Méníshè, also known as Mothertongue, is the language often spoken on Freeform’s supernatural drama Motherland: Fort Salem, now in its second season. The language was specifically written for the series by expert linguists David J. Peterson and Jessie Sams.
Peterson, whose previous work includes Game of Thrones, The 100, and most recently The Witcher, says that the results bringing Mothertongue to the screen speak for themselves, adding, “It makes me feel a lot better about not being on set knowing that my work is in good hands.”
The entrusted hands are those of vocal and language coach Frédérik Robert. In an exclusive interview with PopWire, Frédérik details the work creating the language, and bringing it from the paper to the screen.
When Peterson and Sams were tasked to create Mothertongue, the pair put together a whole grammar system, including the pronunciation, the verbs, the plurals, the singulars, pronouns, etc. “It’s absolutely incredible,” Robert tells us. “They’ve figured out all of the rules around this language.”
He recalls the time he had asked the creators why one word had an ejective, while a similar word did not. “Incredibly enough, they had a real, tangible answer as to why it was or wasn’t there. This is like an unbelievable thing. [Peterson] is a person who literally creates a brand new language that doesn’t exist and has all the rules just like English has rules.”
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English dialogue that needs to be spoken in Mothertongue on Motherland: Fort Salem is given to Peterson and Sams to translate into Méníshè. But as Robert shares, the pair’s work extends and goes beyond the lines that are given to them.
“Even though they may or may not have created all the words available to them, they certainly have a pretty large encyclopedia of words and sentences that they’ve probably already created to draw from,” he says. “It’s impressive. You don’t become the expert in that field unless you’ve got that talent.”
Once the dialogue is translated into Méníshè, Robert goes over the lines with its creators, makes sure that he’s learned them and their pronunciation properly, and then teaches it to the actors. “I have to get them to understand each word as though they understand it as clearly as English,” he says.
“We do a lot of work on just solidifying the scene, solidifying how they want to say it as a character, and then really knowing that they know the translation of what they’re saying 100%,” Robert continues. “I put ’em through the wringer. I make sure they know every word they’re saying. I quiz them.”
In the upcoming episode of Motherland: Fort Salem, the Bellweather unit — Abigail (Ashley Nicole Williams), Raelle (Taylor Hickson), and Tally (Jessica Sutton) — attend their first day of War College. Their very first class is Intro to Mothertongue, taught by instructor Channing Grafton (Nikolai Witschl).
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The Méníshè line Grafton says in the scene is “one of the funniest” in the series, and at the same time, “very difficult” as well. But Robert says Grafton’s portrayer did a stellar job. “Nikolai was a day player, so he came for one day,” Robert explains. “We had a number of rehearsals on this previously because it pretty much was one of the hardest lines in the language that had ever been written or had to be taught.
“As with everything, you always run the risk with a day player, that they may or may not be the most capable at speaking a brand new language, but he was such a great guy and was just really willing to learn. He put in the hours and the time. He did such a great job. It looks so good in the episode and quite charming, quite funny.”
Teaching Mothertongue to the cast is very challenging for Robert due to the time constraints of TV. Unlike movies, producing a single episode of a series goes by incredibly fast. The limited amount of time he gets to create with the actors is what he says is his biggest obstacle.
In Season 1 of Motherland: Fort Salem, Robert was given a couple of complex lines by Peterson to teach to several members of the cast for a scene. While Peterson would have about a month or more to teach a couple of similar, complex lines to the Game of Thrones cast, for the Freeform series, Robert would only have a total of four hours.
“My job is to find a way to speed up the process of learning,” he says. “I do the very best I can to speed up that process, so that the actors feel prepared. Because there’s nothing worse than feeling like your actors haven’t had the time to prepare properly and they’re feeling on edge.” He adds that he’s very lucky that the cast manage to feel comfortable on set with every scene they’ve ever worked on with him.
“The cast here is just incredible,” Frédérik Robert says. “I am so privileged and so lucky to be able to work with them because they’re so willing to do the work.”
Motherland: Fort Salem airs Tuesdays at 10pm on Freeform.
