Pakuni
| PAKUNI | |
| Spoken in: | Land of the Lost |
| Timeline/Universe: | *here* ... or perhaps *elsewhere* |
| Total speakers: | unspecified |
| Genealogical classification: | Commercial conlang drawing inspiration from West African languages |
| Basic word order: | SVO |
| Morphological type: | inflecting |
| Created by: | |
| Victoria Fromkin | 1974 |
Pakuni is the language of a race of humanoids that inhabit the Land of the Lost, a parallel universe developed for the early 1970s (US) television series of the same name. Rather than inflict the usual grunts, Pig Latin or backwards English on the television audience, the producers of the series evidently thought a superior solution would be to actually invent a language. UCLA linguist Victoria Fromkin was subsequently approached for the project. (Too bad she wasn't also contracted to do something about the chronically hissing Sleestaks...)
The language is SVO and has a simple inventory of five vowels (a, e, i, o, u, all in their continental pronunciation). Nouns are composed of a class prefix and a root. Roots are also used to form verbs, adjectives, adverbs and so forth. Adjectives and adverbs and plural nouns receive characteristic endings that denote their function.
A fellow by name of Nels Olsen has done a good job of scouring the episodes of the show for information about this conlang. Although Pakuni is by no means a fully developed language, such as has been uncovered can by reviewed here:
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