Re: Star Trek conlangs besides Klingon and Romulan

At 08:27 PM 12/19/98 -0800, Sally Caves wrote:
>Eric Christopherson wrote:
>
>> Are there any Star Trek conlangs besides Klingon and Romulan? Has
>> anyone tried to create a Betazoid language? (I would be interested in
>> making that one myself.)
>
>I thought Vulcan was invented for one of the early Star Trek movies.  I
>distinctlyremember Leonard Nimoy speaking Vulcan with subtitles to the
>Vulcan first officer
>(her name escapes me).  If that were at all developed, you'd think it
>would get as
>great a fan following as Klingon.  But I imagine that its development
>would be
>difficult.  This would have to be a truly logical language.  Perhaps some
>of the makers
>of Lojban might contribute to this project--if it were allowed.
>Paramount can be very
>touchy about their rights to materials.  I know that from experience.
According to Marc Okrand, the extensive Vulcan dialog in the first movie was
not actually a "real" conlang.  The scenes were shot in English and later
overdubbed with nonsense syllables devised by a linguist (not Marc) to
match, or nearly match, the lip movements of the English, so that the
overdubbing would look "real".  (There's a technical term for this, but I've
forgotten it.)  Then, when they decided they wanted Klingon dialog for the
second movie, they tried to hire the same linguist, but he or she was
unavailable for some reason, so they needed to find another linguist in a
hurry; that's when they hired Marc, who gave them a real language rather
than just more overdubbed nonsense syllables.  He would have liked to invent
a Vulcan language as well as Klingon (there was a bit of Vulcan dialog in
that movie as well), but at that point it was too late; they'd already shot
those scenes in English, so all he could do was more of what the other
linguist had done for the previous movie.  So now those scenes are in the
canon, and there's no way Marc or anyone else can ever invent a "real"
conlang that's consistent with them.

There have been several fannish attempts to invent a Vulcan language.  (I've
seen one of them; it looked to me like crudely relexified Japanese.)  But
none of them have any relation to the "Vulcan" dialog in the movies.

Someone on this list has done some work on a Ferengi conlang, and I think
also on a Cardassian one.  But I can't remember who; it's been a long time
since he posted anything about either of them.

-------------------------------------------------
Tim Smith
timsmith@global2000.net

The human mind is inherently fallible.  It sees patterns where there is only
random clustering, overestimates and underestimates odds depending on
emotional need, ignores obvious facts that contradict already established
conclusions.  Hopes and fears become detailed memories.  And absolutely
correct conclusions are drawn from completely inadequate evidence.
        - Alexander Jablokov, _Deepdrive_ (Avon Books, 1998, p. 269)