Language and Its Use in Storytelling
From epic fantasy to sprawling sci-fi—and even grounded, real-world fiction—language plays a powerful role in storytelling. It can be a symbol of culture, a barrier between characters, or the very key that unlocks the heart of the plot. In real-world settings, authors can tap into the rich variety of existing languages. But when it comes to fictional worlds, the challenge becomes trickier but at the same time more exciting.
You can borrow real-world languages for effect, but if you truly want to immerse readers in a new world, there’s nothing quite like creating a fictional language of your own.
In this post, we’ll explore the five types of fictional languages, when to use each one, and the unique pros and cons that come with them. Whether you’re building a world from scratch or just want to add a touch of linguistic flavor to your story, this guide is here to help.
Gibberish Languages
When it comes to creating fictional languages, gibberish languages are by far the easiest to make. As the name suggests, these are intentionally nonsensical—they don’t follow rules, structure, or meaning. Whether they appear as scribbled symbols on a page or improvised vocal sounds, the key trait is that they’re completely unintelligible to the audience.
Examples of Gibberish Languages
One of the most famous examples of this is Simlish, the playful, chaotic language used in The Sims video game series. While some Simlish phrases have become iconic, the language itself was—and still is—made up largely through spontaneous improvisation. Why? Because the goal of Simlish isn’t to convey literal meaning. It’s all about emotion, tone, and atmosphere. A structured language might accidentally suggest real-world connotations or interfere with the quirky tone of the game.
When to Use a Gibberish Language
Gibberish languages are perfect when you want to:
- Create a linguistic barrier between characters or between the audience and the world.
- Add a distinct, alien feel to dialogue without building a full conlang.
- Use the language briefly or sparingly—like for a spell, chant, or moment of confusion.
They’re fast, easy, and highly effective for conveying feeling over meaning. If you just want a few exotic-sounding words to spice up your world, gibberish might be all you need.
The Drawbacks
Be careful, however—when creating fictional languages, gibberish becomes troublesome at scale. If you try to expand it into a fully realized language, you’ll likely hit a wall when it comes to syntax, grammar, consistency, and fluidity. It’s not impossible, but it’s unnecessarily difficult. That’s why knowing your end goal is so important when creating any fictional language.
Gimmick Languages
Like gibberish languages, gimmick languages are usually easy to create and are often used to evoke a certain feeling rather than serve as a fully functional language. The key difference? Gimmick languages have a defining quirk or theme—a “gimmick”—that immediately signals something about the character or culture speaking it.
This gimmick can be subtle, like a repeated sound pattern, or it can completely shape the language’s structure and delivery. Either way, the gimmick becomes the audience’s shortcut to understanding something extra about the world.
Examples of Gimmick Languages
One well-known example is Parseltongue from the Harry Potter series. As the language of snakes, it’s spoken entirely in hiss-like sounds—a gimmick that clearly mimics the way snakes might communicate. It doesn’t matter if the audience can fully understand it; the point is how it sounds and who speaks it.
Another example is the way robots and droids in Star Wars communicate using beeps and boops. Whether or not those sounds are part of a structured language is beside the point—the auditory gimmick clearly signals that the speaker is a robot.
When to Use a Gimmick Language
Gimmick languages are fantastic when you want to:
- Instantly signal a species, group, or character type.
- Add flavor or comedy through how a language sounds.
- Keep the process of creating your fictional languages short and punchy, without needing deep grammar or vocabulary.
They offer more flexibility than gibberish—you can add structure and meaning if you want—but they still work even if you don’t.
The Drawbacks
The main limitation is that once you commit to a gimmick, you’re locked into it for every speaker of that language. If overused, it can start to feel repetitive or even annoying. A little goes a long way, so consider keeping gimmick languages short, situational, or limited to background flavor.
Cipher Languages
If you’re looking to create a fictional language that has structure and translatable meaning without building a full conlang, a cipher language may be your best bet.
A cipher language works by taking an existing language (usually English or the primary language of your story) and running it through a cipher—such as a Caesar cipher, substitution cipher, or another simple encryption method. The result is a language that looks foreign, sounds mysterious, and can be easily decoded.
Examples of Cipher Languages
One of the most iconic uses of cipher languages is in Gravity Falls, a show packed with hidden clues and cryptic messages. Many of its “languages” are simply English encrypted with various substitution ciphers. These encoded phrases fuel the show’s puzzle-solving theme, turning language itself into a game and supplementing the story’s sense of mystery.
Another great example is Al Bhed in Final Fantasy X. It uses a basic letter substitution cipher, transforming English or Japanese words into a strange, consistent new language. It’s not meant to be a puzzle; it just gives the world an added sense of depth, culture, and immersion without too much effort.
When to Use a Cipher Language
Cipher languages are ideal when you want to:
- Add a sense of mystery, secrecy, or encryption.
- Create a foreign-looking written language quickly.
- Give the impression of a fully-formed language without building one from scratch.
- Enable translation tools or puzzles for your readers or audience.
Once your cipher is set, translating any sentence becomes easy, especially if you automate it with a spreadsheet or simple program. This expedites the process of creating your fictional language greatly, which is great if you need to pump something out quickly.
The Drawbacks
The main drawback of cipher languages is in spoken form. When letters are scrambled without regard for phonetics, you often end up with awkward or unpronounceable words. Alternatively, if you just use a different script and keep the original sounds, the language might look different but sound exactly the same unless you spend the extra time to assign new sounds to match.
Cipher languages are also solvable. While that’s a bonus in puzzle-heavy stories, it reduces the sense of realism or cultural weight. Once someone cracks the code, the magic can wear off, making it feel more like a riddle than a living, breathing language.
Derived Languages
From this point on, the fictional languages we’ll explore become more complex to build but also far more immersive and flexible.
First up: derived languages—fictional tongues that evolve from real-world languages. Over time, all languages evolve—much like how Latin became Italian, French, Spanish, and more. Building from this concept, a derived language takes one or more existing languages and reshapes them. You can twist grammar rules, phonetic patterns, and vocabulary until the result feels like a new language, with subtle (or strong) echoes of the original.
What Makes Derived Languages Special?
Derived languages are especially powerful because they maintain a sense of familiarity. Unlike the other types of fictional languages, a derived language might include words, sounds, or grammatical patterns that feel almost understandable because of the underlying real-world language basis. That near-recognition creates a fascinating experience for the audience, like overhearing a language you once knew.
Examples of Derived Languages
A strong example is Dovahzul, the language of dragons in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Drawing inspiration from ancient tongues like Old Norse, Dovahzul features consistent grammatical structures and vocabulary that allow for poetic shouts, phrases, and a significant breadth of communication. Even if it wasn’t a complete language in its inception, it feels ancient and robust, and it gives the world of the game an added sense of realism.
Another beautiful example is the Chaos Language from the NieR series. Used in its music, it’s a blend of multiple real-world languages—German, Hungarian, Japanese, French, Welsh, and more. It’s not meant to be fully understood, but it sounds like a language that evolved far into the future, hauntingly familiar yet distant and alien.
When to Use a Derived Language
Consider using a derived language when you want to:
- Convey a deep cultural history or sense of time.
- Build a language that feels realistic but otherworldly.
- Create an emotional or nostalgic connection between audience and language.
- Speed up the creation process by using existing grammar and phonetics as a base.
Derived languages are especially useful in fantasy, post-apocalyptic, or futuristic settings. Anywhere that a real-world language might have realistically evolved into something else, it fits.
The Drawbacks
The main challenge? Time and consistency. Even if you’re starting from a real language, you’ll need to decide what stays, what changes, and how to apply those changes systematically. It’s a creative balancing act that requires some linguistic awareness or at least a willingness to do research and stick to your own rules.
Original Languages
Finally, we arrive at the most ambitious and rewarding kind of fictional language: the original language—one built entirely from scratch.
Unlike derived or cipher languages, an original language doesn’t rely on a pre-existing linguistic base. Instead, every word, sound, and grammatical rule is created anew. That doesn’t mean you can’t be inspired by real languages (in fact, you should be), but the key is that your language grows from itself, forming its own internal logic.
What Makes Original Languages Powerful?
Original languages are often designed to perfectly reflect the cultures and peoples they belong to. Their syntax, phonetics, and vocabulary can all be shaped to mirror cultural values, history, religious beliefs, geography, even worldview. They can be specifically crafted and fine-tuned to match the precise vibe you’re going for, and as a language develops, it reinforces the depth of the world around it. It becomes a living, evolving entity in its own right, intertwining with the culture and peoples it’s made for.
Famous Examples
The most iconic example is Klingon, from Star Trek. With full grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation rules, Klingon has become a real-world phenomenon, studied and spoken by fans around the world.
Tolkien’s Elvish languages—such as Quenya and Sindarin—are another landmark. Not only do they have deep linguistic structure, but their roots are tied directly into the mythology, history, and cultures of Middle-earth. The languages evolve within the world, just as real languages do over time.
When to Use an Original Language
Original languages are perfect when you want to:
- Create a deep, immersive culture or species.
- Show the passage of time or evolution of civilizations.
- Reflect worldview, tone, or spiritual beliefs through language.
- Build something that feels alive, authentic, and limitless.
If your fictional culture is central to the story and you want readers to truly feel its difference, an original language can bring it to life like nothing else.
The Drawbacks
Of course, the challenge is scale. Building a language from scratch is time-consuming and demanding. To make it feel real, you need a system of grammar and syntax, consistent phonology, and enough vocabulary to convey your key ideas. Some understanding of linguistics can be crucial, because if a language feels inconsistent or poorly thought-out, it can break immersion instead of enhancing it. That’s why successful original languages can take years to build, oftentimes being a never ending project.
Final Thoughts: Language as a Tool for Storytelling
Creating fictional languages can seem like a daunting task, but remember—not every language has to be as complex as Klingon or Dothraki.
If you’re thinking of making one for your story, the first step is to define its purpose. Is the language meant to convey deep cultural meaning? Or is it more about tone and texture—how it feels to hear or read it? Each of the five types of fictional languages in this guide serves a different narrative role, and sometimes, simpler is better.
As with all worldbuilding, knowing where to stop is just as important as finding a place to start.
In the Asteria Chronicles
In the universe of my novel series, the Asteria Chronicles, a number of original languages exist and are at play—the Maran language, for instance. Although they are far from “complete”, they continue to grow with the intent of building an expansive world with deep cultures.
Tips for Building a Language that Feels Alive
If you’re ready to dive in, start thinking of language not just as words but as a reflection of identity, culture, and emotion. Ask yourself:
- What sounds are used or left out?
- Is the language soft and lyrical, or is it harsh and clipped?
- Could speech in this culture be rare and sacred, or constant and casual?
- What emotional weight does language carry for the people who speak it?
A language filled with hard consonants might imply a warrior culture. A language that uses tones could feel musical or ritualistic. If you want to create a deep, spiritual connection association between a culture and its language, then consider how language plays into their system of religion. Consider the origins of words and how they may connect to aspects of mythology. These elements can even affect the language’s written form, influencing everything from symbol design to rhythm and pacing in dialogue.
As always, looking at languages that exist in the real world is the best place to start. Consider the names of the days of the week—in English and other Germanic languages, they have their roots in Norse mythology, while in Romance languages, they have their roots partially still in Roman mythos. Even though we don’t assign strong religious meaning to them today, those names still remain as a subtle reminder of the past, and influence that hasn’t yet left. It’s the small details like this that can really help bring your fictional languages to life when creating them. Maybe most people won’t notice, but meaning persists through their mere existence.
And don’t be afraid to assign power to words—literally or culturally. Maybe some words carry sacred meaning or cannot be spoken casually. Maybe certain sounds are reserved for only a few people to use. Maybe some play into the system of magic itself, with true names or mystical incantations being the epitome of linguistic strength.
Remember that language isn’t just a vehicle for communication. In storytelling, it can become a powerful tool. Endless possibilities exist—all you need to do is bring them to life.
Adam Jaskuloski is a writer and co-creator of Asteria Creative Group. Originally from Salt Lake City, his love of storytelling began at age seven and evolved through a passion for fantasy, video games, and theater. After studying directing and playwriting at the University of Utah, he joined longtime friend Vi Mai to co-author a sprawling high fantasy series. Since graduating in 2024, he’s dedicated himself full-time to building the world of Asteria.