The Art of Language

Perhaps one of the most fashionable aspects of roleplaying, adding fictional languages is a great way to make your story come to life. Fictional languages can add depth, immersion, and excitement to your world, and it’s one of the easiest world-building techniques to implement. Pretty cool, amirite?

You’ll also find that many blockbuster fantasy movies will incorporate fictional languages into their films. Na’vi in Avatar is a great example of a fictional language that garners inspiration from indigenous and tribal culture, whereas poetic and elegant languages like Quenya or Sindarin—the Elven languages spoken in The Lord of the Rings—draw most of its inspiration from the Uralic, Celtic, and Germanic languages of Europe and Indo-Europe. 

It's Your Turn

Below are a set of lists that will separate some of the most common fictional languages based on species and vocal sound. Hopefully, this will help you decide which languages to incorporate into your own roleplays. Each language will also be hyperlinked for your own convenience to direct you to a translator that can be used for that particular language.

Grouped by Species 

• Elf

🧝🏻‍♂️ Sindarin · Quenya · Tengwar · Sylvan · Thalassian

• Dwarf 

🧔🏻 Khuzdul · Dwarvish

• Orc

🧌 Black Speech · Orcish

• Human

🙋🏻‍♂️ High Valyrian · Dothraki · Klingon

• Alien 

👽 Na’vi · Kryptonian · Huttese · Galactic Basic/Aurebesh

• Creature

🦖 Draconic · Mermish · Parseltongue* 

Grouped by Sound 

• Ethereal

🕊️ Sindarin · Quenya

• Harsh

🪳 Khuzdul · Dwarvish · Orcish · Dothraki · Klingon · Huttese · Draconic 

• Flowing

🍃 Sylvan · Thalassian · High Valyrian · Na’vi · Mermish

• Ancient

🏺 Tengwar · Kryptonian · Draconic

• Neutral

🌼 Galactic Basic/Aurebesh 

• Demonic

☠️ Black Speech · Parseltongue* 

* Include a space after every letter in order for the translator to work. 

Choosing the Best Language

As you’ve no doubt noticed, there’s a ton of fictional languages out on the market. It’ll be up to you to decide which language, or languages, are best suited for your roleplay’s aesthetics. For example, if your roleplay is going to incorporate the use of enchantment (i.e., enchanting weapons, tools, or others), consider using an ancient language or a harsh, guttural language. For the nobility, opt for the ethereal ones. For the occult, consider using something more demonic. And if you just want your characters to be gorgeously fluent in something other than their native tongue, use a smooth, flowing language or even something from the real world.

Make Up Your Own 

Another way to make your roleplay come to life is to develop a language of your own. We’re not talking about hiring a linguist and constructing an entirely new fictional language from start to finish (unless you have the resources for that). Instead, you can simply come up with names for your own languages and use a fictional language translator on the web as a way to exercise your dialogue.

Adding Extensions to Your Roleplay

Now, if you’ve read some of our documentation, you’ll notice that the Elite Team actually uses High Valyrian as a proxy for Eiranese (?), the native tongue of Planet Eira (?). At whatever point you begin to fill your roleplay with culture, races, mythos, and other world-building elements, you can complement them with “extensions” (for lack of a better term) to fully arouse your ideas. These “extensions” add complexity and allow roleplayers to transform a simple concept into colorful works of art.  

Extensions In Context

To illustrate, think back to some of Elite Team’s crucial planets. For Planet Eira, we created a race of fictional beings called the Eir (pronounced like ear), which, culturally, are similar to the Elves of Middle-Earth. The Eir are highly intelligent and spiritual beings that possess a strong connection to nature, and you’ll find that most are born with elemental or primal powers. Eira is also esteemed throughout the cosmos for their stunning and elegant architecture—full of lushful trees, waterfalls, and flowers—as well as having the most beautiful men and women.  

As demonstrated, these components are “extensions” of Eira because they offer deep lore about the planet and its inhabitants. Creating the fictional language, Eiranese, is also an extension, because it adds authenticity and realism to the culture of the Eir. In other words, these elements work to “extend” off of the idea of Planet Eira itself in order to bring it to life. Our recommendation is to always use extensions, especially if you REALLY want to make your roleplay more unique, interesting, and solid.