Baahubali does a Lord of the Rings! The film establishes a new language called Kilikili

SS Rajamouli’s Baahubali: The Beginning was termed a ‘blockbuster’ even before it was released. And the film has lived up to the hype, and how! Not only has the first of the two-part series smashed all records by grossing between Rs 60 crore to Rs 70 crore on its opening day, it has made nearly Rs 160 crore in three days. According to reports, Baahubali was in the making for almost three years. It reportedly took 200 days to construct all its sets on a 200-acre plot and recruited 8000 junior artistes. These are just a few of the many mindboggling facts that have emerged post the film’s release. However, one of the most interesting facts about the film was the new language was developed for one of the tribes featured in the film’s story. [caption id=“attachment_2339568” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  The character playing a Kalakeya tribe warrior in Baahubali.[/caption] The new language was named Kilikili and reportedly has 750 words and 40 grammar rules. The language was invented for the terrifying warrior tribe called Kalakeya in the movie. Some reports have been calling the language ‘Kiliki’ too. This must be the first full-fledged new language created exclusively for a character in a film in India. Popular parallels exist in the way of the elaborate Elvish language created by JRR Tolkien for the Lord of the Rings trilogy. George RR Matrin also created several new languages like Valyrian, Dothraki and Merinese for different tribes in his series The Song of Ice and Fire, which was later turned into the popular television series called Game of the Thrones. The creation of a new language for a fictional tribe in a fantasy series lends the work authenticity. After all, a ‘mysterious’ tribe can’t be expected to speak a language known to us, right? The elaborate new language was created by lyricist Madan Karky. Following is a video of the language being spoken on stage by an actor who played a warrior from the Kalakeya tribe:

In an interview with Behindwoods, Karky talks about how he created this peculiar language: “Rajamouli wanted a powerful and a raw language for the Kalakeya tribe and also mentioned that the sound of it should incite fear. I asked him if I could create a language and he was fine with it. When I was in Australia, I had actually attempted creating a language for just fun purposes to teach two kids Tamil. I created new words and named the language CLICK. I made few words like min meaning me and nim meaning you. I saw to it that there was no confusion in this language and even made songs. That was a fun attempt and after I got back to India, I totally forgot all about it. And when Rajamouli asked me to create a new language, I first remembered CLICK. I added a few elements and made it sound rough. I used CLICK’s vocabulary as the base and built around." Interestingly, Karky had  read an article that mentioned that the world’s first language was named CLICK, spoken by a tribe in Africa. Apparently, that language does not exist anymore.