Elvish, Klingon and Pig Latin: What can invented languages teach us about the human brain?

Phys · Aug 12, 2026 · 833 words · By Inka Romero-Ortells Labrada; Jon Andoni Duñabeitia; Manuel Perea

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What to know about Elvish, Klingon and Pig Latin: What can invented languages teach us about the human brain?

The article explores the nature of invented languages, ranging from childhood games like Pig Latin and pidgins to structured languages like Esperanto and Klingon. It discusses neuroscience research indicating that the brain processes fluent invented languages using the same neural networks as natural languages.

Propaganda risk 0%

Claims checked 13

Techniques found 0

Topics 0

Coverage spectrum

Coverage gap: Low Left coverage

Left0%

Center100%

Right0%

6 sources compared across this story cluster. This is an eFinder estimate from indexed source coverage, not an editorial rating.

What happened

Phys reports: Elvish, Klingon and Pig Latin: What can invented languages teach us about the human brain?.

Why it matters

Swati Mestri Scientific Editor Alexander Pol Deputy Editor Invented languages tend to be the stuff of fantasy or science fiction worlds.

Common ground

But as a child, you may have made one up yourself.

Perspective signals

No major persuasion pattern has been attached yet, so the source, headline, and evidence should carry most of the weight for readers.

Follow-up questions

What concrete event or decision sits underneath the headline: Elvish, Klingon and Pig Latin: What can invented languages teach us about the human brain??
What evidence would most clearly confirm or weaken the claim that Klingon... Created by linguist Mark Okrand in the 1980s for the TV series Star Trek?
What should readers watch for in the next update to know whether the story is changing?

open_in_new Read the original article: https://phys.org/news/2026-08-elvish-klingon-pig-latin-languages.html

analyticsAnalysis

Propaganda Score

confidence: 100%

Low risk. This article shows minimal use of propaganda techniques.

fact_checkClaims Checked

eFinder analyzed this article and checked 13 claims against available evidence, cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia. Here is what the fact-checking layer found.

verified Verified By Reference 4

check_circle Corroborated 4

schedule Pending 3

info Single Source 2

verified

Claim 1: “Klingon... Created by linguist Mark Okrand in the 1980s for the TV series Star Trek”

VERIFIED BY REFERENCE

Wikipedia confirms Marc Okrand is a linguist who created the Klingon language for the Star Trek franchise in the 1980s (The Klingon Dictionary was published in 1985).

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Klingon language (Klingon: tlhIngan Hol, pIqaD:  , pronounced [ˈt͡ɬɪ.ŋɑn xol]) is the constructed language spoken by a fictional alien race called the Klingons in the Star Trek universe. D…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klingon_language

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Klingon scripts are fictional alphabetic scripts used in the Star Trek movies and television shows to write the Klingon language. In Marc Okrand's The Klingon Dictionary, the Klingon script is cal…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klingon_scripts

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Marc Okrand (; born July 3, 1948) is an American linguist. His professional work is in Native American languages, and he is well known as the creator of the Klingon language in the Star Trek science f…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Okrand

+ 3 more evidence sources

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Claim 2: “programming languages do not—despite their clear rules and structure—activate the same brain areas [as natural or invented languages].”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

verified

Claim 3: “The word pidgin is thought to have emerged from the Chinese pronunciation of the English word business.”

VERIFIED BY REFERENCE

Wikipedia and Britannica explicitly state that 'pidgin' derives from the Chinese pronunciation of the English word 'business'.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The emphasis on English-language education in the People's Republic of China only emerged after 1979, three years after the end of Cultural Revolution, when China adopted the reform and opening up pol…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_education_in_China

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Chinese Pidgin English (Cantonese: 廣東番話) (also called Chinese Coastal English, Pigeon English, or China Coast Pidgin) was a pidgin language lexically based on English, but influenced by a Chinese subs…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Pidgin_English

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — In China, letters of the English alphabet are pronounced somewhat differently because they have been adapted to the phonetics (i.e. the syllable structure) of the Chinese language. The knowledge of th…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_respelling_of_the_Engl…

+ 4 more evidence sources

info

Claim 4: “a 2025 study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) took functional magnetic resonance images of brain activity in people who spoke them [invented languages].”

SINGLE SOURCE

The claim is only found in the cross-referenced article ('The Conversation'). Wikipedia results for '2025' and 'MIT' provided in the evidence do not mention this specific study.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The MIT License is a permissive software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the late 1980s. As a permissive license, it puts few restrictions on reuse and has hi…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Nuno Filipe Gomes Loureiro (1977 – 16 December 2025) was a Portuguese plasma physicist. He was the Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and director …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuno_Loureiro

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — On December 13, 2025, a mass shooting occurred at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, United States, during the second day of final examination week for the fall semester. The shooter, Cláud…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Brown_University_shooting

+ 1 more evidence source

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Claim 5: “When two communities with different languages need to communicate to trade or simply coexist, a simplified version of language emerges known as a pidgin.”

CORROBORATED

Three independent sources (TheCollector, Cultural Anthropology, Geography of Language) define a pidgin as a simplified language emerging for communication between different language groups.

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web search NEUTRAL — A pidgin is a grammatically simplified language that emerges to facilitate communication between two (or more) groups that do not share a common language—essentially when speakers of entirely differen…
https://www.thecollector.com/pidgin-vs-creole-difference/

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web search NEUTRAL — Pidgin languages are simplified forms of communication that arise for specific situations among speakers of different native tongues, while creole languages evolve from pidgins when they become fully …
https://fiveable.me/introduction-cultural-anthropology/key-t…

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web search NEUTRAL — A pidgin is a simplified language that emerges when two people who each speak different languages come up with another language by which they can communicate. That new language is a pidgin, or sometim…
https://pressbooks.pub/humangeog/chapter/geography-of-langua…

info

Claim 6: “When fluent speakers used invented languages (such as Esperanto, Klingon, the Na'vi language from Avatar, and High Valyrian or Dothraki from Game of Thrones), the brain activated the same neural networks as for a natural language.”

SINGLE SOURCE

This specific finding regarding neural networks for invented languages is only reported in the cross-referenced article and is not corroborated by the other provided evidence.

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cross reference SUPPORTS — When fluent speakers used invented languages (such as Esperanto, Klingon, the Na’vi language from Avatar, and High Valyrian or Dothraki from Game of Thrones), the brain activated the same neural netwo…
https://theconversation.com/elvish-klingon-and-pig-latin-wha…

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Claim 7: “words beginning with a vowel have a "-way" at the end [in Pig Latin].”

CORROBORATED

Multiple sources confirm that words beginning with vowels receive a suffix, with '-way' being a common standard, though some variations use '-yay'.

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web search NEUTRAL — For words beginning with a vowel, some Pig Latin varieties add the word "yay" rather than "way" to the end of a word.Another variation entails adding the suffix "ay" rather than "way" to a word that b…
https://www.wikihow.com/Speak-Pig-Latin

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web search NEUTRAL — Start by identifying the ending. In the version used by our Pig Latin Translator, English words beginning with a vowel receive -way.The Pig Latin for way is ayway. The w moved to the end, where w + ay…
https://piglatintranslator.org/posts/how-to-translate-pig-la…

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web search NEUTRAL — Encoding (English → Pig Latin). If the word starts with a vowel (a, e, i, o, u), it appends your chosen suffix (way or yay). Otherwise, it moves the leading consonant cluster to the end and adds ay.
https://textavia.com/tools/pig-latin-translator

verified

Claim 8: “the Elvish languages created by J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.”

VERIFIED BY REFERENCE

Wikipedia and other sources confirm J.R.R. Tolkien authored The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and created the Elvish languages.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy books on Middle-earth, especially The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, drew on a wide array of influences including language, Christianity, mythology, archaeology, an…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influences_on_Tolkien

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and academic philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._R._Tolkien

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — This is a list of all the published works of the English writer and philologist J. R. R. Tolkien, including works published posthumously.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._R._Tolkien_bibliography

+ 4 more evidence sources

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Claim 9: “Okrand used unusual sounds and a confusing object-verb-subject sentence structure [for Klingon].”

CORROBORATED

Wikipedia and multiple other guides confirm that Klingon uses an Object-Verb-Subject (OVS) sentence structure.

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web search NEUTRAL — It is a nominative–accusative, primarily suffixing agglutinative language, and has an object–verb–subject word order. The Klingon language has a number of unusual grammatical features, as it was desig…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klingon_grammar

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web search NEUTRAL — Klingon uses Object-Verb-Subject (OVS): the food eat I.Klingon verbs take prefixes that indicate both the subject and object of the action. This is remarkably efficient — you can communicate complete …
https://learningelvish.com/blog/tlhingan-hol-grammar

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web search NEUTRAL — Grammar: The language uses an object-verb-subject (OVS) sentence structure, which is rare among natural languages.Mastering the unique OVS sentence structure. Learning common verbs and their prefixes.…
https://talkpal.ai/master-speaking-klingon-fluently-your-ult…

+ 1 more evidence source

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Claim 10: “people's ability to learn these made-up languages can quite accurately predict their ability to learn real ones.”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

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Claim 11: “Pig Latin, which involves moving the starting consonant of a word to the end and adding an "-ay" sound.”

CORROBORATED

Multiple independent sources (Wikipedia, Elite Asia, Tomedes) confirm the rule of moving the initial consonant to the end and adding '-ay'.

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — Pig Latin is a language game or cant in which words are altered by adding a fabricated suffix or by moving the onset or initial consonant or consonant cluster of a word to the end of the word and addi…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_Latin

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — Starts with consonant. Move consonant + add “-ay”. Dog → Ogday.“Pig Latin” evolved from this term and now refers specifically to the English word game involving consonant transposition and the “-ay” s…
https://www.eliteasia.co/how-to-speak-pig-latin/

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web search NEUTRAL — Pig Latin transforms English words by moving consonants and adding -ay.Rule 1: Words beginning with consonants. Move the initial consonant (or consonant cluster) to the end of the word and add the suf…
https://www.tomedes.com/translator-hub/pig-latin

verified

Claim 12: “Esperanto, a language created in 1887 by L.L. Zamenhof.”

VERIFIED BY REFERENCE

Wikipedia and other sources confirm Esperanto was created by L.L. Zamenhof in 1887.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — L. L. Zamenhof (1859–1917) was the creator of Esperanto, the most widely used constructed international auxiliary language. Zamenhof published Esperanto in 1887, although his initial ideas date back …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._L._Zamenhof

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Proto-Esperanto (Esperanto: Pra-Esperanto) is the modern term for any of the stages in the evolution of L. L. Zamenhof's language project, prior to the publication of Unua Libro in 1887.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Esperanto

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — A Zamenhof-Esperanto object (Esperanto: Zamenhof/Esperanto-Objekto, ZEO) is a monument or place linked to L. L. Zamenhof, to the constructed language Esperanto that he created and first published in 1…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zamenhof-Esperanto_object

+ 3 more evidence sources

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Claim 13: “In psycholinguistics, miniature languages are often created to study how the human mind learns.”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

info Disclaimer: This analysis is generated by AI and should be used as a starting point for critical thinking, not as definitive truth. Claims are verified against publicly available sources. Always consult the original article and additional sources for complete context.