Writing systems in fiction

Back in part 2, we looked at some writing systems that were invented rather than developing naturally over a long time. There are many more invented writing systems, namely those invented for fictional languages. J. R. R. Tolkien was a pioneer of fictional languages, being a real-world language expert himself. His Tengwar script is potentially one of the most famous artificial scripts in the world, being used for the famous inscription on the One Ring.

Like the Roman alphabet, Tengwar is used for multiple languages, including Quenya, Sindarin, and the Black Speech of Mordor. The script takes on a “mode” (which determines how the letters are pronounced) for different languages.

Tolkien put a lot of effort into showing how, within the world of Middle Earth, languages and their scripts evolved naturally.

One of the earliest alphabets used in Middle-earth was the Tengwar. It was a highly structured, yet very flexible writing system that could easily be written with pen or brush. The Tengwar’s only drawback was that it was difficult to use when inscribing onto metal, stone or wood.

During the First Age, Elvish craftsmen in Beleriand developed a new alphabet that was almost entirely made from straight lines and could be easily engraved onto hard surfaces. This alphabet came to be known as the Cirth (meaning: “runes”).

Smith 1999

The Cirth alphabet is based on real-world runic alphabets. Most artificial scripts are not so expertly fleshed out as Tolkien’s.

Cipher alphabets

A common and easy way to invent a script for a fictional language is to simply replace Roman letters with different symbols. This provides the appearance of a fully-formed foreign language without requiring all the work to actually develop the language. This approach is technically English with a substitution cipher.

An example of this is the Daedric script in The Elder Scrolls games.

In other cases, like Star Wars’ Aurebesh, letters don’t line up perfectly with the Roman alphabet but rather with English sounds. In other words, there are letters for sounds like /sh/ and /th/.

In the case of Aurebesh, it is an alphabet for the in-universe language called Galactic Basic, which is just English. In this context, it makes sense to use English as the basis for the alphabet. Compare this to The Elder Scrolls where Daedric is (I think) meant to represent a different language from the one the player character speaks (which, out-of-universe, is again English). Note that movies and games are often translated from English to other languages, however the text written in artificial script is virtually never translated.

The Elder Scrolls contains another notable example, the dragon language or Dovahzul. This language is sort of halfway between Tengwar/Quenya and Daedric. It is neither a fully developed language nor an alphabetic cipher of English. Instead, it is a lexical cipher, or a word-by-word replacement of English with ill-defined grammatical rules. Visually, the dragon alphabet resembles cuneiform.

Notice that many artificial scripts are not strictly alphabets, but rather pseudo-alphabets, abugidas, syllabaries, etc. This reflects real-world written language.

Usually, artificial scripts are created to add realism and interest to a fantasy or sci-fi story. In the show Futurama, a script was designed for humor, and to be a puzzle, as well as for realism. Called Alienese (a joke in itself), this script “was created as an in-joke to see how fast fans could decipher it” according to the Futurama Wiki. Alienese was often used to hide additional in-jokes in the show’s backgrounds, and is visually more whimsical than previous examples.

Alienese, being a simple substitution cipher, was deciphered by fans right away. In response, the creators of Futurama created a second version of Alienese, called Alien Language 2 or AL2 (with the first version of Alienese being AL1). This cipher was more complex and took years for fans to solve.

After AL1 was cracked almost instantly, the Futurama writers knew that they had to try again. Thus, the second iteration of Alienese was made only a few years later, with it being spotted as early as Futurama season 3. Rather than being a substitution code, each English letter is translated into a numerical value. For example A=0, B=1, and so on. Each number is then given a corresponding symbol. To translate AL2, one must subtract a symbol’s numeric value by the numeric value of the symbol before it, resulting in a letter. If the equation leads to less than 0, 26 is added. Although this is incredibly confusing, it works.

Pitman 2023

This is called an autokey or autoclave cipher. This is a type of cipher in which the message is incorporated into the cipher key.

To encrypt a message using the Futurama Alien 2 alphabet, it is necessary to first encrypt it with a variation of autokey encryption where each letter is assigned a numerical value from A=0, up to Z=25.

Step 1 – the first letter remains unchanged and its value serves as the first key.

Step 2 – add the value of the next letter to the value of the current key, the resulting sum is the value of the encrypted letter. (If the sum result is greater than 25, subtract 26)

Step 3 – use the value obtained in step 2 as a new key and repeat step 2 as long as there are letters.

dCode

Let’s try writing a message in AL2. We’ll encipher the text “Hello.” The letter H is number 7, so the first symbol is #7 on the chart. The next letter is E, number 4. Now, we have to add 4 to 7, giving us #11. Next is L, number 11. Add 11 and 11 to get #22. Then we have L again, so 22+11=33 corresponding to #7. Finally we get to O, number 14. 7+14 is #21 on the chart. Here’s the final result:

7 11 22 7 21

We can check our work by deciphering. The first symbol is #7 on the chart, and there’s no subtraction to do, so this is H. Next we have #11 on the chart. 11-7=4 so it’s the 4th letter E. Next is #22, with 22-11=11 giving us L. Then we have #7, and 7-22=-15 corresponding to 11 is letter L again. Finally #21, with 21-7=14 giving letter O. It worked! Try enciphering and deciphering your own message. You can verify your work using the translator on dCode. (For more see my other post Ways of scrambling a message: Permutation polynomials over the integers mod n through the lens of monoalphabetic substitution ciphers.)

Shared language

In the early 90s, Id Software’s Commander Keen introduced a script called the Standard Galactic Alphabet. This alphabet, a simple substitution cipher, would go on to be used in other media. Perhaps most notably, this is the language of enchanting in Minecraft. Unlike our earlier examples, this is purely for visual flavor and the text shown isn’t meaningful. (Singh 2022.)

There are a few reasons a developer might choose to use an existing artificial script rather than creating a new one. First, it reduces workload by not having to come up with a new alphabet. Second, it may be used as an in-joke or meme among people who are familiar with the media that have used the alphabet previously.

Plot-central scripts

In some works, an artificial script or fictional language is the focus of the story. For example, the book Story of Your Life and its film adaptation Arrival revolve around decoding the alien language Heptapod B. In the story, the Heptapod aliens touch down on earth and try to communicate with humans through both speech (the Heptapod A language) and script (Heptapod B). Deciphering Heptapod B becomes central to the plot. Apparently, the circular glyphs depicted in the film were inspired in part by Tolkien’s inscription on the One Ring (Rome 2016). See also Heptapod B and the Metaphysics of Time – Hybrid Interfaces of Literature, Cinema and Science by Noletto and Lopes.

Conclusions

We’ve seen that alphabets created for fictional languages have a wide variety of functions. Above all, it’s a fun way to play with language and it adds depth to a fictional universe. Fictional scripts also vary in how complete or realistic they are depending on the creator’s interest in language and the needs of the story. Tolkien’s work is often considered the gold standard of made up languages, but over the past seven decades or so there have been many different and interesting approaches. Omniglot lists over 60 notable examples, of which I’ve only mentioned a few.

References

Bethesda Softworks (2002). The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.

Bethesda Softworks (2011). The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

dCode. Futurama Alien 2 Alphabet. https://www.dcode.fr/futurama-alien-2-alphabet

Futurama Wiki (2023). Alienese. https://futurama.fandom.com/wiki/Alienese

Groening, M. (1999). Futurama.

Mojang Studios (2011). Minecraft.

Pitman, R. (2023). Futurama’s Alien Language Explained. Screenrant. https://screenrant.com/futuramas-alien-language-explained/

Rome, E. (2016). How Arrival Turned Linguistics Into One of the Most Gripping Dramas of the Year. Gizmodo. https://gizmodo.com/how-arrival-turned-linguistics-into-one-of-the-most-gri-1789009881

Singh, U. (2022). How to Read Minecraft Enchanting Table Language. https://beebom.com/how-read-minecraft-enchanting-table-language/

Smith, D. S. (1999). How the Tengwar evolved into the Cirth. https://ring-lord.tripod.com/cirth/tengwar2cirth.htm