Who Makes the Fake Languages for Hollywood?
Unsung Science
CBS News
4.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 19 November 2021
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The first time you heard “Star Trek” characters speak Klingon, or the “Game of Thrones” characters speaking Dothraki and High Valyrian, you might have assumed that the actors were just speaking a few words of gibberish, created by some screenwriter to sound authentic. But these are complete languages, with vocabulary, syntax, grammar, and even made-up histories. There’s only one person on the planet whose full-time job is creating them—and these days, he’s swamped with requests. No doubt about it: Conlangs (constructed languages) are the new special effect. Me nem nesa!
Guests: David Peterson, author/linguist/full-time language maker. Mark Okrand, author/linguist/creator of Klingon. Angela Carpenter, linguistics professor at Wellesley College.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | What would Star Trek be if the Klingons didn't speak Klingon? |
| 0:13.7 | What would Game of Thrones be if Daenerys didn't speak Hyvalerian? |
| 0:22.3 | Those are invented languages, complete with syntax, grammar and vocabulary, commissioned |
| 0:28.1 | by Hollywood executives. But where do they come from? Who makes them up? And what happens |
| 0:33.7 | when people tear these languages out of movie land and into the real world? I'm David |
| 0:39.8 | Pogue, and this is Unsung Science, the stories behind amazing accomplishments in science and |
| 0:46.9 | tech. |
| 0:52.0 | Hey, prime members, you can listen to Unsung Science add free on Amazon Music, |
| 0:56.8 | download the app today. For two decades FBI agent Robert Hansen sold secrets to the Kremlin. |
| 1:02.5 | He violated everything that my FBI stood for. Hansen was the most damaging spy in FBI |
| 1:08.1 | history and his betrayals didn't end there. Do I hate him? No, I don't hate anyone. |
| 1:13.1 | But his motive, I would love to know what his true motive so I can get that out of me. |
| 1:18.4 | How did he do it? Why? Follow agent of betrayal to double life of Robert Hansen wherever you |
| 1:23.7 | get your podcast. You can listen add free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. |
| 1:29.4 | Season one, episode six. How fake movie languages become real. |
| 1:35.4 | I don't know what you did with your pandemic, but I checked off a bucket list item I'd been putting |
| 1:40.6 | off forever. I finally watched Game of Thrones. All 73 hours of it, including the final season, |
| 1:50.4 | which was everything people said it was. A dumpster fire. Non-sensical rushed and just so dumb. |
| 2:00.4 | Otherwise, Game of Thrones is pretty great. It's a sprawling fantasy epic set in a pseudo-medieval |
| 2:07.2 | sort of kind of Europe. There are hundreds of characters. Most of them speak English, |
| 2:12.9 | with, for some reason, British accents. You don't have to do this. You don't have to do anything. |
| 2:18.5 | I have to answer to the gods. Not when you're sitting in that chair. |
... |
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