Fictional language

Some authors use fictional languages as a device to underline differences in culture, by having their characters communicate in a fashion which is both alien and dislocated. Primary examples of this are:

• George Orwell's Newspeak in Nineteen Eighty-Four
• Anthony Burgess's Nadsat in A Clockwork Orange
• Iain M. Banks' Marain in his Culture novels and
• Ursula K. LeGuin's Pravic in The Dispossessed.

Some of these languages are presented as distorted versions of modern English. Jack Womack's Dryco novels feature a future form of English with a modified grammar.

A fictional language is separated from an artlang (language constructed for beauty or fun) by both purpose and relative completion: a fictional language generally has the least amount of grammar and vocabulary possible, and it is made usually for a novel or movie.

Others have developed languages in detail for their own sake, such as the languages of Middle-earth of J. R. R. Tolkien, Star Trek's Klingon and the languages in Star Wars.

See also:

• constructed languages