Teen Language Genius?

18-year-old student invents own language using 1,500 original words.

16:43 31 January 2017

Using original 1,500 words, 18-year-old Melissa May has invented her own language. Called Sk nav nns, which is written backwards just like Arabic, translates to ‘our speaking of the language’.

 

Melissa is fluent in Spanish, German, French and reads Portuguese, Norwegian, Italian, Swedish and Danish. She has also dabbled in Latin and Old Norse and is currently learning Chinese and Dutch. On top of that, she has applied at Cambridge University to study Anglo-Saxon.

 

Melissa has been creating Sk nav nns for the past three years and has already built up a 50-page dictionary containing definitions, related terms and root of each word she invents.

 

Melissa, from Corsham, Wilts, said: "Most people don't generally understand how it's possible to create a language or why you would want to do it.

 

"I don't have an aim, I'm doing it for the love of it. It's an artistic venture and language creation is an art.

 

"I don't want to dominate the world and make everyone speak my language, I do it because I can't not.

 

"If you're a writer you write and if you're a painter you paint. This is what I do.

 

"Sk nav nns has really got nothing in common with other languages.

 

"It sounds like it has something in common with Nordic languages but the grammar is totally different."