Koalang

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Koalang is a term invented by Janusz A. Zajdel, Polish science fiction writer. It was a language used by people in a totalitarian world called Paradyzja (in Zajdel's 1984 book by the same title, Paradyzja). The English term would be probably better something like 'asalang'; the "ko-al" part in "koalang" comes from polish words "kojarzeniowo-aluzyjny", associative-allusive.

Because Paradyzja was a space station, where all activity was tracked by automatic cameras and analysed (mostly) by computers, people created a jargon full of metaphors, impossible for computers to grasp. The meaning of all sentences depended on context. For example, the phrase "I dreamt about blue angels last night" meant "The Police visited me last time".

The software analyzing the sentences were also self-learning, so one phrase used to describe something might not be used again.