Method 1 I’ve named “Gobbledygook”; it’s the method that focuses the least on technical accuracy and the most on a fugacious feeling of emotional resonance—feeling right. To state things simply, to gobbledygook means “to make it up, then make it appear pretty or consistent in revisions.”
The guiding principles of gobbledygook are to choose a flow and then, while revising your novel, put your fake language under the microscope.
Choose a Flow
“Choose a flow” means that your gobbledygook language will feel more cohesive, and have a stronger identity, if you pick a general direction or theme and stick to it while inventing words. For example, maybe your guiding flow is that you want your language to sound a certain way when read; feel free to make up words on the fly that seem to you to meet this goal, and then you can revise your gobbledygook words later to more closely meet expectations.
Flow Example: Harry Potter
The language of magic in the Harry Potter books and movies is a good example of a gobbledygook language with a clear flow in mind during the writing process. JK Rowling wanted her magical words to be essentially Latin, sometimes misspelled or otherwise mutilated to sound more “magic-y,” and that’s exactly what made it into the final books. (In fact, many words in many spells are directly lifted from Latin.) The end result is simple, memorable, and it gets the job done.
Under the Microscope
After deciding on a flow, just start writing and make up what you need to as you need it. Take notes whenever you make up a word or short phrase so you know what it means, and so you can easily find it later. Then, when you’re done, scrutinize each word and phrase to ensure it accomplishes what you want it to and contributes to the overall flow.
While analyzing your gobbledygook, you may find it useful to ask yourself questions like these:
- Did I spell repeated words or phrases consistently?
- Did I use the same fake word to mean too many different things? Conversely, did I use many different fake words to mean the same thing?
- When read aloud, do words that belong to the same language feel like they fit together?
- When read aloud, do words that belong to different languages feel meaningfully distinct?
- Does this word or phrase measure up to my goals for this language?
It also doesn’t hurt to internet search a handful of the gobbledygook words you made up while revising, just in case—particularly if your language is inspired by any real-world languages. Doing so could save you from embarrassment. I have a friend who made a gobbledygook language inspired by how Hawaiian sounded to her; after writing the phrase “I acknowledge defeat” in her language, she decided to look up each made-up word and discovered that her word for “acknowledge” was unintentionally the same real-world Hawaiian word for “butt.” As she put it, “So what the phrase really meant was, ‘My butt was defeated.’ It wouldn’t have been the end of the world if the book had been published with that word, but it might have weirded out any Hawaiian speakers that gave it a try.”
Revision Example: Star Wars
Here’s a bad example from Star Wars: Return of the Jedi:
Leia: Yaté. Yaté. Yotó. (Subtitle: “I have come for the bounty on this Wookiee.”)
(Through C-3PO, Jabba offers 25,000 for Chewie.)
Leia: Yotó. Yotó. (Subtitle: “50,000, no less.”)
(Jabba asks why he should pay so much.)
Leia: Eí yotó. (No subtitle. Leia pulls out a bomb and activates it.)
C-3PO: Because he’s holding a thermal detonator!
Jabba, impressed, offers 35,000.
Leia: Yató cha. (No subtitle. Leia deactivate the bomb and stows it.)[1]
Can you see the fractures in this slapped-together language? “Yotó” is used four times in this short exchange… and it means something completely different every time. At, the bare minimum, this appears to be a thoughtless first-draft effort at gobbledygook.
This gaffe was discovered, and became famous in the right circles, before the age of ubiquitous internet—any modern story with a decent audience will have comparable laziness examined on Reddit maybe as early as the first week of publication.
General Example: Dothraki
Me nem nesa.
Translation: It is known, a Dothraki phrase.[2]
Dothraki (as presented in the Song of Ice and Fire series), is an example of a well-done gobbledygook language. In the first three books there were only 56 Dothraki words, 24 of which were proper names, while the rest were individual words or part of short phrases.[3] Per George RR Martin (as reported by David J Peterson, the linguist who expanded Dothraki into a full language for the Game of Thrones television series), those words were “all the information on the language that was in existence.”[4] It appears that GRRM didn’t formally create a language sketch in any way for Dothraki, but rather went with what felt right—and, I have to assume, cleaned it up really well in revisions, judging from how authentic it comes across.
Here’s an additional lesson to take from Dothraki: the language has really interesting consistencies that gave it a very unique-from-English feeling, like not having the sounds [u], [p], and [b] (outside of proper nouns, anyway).[5] That’s not very likely to happen on accident, increasing the odds that GRRM was very thoughtful with his gobbledygook. To accomplish something similar when revising your gobbledygook language, consider consciously ensuring that certain sounds familiar to your native readers aren’t present, or that less-familiar sounds are uncharacteristically common.
General Example: Watership Down
Hoi, hoi, u embleer Hrair, m’saion ule hraka vair.
Translation: Hoi, hoi, the stinking Thousand, we meet them even when we stop to pass our droppings; a lapine proverb.[6]
Lapine—the language spoken by the rabbits in Watership Down—is easily confirmed as a gobbledygook language using the author’s own words: “The rabbit language… was invented word by word in the course of writing.”[7] It also happens to be masterfully crafted, providing an amazing example of how effective purposeful gobbledygook construction can be. Here are a few lessons that can be learned from lapine.
Lesson 1: Gobbledygook tends to be at its strongest when it is trying to evoke a certain feeling rather than show off some technical aspect of language construction. Per Adams, “Some of the words were given a kind of wuffy, fluffy sound… the sort of noises a rabbit might make if they did talk.”[8]
Judging from the dictionary at the back of the book, this was largely accomplished by using sounds easily pronounced by young children—[f], [l], and [m] are extremely common, and most words are very simply constructed, without multiple vowels adjacent to each other, or more than two consonants. Some examples include Efrafa (a name for a place), elil (enemies of rabbits), and homba (a fox). (I would also argue that many of these words were carefully constructed to be fun to say aloud, but that’s quite subjective.)
Another way lapine evokes a specific feeling is with onomatopoeic words. The strongest example is hrududu, the word for any man-made engine. (That’s the sound they make.)
Lesson 2: Careful choice of what things or ideas words are invented for reveals deep thought about the people (or creatures) the language represents. Such things can reveal their thoughts and values, or their most common experiences.
In Adams’ words, “‘going above ground to feed’ is a phrase hardly needed by human beings. But rabbits would need a single word—a word they quite often needed to use… silflay.”[9] The careful use of such words in Watership Down creates a very immersive feeling for the reader in the lives of these rabbits.
Lesson 3: Grammatical features are not necessary in gobbledygook—but you can include them to give the language a unique flavor and further differentiate it from the language you are writing in. For example, lapine’s plural suffix is -il (rather than English’s -s or -es): plural hrududu become hrududil, homba become hombil. Such a thing is easy for the reader to remember, but is distinct enough, and used frequently enough, to emphasize the uniqueness of the language.
Advantages
Gobbledygook has a low initial time investment, depending on how easily you make up nonsense words on the fly. That makes it very useful for writers who don’t plan much and just want to write, or for writers who don’t want to worry about the details of a fake language more than they have to—especially if the language is only playing a small role in the book anyway.
Disadvantages
Gobbledygook, when done well, may require much time and attention during revisions—it can be difficult to find every instance of gobbledygook after the fact! This can be mitigated with good notetaking while making things up.
In addition, gobbledygook is best reserved for languages that you don’t plan on expanding much—after all, just making things up can leave you with a complete mess of sound structures, word formation patterns, and grammatical features that won’t nicely form sensible language. (Dothraki is evidence that it can be done anyway, but Dothraki wasn’t fleshed out by GRRM, the initial inventor of the language: it was fleshed out by David J Peterson, a professional linguist.) In the same vein, gobbledygook, when used to create long or complex sentences, very easily looks messy and unintentional.
It’s also very easy for gobbledygook to feel too much like your native language; many nonsense words that people make up will follow sound or stress patterns that belong to their native language. This can sometimes be mitigated by trying to have your language “feel” or “sound” like a foreign language, butt that comes with other risks, pardon the pun.
Gobbledygook Steps Summarized
- Decide on a theme or other goal for your gobbledygook.
- Make up words and short phrases.
- Take notes on what you made up and where you can find it in your writing.
- Carefully revise for emotional resonance, usage consistency, and goal-meeting.
You may find a personal example of a gobbledygook language here.
[1] Example borrowed from The Art of Language Invention (TAoLI), page 3.
[2] https://dothraki.com/2012/06/ei-mahrazhith-drivoe/
[3] TAoLI, 90
[4] TAoLI, 261
[5] TAoLI, 92
[6] Watership Down (WD), page 42.
[7] WD, xiv
[8] WD, xiv
[9] WD, xiv
Copyright © 2023 by David Ludlow
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