Languages that Never Really Were Quiz

Answer: snakes and other serpentlike creatures

Parseltongue is spoken by snakes and other creatures which are like snakes, e.g. the Runespoor and the Basilisk. It is an inherited skill possessed almost exclusively by Dark Wizards. Harry Potter acquired the skill unknowingly when Lord Voldemort attacked him as a child and made him into a Pseudo-Horcrux. To one who cannot understand it, Parseltongue sounds like hissing. Paracelsus the alchemist "discovered" Parseltongue in the Sixteenth Century although it existed long before then.

Answer: Klingon

Worf was a Klingon and spoke either Klingon or Klingonese, depending upon who you ask. His species was a warrior race from the planet Qo'noS (pronounced Kronos), a M-class planet in the Beta Quadrant. The language was rudimentarily devised by James Doohan, who played Scotty in the original "Star Trek," and expanded into a complete language by Marc Okrand who published "The Klingon Dictionary" in 1985. Mr. Worf is played by the actor Michael Dorn.

Answer: Elvish

The varieties of Elves in Tolkien's fiction speak a variety of languages, many of them descended one from another, as is the case in non- fictional modern languages. Two were particularly highly developed -- Quenya and Sindarin -- permitting the publication of dictionaries. Elvish languages show influences of Finnish, Latin, Greek, Germanic languages, and Welsh.

Answer: Newspeak

The premise of Newspeak is that by reducing lexical choice, creative thought is limited and even eliminated. The theory is that if one cannot say a thing, one cannot think that thing. There is a government programme designed to replace Oldspeak (Standard English) with Newspeak in 66 years.

Answer: Richard Adams' "Watership Down"

English author Richard Adams created the Lapine language so that the rabbits in "Watership Down" (1972) would have something to say to each other. He named it "lapine" because of the French word for rabbit is "lapin." The language is also spoken in the sequel "Tales from Watership Down" (1996) and in the motion picture and television versions.

Answer: Na'vi

Professor Paul Frommer, an instructor at USC's Marshall School of Business, used his PhD in Linguistics to construct the Na'vi language, based in many respects on Maori. There are websites where one may learn to speak Na'vi. Kwang means bad or evil. Sempu means daddy. Tslolam means "I understand." Skxawng means moron. Tsmuke means sister. Kxetse means tail. Oe-ri ta ngeyä fahew akewong ontu teya längu means "Your alien smell fills my nose"

Answer: High Valyrian

George R. R. Martin wrote the stories but a professional linguist, David J. Peterson, created the High Valyrian language and its derivative languages: Astapori Valyrian and Meereenese Valyrian. The former is to the latter as Latin is to Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese.

Answer: Chakobsa

Herbert apparently drew on a real ('tho probably dead) language called Chakobsa which was a hunting language used in the Caucasus. He certainly borrowed the name if not the language itself. The Chakobsa spoken by the Fremen is an odd mixture of Roma (the Gypsy language), Serbo-Croatian and Arabic.

In the 2003 television miniseries "Frank Herbert's Children of Dune" there is a song sung entirely in Chakobsa.

Answer: Tenctonese

"Alien Nation" began as a 1988 motion picture starring Mandy Patinkin and James Caan and evolved into a Fox-TV series in 1989, which evolved into a series of novels. The premise is that a gigantic space ship full of slave workers crash lands in the Western United States. The humanoids from the plant Tencton attempt to integrate into Southern California society

Answer: "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951)

Klaatu (Michael Rennie) instructs Helen Benson (Patricia Neal" to speak the words "Klaatu barada nikto" to Gort, the giant robot, in the event that Klaatu is killed. Edmund H. North, who wrote the script, said he chose those words because "I thought it sounded good." Gort, hearing the words, relents from destroying the planet, takes Klaatu's body into their space ship and revives him from death.