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In this episode, we focus on Kezhwa, the conlang we created for Amazon’s Paper Girls TV series. We are excited to share details about the language with you because we had so much fun working on it!
A PDF with the slides we used throughout the recording is attached.
Enjoy!
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SPOILER ALERT! In this episode, we discuss the signed communication system David created for Dune. Because we talk about how it’s used in the movie, there are some (minor) spoiler alerts.!
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In this episode, we take a suggestion from Jason, one of our Patrons in Discord, and chat about Avatar: The Last Airbenderand strategies we would take for creating conlangs for that world. Avatar famously didn’t employ any conlangs in their fantasy world, but instead minimally utilized bits of real world languages here and there for style. We discuss what we would have done differently!
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This episode focuses on how to create fanlangs, or conlangs created for existing fantasy worlds. The episode provides advice for conlanging within an existing framework and things to think about as you work, such as remembering that fanlangs don’t have to be true to every aspect of the canon, especially where the canon has incongruities.
If you’d like some examples of fanlangs for inspiration, you should check out Nina-Kristine Johnson’s Va Eheniv (http://va-eheniv.conlang.org/gerudolang1.html), a language for the Gerudo in Legends of Zelda (you can also find her on Twitter: @GerudosEheniv). Other fanlangs include the Mando’a language (for Star Warsuniverse), which was started by Karen Traviss but has since been taken over by fans (https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Mando%27a/Legends), and languages created for Andrew Smith’s Brithenig universe, such as Jan van Steenbergen’s Wenedyk. Perhaps less classically considered “fanlangs,” there are also spin-offs of the Toki Pona conlang.
We hope you enjoy the episode, and stay grammar!
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For this month’s episode of our podcast, David and I discussed conlang communities, focusing on online communities that offer conlangers the ability to connect from afar. Since David is much better educated than I am on this particular topic, he gave me a bit of a history lesson before diving into what’s available now. Along the way, we also managed to fit in discussions on everything from Brooklyn 99 to Men of a Certain Age. It all connects–I promise!
These resources/images are mentioned in the podcast; here they are so you can check them out for yourself!
http://library.conlang.org/web/oncomm.html