A handful of entertainment properties, especially in the sci fi and fantasy genres, feature well-developed languages used by characters from alien planets or fictional cultures. These languages sometimes make their way into content-based licensed products such as books and language-learning courses.
A recent example occurred when HBO partnered with Living Languages last summer for Living Language Dothraki: A Conversational Language Course, tied to Game of Thrones. It is available in online, mobile, and audio CD versions.
In February 2013, publisher Insight Editions released Fringe: September’s Notebook, which replicated a journal kept by the character September that played a central role in the series Fringe. September was “an Observer,” and his symbol-based written language was featured in Insight’s title—authored by Tara Bennett and Paul Terry and licensed by Warner Bros.—including on the cover.
CBS Consumer Products was a pioneer in fake-language licensing, with a number of ventures tied to Star Trek’s Klingon tongue. Master publishing licensee Pocket Books issued Marc Okrand’s original Klingon Dictionary in 1985, as well as a revised edition in 1992. It is still available, and a German version has been published, too.
Meanwhile, the Klingon Language Institute, also licensed by CBS, operates in 30 countries and has been in operation since 1992. It offers courses of study in Klingon culture and linguistics, as well as a forum for discussion on those topics. Its customers range from role-play gamers looking to add authenticity, to linguistics and psychology professors, to casual fans, according to the company.
Of course, there are also a number of amateurs who have taken it upon themselves to build websites featuring instruction and dictionaries for languages such as the Elvish dialects from The Lord of the Rings or Na’Vi from Avatar. Director James Cameron has reportedly been working on a novel in Na’Vi as well.
In terms of officially licensed examples, the phenomenon is limited to properties with a language that is developed enough to allow for instruction and a fan base that is avid enough to want to spend time learning it. But, given the trend for licensing of in-world products—i.e., real-world versions of objects that appear in an entertainment vehicle—we should continue to see more examples of licensed products and services tied to fictional vocabularies, at least in cases where such an extension is possible.
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