語言建造家:自造語言的無窮魅力
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.
戴維•彼得森(David Peterson)在美國加州大學伯克利分校(University of California, Berkeley)學習語言學和英文時，花兩個月時間發明了一種祕密語言，給它取名爲“梅戴語”(Megdevi)——這是大衛和他當時的女友梅甘(Megan)名字的結合體。待新詞和語法規則令他滿意後，他將成果展示給女友。這是他送出的一份非常浪漫的愛情大禮：一種只在他倆之間使用的私密語言。“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.”
不過15年後，33歲的彼得森承認：“我們沒用過它。”梅甘雖然讚賞了他的努力，但並不想學習這門語言。“太費力了。”如今，已娶別人爲妻的彼得森對“梅戴語”的技術缺陷更爲心煩，稱之“令人討厭”。他嘆道：“它想一次實現許多個目標，結果落得一無是處。”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.
當時，他還以爲自己是頭一個爲自己創造一門語言的人。“我以爲自己會壟斷市場，人們對新語言的發明會有需求。”後來，他在網上搜索後發現，世界上有許多像他這樣的人，他們在聊天室裏給語法規則挑毛病，欣賞用自己新發明的詞彙寫成的詩歌。
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.
新語言的發明史豐富多彩。一些語言帶有政治目的，例如，發明於19世紀的世界語(Esperanto)是爲了促進和平，發明於1982年的拉丹語(Láadan)帶有女權主義色彩。還有一種道本語(Toki Pona)，這種語言使用積極詞彙，以鼓勵積極思維。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，彼得森是職業的“語言設計師”(conlanger)——那些自造語言的人以此相稱。他的愛好緣何變成職業？這是因爲科幻和奇幻類影視劇製片商越來越追求在劇中營造一種真實感，包括創造完全虛構的自然主義語言。影迷劇迷們對這些語言的研究細緻入微，還在Twitter和論壇上分享劇中語言的破綻。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《權力的遊戲》(Game of Thrones)。這部HBO的豪華大劇下月將開播第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，在修完語言學碩士學位、並在一所社區學院教授了一段時間的英語之後，彼得森失業了。他參加了《權力的遊戲》製片商面向“語言創造協會”(Language Creation Society)會員設立的一場競賽。彼得森是協會的聯合創始人之一，協會宗旨是推廣、討論和解構人造語言。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.
協會受邀爲電視劇設計一門語言——多斯拉克語(Dothraki)。他在兩輪比賽中均告勝出——第一輪是會員評審，第二輪是電視製片方評審。這改變了他的職業道路。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.
與他之前設計的語言不同，多斯拉克語已經具備了一些基本成分。電視劇根據魔幻傳奇小說《冰與火之歌》(A Song of Ice and Fire)五部曲改編，小說作者喬治•馬丁(George RR Martin)已經創造了一些單詞。彼得森對單詞進行了分析，爲它們添枝加葉，創造出了一門“自然主義”語言，並反映出那個虛構的蒙古封建社會更關注哪些方面。例如，在多斯拉克語中，有7個單詞可以形容使劍的動作，比如，“hlizifikh”指偏離目標但相當有力的一擊,“kolverikh”形容筆直的一刺。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.
雖然馬丁堅稱自己並未刻意關注語言學規則，但彼得森認爲他很有“創造語言的天賦”。彼得森表示，魔幻作家創造的語言通常“是一團糟”，不僅漏洞百出，而且往往只不過是換了個樣子的英語。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.
到第一季開始播出時，彼得森已經發明瞭1700個單詞，如今又新創了2000個單詞。他將目標設在1萬個，但眼下其他科幻和魔幻方面的項目開始分散他的精力。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).
他將自己寫下的每一句多斯拉克語臺詞都錄了下來，以便演員學習發音。他說，演員們學得不錯，但剪輯好的最終成品常常讓他感到非常無奈（他說，錯誤都出在剪輯師和導演那裏，他們聽不懂多斯拉克語，往往把本應該剪掉的片段留下。）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.
彼得森最初的目標是當一名高中英文教師。在伯克利念本科時，有一半墨西哥血統、會說西班牙語的彼得森出於興趣學習過不同語言。他學過一點阿拉伯文，還學了一學期的俄文。在母親的建議下，他開始學習語言學，這激發了他對創造語言的興趣。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.
他發現自己的研究一發不可收拾。他表示：“這會讓人上癮。”他對自己的興趣一向非常投入。小時候他迷過繪畫，然後是寫作，最後，他的興趣集中到了語言學上。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，嘗試“解決溝通的問題”，滿足了他頭腦中的數學一面。但這一工作也具有藝術性。“填寫一個詞語，意味着填寫一段歷史。這不是純粹機械的工作。”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.
語言設計師的轉折點是克林貢語(Klingon)。語言學家馬克•奧克蘭德(Marc Okrand)受聘爲1984年上映的《星際迷航3：石破天驚》(Star Trek III: The Search for Spock)創造一門新語言（在《星際迷航》原版電視劇中，克林貢人主要說英語）。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.
之後是詹姆斯•卡梅隆(James Cameron)的科幻鉅製《阿凡達》(Avatar)。卡梅隆聘請了美國南加州大學(University of Southern California)的語言學專家保羅•弗羅默(Paul Frommer)，爲片中10英尺高的外星人——納威人(Na'vi)——創造一門納威語。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.
弗羅默教授的工作方法包括，確定該語言的發音（決定取用哪些音素，以及確定發音規則）、詞形（構詞法）以及句法（如何將詞語組合爲短語和句子）。在語言設計中將該語言對納威文化的反映考慮進入，這也是很重要的一點。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”.
弗羅默表示，優秀的語言設計師熟諳語言學規則，通曉多門語言，注意語言、文化、環境的相互作用，想象力豐富，並且目標清晰，即對這門語言的使用方式以及目的心中有數。彼得森表示，沒有目的性的語言將“亂七八糟，好像隨意拼湊起來的一樣”。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.
科幻和魔幻電影引發了狂熱的追隨。有的影迷在紋身時使用了彼得森爲科幻電視劇《抗爭》(Defiance)創造的語言文字。“這讓我很激動，”彼得森說。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，電子遊戲本應是語言設計師大顯身手的舞臺，但開發商更關注藝術效果和遊戲體驗，而不是語言的嚴密性。他表示有一款正在開發的遊戲是個例外，不過他不願透露遊戲名稱。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.”
專業的語言學家可能會瞧不起語言設計師，但弗羅默教授堅持認爲人造語言“可以作爲測試語言理念的實驗室”。彼得森認爲學校應該教授構建語言的學問，在他看來，電視節目對人造語言的使用起到了教育作用。“人們因爲對我的工作感興趣，開始接觸語言學。”
