The Vernaculars of No One, Really. The (Un?)Translatable Fictional Languages

Abstract

The present paper aims to show the two possible directions, effects, manifestations of the fictional languages in general. Thus, according to the purposes of their creation, fictional languages have, throughout history, been created in order to achieve certain political, aesthetic or playful purposes, but the most fundamental feature that divides them into two categories is one strongly linked to the purpose of their creation: whether or not they can be learned and used in day-to-day life. Thus, whether they originated in the Sci-Fi, Fantasy or in the literary Avant-Garde universes, the issue of their purpose (to hide or to reveal meaning) also raises the issue of their translatability and, most of all, the issue of their “educability”, issues that may or may not harm their aesthetic dimensions.

Keywords

• untranslatable
• translatable
• fictional languages
• aesthetic purpose
• transnationalism
• translinguialism