You know how in fantasy worlds, its all english? Kinda breaks the immersion a bit. I wanna find something where they make it as realistic as possible, and make everything in a fictional language, basically using subtitles as the main way to understand the plot.
Lol the sims, which also is a completely learnable language.
But no, probably other better ones listed here.
First thing that comes to mind is the video game Tunic, where the objective of the game is to decipher the language.
Secondly, Stargate (the movie) while not entirely or majorly in a fictional language, the alien characters speak their own language consistently, and part of the plot involves how they communicate. In the TV show they forego of that because it would be a pain to have new languages every episode, so you do have to suspend your disbelief for that, but the movie is golden in that regard.
Then there’s other stuff like Sims or Shadow of the Colossus where everything is in made up languages but it has no impact in the plot or mechanics.
Netflix booba, but there are no subtitles.
Some of the DVD/Blu-ray versions of “GalaxyQuest” have the entire movie dubbed into the weird screeching alien language as a quirky bonus feature.
Thermian. One of the all-time greatest gags we lose in the streaming era.
Chants of Sannaar is a puzzle game where all of the text is written in a new language
I. Love. This. Game. SO MUCH.
Devastated when it was over.
Would recommend Case of the Golden Idol for a similar detective vibe.
I specifically liked the linguistics aspect, wrapping my head around the languages, but this does look interesting too so thanks for that :)
There are plenty of things in “Dutch”, a fictional language based on the Netherlands.
It’s a real language, it’s just German spoken by a person with a head injury /s
Öxxö Xööx makes all of his stuff in his own language
The movie Incubus is entirely in a constructed language.
The game Chants of Senaar is built around languages you slowly translate/‘learn.’
Watched a good ten minutes of Incubus. I speak a couple Latin and Germanic languages, and it sounded like a weird mix of European languages. Could definitively understand some of it.
It’s in Esperanto!
Some notable language-based games:
- Tunic
- Chants of Sennaar
- Heaven’s Vault
- I Mother (not released yet)
Spoilers about Tunic's language
The writing in the game is actually an alternate way to write English phonetically/phonemically. So the game technically is in English but you can’t understand it. There are guides on how to read it, but it always seemed like too much effort for me so I never did.
Far Cry Primal is completely in the fictional We ja language.
You covered all kinds of media but music, but Enya sings in a made-up language, but not exclusively. Just five songs are in Loxian, a language her songwriter made up for her after she did the song from Lord of the Rings (with some lyrics in Elvish or whatever the Tolkien language is). So she wanted a language that would suit her style and her songwriter made one for her.
The cool thing is, they wrote this whole sci-fi backstory for it about how the Irish go to space, to the moon, and they jump to a faraway galaxy. Also, Enya only sings the water dialect of Loxian — they have a dialect for each of the four natural elements.
The Enya songs in Loxian are:
- Less Than a Pearl
- The River Sings
- Water Shows the Hidden Heart
- The Forge of the Angels
- The Loxian Gate
The first three are on the album Amarantine; the last two are on Dark Sky Island. IMO Loxian Gate is the best of the lot, followed by The River Sings. If you listen on Apple Music or something that, you can watch the lyrics go by as she sings them, but it will not translate them. There are translations online, though.
Sigur Ros is a band that sings in a fictional language, I’m pretty sure. Not totally what you’re asking for but certainly in the spirit
Star Trek will occasionally throw out the full speech Klingon, but they are usually subtitled…
As far as video games go, an obvious answer is the Sims.
Perhaps only slightly less prominent is Shadow of the Colossus. Insofar as I know all of the spoken dialog is a nonsense fictional dialect that definitely isn’t Japanese, except possibly when calling your horse’s name. The language is based off of syllables and random bits from both Japanese and Latin with some of the syllables being spoken backwards, and with a kinda-sorta Japanese style cadence. But it’s utter gibberish, and only the subtitles make it intelligible.
I think Ico and Last Guardian from the same company use the same language
You haven’t experienced Shakespeare properly, until you’ve heard it in its original Klingon! /s
Some people stuggle to learn a second language their entire lives. These badasses did it for a gig!
Just watch a foreign movie mate. Smth in a language you do not know.
PS. Otherwise look at English ones in the way Tolkien intended. Its translated for you from a fictional language.
Lord of the Rings purports to be a translation of the fictitious Red Book of Westmarch, with the English language in the translation representing the Westron of the original, translators need to imitate the complex interplay between English and non-English (Elvish) nomenclature in the book.
