Atlantean Language 00

ATLANTIS: THE LOST EMPIRE - ATLANTEAN

Creating The Atlantean Language:

Not many films can claim to have had an entire language created for it, but in the caseof “Atlantis: The Lost Empire,” that is exactly what happened. In order to add to thecredibility of the civilization, the film makers turned to linguistics expert Marc Okrand toinvent a readable, speakable language that is used by the Atlantean population.Okrand, who has dabbled in Vulcan and had previously invented Klingon for the “StarTrek” films and television shows, took the challenge. Veteran Disney designer JohnEmerson had a hand in working with Okrand and the film makers to come up with awritten alphabet that included lots of interesting doodles and vowels with dots overthem.

“Atlantean is an important element in the film and not just window dressing,” notesOkrand. “It is a language of real people as opposed to creatures from outer space. Thefilmmakers wanted the Atlantean language to play a major role in the film. It wasn’t justthat these people were from somewhere else and spoke something else. The languageitself is a character. So we talked about how to incorporate what the language ought tobe and how it was going to be used. Some of our conversations were specific to the filmand the plot and some were about how languages and writing systems work in general.With Klingon, the sound systems didn’t have to fit human languages, whereas withAtlantean it is the exact opposite.

“Phonetically, Altantean is an easy language,” continues Okrand. “But grammatically, itis very different from English. It does things that English doesn’t do. Partly, the wordorder is different; partly the way the suffixes work are different. The verbs are highlyinflected. As a written language, there is also a major difference. Atlantean goes backand forth. You start in the upper left-hand corner and work your way across to the right.At the end of the line, you drop down, still on the right, and read the second line right toleft. The characters themselves are very complex. There are 29 letters plus tencharacters for digits 0 through 9. In Atlantean, there is no letter ‘c’ because the samesound can be created using either an ‘s’ or ‘k’ substitute. Additionally, we have a singleletter for the ‘sh,’ ‘th’ and ‘ch’ sound.”

Bearing in mind that Atlantis was supposed to be the root of all modern civilizations andfollowing the film’s premise that it is located near Iceland, Okrand used Indo-Europeanas his starting point in creating the language.

“The people who currently live in this region of the world are descendants of a group ofpeople that anthropologists and linguists call Indo-Europeans,” says Okrand. “AlthoughIndo-Europeans no longer exist, I was able to study the reconstructed language that iswhat they probably spoke. Using that as a basis, I looked for sounds that are commonin a lot of languages and ones that were not associated with a particular language.Grammatically, I wanted something different than English, so we did things like put theverb at the end of the sentence. I created hundreds of words specific to the dialogue inthe film and even created an Atlantean dictionary. If a word didn’t have a basis in Indo-European, I would look at other ancient languages to get an idea. I didn’t take anywords intact.”

Actor Leonard Nimoy has spoken Okrand’s invented languages before and once againproved adept at picking up a new tongue. Okrand observes, “Leonard is my favorite. Itaught him how to speak Vulcan in ‘Star Trek II’ and he did a brilliant job with theAtlantean as well. One of the biggest challenges in creating this language was to makeit sound like a real language and not gibberish. All of the actors were terrific at makingit sound believable.” source: company press release

Language of the Lost Empire[adapted from http://www.langmaker.com/atlantean.htm]

"All we need now is an expert in gibberish." - Preston Whitmore

"...and what's really amazing is that if you deconstructed Latin, overlaid it with a littleSumerian, throw in a dash of Thessalanoian, you'd be getting close to their basicgrammatical structure. Or at least in the same ballpark. Which is almost exactly likecertain obscure offshoots of Chocktaw! Well, obviously using Creek pronunciation, butyou get the point, proving once and for all, that Atlantean trade routes accessed thenew world centuries before the Bronze Age!" - Milo Thatch

Paul Sherrill has provided a good overview of the grammar: "Atlantean's basic wordorder is SOV, with postpositions and adjectives that follow their heads, although itappears that adverbs precede theirs. Nouns have at least three cases: the nominative(the root alone), the accusative (root + tem) and the vocative (root + top, like youmentioned). Plurals are formed by adding -en. Verbs add a suffix to indicatetense/aspect and another to indicate person and number. So far I have examples ofthree 'tenses': the present perfect, present, and future. Most of the time, the twosuffixes are easily identifiable, but in a few combinations the tense marker drops orchanges a letter or two."

Atlantean Metahistory

[adapted from http://www.langmaker.com/atlanteanmetahistory.htm]

"Everyone from flying elephants to lonely hunchbacks has had a chance to be a Disneyanimated hero. But never a linguist. Until now. In the cartoon adventure Atlantis: TheLost Empire, the main man of action is a man of words." - USA Today, "New movie trekfor wordsmith", 5/24/2001 (B)

A Mother Tongue For A Mother CivilizationDon Hahn, the producer of Atlantis: The Lost Empire, wanted to make sure to create aconsistent, believable world (A), not based on any particular culture but as a possiblemother culture:

"What the directors and I wanted to do with the movie was create an Atlantis that was amother civilization both in terms of its language and its architecture. We wanted tocreate a civilization that really felt like it was the wellspring of all other civilizations andthat's how it's described in a lot of mythology. So, we went around for architecture, forexample, and looked at Cambodian ruins and Tibetan, Balinese, Nepalese, Indianarchitecture and tried to mould that all together into one common language where youcould believe Atlantis was a mother civilization because you can see elements of othercivilizations in the architecture on the screen. The same is true of the language wecreated for the screen. Marc Okrand who did the Klingon language for Star Trek camein and helped us develop a spoken dialect for the Atlanteans that was the same thing,

kind of a primitive dialect that you could imagine was like the dialects people spokebefore the Tower of Babel - a 'root' dialect. I think that was kind of fascinating trying torecreate those core traits of what a civilization might have been." (D)

Okrand invented the language to resemble Indo-European in word stock, but with itsown grammar. (A)

While Leonard Nimoy had been hired earlier as the Atlantean King, Nimoy didn'tsuggest hiring Marc Okrand. According to Hahn:

"It was honestly by chance. We hired Leonard Nimoy first. Marc came in and they kneweach other from the Star Trek series, obviously, but we had found Marc's name muchearlier and had toyed around with developing a language, and it just seemed to makesense." (D)

According to Xpress.sfsu.edu, "This new linguistic element is just another way ofstaying ahead of the game." Quoting Walt Disney Feature Animation PresidentThomas Schumacher:

“Every successful movement in feature animation really began with Disney. For me it'sbeen a goal to have them stylistically different.” (G)

Alphabet

The Atlantean alphabet was meant to be evocative of many different alphabets. Hahnsaid: "We looked at a lot of early typefaces, Phoenician, Greek, a lot of differentcultures even Asian typefaces and then just tried to come up with something youcouldn't quite put your finger on. It wasn't Arabic, it wasn't Chinese, it wasn'tPhoenician or Sanskrit or something, it was just something that was uniquely'Atlantean,' but again was reminiscent of all of those cultures." (D)

The actual 29-letter alphabet was a collaboration of Disney animators and Okrand, whosuggested that the alphabet be boustrophedon, with the direction of letters changingwith each line, first from right to left, then from left to right, and so on. Okrand said:

"It's a back-and-forth movement like water, so that worked." (B)

One of the directors, Kirk Wise, elaborated on how the first letter of the alphabet wasdeveloped:

"The Atlantean A is a shape developed by John Emerson. It is a miniature map of thecity of Atlantis (i.e., the outside of the swirl is the cave, the inside shape is thesilhouette of the city, and the dot is the location of the crystal). It's a treasure map." -Kirk Wise (E)

There's some debate on how to transliterate Atlantean words into the alphabet. Thelanguage was written in the script to clearly indicate how it was to be pronounced; forexample, "GWEES DOH-sep-tem SOH-bin kwahm AH-lih-teh-kem." ("We do not need

their help.") (E) Whether this should be transliterated gwes doseptem sobin quamalitekem or some other way is open to debate. Okrand's only public comment so far is:

"Yes is 'tig,' no is 'kwam,' and hello is 'supak.'" (B)

Learning AtlanteanThe ugly DOH-sep-tem style of writing the language was done on purpose to make it assimple as possible for the actors, who didn't have to learn anything special in order toread their lines in Atlantean. Hahn said:

"Some of our actors took to it better than others. Nimoy could like sight-read the stuffand was immediately there and knew exactly how to pronounce it. It was just a happycircumstance that Nimoy was in the cast, because he could just nail the Atlanteanlanguage as though he'd spoke it since birth." (D)

Ironically, the star who played the linguist hero had a tough time with the language,according to Hahn.

"Michael J. Fox hated the language and really had to labor over it and in the end did agreat job in delivering it." (D)

Okrand worked hard to make sure the actors could learn the language. He evencreated a video called "How to speak Atlantean," which MovieHeadlines.net called a"fun feature" and "absolutely hilarious." It is a 50's style training video explaining howto say useful phrases in Atlantean, such as "Where is the bathroom?" MovieHeadlines.net hopes it eventually shows up on the Atlantis DVD. (A)

Cree Summer, who was the voice of Princess Kida, described Okrand's course as"Atlantean 101". Atlantean is not her first constructed language. She also knowsEwokian from her work on George Lucas' Ewoks cartoon. (F)

Okrand's passion for getting the details of imaginary languages right led Nimoy to ask:"Did anyone ever tell you you're insane?" (B)

Model LinguistOkrand, with a doctorate in linguistics from the University of California, has developedthree model languages for movies, including Vulcan, Klingon and now Atlantean. (C)

His first work was with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan in 1982. Since the actors hadalready been filmed talking in English, Okrand had to come up with sounds for theactors to lip-sync. For Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, he elaborated on Klingon,which had some words that were invented by James Doohan (Scotty) for one of theopening scenes of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. (B) He has worked on later Trekmovies as well as later series. (C) Okrand enjoys the success of Klingon: "I get letterswritten in Klingon, and people have performed marriage ceremonies in the language."(B)

Not only did Okrand invent the Atlantean language, but he was the model for thelinguist hero. Okrand said: "When I first met animator John Pomeroy, he said, 'I hope itdoesn't bother you, but I'm going to be drawing sketches when I talk to you. You're theonly linguist I've ever met, so I don't know what they look like or how they behave.' "(B)

Sources(A) "Atlantean Language Created by Star Trek Expert", MovieHeadlines.net, 5/14/2001.

[http://www.movieheadlines.net/atlantis/default.php3?postid=5863](B) "New movie trek for wordsmith", USA Today, 5/24/2001

[http://www.usatoday.com/life/enter/movies/2001-05-24-atlantis-lingo.htm](C) "Klingon Linguist Immortalised On Film", 5/29/01

[http://www.trektoday.com/news/290501_03.shtml](D) "Interview of Don Hahn on Atlantis!", 3/26/01

[http://animagic.hpg.com.br/donhahn.htm](E) Atlantis: The Lost Empire - The Illustrated Script (Abridged), p. 82

[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0786853271/langmakercom/](F) "The Lost Empire" (7/8/01)

[http://www.newsday.com/features/daily/smpatlantis.htm](G) "Atlantis Rises Again" (7/8/01) [http://xpress.sfsu.edu/storys01.cfm?Story_ID=3312]

ATLANTEAN CORPUS

What follows are all the excerpts from the published screenplay thatare written in Atlantean. [This page is adapted from the langmaker.com conlangprofile at: http://www.langmaker.com/atlantean.htm]

Sequence 1.5: Atlantis DestroyedATLANTEAN PILOT #1: NEE-puk! GWEE-sit TEE-rid MEH-gid-lih-men!

(You fool! You've destroyed us all!)ATLANTEAN PILOT #2: Shoam KOO-leh-beh-toat! LOO-den-tem WEE-luhg KAH-

behr-seh-kem! (It's gaining! We have to warn the city!) Nahl YOH-deh-neh-toat! (Too late! AAAAAAAGHHH!)

ADDITIONAL PILOTS: GWEE-sit khoab-DEH-sheh-toat! SOH-lesh-tem MOO-tih-lihm-kem! (We're doomed! All is lost!)

ATLANTEAN LOOKOUT: TEH-wuhn-toap! TEH-gu-len-tem goam NOO-roash-yoakh!(Everyone to the shelters!)

ATLANTEAN COP #1: WEH-shek-mohl! dihn-NOAKH! (Don't panic! One at a time!)

ATLANTEAN RETAINER: OAT, TAH-nehb-taot. KEE-yihsh! (This way, Your Highness. Quickly!)

QUEEN: KEE-duh-toap MAH-sihk! (Kida, come on!)KEE-duh-toap! TOH-kiht sehr KOO-pehg! NAHL-tem WAH-nuh-teh-kem! (Kida! Just leave it! There's no time!)

KIDA: MAH-tihm! (Mother!)MAH-tihm! (Mother!)

KING: OH-kweh-pen-tem MOH-khihn DEH-rem, KEE-duh-toap!(Close your eyes, Kida!)

Sequence 5: Leviathan AttackMILO: [reading] PREH-desh-tem LOH-tuh-nug/ NAHbuddha-geb.

("Enter the lair of the Leviathan, last of the mighty war gods. There you will find the path to the gateway.")

Sequence 8.5: First EncounterATLANTEAN #1: TOOG poh YOO-geh-bin KHAH-beh-deh-toat.

(He's dressed so strangely.)ATLANTEAN #2: Luht suhl-DOO-peh-toat duhp?

(Where did he come from?)KIDA: Toog KOO-net Suhl-DOOP KHOH-peh-toat.

(He must be from the surface.)ATLANTEAN #3: Uhd LOOD WOAN kweh-TEE-pih-moat duhp?

(But how did he get here?)ATLANTEAN #1: TOO-git GWEH-noag TOO-seh-kem doo?

(Should we kill him?)KIDA: Kwahm.

(No)NEH-shin-gen-tem Gehb-Rihn Deh pen-yoakh. Leb EH-seh-nekh dupp DOO-weh-ren-toap? Luht sull-DOO-peh-nekh dupp? (He doesn't appear to be hostile. Who are you strangers and where are you from?)Leb EH-seh-nekh dupp DOO-weh-ren-toap? Luht sull-DOO-peh-nekh dupp? (Who are you strangers and where are you from?)

MILO: Leb EH-seh-nekh dupp DOO-weh-ren-toap. Luht sull-DOO-peh-nekh dupp. (Who are you strangers and where are you from?)

KIDA: PRAH-wiht-tem duhn-GU-nuhg MOH-khihn YOO-gehb-leh-toat bet KAH-peh-reh-kihk. (Your manner of speech is strange to me.)

MILO: Kahg...weh-geh-neh...preed. (I travel friend.)KIDA: KAHG WEH-geh-nohs PREE-duss-ess EH-seh-nen.

(You are friendly traveler.)

Sequence 9: Audience With The KingKIDA: Deh-GEEM, TAH-neb-toap.

Way-DAH-go-sen NEH-bet behr-NOH-tib-mick. (Greetings, your highness. I have brought the visitors.)

KING: MOAKH TAH-mar GWEE-sin puhn-NEB-leh-nen KEE-duh-toap. WEEL-tem neb GAH-moh-seh-toat degDOO-weh-ren TEE-rid. (You know the law, Kida. No outsiders may see the city andlive.)

KIDA: TAHB-toap LOO-den NEH-bet kwahm GEH-soo BOH-geh-kem deg YAH-seh-ken GEH-soo-goan-tokh.(Father, these people may be able to help us.)

KING: GWEES DOH-sep-tem SOH-bin kwahm AH-lih-teh-kem.(We do not need their help.)

KIDA: Uhd TAHB-toap... (But father...)KING: Puh-SEEL-leh-toat. TAH-ges DOH-tesh-tem neb

YOO-teh-poan-kem. (That is enough. We will discuss this later.)

Sequence 10: Confronting KidaKIDA: MEH-behl-moak (the Great Flood)MILO: LEH-weg-tem SHEE-buhn puhk BEN-tem

DEE-gen-mil SAH-tib. Yoos KEH-ruhn-tem SHAHD-luhg KOAM-tib-loh-nen. (Follow the passage for another league. There, you will find the fifth marker.)

KIDA: YAHD-lu-goh-nikh! (Atlantean exclamation like "Good heavens!")

Sequence 13: Raiding the PalaceKING: Koab-DEH-nen TOO-KHIN EPP-kell-yoakh.

(Do as she says.)KIDA: MOH-khit GWEH-noag-loh-nick!

(I will kill you for that!)NEE-shen-toap AHD-luhn-tih-suhg KEH-loab-tem GAHB-rihn KAH-roak-lih-mihk bet gihm DEH-moat-tem netGEH-tuh-noh-sen-tem behr-NOAT-lih-mihk bet KAH-gihbLEH-wihd-yoakh. (Spirits of Atlantis, forgive me for defiling your chambers andbringing intruders into the land.)SOH-lesh MAH-toh-noat MY-loh THATCH-toap. Kwahm TEH-red-seh-nen. (All will be well, Milo Thatch. Be not afraid.)

Copyright 2001 by Disney Enterprises, Inc. Cited here as part of research into Atlantean.

Lexicon[This page is adapted from the langmaker.com conlang profile at:http://www.langmaker.com/atlantean.htm]

Numbers1 = dihn2 = doot3 = say4 = kut5 = shah6 = luk7 = tohs8 = yah9 = niht10 = EH-khep

Essential WordsSOO-puhk (Hello)deh-GIHM (Greetings [more formal])toakh (Hi!)GAH-moak (Good-bye)teeg (Yes)kwahm (No)BEH-ket (Please [to one])BEH-ket-yoakh (Please [to group])PAH-geh-sheh-nen (Thank you [to one])PAH-geh-sheh-nekh (Thank you [to group])PAH-gen (Thanks [to one])PAH-gekh (Thanks [to group])AH-nik KAH-gihn ... EH seh-toat. (My name is...)(kahg) kwahm DOH-yih-neh-kik. (I don't understand.)

Useful Phrases(moakh) DEEG-tem EHN-luh-nuhg BAH-sheh-beh-nen doo.

Do you speak English?(kahg) DEEG-tem AHD-luhn-tih-suhg kwahm BAH-sheh-beh-kik.

I don't speak Atlantean.(kahg) DEEG-tem AHD-luhn-tih-suhg TEE-pihm-mil ser BAH-sheh-beh-kik.

I only speak a little Atlantean.DEE-gesh AHD-luhn-tih-sugh, mehk LEH-guhp EE-muhg neb EH-seh-toat duhp.

What is this called in Atlantean?

ATLANTEAN WRITING

[taken from the omniglot.com profile and from langmaker.com]

"The Atlantean A is a shape developed by John Emerson. It is aminiature map of the city of Atlantis (i.e., the outside of the swirl is thecave, the inside shape is the silhouette of the city, and the dot is thelocation of the crystal). It's a treasure map." - Kirk Wise, Atlantis: TheLost Empire - The Illustrated Script (Abridged), p. 82

The Atlantean language was created for the film Atlantis: The Lost Empire by MarcOkrand, who also created the Klingon and Vulcan languages for the Star Trek films andtelevision shows. Okrand worked with John Emerson, a designer at Disney, to producean alphabet for the language. The language is spoken and written by the people ofAtlantis in the film and is integral to the plot.

Okrand based the Atlantean language on a hypothetical reconstruction of the languagespoken by the early Indo-Europeans using sounds common to modern Indo-Europeanlanguages and some not found in any of them. He wanted it to sound like a real humanlanguage, to be easy to speak and to be unlike English.

Notable featuresWritten in boustrophedon style (in horizontal running alternately from right to left andleft to right).

Atlantean alphabet and numerals

Sample text (English in the Atlantean alphabet)

Transliteration

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed withreason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

AND, the picture at the top of this file, “The Leviathan” from The Shepard’s Journal,says:

smannalag adlantisag smannalag adlantisag

egnihut nepewko egnihut nepewko

hepen linegimot hepen linegimot

nihut kabiw nihut kabiw