The Secret Messages of Polly the Pseudo-Polyglot Quiz

Answer: Klingon - Messina

Created by linguist Marc Okrand for the "Star Trek" universe, Klingon is the world's most spoken fictional language and is spoken by a race of the same name in the series. Worf is one of the most well-known Klingons, serving aboard the USS Enterprise.

In Polly's letter, we see the phrases "bIpIv'a'" which means "How are you?", or perhaps more accurately "Are you healthy?". Worf references the work by Shakespeare, "Much Ado About Nothing", which has been fully translated into Klingon. The setting of the play is the port city of Messina on the island of Sicily.

Answer: a necklace

Sindarin was created by the master of fictional language, J.R.R. Tolkien. It is a language often spoken informally by elves in Middle-earth, while the formal language of Quenya is the language of the high elves used in very formal situations. The written alphabet that many of Tolkien's Elvish languages adopt is known as Tengwar.

The word "sigil" can be translated to either "necklace" or "dagger" in Sindarin; however, a lavaliere is a type of necklace and in this case, is worn about Arwen's "iaeth" or neck.

Answer: No

The dispatch in this case is written in "Newspeak", a language created by George Orwell in his novel "1984". The language is based on English, but removes any trace of negativity and complexity from English. It is a constructed language based on an existing language.

Here, "Minitrue" is the Ministry of Truth, an organization of propaganda for which Winston Smith works. When the agent states that the location would be "doubleplusungood", he is stating it is an extremely terrible location with the prefix "un-" added to "good" meaning "bad". But the language doesn't allow for words that mean bad, so they are "ungood". The prefixes "double-" and "plus-" simply add more gravity to the "ungoodness" of the location.

Answer: a plant

Na'vi, created by Professor Paul Frommer, is the language of the inhabitants of Pandora in the film "Avatar". The language is said to be close to Polynesian languages.

The word "Tawtute" means "Skyperson", but refers to humans. In this case, Neytiri asks for monkshood, which is a plant ('ewll) from Earth ('Rrta).

Answer: Simlish

Simlish is a fictional language created for the video game franchise "The Sims" by game creator Will Wright. To replace English, Wright originally considered using Navajo in the games, but eventually decided that using a fabricated language was a better fit. He worked with linguists to develop the game's own language and Simlish was born.

While there is no official Similish dictionary, it is widely accepted that "Wabadebadoo!" translates to "I am on fire!" Starting on fire is often a problem in "The Sims" when using a cheap oven.

Answer: High Valyrian and Dothraki

High Valyrian and Dothraki are two of the languages in the fictional land of Essos in the book series "A Song of Ice and Fire" by George R. R. Martin. Originally, in the novels, Martin created a small vocabulary for the languages, but once the books were adapted into a television show, he sought the help of linguists to help expand the languages so they could be spoken on the screen.

Daenerys Targaryen is the Mother of Dragons and one of the last descendants of the House Targaryen. Her lineage provided her with opportunities to learn the Essosi languages, even though her dynasty had ruled Westeros for many generations.

Answer: The people are really good.

The fictional slang of Nadsat can be found in the novel "A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess, who himself was a known polyglot. When writing the novel, he decided that the youth of the book needed their own slang terminology and he created it from a combination of Russian and English. There are some cognates taken straight from Russian such as "moloko", which is the Russian word for milk.

However, Burgess decided to have a little fun with language. The word "lyudi", which means "people" in Russian, became "lewdies" in Nadsat, giving people a sort of misanthropic appeal. The Russian word "horosho" (which means "good") became "horrorshow", in a sense, the exact opposite of what the Russian word means.

Perhaps Burgess foresaw the future as some words in the English language that traditionally represent something bad (such as "sick") have been slangily adopted to mean the opposite.

Answer: Stargate

The "Stargate" franchise is set upon the premise that Earth was ruled by alien overlords known as the Goa'uld during the time of Ancient Egypt. As such, the language of Goa'uld is said to be a precursor of the Ancient Egyptian language.

The language is said to be guttural in nature when speaking it. The word "Chaapa'ai" is the Goa'uld term for a "stargate" which is a device that exploits wormholes through space for interstellar travel.

Answer: rabbit

Lapine is the rabbit-language found in the novel "Watership Down" by Richard Adams. There are only a few words in the language's vocabulary and it is typically used for naming rabbits and the places where they live.

Adams intended the language to be soft and "fluffy", somewhat like the typical nature of bunny rabbits. However, the events of the book don't quite match that description.

"Hrairoo" is the Lapine name of Fiver, the main protagonist of the book. His interjection "Zorn!" can be translated as someone shouting "Murdered!" or "Catastrophe!" The main enemy of the rabbits in "Watership Down" are known as the "elil".

Answer: Kryptonian

The introduction of Kal-El, or Superman, led to a natural need for a language and alphabet from his homeworld Krypton. The many incarnations of Superman have led to scattered differences amongst the Kryptonian canon. Sometimes the differences between two different incarnations of the language aren't reconcilable.

However, the alphabet has been standardized in more recent times and now one can translate it with relative ease considering one letter of the Kryptonian alphabet can be coordinated with one letter of English (or other Earth languages).