At the beginning of October, Swedish author, journalist and expert on artificial languages, Yens Wahlgren, will visit Prague. He has already introduced himself to the Czech audience with his book, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy of Languages, which has recently been translated to Czech. It takes the reader to a fascinating trip in the world of alien and artificial languages: from Tolkien’s works to The Clockwork Orange, Avatar, Tintin and Star Trek.
The event will begin with a short screening of movie excerpts followed by discussion with Yens Wahlgren and literary historian, Petr A. Bílek.
Interpreted into Czech/Swedish
Free entry
THE HITCHHIKERS’S PHRASEBOOK TO THE GALAXY
Klingon, Valyrian, Syldavian, Na’vi, Lilliputian, Orcish – these are a few of the 101 fictional languages that this book is about. Even though the subject is language, this is not a grammar book or a lexicon but rather an exploration through time and space, through worlds and universes arisen from the imagination, through pop culture and linguistic nerdship. Follow on a journey through the universes of Tolkien, Star Trek, Game of Thrones, Tarzan and Tintin; dive into the dystopian dialects of Burgess and Orwell – a travel in time from Nun Hildegard of Bingen in the 1100s, past Swift and Rabelais to Pingu and La Linea.
About the author
Yens Wahlgren is a xenosociolinguist, communicator and writer. He presently works at Lund University and previously has worked as a journalist. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Klingon, and his “Klingon as linguistic Capital” is still a standard for its speakers and in the study of the alien language. Yens is interested in languages: the ones that almost don’t exist; those that can barely be used for communication; those from non-existent countries, from other worlds; mythological languages and languages spoken in the future or in a parallel universe; artificial languages in literature and in popular culture.
