![]() ![]() (Which really must make things a lot easier for Martian parents!)Īs a result, only Tharks are ever shown actually speaking fluent Barsoomian. ![]() This is narratively convenient, as it means the actors had fewer Barsoomian lines to learn and the audience isn't required to read subtitles for the entire movie, and in execution it very much resembles what Atlantis: The Lost Empire did to dispense with Atlantean-but unlike the case in Atlantis, this sci-fi conceit actually has a larger narrative purpose, as it serves to explain why Mars has a single universal language-nobody has to learn it, it is merely imposed pharmacologically. At that point, the cinematic translation convention is extended to the Tharks as well, and we hear no more extended speech in Barsoomian for the rest of the movie. John in fact does not interact with any Red Martians until after going through the Thark hatchling initiation ritual, which involves drinking something which gives him the "Voice of Barsoom", allowing him to understand the Tharks. We then cut to Dejah Thoris, Red Martian and Princess of Helium, who appears to be speaking English, re-establishing the translation convention used in the introductory scenes. It's a little bit unfortunate, actually, that this whole conversation is subtitled in English, as it would be really neat to try to take the audience along with John's thought process in trying to interpret Tars's four-armed gestures! On one of the other hands, however, Tars is successfully able to teach John the Barsoomian word for "jump"-"sak"-through the use of iconic gestures. Early on, however, there is an excellent example of people with different languages attempting to work out how to communicate when Tars Tarkas introduces himself to John, and falls victim to the "gavagai" problem when he misinterprets "Virginia" as being John's name (when in fact John was trying to explain where he is from). All of this, however, is translated for the audience in subtitles, which sets up some subtle dramatic irony and would be more difficult to do in written media. ![]() Interestingly, because we don't encounter those words elsewhere, and we know that Therns are not restricted to living on Mars, it's entirely possible that this is not even Barsoomian!Īfter John is transported to Mars, we hear quite a bit of Barsoomian spoken by the Tharks, which John Carter does not understand. The individual words are never translated, as the structure of the phrase is unimportant-all we need to know is that that whole phrase is how you activate the amulet. Upon encountering what he will later learn is called a "Thern" in a cave, John, and the audience, hears our first example of alien language: the command words to activate a transport amulet, "Ock ohem ocktei wies". The details of their conversation are totally irrelevant, serving only to establish that, yes, there are indeed Apaches in the area as had previously been claimed. The audience, however, will not necessarily know that this is a translation convention right away! The first non-English speech we are exposed to it is not Barsoomian at all, but Apache, spoken by John Carter and a group of Apache warriors as John is trying to escape from the US Army. The film opens on Mars ("Barsoom"), employing a translation convention of rendering Barsooming, spoken by humanoid Red Martians, into English. Paul Frommer, previously hired to create the Na'vi language for James Cameron's Avatar, was commissioned to develop a complete Barsoomian language from the fragments of fictional Barsoomian produced by Burroughs. A conlang, on the other hand, is a real language that just happens to be artificially constructed rather than naturally evolved. Side note: a fictional language is a language which only fully exists in fiction it cannot be learned in the real world. After my last post on Disney's Conlangs, I was reminded that there is another Disney movie (not a cartoon, but still a Disney movie) that features a conlang: John Carter (of Mars)(as usual, this and other Amazon links are affiliate links, so I get a cut if you buy the stuff).īarsoomian was originally a fictional language used in Edgar Rice Burroughs (better known as the author of Tarzan)'s Barsoomnovels. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |