away from," "located on top of," "located inside of"—it's like having a grammar system designed by an architect, where spatial relationships are built right into the language structure.
And then there's the writing system. Tolkien created not one but several scripts for his languages. The most famous is Tengwar, those flowing, elegant letters you see in the movies. But he also created runes, and ancient scripts, and... well, you get the idea. The man was thorough.
But here's what I find most remarkable about Tolkien's approach: he understood that language and culture are inseparable. The Elvish languages aren't just beautiful-sounding words—they reflect Elvish values, Elvish ways of seeing the world. Quenya has multiple words for different types of light, because light and illumination are central to Elvish culture. It has elaborate ways of expressing time and memory, because Elves live for thousands of years and their relationship with the past is completely different from ours.
But before we move beyond Middle-earth, we should talk about the other languages Tolkien created, because they reveal just how deeply he thought about the relationship between language and culture. See, most people focus on Elvish—and rightly so, it's the most developed—but Tolkien created linguistic sketches for nearly every people in Middle-earth, and each one reflects their nature in fascinating ways.
[Sound of papers rustling]
Take the orcs, for instance. Now, Tolkien had a bit of a problem with orcs, linguistically speaking. He wanted them to be capable of coordinated military action, which requires sophisticated communication, but he also wanted them to be... well, corrupted, debased, the antithesis of the noble elves. So how do you create a language that's functional but degraded?
His solution was brilliant: Orkish isn't really a single language at all. It's what linguists would call a "pidgin"—a simplified contact language that develops when groups who don't share a native tongue need to communicate. Tolkien imagined that orcs from different regions spoke different corrupted dialects, so they communicated using this crude, simplified common tongue mixed with words borrowed from other languages.
We don't get much Orkish in the books—just fragments like "ghâsh," meaning fire, or the famous "Ash nazg durbatulûk" from the Ring inscription, which is actually in the Black Speech of Mordor. But what's fascinating is how Tolkien made even these fragments sound harsh, corrupted. Where Elvish flows like water, Orkish clatters like broken stone.
The Black Speech itself—that's Sauron's invented language—is particularly interesting because it represents Tolkien's idea of what happens when language is created not from love and aesthetic pleasure, but from the desire to dominate and control. It's regular, systematic, efficient... and completely soulless. Tolkien actually said he found it so unpleasant to work with that he didn't develop it very far. Even as a linguistic exercise, evil languages made him uncomfortable.
[Soft chuckle]
Then there's Rohirric, the language of the horse-lords of Rohan. Now, here's where things get really interesting from a translation perspective, because Tolkien played a fascinating trick on his readers. He told us that the entire Lord of the Rings is supposedly translated from Hobbit writings—specifically, from the Red Book of Westmarch, written by Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam.
So when we read the book in English, we're not actually reading English—we're reading Tolkien's "translation" of Westron, the common tongue of Middle-earth. And this creates some delightful puzzles. For instance, the hobbits' real names aren't Bilbo and Frodo—those are the "translated" versions. In the original Hobbit language, Bilbo's name was something like "Bilba," and Frodo was "Maura."
In a clever twist, Tolkien decided that since Rohirric was an ancient, archaic language compared to Westron—sort of like how Old English relates to modern English—he would "translate" Rohirric names and phrases using Old English. So when Éomer speaks of the "éored," he's actually using an Old English word meaning "cavalry troop." The Rohirrim names—Éomer, Éowyn, Théoden—these are all Anglo-Saxon style names.
[Sound of drinking water]
The Ents present their own linguistic puzzle. Tolkien imagined that Entish—the language of the tree-shepherds—would be incredibly slow and deliberate, full of long, descriptive phrases that capture the deep, patient way that trees experience the world. The famous Ent-name that Treebeard gives for himself—"Fangorn"—is actually just the Sindarin name. His real Entish name is supposedly so long and complex that it would take hours to pronounce properly, incorporating his entire history and the history of all the trees he's shepherded.
It's a wonderful concept, isn't it? A language where names are basically compressed biographies, where you can't introduce yourself without reciting centuries of personal history. Very tree-like, when you think about it.
[Sound of chair creaking]
And then there are the Dwarves. Now, Tolkien was quite secretive about Khuzdul, the Dwarvish language. In his mythology, the Dwarves guard their language jealously—they never teach it to outsiders, and they go by "outer names" in their dealings with other peoples. So Gimli's real Dwarvish name isn't Gimli—that's just what he tells non-Dwarves to call him.
The little bit of Khuzdul we do see follows Semitic language patterns—think Hebrew or Arabic. It's built on three-consonant roots that get modified with different vowel patterns to create related words. So the root K-H-Z-D gives us "Khazad" (Dwarves), "Khazad-dûm" (the Dwarf-mansion, Moria), and other Dwarf-related terms. It's quite different from the Indo-European patterns that Elvish follows, which makes sense—Tolkien imagined that Dwarves were created separately by Aulë, not descended from the same linguistic ancestors as Elves and Men.
But here's something that shows just how deep Tolkien's thinking went: he worried about the implications of his translation conceit. If the Red Book was written in Westron, and we're reading an English translation, what about all the poems and songs? How do you translate poetry? Rhyme and meter depend on the specific sounds and rhythms of the original language.
Tolkien's solution was typically elegant: he claimed that where the original Red Book contained poetry in languages other than Westron—Elvish poems, for instance—he had "translated" them into archaic English verse forms that would give English readers a sense of their ancient, formal character. So those beautiful Sindarin songs aren't actually in Sindarin as we read them—they're Tolkien's attempt to capture in English verse the feeling that a Hobbit reader would get from reading ancient Elvish poetry.
[Soft yawn]
All of this in-universe translation business creates fascinating problems when translating Tolkien’s works in the real world into other languages. How do you translate a translation? If the "English" names are supposed to be translated Westron, what do you do in, say, German or French? Some translators have tried to use archaic forms of their own languages for Rohirric terms. Others have kept the English forms as "foreign" names. There's no perfect solution, really.
For another wonderful example: in the original English, when the hobbits are in Tom Bombadil's house, they hear him singing in what's described as "the ancient tongue of the Elves." But we read it in English verse. So what's a French translator to do? Translate Tolkien's English verse into French verse? Try to work from Tolkien's original Sindarin and create new French verse? Leave it in English as a "foreign" language? Every choice creates different implications for how readers understand the linguistic layers of the story.
Some translators have gotten remarkably creative. I believe the Russian translation actually attempts to preserve some of Tolkien's linguistic games by using Church Slavonic—an archaic form of Russian—for some of the more ancient or formal passages, much like Tolkien used elements of Old English.
[Sound of chair shifting]
Now, all of this linguistic complexity in Tolkien's work actually connects to a fundamental question that has fascinated linguists and philosophers for over a century: does the language you speak shape the way you think? This idea of linguistic relativity is also popularly referred to as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and understanding it helps explain why Tolkien's languages feel so powerful and why modern constructed languages can be so compelling.
The hypothesis is named after two American linguists: Edward Sapir and his student Benjamin Lee Whorf, who worked in the early-to-mid 20th century. Sapir was studying Native American languages—dozens of them—and he noticed that they carved up reality in ways that were completely different from European languages. Whorf, who was actually an insurance investigator by profession and a linguist by passion, became particularly fascinated with Hopi, a language spoken by Native American communities in what's now Arizona.
[Sound of papers rustling]
Whorf claimed that Hopi had a completely different conception of time than English does. Where English treats time like a spatial dimension—we talk about "long" periods, events being "ahead" of us or "behind" us, moving "forward" through time—Whorf argued that Hopi conceptualized time in terms of validity and certainty. Past events were certain and validated, while future events were potential and unmanifested.
Whether Whorf got Hopi right is actually quite controversial among linguists today—many argue he misunderstood or oversimplified the Hopi temporal system. But the broader principle he was pointing to has proven remarkably durable: that different languages encode different ways of organizing experience, and that this might influence how speakers think about the world.
[Soft yawn]
And you can see this principle at work throughout Tolkien's languages. Take the Elvish relationship with time, for instance. Elves are immortal, so their languages have elaborate systems for discussing different types of memory, different relationships with past events, different ways of expressing the weight of accumulated centuries. When Galadriel speaks of "the years beyond count," she's not just being poetic—she's using a language that's evolved to express temporal relationships that mortals simply don't experience.
Or consider the cultural embedding we talked about earlier. The fact that Quenya has multiple words for different types of light isn't just vocabulary—it reflects a fundamental Elvish way of perceiving and categorizing the world. If you grew up speaking Quenya, you might literally see more distinctions between different qualities of illumination than someone raised speaking, say, English.
The Entish language represents perhaps Tolkien's most extreme experiment with linguistic relativity. A language where every name incorporates complete biographical and historical information would necessarily create speakers who think about identity and relationships in completely different ways than we do. How do you have a quick conversation when introducing yourself takes hours? How do you develop a sense of individual identity when your very name is constantly expanding to include your ongoing experiences?
[Sound of drinking water]
Tolkien was certainly aware of these linguistic theories—as an Oxford professor of philology, he would have been familiar with the work of Sapir and Whorf. And you can see him experimenting with their ideas throughout Middle-earth. The Black Speech of Mordor isn't just evil-sounding—it's meant to be a language that shapes evil thoughts, that makes concepts like mercy or compassion difficult to express. Conversely, Elvish languages are designed to encourage noble thoughts, aesthetic appreciation, reverence for beauty and memory.
Even the Rohirric use of horse-related metaphors and vocabulary reflects a culture where equestrian skills and relationships with horses are so central that they've shaped the very structure of thought and expression. When Éomer says that someone has "the look of one who has ridden far," he's not just making an observation—he's thinking in categories that are fundamental to how his culture organizes experience.
Now, Whorf originally proposed two versions of this hypothesis. The "strong" version—which most linguists today consider too extreme—suggests that language actually determines thought, that you literally cannot think thoughts for which your language has no words. The "weak" version, which has more scientific support, suggests that language influences thought, that it makes certain ways of thinking more habitual or more readily available.
[Sound of chair shifting]
The most brilliant recent example of this concept in storytelling has to be the 2016 film Arrival. Have you seen it? It's based on a short story called "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang, and it's all about linguistic relativity. The plot centers around these alien visitors—they call them heptapods because they have seven limbs—and their written language is completely different from anything humans have ever encountered.
Instead of linear writing like we use, where words follow each other in sequence from left to right or right to left, the heptapod language is written in circular, complex symbols where all the information in a sentence exists simultaneously. There's no beginning or end to their sentences—it's all just... there, all at once.
And here's the mind-bending part (with some mild spoilers): as the linguist protagonist learns to read and write in heptapod, her perception of time begins to change. She starts to experience her entire life—past, present, and future—as simultaneous, just like the heptapod grammar. The language literally rewires her brain to perceive reality differently. It's a stunning example of how fictional languages can be used to explore deep philosophical questions about consciousness and perception.
[Sound of drinking water]
This brings us to some of the other remarkable constructed languages that have appeared in fiction, each reflecting the cultures that supposedly speak them. Take Klingon, created by linguist Marc Okrand for the Star Trek films in the 1980s. Now, Klingons are supposed to be a warrior culture, so Okrand made some fascinating design choices to reflect that.
First, there's the sound system. Lots of harsh consonants, sounds that are difficult for human speakers to produce comfortably. The language has no word for "hello"—Klingons apparently just start talking without pleasantries. But it has multiple words for different types of honor, different ways of describing victory and defeat, elaborate curse words that are practically poetry.
But here's my favorite thing about Klingon: the grammar is what linguists call "object-verb-subject," which is extremely rare in human languages. So instead of saying "I see you," a Klingon would say something that translates literally as "You see I." It's alien, it's uncomfortable for English speakers, and it perfectly reflects the idea that Klingons think about relationships and action in fundamentally different ways than humans do.
And you know what's amazing? People actually learned this language. There's a Klingon Language Institute—yes, it really exists—founded in 1992. They've translated Shakespeare into Klingon. People have held entire conversations in Klingon. There have been Klingon wedding ceremonies. I remember reading about a couple in North Carolina who raised their child speaking Klingon as a first language for the first three years of his life, though apparently he eventually refused to speak it and demanded English like the other kids.
[Soft chuckle, sound of pages rustling]
More recently, we've had David J. Peterson, who's become something of the Steven Spielberg of constructed languages. He's created dozens of languages for television and film, most famously High Valyrian and Dothraki for Game of Thrones. Now, Peterson's approach is different from Tolkien's—he's working under television production deadlines, and he needs to create languages that actors can learn quickly enough to deliver convincing performances.
High Valyrian is particularly interesting because it's supposed to be the "Latin" of the Game of Thrones world—an ancient, prestigious language of scholars and nobility. Peterson gave it a complex case system and verb conjugations that make it feel appropriately classical and sophisticated. But he also made sure it was regular enough that actors could actually learn their lines without spending months in language boot camp.
Dothraki, on the other hand, reflects the horse-riding, nomadic culture of the Dothraki people. It has an elaborate vocabulary for different types of horses, different ways of describing movement and travel. The grammar is relatively simple because, Peterson reasoned, a nomadic culture would value communication efficiency over elaborate linguistic decoration.
And here's something that shows how far this art form has come: both High Valyrian and Klingon are available on Duolingo, the language learning app. Think about that—fictional languages have become sophisticated enough and popular enough that they're being taught alongside Spanish, French, and Mandarin. There may even be more people actively studying High Valyrian right now than are studying, say, ancient Greek.
[Soft music begins to fade in]
But it's not just the big-budget Hollywood languages that are fascinating. Some of the most creative linguistic work has been done for smaller projects, often by fans working without any budget at all.
[Music plays for transition]
Deb: When we come back, we'll explore how fan communities have taken these invented languages and turned them into living, evolving forms of communication, and we'll discover what all of this linguistic creativity tells us about the nature of human language itself.
[Music plays for transition]
Deb: Welcome back to Dormant Knowledge...
[Music fades out]
One of the things that fascinates me most about constructed languages is how they've taken on lives of their own, evolving beyond what their creators ever intended. Take Tolkien's Elvish—he created perhaps 2,000 words of vocabulary across all his languages. But fan communities have expanded that into tens of thousands of words, following the grammatical and phonological rules he established.
There are online communities where people write poetry in Sindarin, translate songs into Quenya, have philosophical discussions about the proper way to express concepts Tolkien never considered. It's like watching natural language evolution happen in fast-forward, but guided by conscious decisions rather than random drift.
[Sound of papers shuffling]
And this brings up something really interesting about how languages spread and survive. Most of the world's approximately 7,000 languages are endangered—they're spoken by small communities, often older generations, and they're gradually being replaced by more dominant languages like English, Spanish, or Mandarin. But these fictional languages? They're actually growing. They have passionate communities of speakers who are actively working to expand and preserve them.
I came across this wonderful example recently: there's a linguist named Paul Frommer who created Na'vi for James Cameron's Avatar. When the movie came out, Frommer had created about 1,000 words. But fans were so enthusiastic about the language that they kept asking him questions: How would you say "happy birthday" in Na'vi? What's the word for "internet"? How do you express concepts that don't exist on Pandora?
So Frommer started a blog, and then a whole online community grew up around expanding Na'vi vocabulary and grammar. Now there are dictionaries, grammar guides, people writing original literature in Na'vi. The language has grown from 1,000 words to over 2,500 words, all because people fell in love with the idea of speaking like the blue aliens from Pandora.
[Soft yawn]
This kind of organic growth tells us something profound about human nature, I think. We have this deep drive to communicate, to belong to communities defined by shared ways of speaking. Even when those ways of speaking are completely artificial, completely invented, people will invest enormous amounts of time and energy in learning them, perfecting them, expanding them.
There's actually a term in linguistics for this: "language revitalization." Usually, it refers to efforts to save dying languages like Hawaiian or Welsh. But now we're seeing the same techniques being applied to fictional languages—immersion communities, grammar workshops, children's books, even university courses.
The University of Oklahoma offers a course in Klingon linguistics. UC Berkeley has hosted conferences on constructed languages. There's an entire academic field now called "artlanging"—the study of artistic language creation. What started as a few creative individuals making up words for their stories has become a legitimate area of scholarly research.
[Sound of chair creaking]
And you know what's particularly interesting? The most successful fictional languages tend to be the ones that feel the most "real"—that is, the ones that follow the same patterns and constraints that natural languages do. Tolkien succeeded because he based his languages on real linguistic principles. Klingon works because Marc Okrand gave it consistent grammar rules and a logical sound system, even if that system is alien to human speakers.
On the other hand, languages that are just random collections of cool-sounding words tend to fade away. They don't give speakers enough structure to actually communicate, so communities can't form around them. It's like the difference between a sandbox and a set of Lego blocks—you need rules and constraints to build something lasting.
This brings us to one of the most important questions about constructed languages: what do they teach us about language itself? And the answer, I think, is quite a lot.
For one thing, they demonstrate just how systematic and rule-governed natural languages really are. When you try to create a language from scratch, you quickly realize that you can't just make random decisions about grammar and expect it to work. Languages need internal consistency, they need ways to express all the different relationships between ideas that humans need to communicate about. They need to be learnable by children, but sophisticated enough for poetry and philosophy and scientific discourse.
Constructed languages also reveal the incredible creativity and flexibility of human linguistic cognition. The fact that people can learn Klingon or Dothraki or Na'vi—languages with grammar systems that are completely unlike anything they grew up with—shows just how adaptable our language learning abilities are, even in adulthood.
[Sound of drinking water]
And there's something else: fictional languages often explore possibilities that natural languages haven't fully developed. Klingon's object-verb-subject grammar, Ithkuil's incredibly precise system for describing spatial relationships, toki pona's radical minimalism with only 120-137 words depending on who's counting—these languages push the boundaries of what human language can be.
Ithkuil, by the way, was created by John Quijada and it's probably the most philosophically ambitious constructed language ever made. It's designed to eliminate ambiguity and express thoughts with mathematical precision. A single word in Ithkuil can express concepts that take entire sentences in English. But it's so complex that even Quijada himself admits it takes him several minutes to compose a single sentence. It's more of a thought experiment than a practical communication tool, but it demonstrates the outer limits of what language might theoretically achieve.
At the other extreme, there's toki pona, created by Canadian linguist Sonja Lang. It has fewer than 140 words total, and the idea is to express any concept using only these simple, basic terms. So instead of having separate words for "friend," "colleague," "acquaintance," and "buddy," you might say something like "good person" or "person I know." It forces speakers to think about what they're really trying to communicate, to strip away unnecessary complexity.
[Soft music begins to fade in slightly]
Both of these languages—the incredibly complex Ithkuil and the radically simple toki pona—tell us something about the middle ground that natural languages occupy. Most human languages are complex enough to express sophisticated ideas, but simple enough that children can learn them naturally and adults can use them fluently in real-time conversation. That's actually a pretty narrow sweet spot when you think about it.
And this brings us back to why the best fictional languages work so well in their stories. They don't just provide exotic words for the characters to speak—they reveal something about how those characters think, what their cultures value, how they organize their understanding of reality.
When Tolkien's elves speak of time differently than humans do, when Klingons have no word for "surrender," when the Dothraki have dozens of words for different kinds of horses, these aren't just aesthetic choices. They're insights into fictional psychology, fictional sociology, fictional ways of being in the world.
[Sound of pages turning]
You know, there's this wonderful moment in The Lord of the Rings where Legolas and Gimli are looking at the stars, and Legolas starts reciting a poem in Sindarin about Gil-galad, the last High King of the Elves. Tolkien provides both the Sindarin text and an English translation, but there's something about the original that can't be captured in translation—the sound, the rhythm, the way the words seem to carry the weight of ages.
That's the magic of a well-constructed language. It's not just a code or a cipher for English. It's a different way of shaping thoughts, of turning experience into meaning. When it works—really works—it makes the fictional world feel not just believable, but inevitable. Of course elves would speak like this. Of course Klingons would think in these patterns. Of course these alien visitors would organize language in ways that challenge our basic assumptions about communication.
And perhaps that's the deepest appeal of constructed languages: they expand our sense of what's possible. Every natural language represents one solution to the problem of how to turn thoughts into sounds, how to make meaning shareable between minds. But constructed languages show us that there are other solutions, other ways of organizing human experience into communicable form.
[Soft ambient music begins to fade in]
In a world where globalization is making languages more and more similar, where dominant languages are crowding out minority ones, there's something wonderfully rebellious about creating entirely new ways to speak. It's an assertion that human linguistic creativity is boundless, that we're not limited to the ways of communicating that history happened to give us.
[Music continues to build gently]
Whether people are learning Klingon in their spare time, writing poetry in Elvish, or creating entirely new languages for their own fictional worlds, they're participating in one of the most fundamentally human activities: the creation of meaning through shared symbols, the building of communities through common tongues.
And in doing so, they're proving something that Tolkien understood from the beginning: language isn't just a tool for communication. It's a way of being, a way of belonging, a way of making the imaginary real and the real more wonderful.
[Music fades out]
Thank you for listening to Dormant Knowledge. If you're still awake and hearing my voice, I appreciate your attention. But if you've drifted off to sleep somewhere along the way—which was partly the goal—then you won't hear me say this anyway. Either way, I hope some knowledge about the art of invented languages has made its way into your consciousness or perhaps your dreams.
Until next time, this is Deb wishing you restful nights and curious days.
[Soft ambient music fades in and out]
END OF EPISODE

Show Notes & Resources

Key Historical Figures Mentioned

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973) Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University and creator of Middle-earth's languages. Tolkien began inventing languages as a teenager, long before writing The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings. His academic background in comparative philology—studying how languages evolve and relate to each other—shaped his approach to creating language families that felt genuinely ancient. He once stated that the stories were made to provide a world for the languages rather than the reverse, revealing his languages-first creative philosophy.

Edward Sapir (1884-1939) American linguist and anthropologist who studied Native American languages extensively. His work on how different languages organize reality in fundamentally different ways laid the groundwork for theories of linguistic relativity. Sapir observed that languages don't simply provide different labels for the same universal concepts, but actually carve up experience in culturally specific patterns.

Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897-1941) American linguist (and insurance investigator by profession) who worked with Edward Sapir and became particularly fascinated with the Hopi language. Whorf proposed that the Hopi conceptualized time differently than English speakers, leading to the famous Sapir-Whorf hypothesis about language shaping thought. While some of his specific claims about Hopi have been disputed, his broader insights about language and cognition remain influential.

Marc Okrand (1948-present) Linguist who created the Klingon language for Star Trek films in the 1980s. Okrand designed Klingon to reflect warrior culture through harsh consonants, unusual grammar (object-verb-subject word order), and elaborate vocabulary for concepts of honor and combat. His work demonstrated how linguistic structure could embody cultural values, and Klingon became one of the first fictional languages to develop a substantial community of learners.

David J. Peterson (1981-present) Contemporary language creator who has developed dozens of constructed languages for film and television, most famously Dothraki and High Valyrian for Game of Thrones. Peterson's work represents a modern approach to constructed languages, balancing linguistic authenticity with the practical constraints of television production and actor training.

Important Linguistic Concepts Referenced

Conlangs (Constructed Languages) The umbrella term for all invented languages, divided into auxiliary languages (like Esperanto, created for international communication) and artistic languages (created for fictional worlds). The field has evolved from individual creative projects into an area of serious academic study called "artlanging."

Historical Phonology The study of how sounds change in languages over time. Tolkien used this principle to create related languages that diverged from common ancestors, mimicking natural language evolution. For example, the ancient sound "kw" became "qu" in Quenya but "p" in Sindarin, just as Latin sounds evolved differently in various Romance languages.

Linguistic Relativity (Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis) The theory that the language you speak influences how you think about and perceive reality. The "strong" version suggests language determines thought; the "weak" version (more widely accepted) suggests language influences habitual patterns of thinking. This concept is central to how fictional languages reflect the worldviews of their speakers.

Case Systems Grammatical markings that show how nouns relate to actions in sentences. English has minimal case distinctions (I/me, he/him), but Tolkien's Quenya has fifteen cases including separate markers for "moving toward," "moving away from," "located on top of," and "located inside of"—reflecting a language designed by someone who thought about spatial relationships architecturally.

Pidgin Languages Simplified contact languages that develop when groups without a common tongue need to communicate. Tolkien imagined Orkish as a pidgin—crude and fragmented—reflecting the corrupted, degraded nature of orc culture in his mythology.

Modern Applications & Connections

Language Learning Technology Fictional languages have become sophisticated enough to appear on language-learning platforms. Both Klingon and High Valyrian are available on Duolingo, with active learning communities. This demonstrates how constructed languages have achieved a level of systematization and cultural presence comparable to some natural languages.

Film and Television Production Creating believable fictional languages has become a specialized profession in entertainment. Language creators must balance linguistic authenticity with practical constraints: actors need to learn lines quickly, languages should be pronounceable by human speakers, and the result must sound appropriate for the fictional culture on screen.

Fan Communities and Language Revitalization Online communities have taken fictional languages beyond their creators' original work, expanding vocabularies and creating original literature. These communities demonstrate that language vitality depends more on passionate speakers than on historical depth or number of native speakers.

Academic Research in Artlanging Universities now offer courses in constructed languages and host conferences on language creation. Institutions like UC Berkeley and the University of Oklahoma have recognized constructed languages as legitimate subjects for scholarly study, examining what they reveal about human linguistic cognition and creativity.

Further Learning

Books:

"The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy by J. R. R. Tolkien - The foundational works of modern fantasy literature that showcase Tolkien's invented languages in action. While The Hobbit (1937) offers glimpses of Elvish and Dwarvish, the Lord of the Rings trilogy (1954-1955) deeply integrates multiple constructed languages including Quenya, Sindarin, and Khuzdul, demonstrating how linguistic diversity enriches fictional worldbuilding. These works prove that languages created first can give birth to epic stories.

Amazon.com

"The Silmarillion" by J.R.R. Tolkien (published posthumously, 1977) – Edited by Christopher Tolkien from his father's notes, this collection presents the mythological and historical foundation of Middle-earth. It provides crucial context for understanding the ancient origins of Tolkien's Elvish languages, the creation of the Dwarves and their jealously-guarded tongue, and the linguistic history that shaped the Third Age events of The Lord of the Rings.

Amazon.com

"The Languages of Tolkien's Middle-earth" by Ruth S. Noel – A comprehensive guide to Tolkien's invented languages, their grammatical structures, and their cultural contexts within Middle-earth.

Amazon.com

"The Art of Language Invention" by David J. Peterson – Written by the creator of Dothraki and High Valyrian, this book provides practical insights into the creative process of constructing languages for fictional worlds.

Amazon.com

"In the Land of Invented Languages" by Arika Okrent – An entertaining and informative exploration of constructed languages throughout history, from philosophical experiments to modern artistic creations.

Amazon.com

"The Klingon Dictionary" by Marc Okrand – The official reference work for Klingon language, including grammar, vocabulary, and cultural notes about how language reflects Klingon warrior values.

Amazon.com

Documentaries & Films:

"Arrival" (2016) – Science fiction film based on Ted Chiang's "Story of Your Life," exploring linguistic relativity through an alien language that changes how its speakers perceive time.

Amazon.com: Arrival (4K UHD + Blu-ray + Digital) : Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, Michael Stuhlbarg: Movies & TV
Amazon.com: Arrival (4K UHD + Blu-ray + Digital) : Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, Michael Stuhlbarg: Movies & TV

"The Linguists" (2008) – Documentary following linguists working to document endangered languages before they disappear, providing context for understanding both natural language death and constructed language creation.

Amazon.com: The Linguists : Gregory Anderson, David Harrison, Seth Kramer, Daniel A. Miller, Jeremy Newberger: Movies & TV
Amazon.com: The Linguists : Gregory Anderson, David Harrison, Seth Kramer, Daniel A. Miller, Jeremy Newberger: Movies & TV

Online Resources:

  • Language Creation Society (conlang.org) – Organization dedicated to the art, craft, and science of language creation, with resources for beginners and experienced conlangers alike.
    https://conlang.org/
  • Ardalambion – Comprehensive resource for Tolkien's invented languages, maintained by linguist Helge Fauskanger.
    https://ardalambion.net/
  • Klingon Language Institute (kli.org) – Organization dedicated to promoting Klingon language and culture, offering learning resources and community connections.
    https://www.kli.org/

Academic Sources:

Sanders, David. "Ethical Considerations in Creating Constructed Languages" – Journal of Universal Language, exploring the philosophical implications of language invention.

Peterson, David J. "Creating Naturalistic Fictional Languages" – Essays on the principles of making constructed languages feel authentic and learnable.


Episode Tags

#ConstructedLanguages #Conlangs #Tolkien #Elvish #Quenya #Sindarin #Klingon #HighValyrian #Dothraki #Linguistics #SapirWhorfHypothesis #LinguisticRelativity #LanguageCreation #SleepPodcast #EducationalContent #FantasyLanguages #ScienceFiction #Philology #MiddleEarth #StarTrek #GameOfThrones #SleepLearning #DormantKnowledge