Language of Jade Empire - 21.4.05

The New York Times has an interesting article on the Asian-tinged language for BioWare's Jade Empire; called Tho Fan, it was created especially for the game for about $2000 by University of Alberta linguist Wolf Wikeley.

Starting at a rate of making 50 words per day and soon picking up the pace to 200 per day, it took him 4 months to create:

As the words took shape, Wikeley set about bonding them into sentences. Here he saw a rare opportunity. He could invent grammar and rules that had never been used before. That way Tho Fan wouldn't completely match the rhythm of existing languages, which, he said, is an easy way to spot a fake language. In a twist, Tho Fan would do without the verb "to be"; instead, articles--words like "a" and "the"--would be used to mark tense.

'Jade Empire' for Xbox speaks language all its own via kotaku

Related:
Jade Empire website
BioWare's Jade Empire Video Review
Gamespot review: 8.4 or Great
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