(people speaking in foreign languages)

Hi, I'm Erik Singer.

[Presenter] Erik is a dialect coach and guy

who really loves linguistics.

Today we're gonna talk about constructed languages.

Conlangs are languages that have been made up by a person

rather than being a naturally occurring language

that's evolved over time.

We're gonna start with six big Conlangs.

Sindarin, J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.

(speaking in Sindarin)

Na'vi from the movie Avatar.

(speaking in Na'vi)

Of course, Klingon from Star Trek.

(speaking in Klingon)

Parseltongue from Harry Potter.

(speaking in Parseltongue)

And Dothraki

(speaking in Dothraki)

and High Valyrian from Game of Thrones.

(speaking in High Valyrian)

Let's begin with Parseltongue, Harry Potter.

(speaks in Parseltongue)

One of the cool things about Parseltongue, of course

is that snakes have different anatomy from people.

They don't have lips,

(snake hisses)

so we don't get sounds using the lips,

like puh, buh, mmm.

They don't have vocal folds, right?

So everything is unvoiced, and also because snakes hiss,

a lot of the sounds get lengthened.

So we get (whispering and hissing).

That means leave him alone, or go away,

because, you know, he's telling the snake to go away.

And that last sound, (exhales heavily),

that (exhales heavily),

which you may recognize from Arabic,

that constricted, what we call a pharyngeal fricative,

which is a fancy term for your throat, your pharynx

is constricting little bit, (exhales heavily).

We have that in Parseltongue because snakes

like to constrict things.

I heard you speaking Parseltongue!

You heard me?

One of the natural language inspirations for Parseltongue

was Niger Congo languages,

which have pairs of vowels,

one version of which has your tongue root pushed forward,

[Female] Uh uh Okuko.

And one has your tongue root pulled back.

[Female] Oh oh Oche.

And it has Finnish vowel harmony.

I spoke a different language?

Daniel Radcliffe is, I don't know, a ten year old?

(speaks in Parseltongue)

That's doing it pretty well, I'm impressed.

But I didn't realize.

[Presenter] Conlang two, Klingon from Star Trek.

(speaking in Klingon)

So Klingon was made up by Marc Okrand.

Hi, my name's Marc.

To sound not like any actual human language.

Of course, they're human actors speaking it,

so he had to use sounds that exist in human languages,

but they have a really strange set of distributions.

So the three basic elements in a sentence

are the subject, the verb, and the object.

Klingon has a really unusual word order.

A very small percentage of human languages

put the object of a sentence first,

then the verb, then the subject.

Mathematically there's six of these things.

So, the book to him gave I,

where we would say, I gave him the book.

or, I gave the book to him.

Pretty much like Yoda, book to him gave I.

That's Yoda-speak, obviously.

Klingon was meant to sound kind of harsh

and guttural and warlike.

It has a lot of sounds using

the back of the vocal tract and the throat,

things like (emphasizes pronunciation).

Sheldon in The Big Bang Theory

does a pretty nice version of this, actually.

(speaks in Klingon)

That (loudly clears throat) sound

is a very enthusiastic uvular affricate

in the sentence, Revenge is a dish best served cold.

What is wrong with him?

(audience laughing)

Or literally, When cold revenge is served,

it is always very good.

(clears throat loudly) means is very good.

So that word (speaks in Klingon),

he doesn't get that tongue-tip curled back D sound,

that duh, duh, so it should be (speaks in Klingon)

Like an Indian or South Asian language.

Does require, I think, greater concentration.

The English speaking actors who speak Klingon,

often don't really do that tongue-tip curl all the way back.

Listen to this.

(speaks in Klingon)

You can hear in that very last word,

(speaks in Klingon)

and it should be, Duh sound which

Worf just doesn't do either.

(speaks in Klingon)

You just hear him have a regular kind of English Duh

(sound repeated for clarity)

Guess who gets this pretty close to being right?

I'll keep this short.

Frasier.

(speaks in Klingon)

and that Duh sound at the end,

(speaks in Klingon)

is pretty close.

That's not gibberish, it's Klingon.

(audience laughs)

(emphasizes pronunciation) (sound repeated for clarity)

This is one of my favorite sounds.

It's what's called a, Voiceless Alveolar Lateral Affricate.

Tee Ell sound, but without any voicing so,

(emphasizes pronunciation)

it's a sound you can find in Navajo,

(speaks in Navajo)

and in Tlingit.

(speaks in Tlingit)

and you can hear Uhura say it twice here in

(speaks in Klingon) (speaks in Klingon)

means honor in Klingon, which is

a very important word to Klingons obviously.

(speaks in Klingon)

so she's saying, you can your people are in danger

and that (emphasizes pronunciation)

(sound repeated for clarity)

is like an English Sh sound.

Shh...

But again, it's retroflex like Duh,

so the tongue-tip is curled back and you get,

(emphasizes pronunciation)

you can hear that sound in Russian,

(speaks in Russian)

Mandarin Chinese.

(speaks in Mandarin Chinese)

so you hear that, (emphasizes on pronounciation) sound,

(speaks in Klingon)

it's a really popular sound in Conlangs.

It's pretty familiar from Scottish like Loch Ness,

Loch.

L'chaim as well.

♫ L'chaim, L'chaim to life.

It's in Valyrian,

(speaks in Valyrian)

you can hear it in Dothraki.

(speaks in Dothraki)

Klingon has a vocabulary of about 3,000 words,

which is a lot. New ones keep being added,

because it's been around for awhile.

They're about 100 fluent speakers of Klingon,

many more who can speak a little bit.

(speaks in Klingon)

(speaks in Klingon) What?

You can take tests and exams for proficiency.

(speaks in Klingon)

Oh, did you know that there

is a Klingon translation of Hamlet?

To be...

(speaks in Klingon)

Or not to be.

(speaks in Klingon)

That is the question.

(speaks in Klingon)

Klingon has improved over time,

in terms of actors getting the sounds right.

Listen to this.

(speaks in Klingon)

As opposed to this.

(speaks in Klingon)

[Presenter] Conlang three. High Valyrian, Game of Thrones.

(speaks in High Valyrian)

(speaks in High Valyrian)

(speaks in High Valyrian)

Thoros says,

(speaks in High Valyrian)

And that first sound,

(sound repeated for clarity)

made at the very back of the mouth,

it's called a Uvular Plosive.

That's the sound that's all over natural languages,

although not really in any European or Western languages.

(emphasizes pronunciation)

Here's that same sound in Klingon.

(sound repeated for clarity)

Of course, this is a big world.

The characters who speak High Valyrian

come from all different places

and they speak different dialects.

(speaks in High Valyrian)

(speaks in High Valyrian)

In High Valyrian proper, there's a vowel, Uu.

Which you can hear in this clip right here.

(speaks in High Valyrian)

Luus.

(sound repeated for clarity)

That's the same sound you hear in French, Heu.

(speaks in French)

It's basically an E sound, with

the lips rounding forwards, Eeu.

Eeu.

So now you can make the difference in French between,

Teu and Tu.

Sometimes Melisandre pronounciates the sound

that's supposed to be that as an E sound.

(speaks in High Valyrian) (sound repeated for clarity)

Which mostly actors on the show do most of the time.

But of course, they all speak different dialects.

In ancient proper High Valyrian, it was always Eeu though.

My friends here don't speak High Valyrian.

High Valyrian is a little bit like Estonian.

(speaks in Estonian)

Russian.

(speaks in Russian)

Swahili.

(speaks in Swahili)

And kind of like Latin.

(speaks in Latin)

It's this ancient language in this world.

[Presenter] Conlang four, Dothraki, Game of Thrones.

(speaks in Dothraki)

In that line.

What's he saying?

Something like, I will give to him a Golden Crown,

that men will tremble when they see it.

You hear a,

(sound repeated for clarity)

That's that Uvular Plosive.

(speaks in High Valyrian)

(speaks in Klingon)

Aqovi. Which means, will tremble.

It's the future tense of Qo'vat, which is to tremble.

Some people think Dothraki sounds like Arabic.

(speaks in Syrian Arabic)

Its natural language influences are more from Turkish,

(speaks in Turkish)

Russian.

(speaks in Russian)

Estonian.

(speaks in Estonian)

Swahili.

(speaks in Swahili)

And Inuktitut.

(speaks in Inuktitut)

Here's Johnny.

American English has a really weird R sound.

This Err thing that you do when you bunch up your tongue.

Alrighty then.

This is a really weird sound.

It barely exists in any other language on Earth

and it's a weird thing to do with your tongue.

So it's often really hard both for kids to acquire.

C-R-E-S.

It takes until about five.

Serious.

Serious.

It's hard for non-native speakers.

So it gets left out of Conlangs because

it also just kind of sounds like American English.

Let's get ready to rumble.

One really popular approach is to have a tapped R.

Like in an old fashion British

Now is the winter of our discontent.

Glorious summer. Buried.

Here you can hear it in High Valyrian.

(speaks in High Valyrian)

Dothraki.

(speaks in Dothraki)

Klingon.

(speaks in Klingon)

Interestingly, Valyrian has the

same contrast Spanish does.

Two different R sounds. Two different R sounds.

Which can change the meaning of a word.

One is a tapped Rr.

(speaks in Spanish)

The other's a trilled

Or a rolled R in (speaks in Spanish)

Different word, only one different sound.

Dothraki has sometimes a tap, sometimes a trill.

It doesn't actually make a

difference in the meaning of the word.

Here it's trilled.

(speaks in Dothraki)

I used linguistic evolution as a characterization tool.

Basically giving insight into the history of the speakers.

So Khal Drogo is a native speaker of Dothraki

and it sure seems like he is,

even though it's a made up language.

(speaks in Dothraki)

Daenerys is learning it.

(speaks in Dothraki)

And here in the first season,

you can kind of hear she's not a native speaker.

(speaks in Dothraki)

Later on though and this makes sense

for the character, right? This isn't

the actress getting better at it.

It's them telling the story of a character

becoming more of a fluent speaker of Dothraki.

Listen to it here.

(speaks in Dothraki)

The brilliant Jan Hayon Rowles,

who's a friend and colleague, is the

dialect coach for Game of Thrones.

Yeah, that's me.

She does all the Dothraki and Valyrian.

That's right.

And the actors do a really good job.

Oh, they sure do.

Jason Momoa's Dothraki sounds great, doesn't it?

(speaks in Dothraki)

(audience cheers)

I mean you completely buy him as a native speaker.

And then to credit to the actor.

Very nice of you.

Who doesn't actually speak any other languages

besides English and I suppose now, some Dothraki.

Dothraki though, is much more

fully developed in terms of vocabulary.

You, throat rip.

(speaks in Dothraki)

It's got like 3,000 words, I think.

He, she, it, throat rips.

(shouts in Dothraki)

Valyrian has less than 1,000

at this point, but it's growing.

To create an authentic sounding language,

one needs to employ an authentic methodology.

(speaks in Dothraki), thank you.

[Presenter] Conlang five, Na'vi, from the movie, Avatar.

(speaks in Na'vi)

Na'vi is a language created by linguist, Paul Frommer.

And my life has not been the same, ever since.

It drew a lot of its inspiration from Maori.

(speaks in Maori)

And some Polynesian languages,

especially when it comes to the syllables structure

and you can hear that consonant vowel,

consonant vowel in Na'vi.

(speaks in Na'vi)

Of course, a really obvious

feature is those Glottal Stops.

That's that sound that's like a little catch in the throat.

We use it in English when we say, Uh oh that Uh, uh sound.

You can hear it a bunch of times in,

(speaks in Na'vi)

(speaks in Na'vi)

It also has a really

cool class of sounds called, Ejectives.

Which are sounds like p' t' k' that you use in beat boxing.

(beat boxing Billie Jean by Michael Jackson)

Which are made by trapping air in the vocal tract.

(beat boxing)

Instead of breathing air out from the lungs.

Sky people have sent us a message. (speaks in Na'vi)

Did you hear that word, (speaks in Na'vi)

(word repeated for clarity)

That p' in the middle is an Ejective.

Ooh, another place you hear Ejectives,

is actually in English when you're a villain in a movie.

Not from a Jedi.

I am smart and I am willing.

Here's my little secret.

Only 20%

Don't lie to me.

[Presenter] Final Conlang, Sindarin

or Elvish from Lord of the Rings.

(speaks in Sindarin)

Sindarin, which is modern Elvish

or modern at the time of Lord of the Rings.

This is the grand daddy of Conlangs.

The first Conlang ever made for a Fantasy or Sci-Fi story.

Okay, so we talked about what's called a Velar Fricative,

(speaks in Klingon) (speaks in High Valyrian)

♫ L'chaim to life

There's a really similar sound.

It's done a little bit forward in the mouth from there,

and that's, (emphasizes on pronunciation)

you can hear this in German.

(speaks in German)

I.

(speaks in German)

(crowd cheers)

You may not think of that as being an English sound.

But say the word, Cute.

Cute.

Cute.

Now say it again, say it slow.

Cute. (all saying it slowly)

That sound right as you move off the consonant,

that Chh. It's the same sound.

You can hear Arwen do it here.

(speaks in Sindarin)

Sindarin is one of the easier Conlangs to pronounce.

(speaks in Sindarin)

It really just consists of sounds

we find in English, with the addition of Hhurh

and a tapped or a trilled, Rrrh, rrrh.

J.R.R Tolkien was a linguist himself.

Or a Philologist as it was called in those days.

He made up these Elvish languages.

He was making new languages even as a small child.

Whole set of them.

He left behind hundreds of scraps and notes.

And there are older and there are modern versions.

Which have been compiled and analyzed by fans

into what we believe he intended to be.

Sindarin combines influences from some of the languages

that Tolkien knew and loved like Finnish.

(speaks in Finnish)

And Old Norse.

(speaks in Old Norse)

Oh, also the sound system comes kind of from Welsh.

(speaks in Welsh)

And it does some things that Irish does.

(speaks in Irish)

Viggo Mortensen is an American actor

but he speaks six languages.

My own birthday.

(speaks in Danish)

(speaks in French)

(speaks in Norwegian)

(speaks in Spanish)

(speaks in Italian)

I guess seven, if you count Elvish.

Sounds really good, I think it

probably came very naturally to him.

(speaks in Elvish)

[Presenter] Conclusion.

Making up a whole language from scratch,

in a way that mimics a natural language

that is a whole system of sounds and grammar

and syntax and all of that.

But also has the inconsistencies

and strangenesses that natural languages do.

That's an extraordinary task and the amount of work

that goes into it, is just mind-boggling.

To all the creators of these Conlangs

that were made up just to enrich

our entertainment and story-telling experience,

(speaks in Dothraki)

(speaks in Sindarin) (speaks in High Valyrian)

(speaks in Na'vi) (speaks in Klingon)

Thank you.

[Woman] That's great.

[Man] That's amazing, thank you.

Guys, a round of applause for Eric.

(everyone claps)