For those of you who have found the discussion of alien languages interesting, you might also be interested in this discussion of the Na'vi language of Avatar from another linguistic and cultural perspective, at a UC Berkeley language blog:
Found in Translation
Thanks for this link Juliette--hope it's OK too, I've added TalkToYoUniverse to the blogroll on Found in Translation! :)
ReplyDeleteWow, cool! I've already had you visit; maybe more people will come around too.
ReplyDeleteIf you have something particular in mind that you want me to write for Found in Translation, let me know - right now I don't have a lot of bandwidth, but it would be fun to put something together for you!
Wow, I'm going to have add that site to my reading list. That's some fascinating stuff over there. The discussions on dead and little used languages reminded me of some sayings and poems I found during college that were written in Manx. The Isle of Man has long held a bit of magic for me since one of my ancestors was supposed to have been from the Isle of Man before coming to America back in early colonial times.
ReplyDeleteI'm not good at learning languages without someone to learn it with. Otherwise I'd have learned Klingon by now. (I admit I have the tape "Conversational Klingon" and the book on Klingon language. An interesting difference in syntax.) And I love the sound of the languages used in the Lord of the Rings movies. I do plan on learning another language at some point. I really should work on fluency in Spanish since I studied it in grade school, but I'm more fascinated by Celtic and Asian languages right now.
I think it is interesting that literature, film, and music can really drive a person's interest in another language and culture. My initial interest in Celtic themes came from family history, Susan Cooper's Dark Is Rising series, and Lloyd Alexander's Prydain series. My interest in Asian languages and stories is more recent and stems from anime (especially Studio Ghibli productions), movies like "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", "Hero", and several Jackie Chan flicks, and with having friends who are such complete fangirls over groups like DBSK and Super Junior that they got me hooked on much of the music. Now I can't decide what language I want to learn: Manx, Irish, Welsh, Chinese, Japanese, or Korean. Especially when I mainly just want to learn the songs.