语言建造家:自造语言的无穷魅力

When he was a student in linguistics and English at the University of California, Berkeley, David Peterson worked on a secret language for two months. It was called “Megdevi”. This was an amalgam of both his own name and Megan, his girlfriend at the time. Once satisfied with his new words and grammar rules, he presented it to her. It was his grand romantic gesture: a private language they could use to communicate only with each other.

戴维•彼得森(David Peterson)在美国加州大学伯克利分校(University of California, Berkeley)学习语言学和英文时，花两个月时间发明了一种秘密语言，给它取名为“梅戴语”(Megdevi)——这是大卫和他当时的女友梅甘(Megan)名字的结合体。待新词和语法规则令他满意后，他将成果展示给女友。这是他送出的一份非常浪漫的爱情大礼：一种只在他俩之间使用的私密语言。

“We didn’t use it”, the 33-year-old admits today, 15 years later. While Megan appreciated the effort, she did not want to learn the language. “It was far too much work.” Now married to someone else, he is more agitated about the technical shortcomings of Megdevi, describing it as “an abomination”. He laments: “It tried to be a bunch of different things at once and ended up being nothing.”

不过15年后，33岁的彼得森承认：“我们没用过它。”梅甘虽然赞赏了他的努力，但并不想学习这门语言。“太费力了。”如今，已娶别人为妻的彼得森对“梅戴语”的技术缺陷更为心烦，称之“令人讨厌”。他叹道：“它想一次实现许多个目标，结果落得一无是处。”

Back then he was under the illusion he was the first person to create a language just for himself. “I thought I’d cornered the market and there would be demand for invented languages.” Later, when he searched the internet, he saw there were legions of people just like him, picking holes in grammar rules and admiring the poetry of their new lexicons in chat rooms around the world.

当时，他还以为自己是头一个为自己创造一门语言的人。“我以为自己会垄断市场，人们对新语言的发明会有需求。”后来，他在网上搜索后发现，世界上有许多像他这样的人，他们在聊天室里给语法规则挑毛病，欣赏用自己新发明的词汇写成的诗歌。

The invention of new languages has a rich history. Some have a political purpose such as Esperanto, created in the 19th century to foster peace, or the feminist Láadan, created in 1982. Another, Toki Pona, uses positive words to engender positive thinking.

新语言的发明史丰富多彩。一些语言带有政治目的，例如，发明于19世纪的世界语(Esperanto)是为了促进和平，发明于1982年的拉丹语(Láadan)带有女权主义色彩。还有一种道本语(Toki Pona)，这种语言使用积极词汇，以鼓励积极思维。

Today Mr Peterson is a professional “conlanger” – the name that those who construct languages give to themselves. What transformed his hobby into a trade was the growing desire by television and film producers to infuse science fiction and fantasy dramas with authenticity, including completely fabricated and naturalistic languages. Fans scrutinise the languages, sharing inconsistencies on Twitter and discussion forums.

如今，彼得森是职业的“语言设计师”(conlanger)——那些自造语言的人以此相称。他的爱好缘何变成职业？这是因为科幻和奇幻类影视剧制片商越来越追求在剧中营造一种真实感，包括创造完全虚构的自然主义语言。影迷剧迷们对这些语言的研究细致入微，还在Twitter和论坛上分享剧中语言的破绽。

Mr Peterson’s big break was Game of Thrones, the lavish HBO drama, which next month starts its fourth season.

彼得森的重大突破是《权力的游戏》(Game of Thrones)。这部HBO的豪华大剧下月将开播第4季。

In 2008, after completing a masters in linguistics and teaching English at a community college, Mr Peterson found himself unemployed. He entered a competition set by the Game of Thrones producers for members of the Language Creation Society, a group he had co-founded, to promote, discuss and deconstruct invented languages.

2008年，在修完语言学硕士学位、并在一所社区学院教授了一段时间的英语之后，彼得森失业了。他参加了《权力的游戏》制片商面向“语言创造协会”(Language Creation Society)会员设立的一场竞赛。彼得森是协会的联合创始人之一，协会宗旨是推广、讨论和解构人造语言。

The group was invited to devise a language – Dothraki – for the show. He won both rounds – the first, judged by his peers, the second by the television executives. It changed his working life.

协会受邀为电视剧设计一门语言——多斯拉克语(Dothraki)。他在两轮比赛中均告胜出——第一轮是会员评审，第二轮是电视制片方评审。这改变了他的职业道路。

Unlike previous languages he had worked on, Dothraki had some basics already in place. George RR Martin, author of the five volumes of A Song of Ice and Fire, the fantasy saga on which the TV series is based, had created some words already. By analysing these, he fleshed it out to create a “naturalistic” language, reflecting the feudal pseudo-Mongolian society’s preoccupations. There are, for example, seven different words in Dothraki for striking with a sword. These include: “hlizifikh”, a wild but powerful strike; and “kolverikh”, a straight sword thrust.

与他之前设计的语言不同，多斯拉克语已经具备了一些基本成分。电视剧根据魔幻传奇小说《冰与火之歌》(A Song of Ice and Fire)五部曲改编，小说作者乔治•马丁(George RR Martin)已经创造了一些单词。彼得森对单词进行了分析，为它们添枝加叶，创造出了一门“自然主义”语言，并反映出那个虚构的蒙古封建社会更关注哪些方面。例如，在多斯拉克语中，有7个单词可以形容使剑的动作，比如，“hlizifikh”指偏离目标但相当有力的一击,“kolverikh”形容笔直的一刺。

While Mr Martin has insisted he did not pay attention to linguistic rules, Mr Peterson believes the author has a “natural language affinity”. Typically, he says, fantasy writers “do a terrible job”. Their languages are inconsistent and merely bastardised English.

虽然马丁坚称自己并未刻意关注语言学规则，但彼得森认为他很有“创造语言的天赋”。彼得森表示，魔幻作家创造的语言通常“是一团糟”，不仅漏洞百出，而且往往只不过是换了个样子的英语。

By the start of the first season, Mr Peterson had created 1,700 words and now has added another 2,000. He has set a goal of 10,000, though he has become derailed by working on other science fiction and fantasy projects.

到第一季开始播出时，彼得森已经发明了1700个单词，如今又新创了2000个单词。他将目标设在1万个，但眼下其他科幻和魔幻方面的项目开始分散他的精力。

He records every line that he writes in Dothraki so that actors can learn how to pronounce the words. Actors do a pretty good job, he says, although when he sees the final product he often cringes (mistakes are made, he says, by editors and directors who do not have an ear for his language and might choose a clip best left on the cutting floor).

他将自己写下的每一句多斯拉克语台词都录了下来，以便演员学习发音。他说，演员们学得不错，但剪辑好的最终成品常常让他感到非常无奈（他说，错误都出在剪辑师和导演那里，他们听不懂多斯拉克语，往往把本应该剪掉的片段留下。）

Originally Mr Peterson’s goal had been to become an English teacher in high school. While an undergraduate at Berkeley, Mr Peterson, who is half-Mexican and speaks Spanish, studied different languages for fun: basic Arabic, a term of Russian. At his mother’s suggestion he learnt linguistics, which sparked his interest in language creation.

彼得森最初的目标是当一名高中英文教师。在伯克利念本科时，有一半墨西哥血统、会说西班牙语的彼得森出于兴趣学习过不同语言。他学过一点阿拉伯文，还学了一学期的俄文。在母亲的建议下，他开始学习语言学，这激发了他对创造语言的兴趣。

Once he started he realised there was no chance he would ever stop. “It’s addictive,” he says. He has always had tunnel vision when it comes to his personal passions. When he was very young it was drawing, then writing, until he became focused on languages.

他发现自己的研究一发不可收拾。他表示：“这会让人上瘾。”他对自己的兴趣一向非常投入。小时候他迷过绘画，然后是写作，最后，他的兴趣集中到了语言学上。

The work satisfies the mathematical side of his brain, he says, by trying to “solve the problem of communication”. But it is also artistic. “Filling out a lexicon means filling out the back story. It is not purely mechanical.”

他表示，尝试“解决沟通的问题”，满足了他头脑中的数学一面。但这一工作也具有艺术性。“填写一个词语，意味着填写一段历史。这不是纯粹机械的工作。”

The transformational moment for conlangers was Klingon. Marc Okrand, a linguist, was hired to create a language for Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (Klingons had largely spoken English in the original Star Trek television series), which was released in 1984.

语言设计师的转折点是克林贡语(Klingon)。语言学家马克•奥克兰德(Marc Okrand)受聘为1984年上映的《星际迷航3：石破天惊》(Star Trek III: The Search for Spock)创造一门新语言（在《星际迷航》原版电视剧中，克林贡人主要说英语）。

Later came James Cameron’s science fiction extravaganza, Avatar. For that the director hired Paul Frommer, a linguistics expert from the University of Southern California, to create the Na’vi language spoken by a 10-foot-tall alien tribe.

之后是詹姆斯•卡梅隆(James Cameron)的科幻巨制《阿凡达》(Avatar)。卡梅隆聘请了美国南加州大学(University of Southern California)的语言学专家保罗•弗罗默(Paul Frommer)，为片中10英尺高的外星人——纳威人(Na'vi)——创造一门纳威语。

Professor Frommer’s modus operandi includes determining the sound of the language (deciding which sounds are included and pronunciation rules); the morphology (word-building rules); and the syntax (rules for combining words into phrases and sentences). It was also important to plan how the Na’vi culture would be reflected in the language.

弗罗默教授的工作方法包括，确定该语言的发音（决定取用哪些音素，以及确定发音规则）、词形（构词法）以及句法（如何将词语组合为短语和句子）。在语言设计中将该语言对纳威文化的反映考虑进入，这也是很重要的一点。

Good language creators, Prof Frommer says, have a deep understanding of linguistic principles; knowledge of a wide variety of languages; sensitivity to the interplay between language, culture and environment; imagination and a clear idea of purpose – how and why will the language be used. Without a goal, Mr Peterson says, a language is “a jumble, with choices made seemingly at random”.

弗罗默表示，优秀的语言设计师熟谙语言学规则，通晓多门语言，注意语言、文化、环境的相互作用，想象力丰富，并且目标清晰，即对这门语言的使用方式以及目的心中有数。彼得森表示，没有目的性的语言将“乱七八糟，好像随意拼凑起来的一样”。

Science fiction and fantasy films inspire fierce devotion. Some fans have tattoos using the writing system Mr Peterson created for the sci-fi TV series Defiance. “That blows my mind,” he says.

科幻和魔幻电影引发了狂热的追随。有的影迷在纹身时使用了彼得森为科幻电视剧《抗争》(Defiance)创造的语言文字。“这让我很激动，”彼得森说。

Video games should be a rich source of work yet developers care more about the artwork and gaming than linguistic consistency, he says. However, he makes an exception for one game in development, which he declines to name.

彼得森表示，电子游戏本应是语言设计师大显身手的舞台，但开发商更关注艺术效果和游戏体验，而不是语言的严密性。他表示有一款正在开发的游戏是个例外，不过他不愿透露游戏名称。

Professional linguists can be rather sniffy about conlangers, although Prof Frommer insists conlangs “can serve as laboratories to test ideas about language”. Mr Peterson, who believes linguistic construction should be taught at school, sees television’s use of conlangs as educational. “People are coming to linguistics because they are interested in my work.”

专业的语言学家可能会瞧不起语言设计师，但弗罗默教授坚持认为人造语言“可以作为测试语言理念的实验室”。彼得森认为学校应该教授构建语言的学问，在他看来，电视节目对人造语言的使用起到了教育作用。“人们因为对我的工作感兴趣，开始接触语言学。”