conlang
Do Minions Speak the Language of Humans?
Not every language has been globalized but today, constructed languages are taking over the world.
You must have heard about the Minions, the little pill-shaped, lovable, little mischief-makers who serve anti-hero extraordinaire Gru in the Despicable Me franchise.
These small, yellow creatures live to be supporters, trusted followers of the most villainous villain they can find.
Minions have a distinctive look, but what I find even more impressive is their language.
In terms of creating new languages only for a movie, there are a bunch of linguists in Hollywood. Before filmmakers could depend on captivating visuals, storytellers had to conjure up other methods to immerse fans in fictional worlds.
One of those methods has been to engineer conlangs — intentionally constructed languages rather than naturally evolving.
Conlangs are used in popular movies like Lord of the Ring; The Hobbit with the Elvish language, Game of Thrones made the Dothraki language exclusively for the series, Star trek hired a linguist to create the Klingon language, and Avatar Navi language, just to mention a few.
Conlangs were also employed in The Minions. At first, they sound like they’re speaking complete gibberish, but if you listen closely, it’s a complicated and subtle vocabulary.
This constructed language created by co-directors Pierre Coffin, and Chris Renaud is known as Minionese. Unlike many movies with made-up languages, the directors of the minion didn’t use a linguist.
Most of what Minions say consists of silly-sounding words strung together from various languages with some actual gibberish thrown in.
Although the almost identical phrases may appear senseless rambling, they are a unique dialect created especially for the Minions. Whatever comes from the Minions’ lips, you probably recognize it wherever you are around the globe.
Impressive, If you ask me.
Minionese combines several languages, including French, Italian, Spanish, Malay, Indonesian, Hindi, and Japanese.
“Poulet tikka masala?”
“Masala?”
This phrase combines French and Hindi to describe the popular Indian-style chicken dish.
Also, I love that their name “minion” is pronounced like “mignon”, which in French means “cute”.
Isn’t that very fitting?
How come they speak multiple dialects?
The fact that the Minions have been around for a long time and have travelled the world as a nomadic tribe pursuing their next master makes it plausible that they would know so many different languages.
The Minions movie states that Minions were on earth before man and speaking their language before man. Does that mean they taught men to speak these languages?
“The etymology of Minionese includes the basics of ancient Egyptian (they worked for the Pharaoh), a dash of high-society French (they backed Napoleon), some proper Transylvanian (from their time serving Count Dracula), all the way back to the grunts and grrrs of early Homo sapiens.”
The Minions also expressed themselves in English.
When Minions speak, a word or two from English are sometimes thrown in to make English-speaking viewers feel like they are following along.
The sensation of “Ah, I get it!” isn’t exclusive to English viewers, though. The directors dubbed the movies so that certain words and phrases still stand out.
People worldwide can also have that “Ah, I get it!” moment when they watch the movie in their languages.
There’s more to Minionese than just words.
Like any other language, tone, body language, gestures, and emotions all aid in message delivery that even children in the audience can understand a Minion’s sentiments without trying too hard because they are universal communication symbols.
While Coffin and fellow director Chris Renaud both created the Minions’ language and initially contributed voices to the characters, Coffin quickly became the go-to guy. By the time Minions came out, he was the sole voice of the creatures.
Coffin recalled that when initial vocalizations for Gru’s henchmen weren’t working, he stepped in to make a test.
“I told [Illumination founder-CEO and producer] Chris Meledandri, ‘Let me make a test. It won’t be official; it’s just to show whoever will design the voice a way to go.’ When I asked Chris to listen to it, he said, ‘Well, you’re going to be the voice of the minions.’ “
The rest, of course, is Minion history.
Minionese is the true Esparento.
Let me know in the comment if you picked up any language while binging on the Minions and have the “Ah! I get it” moment.
