Blade v. Fifth Element

On 3-9-99, Nik Taylor wrote: "Does anyone know if the Vampire language in
Blade was a constructed language?  It was said to be a long-dead, and, it
was implied, unknown to humans, language, so it probably wasn't a natural
language."

Whatever it was, it *made* the movie for me. I mean, I enjoy a bit of
stylised violence just as much as the next bloke, but that whole 'ancient
book' (which seems to have been printed on the preserved skins of human
beings!) was way cool. I've always dreamed of making a pictographic writing
system like that one - with phonetic and representational markings and,
presumably, inflections ...

It was even better that the language was left unsullied ... ie. no-one said
much in it, which gives free rein to the imagination, which in the case of
the linguistically-minded is often much finer than the reality of invented
languages in films (ie. compare with Lilu's lame speeches in Ursprache from
The Fifth Element, which aside from the annoying "coot sleeps with a young
chickie to save the universe" ending was an otherwise thoroughly fun movie).

BB

*********
I'm a kinky, queer, bisexual genderfucker. And they say, "write what you
know." -Cecilia Tan, 'Writing  Sex,' OutWrite 1999
You need to have a magpie mind. I think you need to like shiny things.
-Samuel R. Delaney on what it takes to be a scifi writer, OutWrite 1999
Only 298  shopping days left before the end of the world.