A completely random rantlet, but one that's always bugged me. If you look at a lot of languages invented for books, movies, and TV shows, they include words with apostrophes that seem to serve no purpose (IE, they occur next to a consonant and are given no special meaning). What reminded me of this was the name of the language Na'vi invented for Avatar (I know, I'm sick of hearing about it, too) but you also see it a lot in Christopher Paolini's books and pretty much everywhere else you care to look.

Why do people do this? Is it to make the language seem more exotic?

EDIT:
This site here list's Na'vi's apostrophe as a glottal stop. Do you really need to specify a glottal stop between a vowel and a consonant?

Pharoah:A completely random rantlet, but one that's always bugged me. If you look at a lot of languages invented for books, movies, and TV shows, they include words with apostrophes that seem to serve no purpose (IE, they occur next to a consonant and are given no special meaning). What reminded me of this was the name of the language Na'vi invented for Avatar (I know, I'm sick of hearing about it, too) but you also see it a lot in Christopher Paolini's books and pretty much everywhere else you care to look.

Why do people do this? Is it to make the language seem more exotic?

EDIT:
This site here list's Na'vi's apostrophe as a glottal stop. Do you really need to specify a glottal stop between a vowel and a consonant?

I just looked it up on another site. The glottal stop in Na'vi is considered a separate consonant. We barely notice glottal stops in spoken English, and don't indicate them in writing, so that's why it seems weird to us. In Na'vi it's a distinct phoneme the same as b, k, p or m are in English. Leaving the apostrophe out of a word would be a misspelling, the equivalent of leading 'd' out of 'dog'.

As long as the other languages similarly use an apostrophe for a non-English phoneme I've got no problem with it. Trying to capture a non-European language in modern Latin letters is always going to be a challenge because so many sounds don't correspond with our limited alphabet. It's either that or they use the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), which would be a nightmare to read for non-linguists.

That's not to say that all invented languages have a reason for using apostrophes. It could be that some of them are using them just to appear exotic.

Yes, but isn't a glottal stop somewhat redundant after a consonant? I always thought that they were only explicitly written to separate adjacent vowels (eg in Hawai'i).

Pharoah:Yes, but isn't a glottal stop somewhat redundant after a consonant? I always thought that they were only explicitly written to separate adjacent vowels (eg in Hawai'i).

Read this:

The glottal stop in Na'vi is considered a separate consonant.

That sentence is as clear as one can make it, no it should clear up any doubts you have about the matter.

Pharoah:Yes, but isn't a glottal stop somewhat redundant after a consonant? I always thought that they were only explicitly written to separate adjacent vowels (eg in Hawai'i).

Only in English (and I guess Hawaiian) pronunciation. There is no reason why you cannot make a glottal stop after a consonant. Admittedly it would be difficult for English speakers to do because we're not used to it, but that doesn't make it impossible or redundant. Apparently some Na'vi words start with glottal stops which is even stranger by English standards.

Though this leads me to an Esperanto question. Is there a glottal stop where two of the same vowels run together, as in scii ? Are glottal stops preferable in other instances where vowels run together?

I'm going to leave this glottal stop thing alone.

I fully agree, however, that tons of science fiction books use abundant apostrophes in alien names. I have noticed this for a very long time, and I even did it myself in a science fiction short story that I wrote for a high school class. I agree that the point is to make the language look more exotic.

In the case of Na'vi, the name existed before the language did, Cameron gave the name to the language guy. He had no idea the apostrophe would turn into a glottal stop, so in my opinion this also falls into the "apostrophe to make it look cool and foreign" category.

In a marginally related topic, I think that some people who make up names for their kids rather than using an existing name, or people who give an existing name an unusual spelling, often add an apostrophe or an accent on a letter, or capitalize a letter in the middle of the name to add a little spice.

One example is the comedian Monique, who goes by Mo'Nique (apostrophe plus mid-name capitalization, but name pronounced exactly the same as the usual name Monique).

Alciona:Though this leads me to an Esperanto question. Is there a glottal stop where two of the same vowels run together, as in scii ? Are glottal stops preferable in other instances where vowels run together?

I read somewhere, though I can't recall where now, that glottal stops between doubled vowels are acceptable and common, though not required. The rule according to PMEG is simply that double letters are pronounced as two distinct letters. Some people have trouble doing this without glottally stopping.

Mi ne estas spertulo. sed lau mi, multaj indigxenaj lingvoj, kiam skribitaj per latinaj literoj.. uzas ' ..

im not an expert, but I belive that a lot of native dialects, when written in latin characters uses '

http://goo.gl/J9x6 -- http://goo.gl/p9Tm

Pharoah:A completely random rantlet, but one that's always bugged me. If you look at a lot of languages invented for books, movies, and TV shows, they include words with apostrophes that seem to serve no purpose (IE, they occur next to a consonant and are given no special meaning). What reminded me of this was the name of the language Na'vi invented for Avatar (I know, I'm sick of hearing about it, too) but you also see it a lot in Christopher Paolini's books and pretty much everywhere else you care to look.

Why do people do this? Is it to make the language seem more exotic?

EDIT:
This site here list's Na'vi's apostrophe as a glottal stop. Do you really need to specify a glottal stop between a vowel and a consonant?

If you say in everyday, regular speed General American English: "That's the letter 'U' *not 'V'." the "not 'V'" will sound exactly like the name of the Avatar language.

orthohawk:the "not 'V'" will sound exactly like the name of the Avatar language.

In General American? No, that would make the an unreleased alveolar plosive, not a glottal stop.

In many dialects of Britain it may be a glottal stop though.