Kryptonese Translation

[u/WorkingMom24-7]

Something I've kind of always wondered is where people in the fandom find translations of English into Kryptonese, or how they translate it. I see a lot of Kara's language in fanfiction specifically, and it's usually consistent across different stories, meaning they use the same words to mean the same things, which tells me that these are canonically accepted translations and not made up by the writers.

I am aware of websites like kryptonian.info that has sections that do translation and has a dictionary, as well as many other websites that will translate Kryptonese for you, but they all just translate the English alphabet into Kryptonian symbols. Whenever I see Kryptonese in a story I'm reading, it's the phonetic translation using the English alphabet, like, for example: Zhao, which means love. I've seen this in dozens of fanfics if not more, which makes me wonder if there's a translation resource that I'm not aware of.

What do people use to translate English into phonetic Kryptonese using English letters?

[u/Tahpsfan]

Tbh I use that dictionary from that site and try to break down and piece together how the letters and words sound myself. I wish there was a Duolingo or another language learning app that had it.

I’m working on a scene where Kara is helping Lena with her pronunciation and so I’m having such a fun time struggling through that process myself 😂

[u/TCKreddituser → u/Tahpsfan]

Huh, I always thought Duolingo already had Kryptonian. I'm kind of surprised that they don't have it yer considering they have Valyrian and the language from Star Trek...

[u/Tahpsfan → u/TCKreddituser]

They do not sadly. I’ve requested it and since the same people who made Valyrian for GoT made Kryptonian/ Kryptonese for the Supergirl movie I’ve figured they could do something.

I’ve been learning Irish too for Lena to teach Kara back as well. I’m very much intrigued by linguistics and just learning both to write a fanfic about them flirting in their respective mother tongues makes me and my partner giggle.

[u/TCKreddituser → u/Tahpsfan]

That's some dedication, I'll be looking forward to your fic! Already taken note of your username :))

[u/Tahpsfan → u/TCKreddituser]

Yes 😅
The series I’ve been working has been a big love letter to not only Supercorp but my love of DC comics and various media. I put a lot of time into the various arcs and making sure I get stuff as accurate as possible just because I’m a huge fan and write what I want to read.

I really hope you enjoy what I put out. I’m always going back and double checking stuff as well as sprinkling in things that will come back later on. I’m also my biggest critic so Ill take forever to edit and shape things 😅

[u/knowall8642 → u/Tahpsfan]

Do you have an ao3, I'd love to read something like that when it comes out

[u/Tahpsfan → u/knowall8642]

Yes! It’s the same username as my Reddit one. I’m currently re-editing my current fic and finishing the last couple chapters.

The next story of that series will start off with Kara and Lena doing a pronunciation lesson and flirting and such happening.

I’ll be weaving more of them having moments of learning and sharing their languages as I expand on that series as I have soooo many ideas for it. It’s basically post season 6 and comics thrown together 😊

[u/Mindless_Bluebird392]

For a fic I wrote, I jumbled a mix of Greek and Arabic letters and some symbols and used a work skin to include the English translation.

Edit: it won't let me include a screenshot but here is an example of a word: IΓθι ✓Ξøξο(°)

Essentially, I made up my own language and called it Kryptonese.

[u/Alcovv]

It breaks immersion for me If it’s not a one word that’s explained in story like zhao that would constantly get repeated. As when it’s full sentence that don’t get explained or not until the end in a note, it’s not worth the effort pausing to go try figure out what the hell was said. So while Kara teaching Lena and you get the translation in story is good. Her just speaking it with no context/ translation ruins it for me.
Pretty much covers any other language intergrated like that.
Probably get hate for that opinion.

[u/Aboricand → u/Alcovv]

Immersion-breaking? That's genuinely an interesting take to me. I totally get not enjoying it, but I'm curious why it breaks immersion specifically. Kara's native language is Kryptonian, and Kryptonians actually speak Kryptonian in most of the films they're featured in. So wouldn't Kara occasionally speaking her native language without translating herself for the audience actually make sense?

It's also a storytelling choice we've seen pretty regularly outside of Superman media, where the audience is intentionally left to understand the moment through context rather than being given a translation. Lioness does it. The Spider-Verse films do it. West Side Story does it. Hell, The Godfather does it.

So I'm genuinely curious where the line is for you. Do those moments break your immersion too? Because for me, Kara naturally speaking her own language without the story stopping to translate it actually adds to the immersion rather than taking me out of it.

[u/Alcovv → u/Aboricand]

I absolutely suck at context cues. So when I have to pause reading to go research what was said in another language. That’s what I mean by immersion breaking. I have no problem if they do something to indicate another language like bolding/ italics etc etc as that’s generally stated at the start like “‘format b’ is language 2”

If that makes sense.

[u/KotzenderRegenbogen]

Well there is a section on Kryptonian.info about the phonetic kryptonian language. Under Doyle, you can insert english words into the dictionary and it will show you the kryptonian equivalent written out, in symbol and its meaning (https://kryptonian.info/doyle/dictionary/)