SMALLVILLE EXTRA
Score: 7.1 / 10 
Kryptonian Symbols and Writing
Who??? If you don't know who any of these people are, you clearly need a scorecard.
In the closing overs of the second season, Superlad was struck by a Kryptonian rainbow and, as Sir Isaac Newton proved in his groundbreaking research into prisms, thereby immediately gained knowledge of the Kryptonian language.
This proved instantly handy, as the Good Spaceship Jor-El
took control of the Superlad hot-eyes and started burning
Kryptonian symbols all over the place. He burned the
Kryptonian symbol for 'hope' (
) into the barn, the symbol
for 'fear' (
) into the bathroom sink and the symbol for
'burrito' (
) into the local delivery van.
The Kryptonian language has popped up here and there since then,
baffling young Master Luthor's resident linguist, Dr CunningLinguist
with its, y'know, baffling refusal to succumb to traditional
translation methods. Kryptonian writing has also offered any number of
excuses to shoehorn the entire cast of the Superman
movies into random episodes of Smallville. Most recently,
the symbol for 'Zod' (
)was plastered all over a Kansas farmyard. Zod,
genocidal but not all that subtle.
So what are we to make of the Kryptonian language? What does it offer us, the viewer? Does it help us to swear in imaginative new ways? Is it perhaps the language that the makers of washing machines use to encode their manuals? Or is it a simple letter-by-letter cipher originally developed by the comic books that has, in whole-hearted Smallville tradition, been shamelessly pilfered, distorted and recycled with gay abandon?
All of the above, really. The Kryptonian language - making Latin look interesting for a new generation of TV addicts.
Begone,
Related Links
If you hated this, you'll probably also hate:
- THE SMALLVILLE FILES SEASON 2 - 17: You'll Believe A Man Can Guest Star
- THE SMALLVILLE FILES SEASON 2 - 22: I Love To Go A-Conquerin'
- THE SMALLVILLE FILES SEASON 4 - 2: Where's TIAC?
- THE SMALLVILLE FILES SEASON 5 - 22: Thank Zod You're Here
- Kryptonese Font (external link)
- More details on the Kryptonian alphabet (external link)
-- Back to Smallville Extras
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