Pakuni

Facts

  • Language: Pakuni
  • Created:
  • Alternate names:
  • Language code:
  • Language family: professional fictional language
  • Script:

A constructed language by Victoria Fromkin, PhD.

Pakuni was created for the children's TV series "Land of the Lost'. What's interesting about it -- besides the fond memories evoked for the show's fans -- is that it is possibly the first fictional language created for children's entertainment. It's creator, Victoria Fromkin, was a major figure in the history of the UCLA Linguistic Department: one of its first Ph.D.'s, a faculty member from 1965 to her death in 2000, and for many years the Dean/Vice Chancellor of the UCLA Graduate Division. Her research interests included the brain and language, lexical representation and access, processing models, speech errors as linguistic evidence, and linguistic explanations of aphasic language.

Language sources: The sounds of Pakuni were based on English to make it easy for the actors to pronounce and the child viewers to learn.

Designed to be an authentic-sounding primitive, exotic language (for a tribe of monkey people), simple enough for children to learn easily.

There are several fan websites with Pakuni dictionaries. For many children, this was their first exposure to a fictional language. MrKlingon.org has a Pakuni module for his Universal Translator.

Links