Working: How the Alien Languages in “Foundation” Were Created

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3.9 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 16 January 2022

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, host Isaac Butler talks to Fionnuala Murphy, an actor and linguist who invented multiple alien languages for Apple TV Plus’s series Foundation. In the interview, Fionnuala explains how she landed the job, which was her first ever foray into language creation. Then she breaks down the process of designing the languages based on information she could gather from the scripts and conversations with the Foundation team. After the interview, Isaac and co-host Karen Han talk about their own relationships to language and discuss how patterns and structures, like those found in language, are crucial to their creative work. In the exclusive Slate Plus segment, Isaac asks Fionnuala about her translation work. Then Fionnuala offers advice for people who are trying to better understand their own language. Send your questions about creativity and any other feedback to working@slate.com or give us a call at (304) 933-9675. Podcast production by Cameron Drews If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Big Mood, Little Mood—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on Working. Sign up now at slate.com/workingplus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everybody, it's Tim Heidecker, you know me, Tim and Eric Bridesmaid's in the Fantastic Four.
0:05.0	I'd like to personally invite you to listen to Office Hours Live with me and my co-hosts DJ Doug Pound.
0:11.0	Hello.
0:12.0	And Vic Berger.
0:13.0	Howdy.
0:14.0	Every week we bring you laugh fun games and lots of other surprises.
0:16.0	It's live.
0:17.0	We take your Zoom calls.
0:18.0	We love having fun.
0:19.0	Excuse me.
0:20.0	That song's...
0:21.0	Vic said something.
0:22.0	You said music.
0:23.0	I like having fun.
0:24.0	I like to laugh.
0:26.0	I like to meet people who can make me laugh.
0:29.0	Please subscribe.
0:31.0	No.
0:37.0	A member of the production team that I happen to know from other walks of life rang me up one day out of the blue and just said,
0:44.0	um, finula, do you think you'd be able to create a language if asked to do so?
0:49.0	That was the first question to Richard, I kind of went, yeah, I think so.
0:53.0	And then she just said, well, would you be interested in pitching for a language project?
	...

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