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Five Fictional Languages You Can Learn

You can find fictional languages in many books, movies and TV shows. Of course, most of those languages actually make no sense. However, there are some that have spelling and grammar rules as well as dictionaries. Those languages don't require years of learning to perfect them so they became popular among the fans of such works. We have chosen five languages you can learn, which may even prove useful, as you can read in our article Six Reasons to Learn a Foreign Language.

  1. Dothraki (Game of Thrones, A Song of Ice and Fire)

If you haven't watched it, you must have heard of the popular TV show Game of Thrones and the book series A Song of Ice and Fire which was adapted into the TV show. In both of them there is a race of nomad warriors called Dothraki. Their language was made up by a linguist David J. Peterson. The language has more than 3000 words and it has an extremely simple grammar. The reason behind it is so that the actors could learn it easily which makes it perfect for learning. If you need help, there are mobile applications for learning the Dothraki language and there's even a course on one of the universities in the USA where you can learn how languages are created on the example of Dothraki.

  1. Auenya and Sindarin (The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings)

Our second choice are actually two fictional languages but we grouped them together because they were invented by the same man – J. R. R. Tolkien. He used them in the imaginary world called Middle-earth where most of his works take place, including The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. The languages are called Quenya and Sindarin. They belong to a large number of languages used by the immortal elves. The development of both languages took many years and they even evolved through Tolkien's stories. Quenya is based on Finnish, Latin and Greek and it is considered to be an academic language that symbolizes the nobility of elves in Middle-earth.

On the other hand, Sindarin is spoken by most of the elves in the Western Middle-earth. It is based on Welsh as well as Old Norse and Old English. Among the elves it is considered to be the common language. A lot of academic papers were written about the languages invented by Tolkien.

  1. Parseltongue (Harry Potter)

Everyone is familiar with the book series about the little wizard called Harry Potter which was written by J. K. Rowling and there's even a movie of the same name. In it, the serpents communicate in Parseltongue and very few people have the ability to understand and speak it. Most of them are descendants of Salazar Slytherin, one of the four founders of Hogwarts. When it is spoken, Parseltongue sounds like hissing. In the books, serpents supposedly give out very little information so the language itself consists of short, simple sentences. Although not everyone can learn Parseltongue in J. K. Rowling's world because they can't distinguish the sounds made by snakes, on the Internet you can easily find Parseltongue lessons and exams. If you wish to sound like a serpent while you're talking, this is the fictional language for you!

  1. Nadsat (A Clockwork Orange)

The cult novel A Clockwork Orange and a probably even more famous movie of the same name directed by Stanley Kubrick also has its own language. Anthony Burgess invented a language spoken by teenagers for the needs of his novel. Nadsat is actually not a standalone language but argot or jargon. Burgess was also a linguist so he used his knowledge to create the English language under the influence of Russian. In addition to Russian, Burgess used Cockney, German and invented some of the words by himself while he was working on the language. He came up with words in various ways, for example, the word „cutter“ means „money“ because it rhymes with „bread and butter“ which is often used to denote money.

  1. Klingon (Star Trek)

The last language on our list is Klingon. It is used by Klingons, one of the races in the TV series and movies Star Trek. It was invented by the linguist Marc Okrand and it has close to 3500 words and its own grammar. Klingon language is probably the most famous artificial language ever invented because of the huge number of Star Trek fans. Klingon lessons are easily accessible on the Internet and we are sure it wouldn't be that hard to find someone who speaks Klingon in your city!

Of course, these are not the only fictional languages you can learn, just Tolkien invented a couple more. If you are a fan of some of these works and you want to impress people around you by knowing fictional languages or just learn them for personal pleasure, you won't have to invest a lot of time and effort for any of these languages. It is enough to take just ten minutes a day and in a month or two you can sound like a serpent or an elf!

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